Robert Tanenbaum: Enemy within

Some short time after the completion of the homicide detectives' report, at eight-forty the following morning, and its delivery up the chain of command, the police department notified the district attorney's office that a police officer had killed someone. The part of the DA where the phone rings in such cases is called the special investigations bureau. It is located on the seventh floor of an ugly Depression-era building at 100 Centre Street. The criminal courts are here, and the DA's office, and the Tombs, which is what New York calls its jail. Normal homicides go directly to the homicide bureau. On the sixth floor, homicide is staffed with several dozen ADAs who believe that they are the best in the business at bringing killers to justice. Whether or not they are, it is undeniable that they work daily with the police force, and of necessity form close relationships with homicide detectives, and so when a police officer is the killer, homicide does not get the case. Instead, it goes to the seventh floor, where the people in special investigations never work with the cops at all, if they can help it. If they can't, special investigations has its own little police force, made up largely of retired police. Its chief target is official corruption, but it is also called in when any arm's-length distance from the NYPD is required, as here.

The person who took this particular call, just after ten, was the chief of the bureau, a man named Lou Catafalco. The bureau chief took the call himself because the caller was Chief Inspector Kevin X. Battle, from the police commissioner's office, which was nearly as high as you can get in the political side of the NYPD and still wear a blue uniform. Battle had a reputation as the man they called in when things became messy. He had served three police commissioners and knew where all the bodies were buried. Catafalco was therefore alert for something interesting, and perhaps a little fetid.

After the usual guy entree-sports, their respective golf games-Battle ushered in the main event. "Lou, why I called, we had a shooting last night, over on the Henry Hudson. Car chase, stolen vehicle, the actor attempted to ram the detective's car and he was shot. He died at the scene."

"Uh-huh. Okay, where's your guy? I'll send someone over right away."

"He's waiting for you at the Two-oh; but Lou? This is a little bit of a special case here."

Here it is, thought Catafalco. "Oh? Special in what way?"

"The officer involved is Brendan Cooley," said Battle, and paused to let that sink in.

"The poster boy."

"Him. So what we have here is not the kind of officer-and you know and I know that in thirty-nine thousand we're going to get a few of those-the kind that's heavy with his hands, that drinks, that's free with firearms. This is a splendid kid. He's got the police Medal of Valor, as you know, and here in this incident he risked his life to take down a dangerous felon."

"The deceased was a felon?"

"Yeah, a thief, a pro, sheet on him a yard long."

"Minority."

"Yeah, as it happens, but there again, you got a kid who's never had any trouble in that department. Now, Lou, I'm just telling you this as background. Obviously, we'll do our investigation, and you'll do yours independently. What I'm interested in here is doing the minimum damage to Detective Cooley's career. We need to get past this as smooth as we can."

Catafalco asked the obvious question. "How're they playing it?" He meant the press.

"Light. We had good control of the scene, the highway. Nothing in the News; the Times had a two-incher on A20. One mention on the metro part of the Today show. I don't think there's much to worry about on that end. Thug tries to kill cop, gets his, I think that's the story. I figure it to die pretty quick."

"There's the minority thing…"

"Yeah, that," said Battle smoothly, "but I'll tell you, Lou, the community will get cranky when it's a bad thing. Hell, we get cranky when it's a bad thing. The old lady, the kid with the water pistol shot in the back, the cop was drunk-I'm talking gross violations. This, on the other hand… well, your guy will see Cooley and Nash, his partner, who by the way is black, and the witnesses, one of whom is also minority, as a matter of fact, and read the report, you'll come to your own judgment. Steve Amalfi handled the case out of the Two-oh, he'll confirm, of course. All I'm saying's we'd like the system to work extra smooth on this one, grand jury in and out, so the kid can get back to his life."

Catafalco agreed that this would be a good thing for the kid. After some brief pleasantries, he hung up. He sat and thought for a while, lacing his fingers across his pear of a belly. Catafalco was a tall, heavy, untidy man in his late fifties, with a yellowish complexion and a slick of hair across his domed and freckled pate. He had been bureau chief here for over ten years, and while he had not rooted official corruption out of the isle of Manhattan, neither had he made any major political mistakes nor stepped on any important toes. He understood at some level that he was a placeholder, and that his bureau did not attract sterling talent. Special investigations ran no trials and so did not attract the bright, aggressive, and ambitious from among the new young lawyers who entered the DA each year. These went into the trial bureaus and, after a few years, if they were very good, into homicide. Catafalco was content with the less talented. He told himself that you didn't want flashy people, standouts, in special investigations, not for the slow, dull, but vital work of checking bank accounts and contracts and the mind-rotting task of, say, listening to all the telephone conversations of some suspiciously well-off elevator inspector. He himself was a methodical man, and he liked the slow, steady accumulation of evidentiary particles that, when pasted together, might sink a judge or a welfare clerk. Or a cop. He rose heavily and walked out of his office. Who to send? He heard a door open and a young man appeared in the hallway, a chubby, shortish man with an unfashionable fifties shoe-clerk haircut.

The bureau chief crooked a finger and said, "Flatow, come in here. I got something for you to do."

Back in his office, Catafalco settled into his big maroon leather chair. "You ever work a cop shooting before?"

"A cop got shot?"

"No, George, a cop shot someone. A cop gets shot, it goes to homicide. A cop shoots someone, kills him, like in this case, we handle it here." Catafalco saw the worry bloom on the youth's face and hastened to calm him. "It's no big deal, this one. A car thief tried to ram a cop car and they took him out. Basically, what you need to do is go down to the Two-oh and interview some people, the cops involved, get their story. Also you'll want to talk to the homicide investigators on the case. They'll be there, too. It's all set up-a boilerplate operation. Get the stories and schedule a grand jury session." Catafalco paused. "You ever present to the grand jury before?"

"Yeah, a couple of times, before they transferred me out of the trial bureau. But I never did a homicide."

"It's not a homicide," said Catafalco quickly, and then, "I mean, technically it is, there's a dead guy, but basically it's a formality in this particular case. The shooting's okay, no question of that. Our job is to process it through the system as clean as we can. In and out, ba-boom! Prep your witnesses, parade them up to the g.j., and get your no bill. You think you can handle that?"

"Sure, I guess." Flatow took a piece of paper out of his pants pocket, smoothed it on his knee, reached for a writing implement, found he had none, began to search again through the same pockets. The bureau chief, sighing inwardly, handed him a Bic. He then gave him the relevant names and a stringent time frame. Four grand juries-two in the morning and two in the afternoon-run continuously in New York County. It would not be hard to slip into one next week and get the whole thing over with.