Heat Noir

Chapter 36

Wednesday 17th April 1946 (Early Afternoon)

Detective Sullivan looked up at the clock on the wall of the bullpen and saw the time. The frown on his face deepened a little more as his gaze shifted from the clock to the empty desk beside his. Detective McNulty had yet to show up. Sullivan was beginning to get a little nervous. He looked over in the direction of the Lieutenant's office.

Sullivan would have been a lot more nervous had the Lieutenant been in his office. Lieutenant Montgomery had left around nine-thirty to attend a meeting at police headquarters that had been called at the last minute. No one had any idea when Montgomery would be back. Sullivan was hoping it would be later rather than sooner. He also hoped that his partner would be back before the Lieutenant returned. The last thing he wanted to be doing was trying to explain to Montgomery where his partner was.

Sullivan had no idea where his partner had gone. When he had walked into the bullpen at seven-thirty he had found McNulty already at his desk and working. Sullivan had been more than a little surprised to find his partner already at work. In the short time they had been working together he had found that his partner usually arrived at work five minutes before the start of the shift. Once or twice he had come in later. Finding Detective McNulty at work early was something new.

Then to Sullivan's surprise at eight o'clock McNulty had gotten up, gathered his things and headed for the elevator. On his way out McNulty had informed his partner that he needed to interview some witnesses. Like the good partner he was Sullivan had offered to come along but McNulty had declined the offer telling him that he could handle it by himself and then he was gone.

Sullivan, to take his mind off worrying about what his partner might be doing had turned his attention to the new case he and McNulty had caught last Monday, some Hispanic punk that had gotten himself shot and thrown into the Hudson over on the West side.

Grabbing his empty cup Sullivan got to his feet and headed for the break room to get another coffee. He had not been much of a coffee drinker but that had changed after he had joined the NYPD and even more so since he had been made Detective. It had not taken him long to realise that detectives seemed to survive on coffee. Coffee and doughnuts.

Entering the break room Sullivan found Detective Ryan at the coffee pot. The other detective looked at the new arrival. Sullivan liked Ryan, off all the detectives on the floor it had been Ryan who had gone out of his way to welcome him to the 12th. Ryan had also tried to show him the ropes. Sullivan was a little disappointed he had not been partnered up with Ryan but that was the way things went. You did not always get paired up with the partner you wanted.

"Hey, how it going. Sully?" Ryan inquired. "Cracked your case yet?"

Sullivan made a face as he walked over to the sink and gave his cup a quick rinse.

"Fat chance." Sully muttered as he turned to look at Ryan. The Irishman poured coffee into Sullivan's cup before he returned the pot back on the warmer.

"We still don't have a name of the kid that got whacked." Sullivan said unhappily.

"M.E. give you anything?"

Sullivan shook his head. "It'll be a couple of days at least before we get an autopsy report."

Ryan nodded his head sympathetically before taking a sip of his coffee.

"All we know is he took a couple of slugs to the chest and then took a swim in the Hudson."

"What are you thinking, a shady deal go bad?"

"That be my thinking." Sullivan nodded.

Sullivan paused to take a sip from his cup. He made a face as he swallowed the coffee. The warm coffee was only slightly better than cold coffee, he thought to himself.

"I'm going through missing persons reports for the past week, hopefully something might turn up."

"Good luck with that." Ryan chuckled.

"What's happening with your case, Ryan?"

Ryan and Demming had caught a case yesterday morning. A wife beaten to death.

"We've issued an all points bulletin on the husband." Ryan reported.

"So, the husband did it, eh?"

"Sure looks that way." Ryan nodded. "That's what all the neighbours believe. They were always arguing. A couple of times uniforms had to show up and quieten things down."

"Guy had a temper on him?" Sullivan asked.

"Yeah."

"So, what was she doing, stepping out on him or something?" Sullivan grinned.

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"The guy got wounded on the beach at Anzio a couple years back, got shipped back home only to find his missus had been seeing someone else. To make matters worse she was still seeing someone else." Ryan punctuated the statement with a shake of his head.

"I guess, you could understand getting upset if you found out your wife had been cheating on you." Sullivan mused aloud.

Ryan glanced at the other detective.

"You didn't see what he did to her, Sully." Ryan said. "Turned her face into mince meat with his fists."

"Was it bad?" Sullivan asked, trying not to wince.

"Yeah, real bad."

"Well, I hope you get the guy, Ryan."

"Well, I'd better get back to my desk." Ryan announced as he pushed off and headed out of the break room. "Good luck with your case, Sully."

"Thanks Ryan."

Sullivan remained in the break room for a few more minutes sipping his warm coffee and wondering where the hell his partner was and what was he doing. Before leaving the break room Sullivan topped up his coffee. Returning to his desk Sullivan resumed going through the missing persons' files. He he had been going through them all morning and from the looks of things it would take him the rest of the day to go through the remaining files.

XXX

Detective Frank McNulty leaned against the back of the elevator as it slowly crept up to the fourth floor.

His thoughts drifted back to last Saturday night and that unexpected visit by Tom Dempsey. Even now, several days after, he still shuddered at the look Dempsey had given him when he had told the mob boss he wanted to put in the frame for Madison Queller's murder.

McNulty liked to believe that there were not too many things in this world that made him afraid. Having a shield and gun made him a protected species of sorts in this city. Yet in those few silent seconds as he stared into the cold dark eyes of Tom Dempsey, he had been scared. Really scared. He could have sworn he had seen his life pass before his eyes. He had thought he was going to die the way Dempsey had been looking at him.

He had been ready to drop to his knees with the most profuse apology he could muster on the tip of his tongue when the strangest thing had happened. Dempsey had started to nod his head and smile.

"Okay. You got to do what you got to do, Frank." Dempsey had said.

McNulty could not believe what he had heard.

"Who am I to get in the way of New York's finest." Dempsey had added.

Before the mob boss had left the bar he ordered another round of drinks. McNulty had almost wet himself with relief when Dempsey had departed. It would be several more hours before a very drunk Frank McNulty stumbled out of the bar and wandered home.

The elevator came to a shuddering halt. McNulty shook off those thoughts and stepped onto the floor. He came strolling into the bullpen a little after one o'clock. The moment he had stepped out of the elevator he had plastered a satisfied on his face as he clutched the file containing the statements had spent the entire morning in obtaining.

Reaching his desk he dumped the file containing the statements on top of his desk before he sat down. As he settled in his chair he spotted a large yellow envelope sitting in his in-tray. Reaching over he picked up the envelope. He tore open the file and extracted the file the envelope contained. His eyes lit up with excitement when he saw the name on the front of the file. Eagerly he opened the file and started going through it. The smile on his face deepened as he continued reading.

This was definitely his lucky day, McNulty thought to himself as he continued to leaf through the file.

"Where the hell have you been, McNulty?" Sullivan demanded as he approached his partner's desk.

"Been working, Sully." McNulty replied, smiling smugly as he continued going the file in his hand.

"Doing what?"

"Working on the case."

"The Hispanic kid fished out of the Hudson?" Sullivan said. "You found witnesses?"

McNulty looked up from the file to his partner.

"Nah."

A look of alarm appeared on Sullivan's face. He stepped closer to McNulty's desk.

"Don't tell me you've been working on the Queller case?" Sullivan said in a low voice.

McNulty stared at Sullivan and suddenly beamed.

"You damn well know that case was put on the back burner." Sullivan hissed.

"Not by me it wasn't."

Sullivan watched as McNulty closed the file he had in his hands. He placed it on top of another file and then picked them up as he rose from his chair. He looked at Sullivan and nodded with his head towards the break room. Sullivan watched as his partner departed. With a shake of his head Sullivan set the coffee cup down on McNulty's desk and found himself following.

McNulty opened the door of the break room and walked in. He cast a look around to make sure there was no one else in the room before he turned and waited for Sullivan to walk in. Sullivan came in a moment later and closed the door behind him. Sullivan turned and looked at his partner.

"So what the hell have you been doing all day, McNulty?"

McNulty grinned as he waved the files had in his hand.

"What are those?"

"The evidence we need to sink that bitch."

Sullivan frowned and shook his head. Ever since that day they had been thrown out of Beckett's apartment McNulty had been obsessed with finding evidence to prove that she was Madison Queller's killer. It seemed McNulty had continued his investigation privately.

McNulty turned and walked over to a table where he dropped the files. Sullivan approached the table and glanced down at the files before he looked at his partner who continued to grin like the cat that had swallowed the canary.

"Okay, what have you found, then?"

McNulty picked up the thicker of the two files and held it out to Sullivan. Sullivan took the file but did not open it. He waited for McNulty to brief him.

"In that file are statements from a few former school friends of Beckett's." McNulty announced.

"What about them?"

"Well, it seems our vic and our suspect used to be the best of friends back in high school."

"We already know that." Sullivan retorted.

"Yeah but what we didn't know was that Queller and Beckett had a big falling out." McNulty said eagerly. "A really big falling out, that almost came to blows."

"That's not a crime, McNulty." Sullivan pointed out.

"Yeah but this was over a boy."

Sullivan rolled his eyes on hearing that. Having three sisters himself, Sullivan was more than familiar with the occasional fights that would break out between his siblings all because they all liked the same boy. There had been a couple of times when he had to step in and break up a fight that erupted.

"You don't have any sisters do you, McNulty?" Sullivan said.

"What's that got do with anything?"

"They were teenage girls, McNulty. Teenage girls always fight over boys."

"Oh, yeah?" McNulty beamed. He nodded to the file Sullivan was holding. "Why don't you read the statements first?"

Sullivan opened the file and took out the typed statements that it contained. He sat down at the table and started reading the first of them. It took him about ten minutes to read all three statements. What he found was that McNulty had managed to track down three of Kate Beckett's old school friends, Mary Ralph, Sally Baggott and Julia Morena. In their statements, all three stated that Beckett and Queller had a massive falling out over a boy by the name of Brent Edwards. Beckett had been dating Edwards and Queller had stolen him from her. All three girls stated they had heard Beckett say that she would kill Queller one of these days for stealing her boyfriend.

Sullivan put the statements down on the table and looked up at his partner.

"Even if Beckett did threaten to kill Queller, it was said in the heat of the moment." Sullivan said slowly. "You should hear my sisters and what they say when they get into fights. This isn't enough to put her in the frame for killing Queller."

"Okay." McNulty replied. "Those statements might not but this might."

McNulty passed over the other file. Sullivan looked at it and his eyes widened with surprise. It was a War Department file.

"Where the hell did you get this from, McNulty?"

"I have a cousin who works in the Personnel section at the War Department. He got it for me."

"Are you even allowed to have this file?"

McNulty shrugged his shoulders in answer to that question. "Just read the file, will ya?"

Sullivan opened the file and found it contained the Personnel records of Kate Beckett. What he read surprised him. When he finished reading he looked up.

"We have motive and now we have means." McNulty declared.

"I don't know…" Sullivan said in a low voice.

"Let's put it to the Lieutenant and see what he has to say." McNulty suggested. "If anything, it's worth bringing her in for another round of questioning."

XXX

Ryan slowly closed the file he had been reading. It was the file of Jack Kowalski, the husband and suspect of the murder victim. It was not the first time he had read it and it would not be the last time he would go through it. The file on Kowalski made for interesting reading. The guy had a wrap sheet a mile long. There was a string of assault and battery charges, a couple of assaulting cop charges, larceny, grand larceny. Amongst all the charges there were a few stints in the big house. The guy and his tempter had been getting into trouble ever since he had been a kid.

The only reason he had gotten into the army was because the judge at Kowalski's trial had given him a choice, jail time or serving his country. Kowalski had chosen to enlist. Ryan could only wonder what his army record was like if his civilian record was anything to go by. Ryan made a mental note to request Kowalski's army record from the War Department.

Ryan started reaching for his telephone but stopped mid way. He had only called down to the front desk asking for an update on the all points bulletin he issued for Kowalski an hour ago. He slowly leaned back in his chair. There was no sense in annoying the desk sergeant needlessly, he told himself.

Looking up Ryan saw his partner approaching the desk.

"We still haven't got a hit on the APB yet, Demming." Ryan announced.

"Don't worry, we will." Demming replied confidently.

"How can you be sure?"

"The guy might be laying low at the moment..."

"There's plenty of places to hole up in this city." Ryan interjected.

"True." Demming nodded. "But he's got a VA appointment tomorrow afternoon."

"What, you think he's just gonna show up?" Ryan said, surprised.

"If he wants his benefits approved, yeah, he's gonna show."

Ryan paused a moment to think that over and found himself nodding his head. In questioning the Kowalski's neighbours they had said that Kowalski had not been able to work because of his war injuries. Mary, his wife had been the only bread winner since he returned from the war. He started to smile.

"So we wait and pick him up tomorrow."

"That's what I'm thinking."

"I like the way you think, Demming."

The other detective bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"What about that other matter, what'd you find out?" Ryan asked, changing the subject.

"Not here." Demming replied in a low voice.

He cast a furtive glance in the direction of the nearest desk to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Ryan looked over in the same direction only to see McNulty sitting at his desk his face buried in a file. There was a smug smile on his face he noticed.

"You want to get a coffee?" Demming asked in his normal voice.

Ryan still had a half drunk cup of coffee sitting on his desk and he was about to decline the offer when he caught his partner's drift.

"Yeah, I could use one." Ryan responded as he got to his feet. He grabbed his cup and set off for the break room with Demming following him.

Demming walked straight to the sink where he picked up a cup from the collection that were sitting there. He checked to make sure it was clean before he moved to the coffee pot and poured himself some coffee.

"So, what did you find out?" Ryan asked.

Demming took a sip from his cup before he answered.

"I spoke to a friend of mine over at the 18th." Demming started.

"And?"

"This guy knows more about Dempsey and the Westies than anyone else in this city."

"Good for him." Ryan said a little sharply. "What did he give you? Did you get a name?"

"He gave me a couple of names we can follow up." Demming reported. "Donal O'Keefe and Patrick O'Shaunassy."

"That's great."

"He also said that there's word on the street saying Dempsey has himself a new enforcer on the payroll." Demming added.

"Jackie Coonan is Dempsey's enforcer." Ryan pointed out.

"He still is but this new guy has been doing special jobs for the boss."

"What kind of special jobs?"

Demming shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody knows." He said. "Or if they do, they're not talking."

Ryan looked at Demming and began to frown. What he knew about Jackie Coonan was that Dempsey's right hand man was not the kind of man to take too kindly if someone was muscling in on what he considered his territory, even if it had been ordered by Dempsey himself.

"So this special enforcer is working with the approval of our Jackie." Ryan mused aloud.

"Yeah, it looks that way." Demming nodded.

"Has to be family."

Demming shrugged his shoulders in response.

The more he thought about it the more Ryan liked that idea. If anything it was worth looking into it. Ryan looked at his partner.

"Demming you check out the names your pal gave you."

"What about you?"

"I'm gonna check out the family angle."

"Okay, works for me." Demming announced as the two men left the break room.

XXX

Lieutenant Montgomery walked through the bullpen on the way to his office thankful that the meeting at Police Headquarters with the Chief of Detectives was finally over. The Chief of D's had summoned the homicide squad leaders of all of the Manhattan precincts.

Montgomery had emerged from the meeting relatively unscathed. The Chief had tried to turn the blow torch on him but Montgomery had been able to hold his own. He had his precinct's fact and figures either at his finger tips or could recite them off the top of his head. He had been able to provide suitable answers to all the questions the Chief had fired at him. The Chief had given him some heat about the Queller case but Montgomery had been able to show his boos that he and his people had done everything they could.

There had been some of Montgomery's colleagues at the meeting who did not fair so well. The Lieutenant in charge of the homicide squad at the 34th had been torn a new one by the Chief because of his team's low clearance rate. Lieutenant Jim Moloney had been head of homicide at the 34th for over five years with an unspectacular record to show for all his time there. It was whispered that the only reason he had gotten promoted to Lieutenant and given the homicide squad at the 34th was because he had been a favourite or a distant relative of the previous Chief of Detectives.

Moloney had not helped his cause when he could not answer most of the questions the Chief had fired at him. Montgomery and his colleagues around the table were forced to sit as silent witnesses as Lieutenant Moloney squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. There was not a man at the table, Montgomery included, who was not silently grateful it was Moloney on the receiving end of the Chief's tirade and not them.

Catching sight of Ryan sitting at his desk Montgomery shook off the thoughts about his meeting with the Chief of Detectives.

"Ryan, where you at with the Kowalski case?" Montgomery called out.

Ryan hurriedly dropped the file he had been reading and looked over to where the Lieutenant was standing.

"Ah...we've issued an APB on the husband, sir."

"You think he looks good for it?"

"Yeah we do." Ryan nodded. "The guy's got a wrap sheet a mile long."

"Okay, good. Keep me up to date."

"You got it, sir."

Montgomery's eyes fell on the empty desks belonging to Detectives McNulty and Sullivan.

"Where are those two?" Montgomery pointed to the empty desks.

"Don't know, sir but they haven't gone far."

Montgomery nodded his head and headed for his office.

A couple of minutes later McNulty and Sullivan returned to their desks...

XXX

Lieutenant Montgomery finished reading the statements he had been given. It did not take him long to go through them. Years of reading statements from victims and suspects had taught him the art of speed reading.

Slowly he lifted his gaze from the statements in his hands to look at the two detectives standing in front of his desk. He looked from Sullivan to McNulty. Sullivan had a slight nervous look about him as he waited for Montgomery's response. McNulty on the other hand had a confident, almost smug expression on his face. Montgomery glanced down at the statements before looking up at McNulty.

"You're going with a school girl bust up as a means of motive, detective?" Montgomery stated.

"Yeah, I am, Lieutenant." McNulty replied, nodding his head for emphasis.

Montgomery dropped the statements on his desk and leaned back in his chair.

"Well, McNulty, it ain't gonna fly."

McNulty nodded his head and then produced the file he had been holding.

"Perhaps this might change your mind sir." McNulty said as he stepped up to the Lieutenant's desk and handed him the file.

"What's this?" Montgomery said as he took the file.

"Take a look, sir."

The Lieutenant opened the file and found himself holding a copy of a War Department personal file. The file belonged to Kate Beckett. He gave the first page of the file a cursory look before he closed the file and placed it on his desk.

"I already know about her war record, McNulty." Montgomery said crisply.

"Then you know that she had been trained in hand to hand combat as well as in the use of knives, sir." McNulty said.

"What's your point, Detective?"

Montgomery was ready to berate both detectives for having taken time off their current case to spend time on a case that had been shelved.

"My point, sir." McNulty said, emphasising each word carefully. "Is that Beckett has had training to be able to inflict the kind of wounds that were found on the victim. Also, Beckett and our victim had a great big falling out in the last year of high school. Beckett was heard to make threats against the victim. You have read the statements of three of those witnesses. Beckett had means and she had motive."

"It's pretty flimsy, McNulty."

"Surely it's enough to bring her in for further questioning, Lieutenant?"

"What, are you expecting to get a confession out of her?" Montgomery retorted.

"I've managed to get confessions out of suspects with even less evidence." McNulty boasted.

Montgomery regarded McNulty carefully. The man looked confident that he could get a confession out of Kate Beckett if he was to bring her in. The Lieutenant turned his gaze to Sullivan.

"What have you got to say, Sully?"

"Well, it's such a high profile case, sir. We need to cover all bases. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to bring her in and ask a few questions. If for no other reason than to eliminate her as a suspect once and for all, Lieutenant."

Montgomery nodded his head slowly as he weighed up what Sullivan had put forward. The Chief of Detectives had not been very happy at Montgomery for having put the Queller murder case on the back burner, even though Montgomery had very valid reasons for doing so. Montgomery could well imagine how unhappy the Chief would be if he got word that there had been a possible suspect in the case who had not been brought in for questioning. What had happened to Lieutenant Moloney from the 18th would seem like child's play compared to what the Chief would do to him.

"Alright," Montgomery sighed, having reached a decision. "Bring her in for questioning."

"Thanks, Lieutenant." McNulty smiled.

XXXXX