The Sons of Mount Carmel - Chapter 5 (Scenes:2, 3...) (An NYPD Murder Mystery Novel)

The Father Manny Gonzalez murder was her case. She’d caught it.

She had to be present to witness Father Gribbon’s formal identification of the body at the ME’s Office; she had to observe the autopsy; all supporting detective investigative reports were forwarded to her; she maintained the case file; she’d be the one to submit affidavits to a judge for a search warrant; she’d be the one to testify before the Grand Jury when they made an arrest; she’d be the primary detective to testify in court if it went to trial; she’d be the one the media would most often identify in connection with the investigation.

Other detectives—over time—would be reassigned to other cases, but she’d be the one detective on this case until it was broken and beyond. Not Sergeant Tazzo. Not even Geddes.

Other than her, only Ryan would be as consumed by—and have access to—every element of the case.

Did Ryan know she would back off, she wondered. That she was in no position to take him on. She’d been with Ryan. She’d had sex with this married man. Her boss. Her stomach sank with that realization again. Now, she knew she was up against the very real consequences of her choices. She knew being with him would catch up with her, and it now had. It didn’t take long.

Silently she continued to stand in front of Ryan and Tazzo when there was a sudden knock on the door. Geddes—leaning on the doorknob—pushed open the door before being invited in. They each shifted their tense gaze at him.

“What’s up?” Ryan said.

“We just got a call from the lab. It looks like the bullet recovered from the rectory kitchen matches a round recovered at a bank robbery in the Lower East Side this morning. The perp fired a shot into the wall behind the bank manager’s desk and threatened to put the next round into his face. He took off with a little over three grand.”

“You’re kidding,” Tazzo said. “What’s Manhattan Robbery have to say?”

“They’ve got a description, but the guy was wearing a black wool cap over his face. They looked at the bank video. Can’t see the guy’s face at all. The witnesses say he’s a male Hispanic, five-six to five-eight, slim build. The bank manager noticed a small red tattoo on the back of his hand. Looked like a heart to her.”

“What caliber?” Ryan said.

“Nine millimeter…just like ours.”

“What’d he sound like?” Toni said. “Accent?”

“He had a lisp. Spanglish accent. One of the tellers said it sounded just like a guy she went to high school with. Manhattan Robbery has an I.D. on him. His name’s Ernesto Cruz. Turns out he’s got a rap sheet.”

“What’s his last known address?” Toni said.

"Parole said he's at an S.R.O. somewhere on the Upper West side. He got out of Dannemora about a month ago. He did twelve years for a bodega robbery and attempt murder. He shot the owner behind the counter," Geddes said.

“Manhattan Robbery sitting on his last known address?” Toni said.

“Yeah, they are,” Geddes said.

“All right,” Ryan said. “I want you and Toni sitting on that S.R.O. with Manhattan Robbery,”

“Wait a minute, Loo,” Toni blurted. “We need to get back to the rectory and do a thorough search. We told Father Gribbons we’d be back to do that.”

“Why didn’t you do it while you were there this morning?”

This is not good, she thought. What’s going on here?

“For one thing we wanted to notify you about Father Manny in person, so we left the scene sooner than we wanted to,” Toni’s voice started to rise. “Plus we thought it would be important to talk to Cohen as soon as possible since we were told she could’ve been the last person with the priest before he was shot.”

“Toni," Tazzo said and gave her the boss look.

The office was quiet for a few long moments.

Ryan spoke up. “I want you and Geddes with Manhattan Robbery, got it.”

“Ryan…I mean Loo,” Toni caught herself. The unwritten protocol in the NYPD was a boss could refer to a subordinate by their first name, but a subordinate never used the boss’s first name unless they had a personal relationship of some sort, and, in any case, never in the presence of others, if they did. You could get away with the slang for the rank: Sarge for Sergeant or Loo for Lieutenant, but not their first name.

Toni continued, “We can’t keep Father Gribbons and his staff from going into Father Manny’s office indefinitely. If we don’t get back there to do a search, we got to release it.”

"Then release it," Ryan said. "You're not going to find anything about his murderer in his second-floor office anyway."

“Wait a minute…” Toni blurted.

Toni knew one thing she'd be looking for in Father Manny's second-floor office was the journal he would write in before going to bed as Father Gribbons mentioned. Gribbons said it should be on his desk. There could be something in his personal journal that would put some light on what his concerns were and who the killer could be. There was no way she’d tell Ryan about the journal now. Something had spooked him and she couldn’t trust him. This is not good, she thought.

"Wait a minute…" Toni started to say again, but Geddes held her elbow and said, "We got it, boss," as he guided Toni out of the office.

After Toni stepped out of Ryan’s office and closed the door behind them, Geddes looked down to Toni. “What’s up Bulldog?”

Straightaway she wondered what Ryan would be up to while they waited for Ernesto Cruz with Manhattan Robbery. She had no doubt Ryan put her on the stakeout to keep her out of the picture for a while. Ryan could’ve put anybody to sit and wait for that suspect to show up.

It didn’t make sense for the detective who caught the case to waste hours waiting for one guy while she should be doing a thorough search of the Mount Carmel rectory and Father Manny's second-floor office. But Ryan knew just what he was doing, Toni figured.