Bronx Requiem(14)

Palmer pulled out his police radio and called the precinct dispatcher, telling her to send a sergeant and request a Crime Scene Unit.

Ippolito looked down at the body. Frowned, shook his head, and said to himself, “All I f*cking need, end of my goddam shift.”

Ippolito watched Palmer check the pockets of the dead man. He pulled out a single key on a beaded chain, a thin wallet, a wad of folded papers in the back pocket.

“What’s in the wallet?” asked Ippolito.

“Couple hundred bucks. A little more. Guess it wasn’t a robbery.”

“No ID?”

“No. Wait a second.” Palmer found a single laminated card in the wallet. “Shit.”

“What?”

Palmer held it up. “Department of Correction ID. Name is Paco Johnson.”

Ippolito squinted at the ID. “Ah, Christ. What’s this guy, on parole?”

Palmer unfolded the papers he’d pulled from the victim’s back pocket. “Jeezus, this son of a bitch just got out yesterday.”

“What?”

Palmer handed the discharge forms to Ippolito, who checked the dates.

“You f*cking kidding me? This guy ain’t been out even a day.” Ippolito squinted at the dates again. “Christ, he was in seventeen years.”

Palmer stared down at the inert body and shook his head, trying to look concerned while thinking: Shit, man, people are gonna be all over this one. Department of Correction. The Parole Division.

He took the papers back from Ippolito.

Paco Johnson had been discharged from Eastern Correctional Facility at 2 P.M. yesterday, Tuesday. He checked his watch. Palmer could already see the headline: PAROLEE DEAD SEVENTEEN HOURS AFTER SEVENTEEN YEARS IN PRISON.

He took out his notebook and carefully wrote down the time, place, victim’s name, and the name of parole officer assigned to him: Walter Ferguson.





5

Wednesday morning a little after eight, Walter Ferguson walked from his apartment on Livingston Street to his office three blocks east. As the highest-ranking member of the staff, he tried to be the first one in every morning. This morning, two men were waiting for him. Walter quickly made them for NYPD detectives. One older. One younger.

The veteran detective looked like he had definitely worked past his normal shift and wanted to get home. The younger one appeared to be ready to go another shift and another after that if needed.

Walter went through a quick mental inventory of parolees who might have caused two detectives to show up. Unfortunately, it was a long list.

*

By ten thirty, James Beck had finished most of his morning routine and sat restlessly in his usual spot at the far end of an old oak bar on the ground floor of his building in Red Hook. Sections of the morning edition of The New York Times lay stacked on the bar in the order Beck had read them.

Demarco Jones stood cleaning the back-bar shelves and wiping down bottles, his puttering around adding to Beck’s restlessness.

Beck thought about calling Ferguson, but decided to wait. Walter would be busy enough dealing with Packy’s hitchhiking stunt.

Just then the front door opened, and Walter Ferguson entered.

Beck saw the expression on Walter’s face. Noted he was alone. A sick feeling hit him just below his solar plexus.

Walter Ferguson, normally a vigorous, distinguished African-American man, looked sallow, tired, barely able to move. He was dressed as usual in a suit and tie, but uncharacteristically the top button of his shirt was open and the tie pulled loose.

“What happened?”

Walter stepped to the bar, placing his right hand on it for support. He neither looked at Beck, nor answered his question.

Walter cleared his throat and said, “Demarco, may I have a whiskey, please.”

Demarco’s brow furrowed. He had never seen Walter Ferguson drink alcohol. He poured Johnny Walker Black into a rocks glass. No ice, no water.

They waited for Walter to take a long sip.

Walter put his head down and rested his foot on the bar rail, waiting for the burning in his throat to subside.

He looked up, his eyes distant, his voice choked with emotion, and said, “Paco Johnson is dead.”

Nobody moved, as if moving would confirm the truth.

Beck stifled an anguished curse. He came off his bar stool and took a step toward Ferguson. “Walter, what the hell happened?”

Walter turned to Beck. The older man looked so distraught that Beck involuntarily reached out and put a hand on his arm.

Walter responded in a flat, toneless voice.

“Two detectives showed up at my office this morning. From the Forty-second Precinct in the Bronx. They discovered Packy’s body on the street this morning. I forget the exact location. Somewhere, I … I’ll have to look at a map. They said a man opening a bodega saw the body and called it in about six o’clock. They found ID on him and my name and address on his release papers. They came to my office this morning for information.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Beck. “What happened to him? Where was this?”

“Northern Bronx. Near where the, uh, mother-in-law’s apartment is. Where he was staying.”

Beck turned away, gripping the bar with both hands, grimacing, trying to fight off the anguish and helplessness.

“What happened? Did he have a heart attack or something? What was he doing out on the street at six in the morning?”