Jason Pinter - The Mark

Joe felt his knee joints groan as he climbed out of the car. Denton slid on a pair of designer sunglasses, his blond hair fitting in perfectly with the young men and women carrying thick valises who crowded the streets. Tanned and toned bodies looking healthy and vigorous in the bronzed sunlight. Ready to take their place among the proletariat of NewYork City.

“You’re gonna ruin your part,” Mauser said, pointing at Denton’s hair. Denton ran a hand through it, combed it back into place with his fingers, laughed.

“You’re a prick,” he said with a grin. Mauser felt more relaxed. Maybe the rumors about Denton were bogus. The guy was rubbing off on him. “Come on, let’s go talk to Ms. Loverne.”

Mauser admired the building’s facade, the clean red brick, like the vandals had too much respect to desecrate it with their “art.” He watched as pedestrians strolled with their heads held high, too high to see the dirt at their feet. One thing Mauser had learned over the years was that students, almost to a one, viewed the world from the inside of a fishbowl. They had the bigger points covered-genocide in Kamchatka, illegal whale hunting in the Arctic Circle, shit like that. But if you asked about anything relevant to their lives they’d look at you with glazed eyes and go right back to sipping their double-mocha lattes.

Parker was just another in a growing line of young shit-heads who felt they put on their pants two legs at a time. They gain a little fame, a little notoriety, and suddenly they’re Edward R. Murrow.

Mya Loverne’s building had no doorman, only an antiquated buzzer system with a small camera for tenants to view their visitors from the comfort of their Jennifer Convertibles. Mauser found the directory on the wall, ran his finger down until it came to a stop at M. Loverne. Apartment 4A.

Denton pressed the gray nipple and waited. Mauser shuffled around, anxiety building inside him. Every moment they waited was more time for Parker to run. Denton pressed the buzzer again. Ten, fifteen, twenty seconds later, and still no answer.

“Screw this,” Mauser said. He pushed Denton aside and jammed his thumb on the call button. He held it there for a full minute, then released for five seconds, then jammed it down again. Finally a tired female voice answered.

“Who is it? Henry?”

Denton tried to stifle a laugh. Mauser elbowed him in the kidney.

“Ms. Loverne?” Denton said.

“Who is this?”

“Ms. Loverne, my name is Leonard Denton, FBI.”

“Excuse me? Why…what’s the matter?” Denton waited a few seconds to let her heart rate build up. Get her good and fearful.

Then he pressed the intercom again and said, “We need to talk about your boyfriend, Henry Parker.”

“Is there…do you have any identification or something?”

Denton held his government ID with the elegant blue FBI seal to the camera. After a moment of hesitation, the buzzer rang and Denton pulled the door open. He looked at Mauser, a blank stare on the older cop’s face.

“And away we go.”

I reread the story. Blood, thick like cement, swirled and pounded in my head. Misunderstandings. Errors of judgment. Callousness. Human frailty. Weakness. All of it was quantifiable, rectified by specific reactions. Errors could be fixed. Misunderstandings explained. Human frailty bolstered by gaining strength.

I’d dealt with all of these in my investigative journalism. But the emotions I felt when I read those words were completely foreign. There was no rational explanation as to how suddenly I was wanted for killing a police officer.

I’d always wanted to report about crime, corruption. Men and women convinced they’d get away with it, until I proved they couldn’t. And now, with my picture splashed across thousands of newspapers all over the city, I’d become exactly who I’d hoped to expose. True reporters only want the story. They never want to be the story. And now here I was. The hero of the day.

I read the story again.

Reporter, 24, Kills Police Officer

During Failed Drug Bust

In what has been described by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as a heinous act of violence against one of the city’s most beloved peace officers, Detective Jonathan A. Fredrickson, 42, was shot and killed late last night while investigating a drug deal gone sour. The alleged shooter, Henry Parker, 24, a recent Cornell graduate and a junior reporter at the New York Gazette, fled the scene and has yet to be apprehended.

According to Commissioner Kelly, Fredrickson was responding to the site of an alleged heroin exchange in an apartment building at 2937 Broadway in Spanish Harlem. It remains unclear whether the tenants, Luis and Christine Guzman, were involved in the deal. The building’s superintendent, Grady Larkin, 36, admitted to hearing strange noises coming from the Guzmans’ apartment, which he relayed to Officer Fredrickson when he arrived at the scene. Fredrickson apparently discovered the Guzmans tied and beaten, and upon confronting the assailant, still present at the scene, was shot with his own gun in the ensuing struggle. Larkin claims to have seen Parker running from the crime scene, carrying a bag that may or may not have contained the alleged narcotics.

Luis Guzman, 34, on parole for armed robbery in 1994, and his wife were being treated at an undisclosed medical facility for wounds suffered in the attack.

Luis Guzman is listed in stable condition with a fractured jaw and three broken ribs and was unable to comment. Christine, 28, is suffering from a concussion and facial lacerations.

“He hit me,” Christine said of Parker’s brutalization. “He hit me a lot. I was screaming at him to stop, but he kept hitting my husband until he couldn’t talk anymore.”

She continued, “That policeman died to protect us from Henry Parker. We could both be dead. He sacrificed his life. We will never forget what he gave for us.”

And, according to several sources within the NYPD and FBI, neither will New York’s finest.

Said Kelly at an early morning press conference, “This city will not rest until Officer Fredrickson’s killer is found. This investigation will be the very definition of swift justice.”

The local branch of the FBI has been called in to aid in Parker’s capture. The Assistant Director in Charge of the New York City FBI branch, Donald L. West, said his agents would receive special jurisdiction to cross state lines if found that Parker has fled the state.

Detective Fredrickson is survived by his wife, Linda, and two children.

The pounding blood in my head slowly came to a boil.

He hit me, she said.

Christine Guzman lied to the police. So did Grady Larkin, the superintendent, a man I’d never met. The world had collapsed onto itself, and I was caught in the middle.

It had to be a dream. I was a college graduate, had just started my dream job at a respected newspaper. I was supposed to do great things, accomplish my goals, all the good stuff that would secure me respect and money, and give my reputation longevity. And now I was accused of killing a policeman. A husband. A father. A man who protected the world from criminals. Like me. How was this possible? John Fredrickson-a fucking cop-had nearly beaten two people to death, almost killed me in the process, and now I was facing the vengeance of an entire city.

Drugs. A heroin deal. That’s what the paper said. That’s what Fredrickson must have been looking for, and what the papers assumed I stole. But why would a cop go to such brutal lengths to retrieve drugs? And why did Christine claim they didn’t have it, risking all three of our lives?

And why would a cop, with a family no less, risk everything by beating two unarmed people nearly to death?