Come on, Nick, I thought, you got this. Santiago pulled a fancy move and passed the ball lightly into the goal.
My heart sank. The game was going into overtime.
The sideline ref went over to talk to the main referee. The main referee nodded and put up his hand, signaling the offside. Santiago was ahead of the last defender when the ball was played to him. The goal didn’t count!
Santiago and his teammates ran over to the referee yelling, with their hands up in the air. The ref blew his whistle to signal the end of the game.
We had won. We were going to the semis.
Chapter 11
“Ain’t nobody likes a traffic cop, man!” The dude sitting on the bench, his wrist handcuffed to the railing, was wearing one of those old-fashioned undershirts with no sleeves. It was dirty and ripped down one side.
“So that’s why you punched an officer of the law?” I asked him.
“I tried to explain to him why I was parked in the bus stop, but he wouldn’t listen,” the guy said. “Then he mouthed off at me. That’s why I punched him.”
“So what you can do now is to go over your explanation of why you were parking in the bus stop with whoever you’re going to be sharing a cell with,” I said. “Maybe he’ll be more sympathetic.”
I finished checking the paperwork, okayed it, and released the prisoner to the Detention Division. They sent over a young female officer to take the prisoner to the holding cells. I listened as he started in on her about how he couldn’t afford a ticket on his salary and how the traffic officer hadn’t even listened to him. He rambled on until he saw that the officer taking him down the hallway wasn’t listening, either.
I got back to my desk and started straightening out the mass of papers that had unpiled themselves and were now covering most of the desk’s surface.
“You got a call while you were gone,” Paul said. “Pellingrino’s office.”
“The assistant district attorney? What did she want?”
“Said that they were looking to set a date for your boy’s hearing,” Paul said. “Her number’s on your pad.”
Rebecca Pellingrino was one of four Highland ADAs. She was always straight with her dealings and didn’t make any bones about the fact that she came down harder on violent crimes than she did on lesser offenses. I was surprised that she would be handling a juvenile case, though. I checked her number and dialed it.
“So—Judge Kelly says you have an interest in this case?” she spoke crisply, to the point.
“The boy’s father fell in the line of duty,” I said. “I hope we all have an interest.”
“You speak to the victim?” she asked. “He’s up and down on this. Some days it looks like he doesn’t want to press charges and the next he’s ranting and raving about juvenile crime. This week he asked me if the boy will get probation.”
“He against that?”
“I don’t think so,” Pellingrino said. “I can’t read him, really. But if he wants to push the case, we have to prosecute. We need to have a hearing to see if we’re going to charge him with grand larceny or criminal mischief, a third- or fourth-degree felony. What does your calendar look like? Kelly has kicked it to Judge Lawler, and he’s free all next month.”
“How much time can you buy me?” I asked. “I’d like to see if there’s anything more I can do.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“A double cappuccino and a bagful of Krispy Kremes.”
“The sixteenth, ten A.M..”
“Two double cappuccinos and two bags of Krispy Kremes?”
“The sixteenth, ten-fifteen.”
“Got it.”
“Has he lawyered up?”
“His family has hired a lawyer, but they aren’t that well off,” I said. “Just some very scared people who want to keep their kid out of jail.”
“That’s the way the ball bounces, Brownie,” she said.
“That’s the way,” I answered.
McNamara was still playing it close to the vest. His asking about probation for Kevin sounded as if he might not want to get the kid into too much trouble, but just enough for his insurance claim to go through. For McNamara, the idea of giving probation was just a slap on the wrist. For someone as young as Kevin, it could be a life-changing sentence. It would mean that he had pled guilty to a crime and might wreck his options with a college. The chances of the case getting to adult court were slim, but there was always the possibility. I needed to get busy.
The precinct caseload was pretty light— mostly burglaries around the new housing development and a break-in at one of the warehouses owned by the mayor, hence Captain Bramwell’s interest. Paul and I were supposed to interview the warehouse manager that afternoon.
“You want to do it by phone?” Paul asked.
“Bramwell wants us to go down and make a showing, so it gets back to the mayor,” I said.
“So let’s do it,” Paul answered.
“I want to get this kid’s thing settled,” I said. “You mind doing the interview alone?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking of going over to that agency that Kevin mentioned—what was it?—Danville or something?”
“Greenville Services,” Paul said. “I’ll go with you. Let’s pick up the kid in case they don’t speak English.”
“Good idea.”
“Hey, Jerry, Kevin’s growing on ya, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“Yeah, he is,” Paul said, pushing his glasses up, “You never took me along just to translate Spanish for you.”
“You don’t speak Spanish,” I said.
“Good point.”
I knew that taking Kevin along could be a mistake. The kid was too eager to be useful, and we sure didn’t need to involve him in a police investigation. On the other hand, I wanted to talk to the people at the agency informally, and Kevin did speak Spanish. I had Kevin’s cell on speed dial and called him. It was just about the time when school was letting out, and I hoped he had his phone on.
“Hello?”
“Can you meet me in front of the school in fifteen minutes?” I asked.
“I have practice today,” he said.
“You got trouble, too,” I said. “They’re setting a hearing date for your case. You tell me what’s most important—your practice or keeping you out of jail?”
“I’ll be in front of the school,” he said.
The department has a bunch of kids working in their garage who love to soup up the undercover vehicles, and Paul and I took one of the cars that practically jump from a standing start to sixty miles an hour but look like they need to be pushed to get them out of a supermarket parking lot. We picked Kevin up in front of the school, and he was immediately impressed with all the gadgets under the dashboard.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To the agency you told me about,” I said. “You’re going along unofficially as our interpreter if we need one.”
“Why are we going there?”
“Connecting the dots,” I said. “Whenever I get a case with a lot of loose ends—and this case has as many loose ends as I’ve ever seen—I like to start connecting dots. What I’m hoping for is to get some kind of picture that makes sense. You understand what I mean?”
“My dad used to say that if you ask a thousand questions, you always get the truth,” Kevin said. “You just have to figure out where it is.”
“I like that,” I said.
“And the next time we hear it, he’s going to make believe he said it first,” Paul said.
We found the address. It was in a down-and-out neighborhood that had once been a housing project. The actual number was a church on a side street. On the entrance to the basement, there was a fancy sign that read GREENVILLE SERVICES.
“Can I help you?” A middle-aged Hispanic man looked up from his newspaper.
Paul flashed his badge and said that he would like to ask a few questions.
??
?By all means,” the man answered.
“What’s the deal on this agency?” Paul asked, coming directly to the point.
“Have a seat,” came the answer. “My name is Hernandes, and my aunt and I basically run the agency. There are a lot of people in this community from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. You have to know this, of course. There was a police investigation a few years ago, if I remember correctly. Do you want coffee?”
I said no the same time that Paul said yes. Then he said no the same time that I said yes.
Mr. Hernandes pointed to a coffeepot and started making coffee as he spoke. His English was better than mine.
“We had the same concerns as the police,” he said. “Were the people being exploited? Were they being abused? So we started this agency.”
“And named it Greenville,” Paul said.
“Not really. There was a pawn shop down the street that closed and left the sign behind. It looked good, so . . . ”
“We’re really interested in one particular worker who came through this agency,” I said. “A woman named Dolores . . . Dolores . . .”
I realized I didn’t have her last name and looked toward Kevin. The kid shrugged and I was feeling stupid.
“Where does she work?”
“For the McNamaras,” Kevin said.
“Oh, Dolores Ponce.” Mr. Hernandes shook his head affirmatively. “She’s been working with the agency for over four years. Maybe longer than that. You want to see her pay record?”
“Yes,” I said.
A dark, middle-aged woman came in, and Mr. Hernandes said something to her in Spanish. She went to the coffeepot, looking over her shoulder at me and Paul as Hernandes went to a bookcase and took out a set of black-and-white composition books.
Sitting at the desk, he looked through the books until he found an index tab that he wanted and then pushed the book across to me.
“This is her pay record,” he announced. “She makes three hundred sixty per week, and we make sure that she gets it.”
“And what do you get paid for her services?” Paul asked.
“The agency gets four hundred dollars a week from Mr. McNamara,” Hernandes answered. “So you see we get just ten percent. This is a community service, not a rip-off.”
“And if I speak to Dolores, she’ll verify this?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Can I take this book with me?” Paul asked.
“It’s our only copy,” Mr. Hernandes said. “And if another policeman comes, we need to have a record. But you can take it next door to the drugstore. For ten cents a page, they’ll make copies.”
Officially, we weren’t investigating Greenville and we didn’t have a search warrant. Hernandes seemed on the up and-up, but I wasn’t sure. The record keeping wasn’t first-rate, but it didn’t jump out at me as being criminal, either. Some entries were in pen and some in pencil. Not very professional.
“Are you giving us your word that these records are accurate?” I asked Hernandes as Paul pored over the entries in the book.
He ducked his head slightly and shrugged. “I think they are,” he said. “We’re not here to make money, just to help the community. As far as I know, they’re accurate.”
“How come here, she seemed to make more money?” Paul asked.
Hernandes looked at the entries that Paul was pointing at and shrugged again. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I see that she was getting paid by Mr. McNamara and someone else. It was Christmastime. Maybe she wasn’t working for him but he gave her a gift. I really don’t know.”
“Christmas?” Kevin perked up.
“You know something?” I asked.
“That’s when Christy’s mom was in the hospital,” Kevin said.
I decided that Paul and I had already moved beyond our authorization by questioning Hernandes, so it didn’t particularly bother me to have him go next door and copy the pages at the drugstore. I reimbursed him for the four dollars and ten cents he was charged and took the copies with me.
“Coffee is good for the soul, officer,” Hernandes said when the woman brought it over.
I didn’t like the coffee, but I thanked Mr. Hernandes anyway.
“That wasn’t coffee,” Paul said when we had got back into our vehicle. “That was coffee-flavored mud.”
“It’s called espresso,” I said. “I love the flavor, but my stomach can’t take it.”
“So what are we going to do now?” Kevin asked.
Paul looked at his watch. “I’m off in thirty minutes,” he said. “I promised the old lady I’d take her out to dinner tonight.”
“Where you taking her?” I asked.
“The Italian restaurant on Fairmount.”
“You messed up that bad?” I asked. “That place costs a fortune.”
“What can I tell you?” Paul said.
We drove to Paul’s house and let him out. Then I started toward Kevin’s place. On the way I told him what Pellingrino had told me. I tried to explain it as casually as I could because I didn’t want him to panic. It must have been too casual, because he didn’t seem bothered at all.
“Kevin, do you remember why Mrs. McNamara was in the hospital?”
“No, sir.”
“Christy never told you?”
“No, sir.”
“If you called Christy now, would she tell you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re lying.”
“You can’t call me a liar,” he said. There was anger in his voice.
“I can drive you down to the juvenile facility,” I said. “Charge you with something stupid, like obstruction of justice.”
Silence.
“Is that what happens to you on the soccer field, too?” I asked. “You start off playing a team game and then you’re the lone eagle, figuring out ways you can win all by yourself?”
“I don’t mean to do that,” he said. “It’s just that . . . can you stop the car for a minute?”
I eased the car over to the right lane and then to a stop outside a drugstore. Three characters leaning against the wall looked at the car; then one of them put the brown paper bag they had been passing around into a pocket and they all took off slowly down the street.
“They must know you’re a cop,” Kevin said.
“They think everybody is a cop,” I said. “What did you have to say?”
“I know you’re on my side,” Kevin said. “Just the fact that the judge called you was good. Even your partner seems like a nice guy. I just wish I could do more to straighten things out.”
“Do what you can do, Kevin,” I said. “That’s what we expect from decent young men. We don’t expect miracles, just that people contribute what they can to make this a better planet to live on.”
“Christy doesn’t tell me all that much,” Kevin said. “In a way I don’t want to know it, and in another way, it’s easier between us for me not to know everything about her mother.”
“Her mother?”
“Her mother went to the hospital a week after Christmas and Christy was all upset,” Kevin said. “I ran into her after school and I saw she had been crying. She was trying to be calm but her hands were shaking. I mean, really shaking.”
“She say anything to the school about her situation?”
“To a teacher? No.”
“And the night of the accident?”
“She just called me and asked me to meet her,” Kevin said. “When we met, she asked me not to ask her any questions.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“About a half mile from where we were stopped. She was just sitting in the car with the lights off.”
“Had she driven the car to that spot?”
“Yeah. She wanted me to get in.”
“Where were you two going?”
“I don’t think we had a plan,” Kevin said. “Not too smart, huh?”
“You remember the name of the hospital?”
“It wa
s the one outside of Eatontown,” he said.
“Monmouth? Monmouth Memorial?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Kevin said. “It’s got a gift shop in the lobby.”
We sat for a few moments more without speaking. Kevin put his head down on the dashboard and I pulled him back up. He might have known more, but it had taken a lot for him to open up the way he had.
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever had was from an old man who lived down the street from me when I was your age,” I said. “He told me that when I meant to do well to give myself the benefit of the doubt. I’m giving that same advice to you.”
I took Kevin home and called Carolyn from the car to tell her I was going to be late. She asked me if everything was all right with Kevin, and I told her that the picture was getting a little clearer.
Getting information from a hospital is tough business. You need to either be a relative or produce a court order. Either way they will tell you as little as they possibly can. I wanted to know why Mrs. McNamara had been admitted to the hospital, but I didn’t want to do anything to get her husband in trouble. No matter how I looked at the situation, I had to remind myself that McNamara wasn’t the one facing charges for being in the car that night; Kevin was.
I called on Monday morning, identified myself as a police officer, and inquired about Mrs. McNamara’s admission. I was put on hold for a full three minutes before a woman came on and asked what I wanted. I repeated my request and she took down all the particulars about what precinct I worked in, my badge number, the whole nine yards.
“We really can’t give any information except for the fact that she was brought to the emergency ward by the police in Red Bank.”
“Was she injured? Hit by a car? What?”
“We can’t give out that information without a court order, sir.” She seemed pleased with herself. “We can say that she left our hospital on the fourth of January. That was a Thursday.”
“Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.”
I called Red Bank and got a desk sergeant who said there was no record of anyone taking a woman to the hospital that day. He explained that the week before Christmas had been very busy and the paperwork probably hadn’t been done.
I gave up on the hospital.