Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

For a second or two, confusion overtook the report so that Chris Collins was forced to back off and away from the camera. From out of the crowd emerged the doctor I’d spoken with on Monday. I noticed that the little guy hadn’t changed his clothes in all that time. The cameraman gave him a full body shot, then panned in. He wore that same tweed jacket, same white button-down shirt, same running shoes. His thick, curly black hair was mussed up. He wore a stethoscope around his neck. More for show, I thought, than need.

Chris Collins stuffed a microphone in his face. “Can you tell us, Dr. Fleischer, just what you know up to this point about Mr. Mastriano’s condition?”

Fleischer bowed his head toward the mike. He came close to pressing his lips against it. “Mr. Mastriano was brought to us yesterday afternoon,” he said pensively. “He bled badly from a wound in the back of the head, near the Circle of Willis.” Fleischer turned his head and pointed out the area on his own body to demonstrate for the viewers. “It then took me several hours to stem the bleeding and suture the lemon-sized wound. Mister Mastriano has never regained consciousness.”

“What, then, is his diagnosis, Doctor?” probed the reporter.

“It’s difficult for me to speculate. But if he pulls through, there’s a good chance that there will have been significant damage to the nervous system.”

“Can you speculate as to the extent, Doctor?”

“We’ll just have to wait…and pray.” Fleischer bowed his head, eyes focused on the floor.

Meanwhile the reporter turned back to the camera as the little doctor faded back into the crowd. “A decorated officer of the law, a dedicated son, struck down while in the line of duty. Just what questions does this unfortunate incident raise about the nature of crime and punishment in our community? How safe are our prisons? Just who is responsible for this lapse of security? Should Eduard Vasquez have been allowed outside prison grounds? Is it a habit that wardens allow cop-killers to just roam the city streets when they should be locked away safely behind bars? And if the warden allows a notorious killer like Vasquez out, shouldn’t he be certain that his corrections officers are prepared to handle a disaster such as the one that occurred yesterday afternoon, with weapons and a more concentrated support unit?”

The camera faded away from the reporter and zoomed in to Mastriano’s room where a short, rather plump woman with jet-black hair and equally black clothing was seated at the bedside, Mastriano’s lifeless hand in hers. Mastriano’s mother, no doubt. In a word, she looked destroyed. You could see the tears streaming down her face. Either she was putting on an act as good as her son’s or she was as fooled as the rest of the people surrounding him.

“This is Chris Collins reporting live from Newburgh General for Newscenter 13. Now back to our live broadcast of Good Morning America.”

I don’t think five seconds had elapsed before the phone rang.

I got up off the bed, turned off the TV, and picked up the receiver. I said Val instead of hello.

“Some crazy shit, huh boss?”

“I saw the report. Logan knows full well he’s forbidden to make any comments to the press.”

“Haven’t had your coffee yet, have you, boss?”

“Now I know Logan has got to be lying.”

“There’s a real problem here, isn’t there?”

“If I don’t start getting answers before fingers start pointing in all directions, it could mean any one of our asses in a sling.”

“When will you be in?”

“Later. I’ve got somebody to see up in Albany first”

“Anyone I know?”

“Norman,” I said. There was a sigh.

“Keeper,” Val said, “tell Mike I was asking for him.” Val Antonelli and Mike Norman had been something of an item not too long ago, until Mike’s moods and his drinking habits became a bit too much. Even though she found it impossible to be his girl, I couldn’t help but think that Val had a real soft spot for him. The strange thing, though, was that whenever she mentioned his name, I got sort of jealous. I knew it was silly, juvenile even. But I really couldn’t help the way I felt.

“Sure thing, Val,” I said, my free hand held out in front of my face, fingers crossed. “I’ll remember to give Mike your best.”

LT. MIKE NORMAN SAT in his office sipping from a coffee mug with the words I LOVE MY JOB! stenciled around the rim in bold black letters. When he took a drink from the mug, you could see the word NOT! imprinted on the bottom in the same lettering.

I hadn’t seen him in a few months, but he looked more haggard than usual.

Norman’s face was gaunt, like his skin was too tight for his cheekbones. His eyes were heavy and bloodshot, and what should have been a five o’clock shadow looked more like the emergence of a full-grown beard. A wrinkled and tattered blue blazer hung on a metal coat rack attached to the back of the office door. Mike had his shirt sleeves rolled up, and a brown necktie hung down low on his open-collared shirt. A leather shoulder holster wrapped around his thin shoulders like a harness, his 9-millimeter Glock stuffed under his left arm, grip forward, easy access.

All the New York State cops were using porcelain Glocks now. Just one way to keep up with the underworld competition. A Glock had no safety other than a trigger you depressed twice just to get off the initial round. From there you kept the finger pressure on until the magazine was empty. But once you chambered a round, you practically had to take the pistol apart in order to de-chamber it without firing. I think it’s fair to say that a Glock is a weapon for a man or woman who shoots for keeps. I’d fired one a couple of times, but never requisitioned one because, to be perfectly frank, they scared the hell out of me. Imagine a guy who’s at best a fair-to-middling shot packing a piece without a safety?

Mike and I shook hands and sat down-Mike at his desk, feet up on top, me on the couch by the door.

“How’s Val?” he asked. “She still with you?”

So much for keeping her out of this.

“So far,” I said.

“You’re having a bad week,” Mike said, taking a hit off his I LOVE MY JOB! mug, “and it isn’t even Tuesday afternoon yet. That’s not like the keeper I remember. How’d you manage it?”

“You’re the detective,” I said, glad that he dropped the Val issue right away. “You tell me.”

“Vasquez flew the coop, huh, just like that?”

“Bolted,” I said.

Mike gave me one of those squinty-eyed, tight-lipped grins cops seem to perfect by their twenty-fifth year on the job. He opened up his bottom drawer, took out a bottle of ginger brandy, added a shot to his coffee, then gave me a wide-eyed look that said, Join me.

I nodded, not out of thirst, but out of consideration. Mike put out another mug, poured a shot.

I sat my briefcase on my lap, opened it, and slipped out a large freezer bag containing Logan’s.38 along with the live rounds and the key to the cuffs. I dropped the lot onto Norman’s desk. Then I set the briefcase back down on the floor and stood up.

“What’s all this?” Mike said, leaning forward, elbows on the desk top.

“I prove the only prints on this stuff are Robert Logan’s and Bernie Mastriano’s, I prove the story of three shotgun-packing assailants assisting with Vasquez’s escape is a lie. A cover-up for something else.”

“You got a hunch?”

“More like a theory,” I said, staring up at a calendar that occupied an otherwise bare wall to the right-hand side of Norman’s desk. “I smell the proverbial rats and they take the form of Logan and Mastriano.”

“I saw the morning news,” Norman said. “That scene with Mastriano’s mother almost had me bawling.”