Obsessed, p.20
Obsessed, page 20
I said, “Been out a long time. He lives north of here in Mount Vernon.”
“That surprises me. He was a big hitter with big tastes. I figured him for Miami or LA.”
“You know if he ever committed any serious violence? Was he suspected of any homicides?”
“I heard the Newark PD thought he was good for a double murder of some local dealers down there. Each dealer was shot in the face once. It eliminated anyone in competition with Tassick.”
“So it was all business?”
“I guess you could look at it that way. Why would that matter? A homicide is a homicide.”
I gave him a quick outline of my case.
Then Horvath gave me an insight I hadn’t even considered. He said, “Maybe he missed the thrill. Maybe this is how he gets his kicks now. The only way he can cope.”
Chapter 86
MY DAY WENT by in a blur.
Sitting at the dinner table with everyone, including my grandfather, Seamus, took my mind off the case for a little while. Listening to the chatter among the kids never failed to entertain me.
Eddie said, “I beat Fiona playing Horse on the basketball court at Holy Name.”
That surprised me. I stole a glance at Fiona but couldn’t read her expression. Maybe it did happen.
That’s where Eddie, like many teenage boys, made his mistake. He kept running his mouth. “I sank one from the top of the key and I even did an old-school skyhook like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. She just couldn’t close it out.” He had a broad smile as he looked across the dinner table.
It must’ve been too much for Fiona to take. She blurted out, “I spotted him H-o-r-s. And I made the shot from the top of the key too.”
Eddie was quick to say, “Part of our bet was that if I won, you couldn’t tell anyone about spotting me four letters.”
Fiona hung her head and said, “You’re right, I did. I’m sorry.”
In an instant, Fiona displayed the biggest difference between boys and girls around that age. She was mature enough to accept responsibility and admit she was wrong. I was happy her basketball skills were so solid that she was confident enough to give her brother such a competitive advantage.
After all the dinner plates were cleared, I approached Jane as she sat at the end of the table, working on calculus. I slid into the seat next to her. In a classic, smart teenage girl move, she simply turned her head and said, “What?” in a flat tone.
“I was wondering if you could help me navigate Facebook.”
Jane set down her pen and looked at me. “I’m sixteen, Dad. I don’t use Facebook. That’s for elderly people.”
I guess I hadn’t realized the change in technology. Then I heard Seamus clear his throat. I looked at him, standing in the kitchen doorway. I said, “Don’t tell me. You’re a Facebook expert.”
“And I’m elderly. Just what you’re looking for.” My grandfather stepped over to the table and sat down next to me. I noticed Jane used that as an excuse to gather her book and slip away. Seamus said, “The word expert implies study and schooling. I just use Facebook to promote the church and keep up with friends and parishioners. Why do you need help?”
I told him what I was trying to do.
My grandfather looked shocked. He said, “You’d have your daughter work on a homicide?”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought he was kidding. I said, “This is basic. I’m looking for connections. That’s all.”
Twenty minutes later, we’d looked through the profiles of my suspects. William Tassick had an old profile with no activity in the past year. As we looked back, I realized he had started his account just after he was released from prison. It looked like he was married with a young son. A cute boy about seven or eight years old, who would be a teenager now.
We looked at the profile of Coach Perry Martin. Michelle Finnegan was right. He had a beautiful family. Super-cute kids and a pretty wife. But most of his posts were about football or exercise. Nothing remotely negative or related to the case.
Seamus looked further back on the coach’s timeline and then followed a couple of links. He said, “Looks like this guy was engaged to a different woman before he married this one.” He showed me a link to an announcement of the engagement. Sure enough, it was a different girl. I wondered what had happened.
Seamus navigated to the woman’s profile. She worked as the sports director at a youth center. And it was in the Bronx. How convenient.
Chapter 87
I WANTED TO talk to Coach Perry Martin’s former fiancée to gather some background. Cindy McCallister’s profile showed her employment as a youth specialist and listed the youth center where she worked, located off Rosedale Avenue in the Bronx.
The place had a good reputation for serving local underprivileged neighborhoods. If kids had more role models and safe spaces like this and YMCAs, the country would need way fewer cops. I think everybody would be on board with that.
I pressed the button at the main gate. A stout metal fence ran around the entire perimeter to keep people not involved with the youth center out. That was a good idea. The door to the small administration building opened and an extremely heavyset African American man about fifty ambled down the path to meet me.
He didn’t say anything. He just waited for me to speak.
“I’m looking for Cindy McCallister.”
The man looked over his shoulder at the administration building, then back at me. Something about his facial expression and eyes made me think he was asking me, Why?
I pulled out my badge and ID. “I need to ask her a couple of questions about something unrelated to the center.”
The man unlocked the gate and tilted his head for me to follow him. We walked around the administration building. The man’s pace never changed. He waved to a half dozen different kids and they waved back. Three young men slapped him high fives as they passed. The kids obviously respected this guy. After a little trek past groups getting tutoring for schoolwork at some picnic tables, the silent man pointed to a woman in her mid-thirties with brown hair tied in a ponytail. She was showing some young men how to box someone out under a basketball net. Then she stepped back and hit a perfect jumper. This was someone Fiona would like to meet.
The silent man who had led me back here didn’t speak to Cindy either. He just pointed at me and she nodded.
Cindy McCallister greeted me with a smile that would cheer anyone up. I could tell this was a young woman who spent most of her days involved in physical activity. There was no fat on her.
I nodded toward the man who’d let me through the gate. “He doesn’t say a whole lot, does he?”
She said, “As a result, when he does speak, everyone listens. It’s magical when he can draw order out of chaos on the basketball courts. He’s a retired firefighter.”
I explained to her that I had a case I was investigating with a number of people I had to eliminate as suspects. I left out the details. Then I mentioned Coach Perry Martin’s name.
“Perry’s not in trouble, is he? I couldn’t see him doing anything too bad.”
“Like I said, I’m trying to eliminate people from my suspect list. You answered my main question: what kind of guy he is. Why did you two break off the engagement?”
“He’s a good guy. He’s a good fifteen-year-old. Trapped in an adult body. Basically, I broke off the engagement because he was just so tough to pin down on things. All he cared about was football. Anything he thought would give him an edge, he’d try it. Whether it was ankle weights to strengthen his knees or eating foods he’d read might give him more energy. If he saw something that interested him, he’d drop whatever he was doing and move on. He once disappeared for three days to take up fly-fishing in the Adirondacks.”
“So you’re saying he was immature?”
“Impulsive is a better word. Either way, he’s ancient history. I heard he’s married with a couple of kids now. Maybe that’s forced him to focus a little more.”
Even though Cindy McCallister hadn’t revealed anything earth-shattering, she had helped me. I decided I needed to knock Perry Martin off my list as quickly as possible to focus on William Tassick. Maybe I should just stop doing interviews altogether. It felt like every time I did one, I was further away from solving this case.
Chapter 88
WALTER JACKSON HAD given me a carload of information on William Tassick. Even though he had entered the case late as a suspect, his criminal history was remarkable. Born in San Diego, he had been arrested by age twenty-one for selling cocaine, assault on a police officer, unlawful display of a firearm, and disorderly conduct four separate times. It looked like for all of those infractions, the most Tassick ever received as far as punishment was two years’ probation. Later, when he hit the big time, he finally saw the inside of a prison cell.
Before I could focus my attention on William Tassick, I waited on hold with the Syracuse Police Department. I recalled Martin saying he had played at Syracuse. I’d already called the Syracuse University police, and they had nothing on Perry Martin. For some reason, the sergeant I talked to suggested that I call the Syracuse city police.
After going through three different detectives, I was waiting to speak to a sergeant who’d been in the department for more than twenty years. Just as I was about to hang up in frustration, a woman came on the line.
“This is Sergeant Pagan. Someone said you’re asking about a case from sixteen years ago. I’m afraid unless it was a capital case or had some extenuating circumstances, the record has almost certainly been purged.”
I said, “That’s what I’ve been told. Apparently an officer at the university police thought you guys might know a name connected to a case I’m working.”
She spent a few moments making sure I was actually a detective with the NYPD. We knew some of the same people, and she seemed satisfied. Finally, I was able to say, “Does the name Perry Martin ring a bell with you?”
She hesitated, then said, “What’s this about?”
I gave her a quick rundown on the case and told her I was trying to clear Perry Martin to focus on other suspects.
Sergeant Pagan said, “Can we talk off the record for a moment?”
That wasn’t something you heard when talking with another cop. Usually that was reserved for a reporter. And even then, it had to be a reporter you trusted. I said, “Yeah, sure.”
She started slowly. I could hear the stress in her voice. Sergeant Pagan said, “I remember the case pretty clearly. It was just so odd. Your man, Martin, was a lineman for the Syracuse team. It was in the early fall, and we had a report of an assault. I was brand-new in the D Bureau. It involved a pretty freshman who’d been punched hard in the face. Her shirt was ripped, and she was inconsolable. Anyway, she said she went on a date with a blond Syracuse football player. When she wouldn’t agree to have sex with him, he got rough with her. She managed to get away. She took a cab directly to the police department. She told me exactly what happened. She wasn’t confused on her facts or in shock. I thought she was extremely credible. And she identified Perry Martin as her attacker. We sent a patrol officer to talk to Martin at his dorm. He confirmed he’d been on a date. He didn’t say much else.”
I was stunned. I confirmed with the sergeant Martin’s date of birth. We were talking about the same man. I said, “No arrests show up in his criminal history.”
“That’s why I’m talking to you off the record. It was a weird sequence of events. I was getting ready to file the case when the victim’s brother took a shot at Perry Martin with a .38 revolver. He didn’t think we would file a case for the assault because Martin was a football player.
“The state attorney hated the idea of charging the brother, and everyone came to an agreement to drop all of the investigations. No one was ever charged with any crimes. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to the Syracuse administration about the incident. They would’ve flipped out and kicked him off the team. I’m a little bothered by the whole situation even all these years later.”
I thanked the sergeant and sat at my desk for a moment as I considered everything she’d said.
I immediately called Terri Hernandez and asked her to meet here at my office. We had to look at Perry Martin much more seriously.
Chapter 89
I CONTINUED TO sit at my desk, considering what Sergeant Pagan had told me. Perry Martin had been a danger to women during college. Did that mean he was a murderer too? That could be a leap. I needed to fill in a lot of gaps in the case.
I spent an hour figuring out what I needed to verify about Perry Martin. Then I had my team with me. Terri Hernandez, Walter Jackson, and Harry Grissom all sat around a table in our squad bay. It took me about ten minutes to bring them completely up to speed.
Harry Grissom said, “This is all good info we could use to put together a case, but not nearly enough to charge a man with murder. I’m not dismissing the assault on a woman more than fifteen years ago. I’m saying that a defense attorney would eat us alive if we tried to introduce this information in court.”
Terri Hernandez chimed in. “And we’d have to really cover this from every angle. We’ve had so many suspects turn out to be dead ends that any conviction is going to be difficult at best.”
I looked at Walter Jackson to see how pessimistic he was.
He chuckled and raised his hands. “I just find the information out; you’re the one who has to make the case.”
I said, “We need to find a way to verify that he was calling The Girlfriend Experience. We can’t rely on a statement from Thomas Sloan.”
Walter said, “I’ve got about a dozen numbers that are connected to burner phones.” He picked up the sheet of numbers Allie Pritz had provided. NYPD tech guys had also managed to grab the records from Allie’s phone. Walter had done some reorganizing. Each sheet was arranged by the number that had called The Girlfriend Experience. Two of the phones had called the service only once. A few had called two times. There were three phones that had called the service multiple times. I studied the three sheets of paper. One of the phones had a big gap between a flurry of calls. Last year and this year the phone called in September, October, and November. Then it hit me.
I pulled out my phone and started scrambling to find the calendar. My colleagues just stared at me as I quickly checked each date. Then I looked up and said, “Every call from this phone listed on your sheet was during football season and most of the calls were on a Wednesday or Thursday. Martin’s ex-fiancée said he was always looking for an edge in football. Even Thomas Sloan told us the coach said it helped him focus and he called plays better on Fridays if he used The Girlfriend Experience.” I jabbed my finger on the page and said, “This is the phone we need to look at closely. Maybe we can get lucky and connect it to Martin.”
Harry Grissom nodded his head. “That’s as good a plan as any. Maybe we can find a way to use this young woman you guys found, Allie what’s-her-name.”
I immediately said, “Pritz. I’m not sure it’s worth the risk. She keeps calling, telling me she wants to help. But let’s see what we can find out first.”
No one lingered after our quick meeting. Everyone had a job to do, and we realized we needed to make an arrest before another girl ended up dead.
Chapter 90
EACH OF US jumped on an assignment. Terri tracked down info on the burner phone we were trying to link to Perry Martin. Walter scoured the computer for anything he could find that put Perry Martin in the vicinity of our homicide victims. Even Harry Grissom briefed command staff on what could be a touchy case. Once the media got wind of a string of connected homicides, there’d be a feeding frenzy. They liked nothing more than to report on a serial killer loose in New York.
I drove north to Yonkers, where Coach Martin lived at the end of a quiet street. The coach’s house was cute but tiny. I saw his little boy and girl playing in the front yard while their pretty mother looked on from a porch only big enough to hold two chairs. This didn’t look like the kind of place where a guy who could spend a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a night on dates lived. It looked like a schoolteacher’s house.
I felt a pang of sadness. The repercussions from a murder affect so many people. The victim, of course. The victim’s family is always devastated, sometimes torn apart. The other side of that coin, which few people ever look at, are the effects on the family of the killer. If Perry Martin was our killer, and we got a conviction, those poor kids would grow up without their father through no fault of their own. His young wife would be crushed and doubt every future relationship. I wanted to go tell Martin’s wife to grab the kids and leave right now. But I knew I couldn’t.
Suddenly I realized how Coach Martin could afford to call The Girlfriend Experience. Then I ran by the Bronxville Police Department to talk to my new friend Detective Ed Horvath.
He didn’t exactly seem thrilled to see me. His greeting was “What do you want now?”
“I’m just curious—have you noticed any problems out at the Wolfson Academy? When I was there one day, I heard someone mention some missing money.”
Horvath said, “Are you kidding me? Everything goes missing at that place. They lost about six thousand dollars in cash over the last year. The administration fired two secretaries and a janitor over it. Even after I told that goofy headmaster they couldn’t have been responsible. What an asshole.” Amid the mountain of paper on his desk and on top of the credenza behind him, he pulled one sheet out of a stack like he knew exactly where it would be.
“There were a couple of cars broken into over the year. The burglars knew exactly which ones to hit. They got five hundred dollars in cash from one and a computer from the other. Plus, a couple of the classrooms have been burglarized. The headmaster thinks it might be some of the students. I’m not so sure.”
