James Patterson - Blindside

For a change, we weren’t racing the 8:45 deadline at Holy Name. Sister Helen, who had been taking over more of the early morning duties, looked shocked to see the van pull up almost six minutes early. A new record!

She even walked over to the van and leaned in the door as the kids scooted past her. “And how are you this morning, Michael?”

“Fine, Sister Helen. And you?”

“Like everyone else around here, thanking God you’re safe.” She wandered off without another word to me. It may have been the sweetest thing anyone from a Catholic school had said to me since I was six years old.

It gave me a little jolt to get my day started.

I burned up my phone on my ride north. After I stashed the van in a parking lot in Washington Heights, I had my first meeting in a Starbucks. I hate the chain restaurants and coffeehouses. I also hate that I like Starbucks coffee. But I had to go where people were willing to talk to me, and this was where Detective Teresita Hernandez wanted to meet. The eight-year veteran was waiting for me as I stepped through the front door, sitting alone at a two-person high-top in the corner, where no one would hear us.

As I approached, she slid a cup across the small, round table. She smiled as she said, “I remember old goats like you prefer simple black coffee.”

I had to laugh. She’d come a long way from a rookie detective in Manhattan North Homicide five years ago.

We caught up for a few minutes. She was working on her master’s degree in public administration at City College. Picturing Teresita on a college campus, I laughed at the idea of some young undergrad hitting on her. He’d think he was trying to impress a beautiful coed with long, dark hair, and she’d be deciding whether to break him in half like a pretzel.

Teresita had been my muscle sometimes when she worked in our squad. No street criminal worth his salt would ever admit that a female had roughed him up. Tough and fearless, she’d left one of the best jobs in the department because she believed she could make more of a difference in the Bronx.

It was probably true. And I respected it.

I said, “Your dad must be glad you’re working on a master’s degree.”

She shrugged. “He wanted me to join him in his accounting firm. But he sees what a difference a good cop can make, so he’s supportive. Quietly. Real quietly.”

Finally we got around to business when I said, “I don’t want to get you in any trouble, Terri. Thanks for meeting me.”

She waved me off. “How can I get in trouble when I’m not on duty yet and this isn’t an official meeting?” She waited a moment and added, “See? I learned a lot from you in Homicide. Besides, you saved my ass plenty of times.”

“To be clear, I’m trying to help on the homicide of the nurse and her daughter. Even though I saw the suspect during my own shooting incident.”

“The Bronx is getting stirred up about it. The Reverend Caldwell has been banging the drum pretty hard.”

I said, “I can see why he would. A white cop shoots a black resident.”

Terri laughed. “The reverend doesn’t see black and white. When something like this happens, he only sees green. You can’t believe how much money he collects. I heard he also gets a cut of any negotiated settlement.”

I moved back to what I was interested in. “You ever heard of a guy with the street name Tight?”

She shrugged, then took a quick look around the room. It was a police habit, but she was also making sure no one could hear us. “Just from our Homicide guys. They say he’s a possible suspect in our nasty double. The report I read said you gave the detectives the name after your shooting. From the description, he sounds like an oxy addict. And crazy. Scary crazy.”

“So you don’t know him?”

“No. And I haven’t been able to find out anything about him. I don’t know if it’s from fear or that he moves around a lot. He’s not clearly visible in the footage of your shooting. He stayed off to the side. Then there’s a blurry image as he backed away from you and tried to pull his gun.”

That surprised me. “There’s video of my shooting?”

“Yeah, but you can’t tell anyone. I was only allowed to see it because I’m helping with the mother-daughter homicide. But the footage is pretty clear. The guy you shot, Ronald Timmons Junior, had the drop on you. You showed good tactics. You should teach.”

I laughed out loud and said, “No one ever has suggested that before.”

Terri said, “Teach tactics, not tact. Or attitude. Or procedures—”

“I get it, I get it.”

“Or respect for command. Or …”

I left the Starbucks smiling.

CHAPTER 16

MY NEXT MEETINGwas a few blocks away. It wasn’t at a Starbucks. I saw the man waiting for me in Convent Garden on 151st Street. It was just cool enough that some of the remarkable flowers the place was known for were not blooming, and the wooden gazebo was empty. This should be a quick, casual meeting.

I approached the skinny African American man from the opposite end of the park. He stood in the shadow of a tree in a corner. I wanted to give him a chance to look around and to see me clearly. Maybe I was getting a little paranoid, but informants were not known for their loyalty. And there’d been more and more ambushes of police officers across the country.

His lanky frame leaned against a section of the tall metal fence that surrounded the park. The way he scratched his arm and shuffled back and forth on his feet made me realize he wasn’t using. Sometimes that was good and sometimes it was bad; I could never tell how it affected the information provided.

He noticed me. His eyes darted all around the park and the bits of street that could be seen beyond the bushes. He didn’t want to be seen talking to me, and I couldn’t blame him. No informant wants to be seen talking to a cop. Especially a cop whose face has been plastered all over the news.

He looked nervous, but then again he always did.

I said, “Hey, Flash, you doin’ okay?” I had never asked him how he got his street name. I probably didn’t want to know. It was my hope he was just a fast runner.

He merely nodded and scratched his neck with both hands. He looked frantic.

I said, “Can’t score anywhere?”

He said, “Does it look like I scored? Everyone come down so hard on pain pills, can’t find nothin’. H is easier to score. Don’t make no sense.”

I liked that he was comfortable enough with me to discuss felonies. But if cops only dealt with Boy Scouts as informants, nothing would ever get done. It wasn’t the seventies and I wasn’t in Narcotics, so I wouldn’t let him shoot up even if he had some. It was a tough part of the job that no one ever talked about: dealing with informants meant you were dealing with criminals and drug users.

I said, “Did you find out anything about the guy named Tight?”

“Could be I know him. Skinny as me. A little shorter. Dude’s wrapped way too tight. That’s how he got his street name.” He ran a hand over his close-cropped hair, then scratched it. He dug in his ear, too. I waited as he inspected whatever had come from his ear.

I said, “Real name?”

He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Who knows?” His brown eyes took another look around the green space. “I seen him around. He likes the pills just like me. He hit ’em a lot harder than I do. Says it’s his medicine.”

I didn’t think I had to add that technically it was medicine. It was just that people like him had ruined a useful tool for people in pain.

I said, “You know anything that could help me find this Tight?”

Flash shook his head.

We stood in an awkward silence until he said, “Ain’t you goin’ to ask me about the kid you shot? Ronald Timmons Junior?”