The 1st Deadly Sin (56 page)

This is “street justice,” and for every case that comes to trial in a walnut-paneled courtroom, a hundred street trials are held every hour of every day in every city in the country, and the presiding magistrate is a cop—plainclothes detective or uniformed patrolman. And honest or venal, he is the kingpin of the whole ramshackle, tottering, ridiculous, working system of “street justice,” and without him the already overclogged formal courts of the nation would be inundated, drowned in a sea of pettifoggery, and unable to function.

The conscientious investigating officer will or will not make a written report of the case, depending on his judgement of its importance. But if the investigating officer is a plainclothes detective, and if the case involves people of an obviously higher social status than sidewalk brawlers, and if formal charges have been made by
anyone
, and one or more visits to the precinct house have been made, then the detective will almost certainly make a written report of what happened, who did what, who said what, how much injury or damage resulted. Even if the confrontation simply dissolves—charges withdrawn, no warrants issued, no trial—the detective, sighing, fills out the forms, writes his report, and stuffs all the paper in the slush heap, to be thrown out when the file is overflowing.

Knowing all this, knowing how slim his chances were of finding anything meaningful in the detritus left behind by the Precinct’s detective squad when it was disbanded, Delaney followed his cop’s instinct and phoned Lt. Marty Dorfman at the 251st Precinct, next door.

Their preliminary conversation was friendly but cool. Delaney asked after the well-being of Dorfman’s family, and the lieutenant inquired as to Mrs. Delaney’s health. It was only when the Captain inquired about conditions in the Precinct that Dorfman’s voice took on a tone of anguish and anger.

It developed that Operation Lombard was using the 251st Precinct house as command headquarters. Deputy Commissioner Broughton had taken over Lt. Dorfman’s office, and his men were filling the second floor offices and bull pen formerly occupied by the Precinct detective squad. Dorfman himself was stuck at a desk in a corner of the sergeants’ room.

He could have endured this ignominy, he suggested to Delaney, and even endured Broughton’s slights that included ignoring him completely when they met in the hallway and commandeering the Precinct’s vehicles without prior consultation with Dorfman. But what really rankled was that apparently residents of the Precinct were blaming him, Dorfman, personally for not finding the killer. In spite of what they read in the papers and saw on television about Operation Lombard, headed by Deputy Commissioner Broughton, they knew Dorfman was commander of their precinct, and they blamed him for failing to make their streets safe.

“I know,” Delaney said sympathetically. “They feel it’s your neighborhood and your responsibility.”

“Oh yes,” Dorfman sighed. “Well, I’m learning. Learning what you had to put up with. I guess it’s good experience.”

“It is,” Delaney said definitely. “The best experience of all—being on the firing line. Are you going to take the exam for captain?”

“I don’t know what to do. My wife says no. She wants me to get out, get into something else.”

“Don’t do that,” Delaney said quickly. “Hang in there. A little while longer anyway. Things might change before you know it.”

“Oh?” Dorfman asked, interested now, curious, but not wanting to pin Delaney down. “You think there may be changes?”

“Yes. Maybe sooner than you think. Don’t make any decisions now. Wait. Just wait.”

“All right, Captain. If you say so.”

“Lieutenant, the reason I called—I want to come into the Precinct house around eight or nine tomorrow morning. I want to go down to that storage room in the basement. It’s off the hallway to the back door. You know, when you pass the pens and drunk tank and turn right. I want to go through some old files stored in there. It’s slush left by the detective squad. It’ll probably take me all day, and I may remove some of the files. I want your permission.”

There was silence, and Delaney thought the connection might have been cut.

“Hello? Hello?” he said.

“I’m still here,” Dorfman said finally in a soft voice. “Yes, you have my permission. Thank you for calling first, Captain. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s your precinct.”

“So I’ve been learning. Captain…”

“What?”

“I think I know what you’ve been doing. Are you getting anywhere?”

“Nothing definite. Yet. Coming along.”

“Will the files help?”

“Maybe.”

“Take whatever you need.”

“Thank you. If I meet you, just nod and pass by. Don’t stop to talk. Broughton’s men don’t have to—”

“I understand.”

“Dorfman…”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Don’t stop studying for the captain’s exam”

“All right. I won’t.”

“I know you’ll do fine on the written, but on the oral they ask some tricky questions. One they ask every year, but it takes different forms. It goes something like this: You’re a captain with a lieutenant, three sergeants, and maybe twenty or thirty men. There’s this riot. Hippies or drunks off a Hudson River cruise or some kind of nutty mob. Maybe a hundred people hollering and breaking windows and raising hell. How do you handle it?”

There was silence. Then Dorfman said, not sure of himself, “I’d have the men form a wedge. Then, if I had a bullhorn, I’d tell the mob to disperse. If that didn’t work, I’d tell the men to—”

“No,” Delaney said. “That isn’t the answer they want. The right answer is this: you turn to your lieutenant and say. ‘Break ’em up.’ Then you turn your back on the mob and walk away. It might not be the
right
way. You understand? But it’s the right answer to the question. They want to make sure you know how to use command. Watch out for a question like that.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Dorfman said, and Delaney hoped they might be easing back into their earlier, closer relationship.

He thought it out carefully in his methodical way. He would wear his oldest suit, since that basement storeroom was sure to be dusty. It was probably adequately lighted with an overhead bulb, but just in case he would take along his flashlight.

Now, the room itself might be locked, and then he’d be forced to make a fuss until he found someone with the proper key. But he had never turned in his ring of master keys which, his predecessor had assured him, opened every door, cell and locker in the Precinct house. So he’d take his ring of keys along.

He didn’t know how long it would take to go through the detectives’ old files, but he judged it might be all day. He wouldn’t want to go out to eat; the less chance of being seen by Broughton’s men, or by Broughton himself, moving around the stairs and corridors, the better for everyone. So he would need sandwiches, two sandwiches, that he would ask Mary to make up for him in the morning, plus a thermos of black coffee. He would carry all this, plus the flashlight and keys, in his briefcase, which would also hold the typed lists of the cards included in Monica Gilbert’s file.

Anything else? Well, he should have some kind of cover story just in case, by bad luck, Broughton saw him, braced him, and wanted to know what the fuck he was up to. He would say, he decided, that he had just stopped by to reclaim some personal files from the basement storeroom. He would keep it as vague as possible; it might be enough to get by.

He awoke the next morning, resolutely trying not to hope, but attempting to treat this search as just another logical step that had to be taken, whether it yielded results or not. He ate an unusually large breakfast for him: tomato juice, two poached eggs on whole wheat toast, a side order of pork sausages, and two cups of black coffee.

While Mary was preparing his luncheon sandwiches and his thermos, he went into the study to call Barbara, to explain why he would be unable to see her that day. Thankfully, she was in an alert, cheery mood, and when he told her exactly what he planned to do, she approved immediately and made him promise to call her as soon as his search was completed, to report results.

His entry into the 251st Precinct house went easily, without incident. That intimidating woman, the blonde sergeant, was on the blotter when he walked in. She was leaning across the desk, talking to a black woman who was weeping. The sergeant looked up, recognized the Captain, and flapped him a halfsalute. He waved in return and marched steadily ahead, carrying his briefcase like a salesman. He went down the worn wooden staircase and turned into the detention area.

The officer on duty—on limited duty since his right arm had been knifed open by an eleven-year-old on the shit—was tilted back against the wall in an ancient armchair. He was reading a late edition of the
Daily News;
Delaney could see the headline: MANIAC KILLER STILL ON LOOSE. The officer glanced up, recognized the Captain, and started to scramble to his feet. Delaney waved him down, ashamed of himself for not remembering the man’s name.

“How you coming along?” he asked.

“Fine, Captain. It’s healing real good. The doc said I should be mustering in a week or so.”

“Glad to hear it. But don’t hurry it; take all the time you need. I’m going to that storeroom in the back hallway. I’ve got some personal files there I want to get.”

The officer nodded. He couldn’t care less.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take, so if I’m not out by the time you leave, please tell your relief I’m back here.”

“Okay, Captain.”

He walked past the detention cells: six cells, four occupied. He didn’t look to the right or to the left. Someone whispered to him; someone screamed. There were three men in the drunk tank lying in each others’ filth and moaning. It wasn’t the noise that bothered him, it was the smell; he had almost forgotten how bad it was: old urine, old shit, old blood, old vomit, old puss—90 years of human pain soaked into floors and walls. And coming through the miasma, like a knife thrust, the sharp, piercing carbolic odor that stung his nostrils and brought tears to his eyes.

The storeroom was locked, and it took him almost five minutes to find the right key on the big ring. And when the latch snapped open, he paused a few seconds and wondered why he hadn’t turned that ring of keys over to Dorfman. Officially, they should be in the lieutenant’s possession; it was his precinct.

He shoved the door open, found the wall switch, flipped on the overhead light, closed the door behind him and looked around. It was as bad as he had expected.

The precinct house had opened for business in 1882 and, inspecting the storeroom, Delaney guessed that every desk blotter for every one of those 90 years was carefully retained and never looked at again. They were stacked to the ceiling. An historian might do wonders with them. The Captain was amused by the thought: “A Criminal History of Our Times”—reconstructing the way our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents lived by analyzing the evidence in those yellowing police blotters. It could be done, he thought, and it might prove revealing. Not the usual history, not the theories of philosophers, discoveries of scientists, programs of statesmen; not wars, explorations, revolutions, and new religions.

Just the petty crimes, misdemeanors, and felonies of a weak and sinning humanity. It was all there: the mayhem, frauds, child-beating, theft, drug abuse, alcoholism, kidnapping, rape, murder. It would make a fascinating record, and he wished an historian would attempt it. Something might be learned from it.

He took off his coat, hat and jacket and laid them on the least dusty crate he could find. The windowless room had a single radiator that clanked and hissed constantly, spitting out steam and water. Delaney opened the door a few inches. The air that came in was carbolic-laden, but a little cooler.

He put on his glasses and looked at what else the room held.

Mostly cardboard cartons, overflowing with files and papers.

The cartons bore on their sides the names of whiskies, rums, gins, etc., and he knew most of them came from the liquor store on First Avenue, around the corner. There were also rough wooden cases filled with what appeared to be physical evidence of long forgotten crimes: a knitted woolen glove, moth-eaten; a rusted cleaver with a broken handle; a stained upper denture; a child’s Raggedy-Ann doll; a woman’s patent leather purse, yawning empty; a broken crutch; a window-weight with black stains; a man’s fedora with one bullet hole through the crown; sealed and bulging envelopes with information jotted on their sides; a bloodied wig; a corset ripped down with a knife thrust.

Delaney turned away and found himself facing a carton of theatrical costumes. He fumbled through them and thought they might have been left from some remote Christmas pageant performed in the Precinct house by neighborhood children, the costumes provided by the cops. But beneath the cheap cotton—sleazy to begin with and now rotting away—he found an ancient Colt revolver, at least 12 inches long, rusted past all usefulness, and to the trigger guard was attached a wrinkled tag with the faded inscription: “Malone’s gun. July 16, 1902.” Malone. Who had he been—cop or killer? It made no difference now.

He finally found what he was looking for: two stacks of relatively fresh cardboard cartons containing the last year’s garbage from the detective squad’s files. Each carton held folders in alphabetical order, but the cartons themselves were stacked helter-skelter, and Delaney spent almost an hour organizing them. It was then past noon, and he sat down on a nailed wooden crate (painted on the top: “Hold for Capt. Kelly”) and ate one of his sandwiches, spiced salami and thickly sliced Spanish onion on rye bread thinly spread with mayonnaise—which he dearly loved—and drank half his thermos of coffee.

Then he got out his list of names from Monica’s cards and went to work. He had to compare list to files, and had to work standing up or kneeling or crouching. Occasionally he would spread his arms wide and bend back his spine. Twice he stepped out into the hallway and walked up and down a few minutes, trying to shake the kinks out of his legs.

He felt no elation whatsoever when he found the first file labeled with a name on his list. The address checked out. He merely put the file aside and went on with the job. It was lumbering work, like a stake-out or a 24-hour shadow. You didn’t stop to question what you were doing; it was just something that had to be done, usually to prove the “no” rather than discover the “yes.”