The Adored (44 page)

In some of the pictures on the walls of the Colony, the ones taken at the parties after the war ended, the soldiers are smiling as much as others. On closer inspection some of those smiles seem to be masking sadness or even fear that had insinuated itself into their lives after the danger passed.

And to look at the smile on the face of big John Walsh, the same sadness could be seen. And underneath, it was there—fear.

Walsh was here, this night, with fellow officers to have a couple of beers after their shift. Only this night he was drinking more rapidly, words starting to slur, laughter a little louder, and stories a bit more exaggerated. One after another the stories about this felon or that perp. There were six other officers with Walsh, and they were holding court in the Colony “dining room.” Their own area was to the far end, away from the booths, which gave them a little more leeway with their bravado. Most of the regular customers knew the cops liked that area and let them be; they needed the release after dealing with some of the prizes of Stamford.

“And he says, ‘but I wasn’t even there officer,’” Walsh was laughing, “and we have three witnesses including his mother who nailed his ass.” They laughed the laughs of comrades in arms who knew the idiocy of the people they dealt with.

The night went on, each of the officers anteing up their contribution to the stories. The pictures of beer kept coming.

Around 11 p.m. two officers left, five others remained. It was then that the fear that was suppressed in Walsh raised itself to the surface.

Willie Stevens had confessed to Walsh as he lay dying. Stevens had to release Curtis Strong from the prison he had kept him in by not coming forward. And just as Stevens suffered, now Walsh carried the burden. Not only had he accidentally killed Strong’s father, he was the supervising sergeant on Curtis Strong Jr’s murder conviction. To help his Captain Pavia at the time, he falsified evidence that implicated Strong. At that time, now six years past, he believed Strong was part of it, so it was no sweat if he put the knife in the drug dealer or not. He was there; he was part of it.

Now, with Strong innocent, it was eating at him. What was he to do?

“The kid I nailed last month, Stevens, complete fool. Went from having a nice little business dealing on the West Side to falling in love with his product. Got pushed out and left to fend for himself, he became a robber, snatch and grab. But this fool doesn’t just take the poor woman’s bag; he’s got to kill her. Stabs her in the neck and leaves the knife in. Like this,” demonstrating he picks up a table knife raises it over his head and plunges down on Larry Bell, stopping just above his head and then laughing. They all laugh at the dramatics. “So anyway,” he pauses to refill his mug and gulp down half of it, “we get into a shootout, and I nail the little shit. So then he goes into this confession, ‘CJ Strong’s innocent,’ and tells me a drug dealer that got knifed ten years ago, says he did it, not the kid Strong who got sent up to Auburn for twenty-five to life.” He stopped before the punch line to take a drink, looked at the officers there with him to make sure he had their attention with this story.

“So what happened,” another officer asked eagerly, “did Strong go free?”

“Fuck, no,” and he paused, a thought, a judgement needed to be made. Continue or stop. What the hell, these are my people. “I told the fucker as he died that it was the only decent thing he’d ever done. Too bad his stupid little secret had to die with him. And poof,” with that Walsh made a twisted face and cocked his head to the side to feign death. And they laughed some more. Well, the others did. Larry Bell didn’t. He wasn’t quite as high as the others, and it didn’t strike him as all that funny.

Chapter 61

And this story from the prior week was what Officer Larry Bell was recounting for Detective Lieutenant Vito Boriello.

“Lieutenant, I hate to say it, but I think Detective John Walsh is involved in a cover-up of a murder or more,” Officer Larry Bell began. He had called Boriello the day before and asked to see him about a departmental matter that was quite serious. He needed complete confidentiality in their discussion, as he could be wrong on what he was about to tell Boriello. The Lieutenant reassured Bell.

“Let’s take a walk,” Boriello said to Bell. Boriello was never big on sitting across from anyone expecting to hear the whole truth. He found that difficult conversations always seemed easier while walking and talking. This was difficult, to be sure; a fellow officer, coming to him with some evidence of malfeasance by another officer.

They left Stamford Police Headquarters, walked up Hoyt Street to the corner of North Street and made a left, proceeding west into the afternoon sun.

“So you, Walsh and three other officers were at the Colony having a few? When was this,” Boriello asked.

“A week ago, last Friday night.”

“And here we are, a week gone by. What took you so long to come see me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Cops talk trash all the time, bullshit about their cases. But this had a ring of truth to it; it sounds real. And I remember the meanness that came over Walsh’s face when he said what he said.”

“Which was?”

Bell pulled out a small three-by-five note pad. “Here, I wrote it down afterwards, it bothered me so much. He said: “I told the fucker as he died that it was the only decent thing he’d ever done. Too bad his stupid little secret had to die with him.”

“Wait,” Boriello said, “You’re ahead of me. Who’s doing the dying and what’s the secret.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. The murder/robbery that took place at the mall, where Walsh shot the killer. The killer’s name was Billy Stevens.”

“I remember the case very well. So what’s the secret he tells Walsh?”

“He says a friend of his, CJ Strong, is innocent of a murder charge that he’s doing twenty-five to life for it. I also went back and checked this out. CJ Strong was convicted of murdering a drug dealer on the West side about seven years ago. According to Walsh that night, Stevens confesses to Walsh that Strong didn’t commit the murder, that it was he, Stevens, who did it.” Bell paused to look at his notes. Boriello rolled what he was hearing over in his mind; what an interesting turn providence was taking. Jim Ford up at Auburn would be pleased to hear this, he thought.

Bell continued, “The part about Stevens confessing that he killed the guy Strong is serving time for is not part of the official record of Walsh’s shooting of Stevens. I checked.”

“Let’s begin from the beginning. You and the other officers are shooting the shit.” Boriello stops to give Bell room to fill in the blanks.

“Each one of us are talking about crazy collars, and Walsh comes out with this story. Says after he shot Stevens he ran up, kicked the gun out of his hand and the kid says, “You gotta help me. C.J Strong is innocent. He’s in jail. He didn’t kill anyone.” Walsh says the kid knows he’s dying and is trying to use him to relieve his sins.”

“So Stevens tells Walsh, Strong did not kill anyone?” Boriello asks.

“Yes.”

“Does he say who did?”

“Yes, like I wrote down. Stevens tells Walsh he did it.”

“Who was the other guy killed?”

“Augusto Santos. That’s who Strong is doing time for killing.”

“OK, I’m aware of that.”

“You’ve got some memory, Lieutenant, more than six years ago,” Bell said.

“Something came up recently on the same crime,” Boriello confided. Actually, Boriello found it a strange coincidence; what strange fate could possibly be bringing these two separate streams of information about Augusto Santos’ death and Curtis Strong’s innocence to the confluence of Boriello’s mind.

“Tell me, what else happened?” Boriello asked.

“At the bar or with Stevens’ confession?”

“Either one,” Boriello decided to leave it open-ended to see where this officer took it.

“Well, Walsh went on with the story, tells the kid, ‘too bad your lousy little secret’s going to die with you.’ We actually laughed; no, as I recall, I didn’t. That was when I saw the reality in it. I saw the way Walsh was telling the story. But at that point we figured that was the punch line so the laughter just came. But that wasn’t the punch line.”

Boriello grabbed his arm as they came to the corner of Summer Street. Bell started to walk out just as a car came speeding by.

“Didn’t they teach you anything at the police academy? You only cross on green. Come on, let’s cross this way, and we can get a DQ,” Boriello said and they crossed North Street to the Dairy Queen on the corner.

“What’ll you have?” the lieutenant asked the younger officer.

“Whatever you’re having,” Bell said, wondering if Boriello was believing what he was hearing. After all he was being quite casual about the whole thing, going for a walk and an ice cream. He wondered now if he had made a mistake coming forward.

“Two medium vanilla cones, dipped,” Boriello requested.

“You got it, Bud,” the enthusiastic teenaged boy behind the steel counter said. Then he added, “Whoops, sorry, Lieutenant Boriello.”

“That’s OK, Richie; just make them right,” Boriello said to Richie Pisano, who lived two blocks from Boriello and whom he was able to help out in traffic court several months earlier at the request of his mother, a high school classmate of the lieutenant.

Boriello paid, took the two cones and walked to a nearby table. “Can you grab a couple of napkins,” he said, over his shoulder, to Officer Bell.

As traffic whizzed down Summer Street, the two police officers ate their ice cream. Boriello picked up where they left off. “So what was the punch line?”

Bell looked at Boriello and was reassured by the disarming manner of the short fat cop. “Walsh said, ‘Strong did it. That’s how I got my detective shield.’”

“That’s what he said?”

“Those exact words, and he added, ‘The little shit thinks he’s gonna save his buddy’s ass now that he’s history.’ Then one of the other cops, Pete Ozowelski, asks Walsh, ‘But what if it’s true?’ Walsh starts laughing hysterically, says to Ozo, ‘After he takes the blame himself, he changes his mind. Says it was Parker Barnes.’ Ozo says, ‘Who’s that?’ Walsh laughs at Ozo and says, ‘The son of the guy who built Stamford. The son of the next senator.’ Ozo then says and he starts laughing, ‘Did he blame me?’ The guys cracked up. Walsh says, ‘Exactly. Lying through his teeth, looking to do a good deed for his friend.’ We all laughed then as Walsh makes like a judge with a gavel, slams his fist down on the table and says, ‘Case closed,’ and after a minute he adds, ‘still.’”

Boriello rose, took one last lick of his cone. He tossed his cone in the trash can; Bell who was now beside him did the same. Boriello led as they began walking back up North Street opposite of the side they walked down.

“What do you think about what you heard?” Boriello knew he was redundant, but he wanted Bell to sum it up.

“Walsh had had a few, but what he was telling us, the way he told it, I’d say it was true. There is one other thing I almost forgot. I was with Walsh the day he shot Stevens. He did save us. The kid had us pinned down, and Walsh came up from his blind side. When I went up to Walsh right after he shot him, I hear him talking to Stevens who’s dying. I asked him if he knew the kid. He said he’d ‘seen him around, he had a record, name’s Strong or something like that.’ Holy shit,” Bell said realizing for the first time why he believed what Walsh said at the Colony was true.

“That last part again. Where did that come from?”

“It was in the back of my mind. I completely forgot about it. Maybe it was why I came forward.”

“It sounds that way to me; that’s a pretty important piece of information, a Freudian slip on the part of Walsh,” the seasoned officer said. “Let’s just keep this between you and me right now. But I’d like you to write down the whole conversation just like you told it to me.”

“Sure, Lieutenant. What’s next?”

“I’m not sure, but at some point we’ll have to go before a judge. You’ll have to testify against Walsh. Are you willing?”

“I don’t have anything against Walsh, but if it’s true then, there’s an innocent man in prison for someone else’s crime. Yes, I will testify to what I heard.”

That Friday evening Boriello phoned James Ford at his home in Auburn, New York. He relayed the whole story as Bell had told it.

“That’s it,” Ford exclaimed. “That’s the missing evidence that will free him.”

“I know. Point is, now I need to prove it.”

“You’re going to confront Walsh?” Ford asked.

“Have to. Got to get his side of it. We need to think through how we get him to confirm what he said to Bell, how we get him to confirm what the Stevens kid said to him.”

“You want some help in putting the line of questioning together.”

“No, I’ll kick it around over the weekend, and when I have it finished, I’ll go over it with you. Say Monday morning.”

“Good enough. Thanks, Vito, great work.”

“Thanks nothing. It just walked in the door. A bluebird.”

“Funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“That’s what I used to call a key piece of evidence that just appeared, just like a bluebird.”