Brad Parks - The Good Cop

The more I talked, the deeper the crease in her forehead became. “Mmmm…” she said, like she was considering this.

“So … I thought perhaps the investigating officer would like to know about what I saw,” I said, then I shut up because it was feeling like time for Captain Boswell to start contributing to the conversation.

“Well, at this point, we don’t have an investigating officer,” she said. “I had been of the understanding that there was nothing to investigate.”

“Nothing?” I said. “But what about the marks on Kipps’s arms and legs?”

She took a long moment, then said, “To be honest-and this is off-the-record-I was unaware of those until your story broke. They would have been included in the autopsy report, of course. But even under the best circumstances, it takes the medical examiner several days, if not several weeks, to get us an autopsy report. So that hasn’t become part of our investigation yet.”

“But now that you know about them, you’ll reopen your investigation, yes?” I asked.

A simple “yes” was all I needed to give me the follow-up I had been looking for, but she only allowed, “At this point, I can’t say.”

This, I must say, perplexed me. I had thought this conversation, while guarded, would be fairly cut and dry: I’d say what I know, and she’d act. I hadn’t expected more uncertainty, unless …

“Does this … does this have something to do with an Internal Affairs investigation?” I asked. “We had heard something about that early on…”

She shook her head. “I can’t talk about that. Anything involving IA is strictly confidential. That’s department policy.”

“So you guys are sticking with ‘self-inflicted gunshot wound’?”

“For now, yes.”

“But … how do you explain those marks on his arms and wrists? Someone tied the man to a-”

She was again shaking her head. “I don’t mean to be dodging your questions, Mr. Ross, and they’re good questions. But I really can’t say anything more.”

“Are you saying he tied himself to a chair?”

From behind me, Hightower coughed. Captain Boswell didn’t look at him or even seem to notice it, but the noise broke what little rhythm I had going.

“Is there anything else you have to tell me?” she asked.

“No, I guess not. You know my paper is still going to run with the story about the autopsy photos.”

“And that’s your right to do that,” she said.

She smiled again. I got the feeling that while she took Kipps’s death personally, none of the rest of the maneuvering associated with it was personal to her. It was the job.

I guess that’s one way you get to be the first female precinct captain in Newark history: you learn to separate the two.

* * *

We finished up with some polite but entirely uninformative small talk, and soon my long-limbed escort was leading me back through the dimly lit hallway and down the stairs. I figured he’d stop once we reached the main door, but he kept going as we went down the front steps.

“Might as well go the whole way,” he said, seemingly reading my thoughts. “You get mugged and it messes up our CompStat numbers, and then the captain would get all pissed at me.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” I said.

When we got to the sidewalk, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes-likely his real motivation for going outside.

“That your ride?” he asked, nodding at my Malibu.

“Yeah, it’s bitchin’, ain’t it? The ladies can’t get enough of it.”

He let out a deep laugh, lit his cigarette, and took a draw.

“Drive carefully,” he said.

Smoke carefully , I thought. But instead I just said, “Thanks, Officer. Have a nice night.”

On my short drive back to Eagle-Examiner headquarters, I pondered what very little new information I had gleaned from Captain Boswell. Really, the only semiuseful thing she said was when I asked her about Kipps and Internal Affairs. This is me reading into things, sure. But when someone says, “I can’t talk about that ,” it suggests there is something to be discussed.

I returned to the office determined to lean on Buster Hays until he gave up what he had, especially now that I had the necessary inducement: while I was gone, Ruthie Ginsburg-God bless industrious interns everywhere-had e-mailed me a completed Good Neighbors. It was about Stephen Rosenberg of Livingston, who had planned, fund-raised, and created a picnic area in Riker Hill Art Park as his Eagle Scout project. It more than met the high standards we expected of our Good Neighbors pieces, which is to say it appeared to have letters, spaces, and punctuation in approximately the correct distribution.

At the end of the e-mail, Ruthie wrote, “When can we talk about the Eighteenth Avenue town houses? I got some great stuff for you about that and the neighborhood.”

I actually felt a little badly all that “great stuff” was going to die in his notebook. But he would hardly be the first reporter to have that happen to him. Anyone who has been around this business for more than a minute has had to eat a story they thought was dynamite.

Looking over to the small armada of unassigned desks where we corralled the interns, I didn’t see Ruthie. Perhaps, having tested enough toilet water and uncovered enough good deeds for one day, he had gone home. I rattled off a hasty thank-you e-mail, then printed out a copy of the story and took it over to the wrinkled dean of the newsroom himself.

“Okay, Buster, give it up,” I said. “I got your Good Neighbors right here. I want IA.”

Buster had been concentrating on his computer, looking at it with his usual contempt, like he wished it would turn back into a typewriter, his preferred drafting instrument. He turned and peered at me from over a pair of reading glasses.

“I’m on deadline, Ivy,” he said. “You’re going to have to wait until I’m filed. Contrary to what your parents have probably been telling you your whole life, the sun doesn’t rise and set out of your ass.”

“A deal is a deal.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me five minutes.”

I rolled my eyes-not that he saw it-and retreated to my desk. I tried calling Paul/Powell and was again requested to consider my eternal and everlasting death. This time I left a quick message: “Powell, it’s Carter Ross at the Eagle-Examiner . Kira said you were looking for me. Give me a call.”

Returning to my desk, I saw I had a fresh e-mail. It was from “Thompson, Tina” and had the subject line, “???” which made me cringe as I clicked on it. What had I done wrong this time?

But it was just one line: “Want to have dinner with an aging voodoo sperm witch tonight?”

I considered this for a moment. Did I? Tina had been such a pill lately, I was actually looking forward to spending less time around her, not more. Then again, it’s not like I had any pressing plans-watching college basketball with Deadline curled up against my leg didn’t count-and maybe Chief Tina was finally making a peace offering. We could use a burying of the hatchet.

I looked over to Tina’s office, which was dark. She hadn’t been in there for at least ten minutes-we had those motion-sensing lights that shut off after so long. I fired back a quick, “Sure. Details?”

As I awaited a reply, I heard Buster bellow from a few desks over, “Okay, Ivy, I’m filed. Let’s do this.”

I grabbed the printout of Ginsburg’s story and returned to Buster’s desk.

“Let’s see that Good Neighbors,” he said.

I slid the story in his direction. He adjusted his granny glasses and took a quick gander at the top.

“You farming out your dirty work to interns now?”

I summoned my best impersonation of Buster’s Bronx accent and repeated the words he had said to me earlier in the day: “I do what I need to do in order to survive in this cruel world.”