The James Deans (9 page)

“I remember everything about when we met.”

“We did some of the subcontract design work for their less significant clients. We were always invited to their holiday parties.”

“You think he was there by accident?”

“My dad always said nothing in politics happens by accident.”

I was inclined to believe that.

Katy faded, drifting quickly off into silence and light sleep. The colored lights of Coney Island, even without the dazzling incandescence of Luna Park, were clearly visible out the right side of the car. I usually found comfort in the sights and sounds of my old precinct, but not tonight. I felt oddly uneasy. I thought back to earlier in the day, to my meeting with Domino and the deal we had made. Maybe John Heaton would call. Maybe not. I don’t know, maybe I was finally feeling the pressure of the case. Brightman and Geary had certainly gone out of their way to pile it on me. But there was something else eating at me, something like a dull ache I couldn’t quite pinpoint or describe.

As the lights of Coney Island disappeared behind the tall buildings of Trump Village, I looked over at my sleeping wife and decided tonight was not a night to dwell on aches and pains.

I DID WHAT any sane man would have done given the pressure I was under. I took my daughter to her first Mets game. The Astros had finished pounding them, as had the Dodgers. Today’s game, an afternoon affair, was the last of the series against the Padres and of the homestand. The teams had split the first two games. The heat and humidity were a bit less oppressive than they’d been in recent days, but the cloudlessness of the sky gave the sun license to roast the two of us and the 27,322 other knuckleheads who thought an afternoon getaway game at Shea was a good way to spend their time.

Sarah, less than two months away from her third birthday, was beside herself with excitement. I think she loved the subway ride and the crush of people and that first rush you get from stepping out of the tunnel into a gigantic stadium. The Mets cap, hot dog, and cotton candy didn’t hurt either.

“Look, Daddy!” she shrieked. “The men are watering the lawn like you.”

“That’s right, kiddo, just like me.”

She asked me a million whys and I answered them all as if I really knew what the hell I was talking about. Soon enough she would be able to see through that ploy, to see that there were many more things in the world that Daddy didn’t understand than he did. It hurt a little just to think about her seeing any bits of clay, no matter how small, falling from my feet. But it would be good for her in the end, I rationalized, to see the faults in people. She would see her parents’ faults first of all.

Sarah stayed with the game for the first two and a half innings, during which time the Mets built a 3-0 lead. Then her concentration faded, giving way to a fit of antsiness and a chorus of “I’m bored.” By the top of the fourth, she was conked out.

“That’s a beautiful little girl you got there, mister,” the man in the seat behind me said as the Padre pitcher grounded to first for the last out of the top half of the inning.

I tilted my head to see his face, but the blinding sun forced me to turn away. “Thanks.”

“Such pretty red hair,” he kept the conversation going. “Irish?”

“On her mother’s side, yeah.”

The cop in me was wary of these unsolicited comments about my daughter, but there was nothing remotely threatening or inappropriate in his tone.

“I had a daughter once too,” he kept on.

His use of the past tense was not lost on me, nor was the smell of alcohol on his breath. More than a few beers, I guessed, with a scotch mixed in there somewhere.

“Girls are great,” I said, now a bit more concerned than I had been only a moment ago.

“They sure are.”

Curious, I asked: “What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Moira.”

I turned back to look at him again, this time using my right hand as a visor against the sun. John Heaton was a sloppy, red-faced man, his cheeks covered in peppery gray stubble. Though he was potbellied, he had big, round shoulders and the kind of thickness of limb which no amount of weight lifting could replicate. His face was not unfamiliar. I recognized him from the 7 train, and he had stood directly behind us on the ticket line. So, Domino had kept her end of the deal.

“How’s the knee? I’m sorry about that. I was … You know.”

“Keep your apologies for someone who might be interested.”

“So what are you so anxious to talk to me about?”

“Don’t be dense, Heaton,” I groused. “I wanna talk to you about Moira.”

“Why? If I had anything worthwhile to say, the cops and that dick Spivack would have already used it.”

“It’s the way I work. I need to get a feel for her, what Moira liked and didn’t like, stuff like that.”

He tilted himself forward and whispered cruelly in my ear: “My daughter’s dead, Prager, and you know it.”

I wasn’t hypocrite enough to debate the point. “More than likely.”

He was skeptical. “What you gonna find that the cops and Spivack couldn’t?”

“Maybe nothing. I’ve been lucky in cases like this before.” There, I’d said it. I was lucky. I wondered if Geary’s ears were burning.

The Mets were up at bat now, the people around us paying even less attention to my conversation with Heaton than before. Sarah was fast fast asleep.

“I’m risking a lot by—”

“Save it, Heaton. I know all about Wit paying you to keep quiet. I bet you didn’t tell him you had nothing worthwhile to say. What kinda bullshit you been feeding him to keep the paychecks rolling in?”

“Nothin'. I swear. He hasn’t even interviewed me yet. He just don’t want me to talk to nobody is all.”

“But you’re taking his money.”

“And yours, too, boyo. I need it. My son’s starting college in the fall and my wife’s milking my tits dry.”

“We’re here about Moira,” I reminded him.

He held his hand out to me. I slapped it away, not hard, not playfully either. “You’ll get your money, but not here and not now.”

“How do I know I can trus—”

“Because I say so. Because I was a cop like you.” I found I was looking at Sarah, wondering if I could ever sink quite as low as John Heaton had. I hoped never to find out.

“Then go ahead and ask,” he said.

I did. Most of his answers were as enlightening as a fortune cookie and as deep as a sun-shower puddle. I thought Moira plain. He thought her homely. She wasn’t a dim bulb, but it was hard work and determination that got her her good grades. She had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Fordham, had been accepted to several area law schools and the police academy. She surprised everyone by choosing politics instead.

“She woulda made a helluva cop,” Heaton said, flagging down the beer vendor. He ordered two, and though neither was for me, I paid for both.

I wondered. “What makes you say she’d've been a good cop?”

“She was a pit bull, Prager. When she got a bug up her ass … watch out! She never let go of anything until she got what she wanted.”

I recalled the staff at Brightman’s office offering a similar assessment.

John Heaton said he loved his girl, but that she was always to herself. Most of her friends growing up had been family, her cousins, and she had been a mystery even to them. From the time she was a little girl, she kept her own counsel. She wasn’t dour, exactly, though her father couldn’t recall a time when she’d danced without being forced to or telling a joke worth a damn. She’d dated a little, but there’d never been a serious boyfriend that Heaton could remember. He suggested I fly down to Florida and talk with her mother. Moira loved her little brother.

“John Jr. and Moira, the two of them were close,” he admitted.

I was discouraged now not only because the Mets had relinquished two-thirds of their advantage, but because I was no closer to connecting with Moira Heaton than I had been yesterday or the day before that. She seemed to be an unknowable quantity. I was, at least, getting a consistent image of her if not an in-depth one. Brightman, of all the people, appeared to have the best handle on who she had been. That was sad, I thought, very sad indeed.

“Do you think Brightman had anything to do with it?”

“Nah,” John answered without hesitation. “What could she have done to hurt him? She was an intern, for chrissakes! He’s loaded, so he wasn’t on the take. Even if she … If they had an affair, she was no threat. He wasn’t married at the time. No, she walked out of the office that night and—” His voice cracking, he stopped. “Should the two of us ex-cops sit here and go over old cases? Can you even count the homicide scenes you were at?” He pointed at Sarah. “Look at her sleeping there. Bad things happen to lots of people’s little boys and girls. Most of the time, they’re strangers to you. Sometimes you might know the family. Sometimes, God help us, it’s your own kid.”

He shifted in his seat, preparing to leave. My mind was racing. This might be the last chance I would have to talk to the man, and not only hadn’t I learned much, but I’d already run out of questions.

“John,” I blurted out, “what was the last thing you talked about? When did you talk to her last?”

He hesitated, thinking back. “We talked that Monday,” he answered in a rough, distracted whisper. “The Monday before Thanksgiving. She called me.”

“What about?”

“She wanted to know what to bring to her aunt Millie’s for Thanksgiving.”

“Was there something else, another question maybe? What did you guys talk about after you talked about Aunt Millie’s?”

“Yeah, Moira asked me something. She wanted to know about the statute of limitations.”

“What?”

“Don’t get excited, Prager. It was no big deal,” Heaton assured me. “Moira did that sometimes, asked me law shit when she couldn’t get hold of a legal aid lawyer. She probably had some woman at her desk wondering if her kid stole a car ten years ago, could he go to the slammer for it now. It was always about some poor woman or some homeless guy who needed help.”

I perked up anyway. “What exactly did she ask you? Try to remember.”

“She asked if the statute of limitations was different from state to state and if there were any crimes that it didn’t apply to.”

“And what’d you tell her?”

“That as far as I knew, it was different from state to state and that I didn’t think there was a time limit in any state on homicide, but that I couldn’t be sure. I told her she should check with a lawyer.”

“Did she?”

He was suddenly agitated. “Did she what?”

“See a lawyer?”

“How the fuck should I know? I told you, it was the last time we talked,” he barked, the two beers fueling his anger. “You fuckin’ stupid or what? Waste a my fuckin’ time, this crap. I don’t even like the damned Mets.”

He was gone before I could explain about my enthusiasm getting ahead of me. Not that he was in any mood to understand. Of course he couldn’t have known if Moira consulted a lawyer. Finally, I had something to hang my hat on. It wasn’t much. And like Heaton had said, probably nothing more than an innocent question. It was, however, a place to start.

Shit!
I could have kicked myself. There was something I’d neglected to ask him: Had he shared the details of this last conversation with the cops? I looked after Heaton, but he was long gone. I made a mental note to call Detective Gloria as soon as Sarah and I got back home. And the Mets were trying their level best to ensure that Sarah and I got an early start to the exits.

They had batted around, tacking four runs onto their lead, and there were still runners on second and third with only one out.

I scooped Sarah up, cradling her in my arms, her sleepy head on my shoulder. Damp wisps of red hair spilled out from beneath her cockeyed Mets cap. She barely stirred as I carried her along the sloping ramps that led down from the mezzanine and out to the subway. Several roars erupted as we made our way. No doubt more runs for the boys in white, royal blue, and orange. Sarah’s first game would be a win, but she wouldn’t remember the victory. That would be my job, to remember it for her.

On the subway ride from Flushing, I found myself staring across at the front page of the
Post.
There was a big picture of a man in his late twenties or early thirties. He had shoulder-length, scraggly hair, a cruel smile, and dead black eyes. The kind of face nightmares are made of. I was glad Sarah was still sleeping. Whenever I looked away, I found my gaze drifting back. There was something about those eyes gazing back at me, beyond me, through me, all the way to hell. Above his photo, the headline read:

IVAN THE TERRIBLE SAYS:
“CATHERINE WAS GREAT”

So this was the animal I’d heard about on the radio yesterday. I could only imagine what the headline was referring to. I didn’t have to imagine for long. A few stops along the line, the gentleman who’d been reading the paper stood up to exit the number 7, leaving the paper in his seat.

“Do you mind if I have a look?” I asked.

Seeing that Sarah had her head resting against my leg, the man retrieved his
Post
and handed it to me. “To be a kid again, huh?” he said wistfully. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

He gave me the thumbs-up. “Let’s go Mets.”

There was another picture of Ivan the Terrible on page 3. His hair was shorter. He was dressed in a suit. His eyes were still dead.

The story went on to explain the front-page headline. Ivan Alfonseca was alleged to have stalked, raped, beaten, and robbed at least twelve women in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx over the past two and a half years. While at Rikers awaiting trial, Ivan, already having been convicted of three counts in the Bronx, had shared the gory details of his alleged escapades with cellmates. It hadn’t taken long for some of these to filter into the press.

Catherine Thigpen, one of his last victims, had been courageous in fighting him off and in identifying herself in the press. She had already been victimized by him once, she said, and wasn’t about to let him force her into a life of silent shame. Hearing that she had come forward and was anxious to testify against him at trial, Alfonseca had bragged to his fellow Rikers inmates. Hence the headline. Cops are seldom ambivalent about the death penalty, and the Ivan Alfonsecas of the world are why.

I could feel my grip getting tight on the edges of the paper. He had gotten to me. The little piece of crap was a natural victimizer. I’d run into his type before. They were like human tornadoes, incapable of doing anything except leaving damage and destruction in their wake. I folded the paper up and slid it down the long plastic bench as far away from Sarah as I could.

I felt that dull ache again, that queasiness from the night before, but I couldn’t hang it on Ivan the Terrible. No, I had to focus. I had to call Detective Gloria about Moira’s last conversation with her father. I had to stay on point.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Sarah mumbled, her eyes fighting to stay open.

“Nothing, kiddo,” I lied. “How’d you like the game?”

“It was hot.”

“It was too hot. I’m sorry about that. Next time we’ll go to a night game when the sun isn’t out, okay?”

“Okay.” She sat up and straightened her cap. “Did we win?”

“We did.” I was guessing, but she didn’t have to know that.