HYDE
Chapter 10




There was another one. As soon as they got in the car after leaving Father Hays, McKenna called Ward to report and was told that the body of a homeless man had been discovered in the playground at Second Avenue and East 29th Street. Although the location was in the 13th Precinct, one block south of the 17th Precinct dividing line, Ward figured McKenna ought to look into it. He offered no further details as the body had just been found at 4:00 PM, an hour before.
     In a perverse sort of way, the assignment fit McKenna's mood. He needed something to occupy his mind and didn't feel like talking to Maureen. Since he liked and respected Maureen, he had already given her the benefit of the doubt, assuming she had her own good reasons for talking over details of his case with Hays without so much as a nod in his direction.
     But her reasons weren't his reasons. Although nothing written in any of the manuals barred her from discussing his case with Hays, and even though Hays wasn't about to go running to the press, she had still violated the protocol that stated it was his case and his responsibility, win or lose, so that he was the one who should call the shots on who gets told what, and when.
     McKenna silently went back to the bank photos while Maureen drove. If she detected anything wrong with his mood, she didn't show it. By the time they got to Second Avenue, McKenna had finished scanning the rest of the photos without finding another sign of Benny, Kerri, nor the man in the knit cap. He had hoped for more.
     As soon as Maureen turned the corner, McKenna saw that his poisoning theory had hit home in the upper echelons of the department. Whoever the deceased had been, he was receiving more attention for his demise than he probably ever had throughout his life. Sitting along the curb in front of the playground were a row of radio cars, both marked and unmarked, an ambulance, and the morgue wagon. Double parked next to them were the Crime Scene Unit's station wagon and a very shiny unmarked car with enough antennas on the rear to monitor communications from the space shuttle, indicating to McKenna the presence of a chief.
     The press vans were across the street, roof antennas raised and prepared to broadcast. The park had a steel fence around it and had been closed by the police, with yellow crime scene tape strung across the entrance. Despite the cold, the curious had gathered along the fence and were mingling with the reporters. The guest of honor lay in the rear of the playground next to the rear fence by the handball courts, his body surrounded by uniformed cops, detectives, and ambulance attendants.
     Maureen pulled up behind the chief's car. As soon as she shut the ignition off she began up her dusting process again, removing invisible specks of dirt from her suit while McKenna watched. Then she turned to him for approval. "How do I look?" she asked.
     "Marvelous."
     "No, really. How do I look?"
     McKenna had been through this same routine with his wife a million times before and knew there was only one answer. "Marvelous. Really, you look just marvelous."
     Just like Angelita, she never believed him but always had to ask. "I hate this," she said, regarding him like she had just caught him in a lie. "The cameras show every wrinkle and make you look so fat," she complained, looking like she really loved it.
     As soon as they left the car, the press was on them at a trot, advancing with microphones held forward. Leading the pack, still a little sharper and a little faster, was Heidi Lane. She skidded to a stop in front of McKenna, blocking his path.
     "Not now, Heidi," McKenna said as he tried to move around her.
     Heidi had moves and speed that, despite her size, could have placed her on the defensive line of any professional football team. No matter which way McKenna tried to maneuver, Heidi was in front of him with her microphone held to his mouth. "Commissioner McKenna, does your presence here indicate ...?"
     "What time was this morning's interview first shown?" he asked, cutting her off and throwing her off-balance.
     "Five twenty."
     "What time you got now?"
     Heidi took a moment to look at her watch and McKenna was by her, running through the newsmen toward the two cops guarding the entrance to the park. They were ready for him and held the crime scene tape up for him, saluting as he ducked under. He got to the center of the park before he looked back and discovered he was no longer the focus of attention.
     Maureen was. Heidi and she were slowly strolling toward the park entrance, Heidi's microphone held in front of Maureen's face while her cameraman backed up to keep them in focus as they walked. It seemed to McKenna that Maureen had a lot to say before she reached the park entrance. There she stopped and talked a little more on camera before she ducked under the tape and joined McKenna with that innocent smile on her face.
     The many questions he had for Maureen he kept to himself. Detective Cisco Sanchez from the 13th Squad had detached himself from the crowd around the body and was approaching them. Sanchez and McKenna had worked together before and respected each other's talents. McKenna thought Cisco was a good detective, but a little too cocky; Cisco thought that, next to himself, McKenna might be the best detective on the job. Sanchez was the picture of the Midtown detective: well-dressed, well-groomed, and carrying himself proudly like the man in charge.
     "How's it going, Cisco?" McKenna asked.
     "Okay, until you invited all these people to my playground," Sanchez said, nodding in the direction of the body. "Some bum croaks and you got me putting up with the press and the brass."
     "Doing a good job with it?"
     "Sure. I figured you were gonna make a big thing out of this, so I took care of a few things while awaiting your arrival. Although she denies it, we have the woman who called 911. I listened to the tape and the voice matches."
     "Why's she denying it?" McKenna asked.
     "Who knows? Anyway, she's knocking a tennis ball against the wall with her new Yuppie racket when her ball lands next to the dearly departed. It's still there, which is why I first figured she was the caller."
     "She was practicing in this weather?"
     "What can I tell you?" Sanchez answered, shrugging his shoulders. "She's real hard core."
     "And he was just lying there while she was improving her game?" McKenna asked.
     "Sure. In this place the bums are part of the landscape. The Bellevue Shelter's two blocks away and they like to hang out here and refresh themselves until nap time. Nothing unusual."
     "She knew he was dead just by looking at him?"
     "Wait'll you see him. You get close enough to him, this guy looks like he should've been dead six months ago. Heavy-duty AIDS, sarcomas all over his hands."
     "Was she the only one in the park?"
     "There was another bum hanging around when I got here, passing the time and doing a little drinking."
     "Does he know the dead guy?"
     "Yeah, knows him as Juan Bosco. Says he doesn't like hanging out with him on account of the AIDS."
     "Where is he now?"
     "I set up a temporary headquarters in the Madison Boys Club across the street. I've got him over there being force-fed some coffee."
     "And the tennis nut?"
     "Yeah, she's over there, too, squawking about how she don't know nothing and breaking the cops' balls."
     "Why's she so upset?" McKenna asked.
     "Because it's her nature and she doesn't like cops. I had to have her dragged over there."
     Sanchez was smiling, but McKenna could see he was worried. "Is she gonna be a problem?" he asked.
     "Let me put it this way, Brian. You better have a homicide here or she's gonna be after my pension."
     McKenna understood Sanchez's concern. By taking the witness someplace against her will, Sanchez had, in effect, unlawfully arrested her, even though he would never say so. Although it's not written down anywhere, as a matter of practice judges recognize that a homicide represents a special case and they allow the police more latitude than is permitted by the Constitution. Consequently, judges generally turn a deaf ear to lawsuits instituted by reluctant witnesses who were detained by the police immediately after a murder; but there has to have been an actual homicide, not just a suspicious body, or chances are the plaintiff will collect.
     "You know, I've never seen this park so clean," Maureen observed cheerfully, making her first comment and ending McKenna's and Sanchez's ruminations. "Usually it's a disgrace with bottles and cans everywhere," she added, looking around.
     The worried look left Sanchez's face. Forgetting for a moment that he was angry with her, McKenna had to conclude that Maureen was a genius. She had found a way to cheer up Sanchez by giving him a chance to shine.
     "That's because all the trash that was in the park is now in the Boys Club," Sanchez said proudly.
     Both McKenna and Maureen put on their best awe-struck expressions, prepared to marvel at Sanchez's expertise as soon as he explained to them how real crime-fighters do things. Take the trash? Now why would you do that, O Magnificent One?
     Sanchez savored the moment before he climbed on his soapbox. "You see, I heard that if this is a homicide, then it's probably a poisoning case. Now, as I'm sure you know, poisoning cases are difficult if you don't have an idea of the poison. So I figured that if yonder gentleman had been poisoned in this park, there's a chance that the Holy Grail was left here someplace. So I had the Crime Scene Unit pick up every can and bottle that was littering this park when I got here, along with all the stuff in the trash cans. Later on the lab can see if any of them contain the mystery poison."
     "That's gonna be very expensive," Maureen commented.
     "Hey, it's a McKenna case, isn't it?" Sanchez asked, smiling. "The taxpayers should be used to financing his adventures by now."
     The lighthearted remark worried McKenna. If this guy wasn't poisoned, he thought, I'm going to look ridiculous. Even though I didn't choreograph this particular act of the show, the Job has reacted like they believe in me, spending time, manpower, and money, as only the largest police department can in its plodding and methodical fashion.
     Once again, Maureen read his mind. "Don't worry, Brian. If this one wasn't poisoned, there will be other victims. Until you get the killer, all this is going to have to be done every time one of our homeless dies in the street. The man you're looking for isn't going to stop."
     McKenna thought Maureen was wrong. If this one was a murder, it had occurred before Heidi's interview with him had aired. However, he considered it likely that the killer would stop when he learned that the police were on to the murders. Thinking he was one up on Maureen made McKenna feel magnanimous. "You did a great job here, Cisco," he said. "I'm glad it was you who got the call."
     Sanchez took the praise in stride as something to be expected every time he showed up at a crime scene and did his thing. "Thanks," he said perfunctorily.
     "Who's the chief handling this?" Maureen asked.
     "Steve Tavlin."
     McKenna realized at once that all the praise shouldn't go to Sanchez, but he kept that to himself. Tavlin had recently been promoted to Chief of Detective Borough Manhattan and was one of the ablest police commanders McKenna knew. His presence at the scene explained a lot to McKenna. "Where is he now?" he asked.
     "The Boys Club, waiting for you to finish the search here. He didn't want anyone touching the body until you got here."
     "And nobody did?"
     "Just the ambulance attendants. They tried some useless first aid stuff on him, but he's just the way we found him, except colder and stiffer."
     "Let's finish up here before we all freeze," McKenna said, walking to the group clustered at the far end of the playground. Maureen and Sanchez followed.
     All eyes were on McKenna, making him feel self-conscious. Standing around the body were a uniformed sergeant, two cops, and the ambulance crew. They split up to let McKenna examine the deceased.
     Bosco was a dark-skinned Caucasian, shabbily dressed in sneakers, old polyester pants, and a cheap hooded snorkel coat. Despite the cold, there were no gloves or scarf and the hood of his jacket was down. A green tennis ball was inches from his right hand, as if he had just died and dropped it.
     McKenna's first impression was that Sanchez had been right in everything. It was obvious the dead man had been suffering long before his last day; lying on his back two feet from the park fence, his eyes were closed but his face still showed the pain. AIDS could drastically change a person's appearance: Bosco was emaciated, jaundiced, clumps of his hair had fallen out, and he had black sarcomas on his hands and neck. McKenna could only guess an age range between thirty and fifty and thought Bosco looked Hispanic.
     Again McKenna asked himself: Why would anyone subject himself to risk and waste his time by poisoning a person so obviously close to death anyway? He concluded that the person at his feet must have died of natural causes. For a moment he felt foolish, thinking he was wasting the department's money and time as well as his own reputation. Then, behind him, he heard Maureen put her two cents in.
     "It sure is a crazy world, isn't it?" she observed to no one in particular.
     Yes it is, McKenna thought, full of crazy people who do things for bizarre reasons that make sense only to themselves. Rodney Bailey had been in the same shape as Bosco, yet an authority like John Andino had conceded that Bailey might have been poisoned.
     Straighten out and stay with it, McKenna told himself. He bent over the body and put his face close to the victim's. The odor of alcohol was unmistakable.
     "Who was first on the scene?" he asked as he stood up.
     The two uniformed cops stepped forward and saluted at attention. "We were, sir," one of them reported. "Sector Thirteen Boy." The name tag below the young cop's shield said he was Wilenski. The row of medals over his shield told McKenna that he knew his job and worked hard at it.
     "Let's relax a bit," McKenna suggested. "I'm not a Sir and I don't get saluted. I'm a detective, not a boss."
     Wilenski wasn't buying it. "Yes sir."
     "Tell me about the job."
     "Got a radio run at 3:50 of a man down in the park. When we got here, he was dead, just like you see him now."
     "Anybody around him?"
     "No."
     "How many people in the park?"
     "Just another bum sitting on a bench over there," Wilenski answered, pointing at a row of benches near the playground entrance."
     "How about the person who called in the job?"
     "We didn't see her," Wilenski admitted. "Detective Sanchez scooped her up after he got here. She was standing by the phone booths over there," he said, pointing at a bank of pay phones across the street at the corner of East 29th Street and Second Avenue.
     If she can help, it was an impressive piece of police work on Sanchez's part, McKenna conceded. To see the tennis ball and connect it to the owner standing a half a block away was sharp. To check the 911 voice-tape and bring her in against her will was even sharper.
     McKenna turned to the ambulance crew. They were two young white men who seemed uncomfortable as they huddled in their coats, trying to stay warm. "What did you guys do?"
     The two attendants looked at each other for a moment before one of them stepped forward. "We arrived here at 3:56. Inserted an endotracheal tube, aerated with an ambu bag, and tried CPR. No response. Tried to insert an IV, but couldn't get a line. I suspect collapsed peripheal circulation due to hypothermia. He was dead and cold, body temp around eighty-nine degrees. Pronounced dead at four o'clock."
      McKenna was impressed by the amount of emergency care they had given Bosco in four minutes before arriving at the inescapable conclusion that he was dead and gone. "You said something about hypothermia. You saying the cold killed him?" he asked.
     "No. All I said was that the body was cold. It's about five degrees out here, so figure he was dead a half an hour when we got here."
     Good information, but McKenna needed more than that. "So maybe he didn't freeze to death or die of natural causes?" he speculated, hoping for some sign of agreement from the ambulance attendant.
     He wasn't getting it. "Can't say," the attendant answered, looking down at Bosco's pitiful body. "From the shape of him, this guy could have died of ten things I could think of off the top of my head."
     "If you had to pick one, what would it be that killed him?"
     "Life."
     So much for that. "Thanks. You guys can go now," McKenna said. The two attendants picked up their gear and were gone without another word.
     It was time for the search of the body. Following protocol, McKenna turned to the patrol sergeant. "Can we get the search done now, Sarge?" he asked.
     The sergeant, an unhappy-looking old-timer, had been around long enough to anticipate the request. "Certainly," he said, giving the barest nod to Wilenski and his partner.
     It was all they needed as they went through the practiced procedure. Wilenski pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket and put them on as his partner took his memo book out, poised to record the results.
     The first place Wilenski searched was Bosco's jacket pocket. He took out a folded pink piece of paper and handed it to his partner. McKenna recognized the paper as a C-type summons, the kind that nobody but tourists, out-of-towners, or really legitimate people in New York ever worry about or bother to answer. The pink summonses were given by the police for nuisance things like dirty sidewalks, littering, jaywalking, and drinking in a park.
     Hoping to get lucky, McKenna's heart raced as Wilenski's partner recorded in his memo book the information from the summons. Then he handed it to McKenna.
     The summons stated that at 3:20 PM on January 31st Police Officer Chris Saffran of the 13th Precinct had personally observed one Juan Bosco drinking an alcoholic beverage in the playground at East 29th Street and Second Avenue in violation of Section 10-125 subdivision b of the New York City Administrative Code. Bosco's address on the summons was given as 421 East 30th Street and his date of birth was listed as August 18th, 1965.
     Realizing that he had evidence in his hand that a cop had seen Bosco drinking in the last hour of his life at the very place where he died, McKenna tried to contain his excitement while he watched the rest of the search. As he passed the summons to Maureen, his mind was focused on this Police Officer Chris Saffran. Whoever he was, Saffran was McKenna's new very-favorite person on the planet. He wanted to buy Saffran dinner, meet his family, throw him a party, and be godfather to his children.
     As it turned out, the rest of the search turned up very little of importance that McKenna didn't already know. In his pockets Bosco had seven dollars in bills, four dollars and forty-six cents in change, a Department of Social Services ID card, an expired learner's permit, two business cards from Legal Aid Society attorneys, and a half-smoked joint.
     "Anything else?" the sergeant asked McKenna.
     "A few things. What's at 421 East 30th Street?"
     The sergeant looked at McKenna like he had just failed basic geography. "That's the Bellevue Shelter," he said, like everyone should know that.
     "Who's Police Officer Saffran?"
     McKenna got the same look again, as if only recently-arrived tourists from Albania wouldn't know who Chris Saffran was. "A good cop, but a little strange. Works day tours on foot posts in this sector," the sergeant explained patiently.
     "I need to talk to him."
     "He got off at three thirty. He should be in tomorrow morning at seven."
     The sergeant's attitude was wearing on McKenna, but he understood it. Any detective making a fuss and drawing chiefs to the scene of a routine job like a dead homeless person who had obviously died of natural causes would be considered a stupid annoyance by any patrol sergeant.
     How to handle this guy? McKenna wondered briefly before coming up with the answer. After all, this is civil service, so it's okay to be stupid and annoying as long as you're in charge. Time to see if I still have any weight to throw around.
     "Sarge, I said I need to talk to him today. Wherever he is, find him and get him in. When you do, have him report to Chief Tavlin at the Madison Boys Club."
     "Yes sir."

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