Джеймс Паттерсон - Ambush

We sometimes joked that Intelligence was where the really smart cops went — smart enough to go there so they wouldn’t get in fights or be shot at.

The unit was so good at its job that it often gave a heads-up to the feds about changing crime trends or specific threats. Of course, that was something the FBI would never admit.

I still felt tired and moved a little slowly. This was what I needed. I had to get back into the rhythm of life.

It took almost twenty minutes to reach my office, on the seventh floor. I was greeted by everyone from the building maintenance man to the inspector, who kept his office there. A quick word and handshake or just a pat on the back made me feel comfortable, happy to be back.

An officer-involved shooting touches all cops. A fallen cop reminds each of us of our mortality and that being a cop is more than just a job. I understood it was hard for the public to comprehend something like that. Most people didn’t have jobs that occasionally involved someone trying to murder them.

I couldn’t help but look over at Antrole’s empty desk. No one had touched anything. Photographs of his family still sat on the corner. It wouldn’t surprise me if no one moved them for months. No one is too eager to move on after a cop dies in the line of duty.

The public information office of the NYPD had released Antrole’s name to the media. I was simply listed as “another detective who sustained injuries.” I was good with that.

I was also good with the fact that I had returned to work. Being busy kept my mind off things. It also made me feel like I could make a difference in the world. At least in New York City.

I hadn’t been at my desk five minutes when Harry Grissom stopped by to say hello, then asked me to follow him into his office. He closed the door behind us, then leaned on the edge of his desk when I took the chair in front of it. I had learned over the years that this was a sign he was worried about me. If he was mad, he’d sit in his chair behind the desk. But when he was concerned about a detective’s state of mind, he thought leaning on a desk made the meeting feel more personal.

He said, “You didn’t have to rush back to work.”

“I was out long enough. I feel fine. I got my head on straight. You don’t need to worry about that.”

The lanky lieutenant just stared at me. He was hard to read. I was glad we never played poker. Finally he said, “I want you to ease back into operations. Don’t take on any specific cases. Take a good look at all the homicides in Manhattan and the Bronx. See if you can find any important patterns. That’s the sort of thing we should do more of.”

I was able to suppress a smile. My lieutenant, the senior officer in my unit, was breaking the rules without saying it overtly. He was allowing me to look into the ambush that killed my partner by trying to find out if it was connected to any other homicides. He didn’t say it. He couldn’t. But he was giving me leeway to work in both Manhattan and the Bronx.

Because a cop was involved in the shooting, Internal Affairs was working with Homicide on the case. They wouldn’t want me anywhere near it. I was a witness and was too close to Antrole to ever officially be allowed to directly investigate the ambush.

I took my new mandate seriously and quickly gathered all the information I could on every homicide for the past three months. Most of them would be considered “usual.” A domestic that ended with the wife stabbing the husband. An armed robbery of a jewelry store where the robber panicked and shot the sixty-eight-year-old wife of the owner. The usual series of drug killings. Nevertheless, there were a few that caught my eye.

The first, of course, was the killing of the Dominican gunman who had survived our ambush. He was in the hospital and expected to make it. The cop on duty said someone Tasered him, then he was immobilized with a heavy dose of tranquilizer.

The details on the killer were sparse. The cop thought it was a female but couldn’t swear to it because he never saw her face. It could’ve been a short man. The baggy surgical scrubs and his foggy memory from the tranquilizer didn’t help with his description.

I also noted that someone had disabled the video surveillance at the hospital. That was not the sign of a rash and hasty killer.

In the afternoon, I drove south to Brooklyn. It wasn’t until I was across the Brooklyn Bridge that I realized how rarely I came into this borough. The place had really seen a renaissance in recent years. This was where all the hot new restaurants were opening, and it was continuing the slow process of attracting TV and film studios. There were soundstages and great locations all over the area.

Here in Brooklyn Heights, there were only a couple of the kinds of warehouses a movie studio would use. The area didn’t compare to Red Hook or Gowanus, where there were plenty of warehouses that attracted trendy new businesses.

I found the address that Juliana had given me and paused outside for just a minute. This didn’t look like an elaborate modern soundstage. It was an old warehouse in Brooklyn Heights.

No one greeted me as I entered the front door, and no one tried to keep me from walking through the corridors. I could see activity in the main room. As I walked back, a man carrying a long boom microphone nodded hello.

“Am I headed the right way to the set of Century’s End ?”

The chubby man hooked his hand and pointed his thumb toward the main room.

I thanked him and kept walking. It may have been a small crew, and there may have been no security, but the set was impressive. It looked like a popular nightclub from the nineties, with a dance floor and wraparound bar.

No one was filming, and most people were just milling around the set. Juliana had told me it was a drama about young people in New York during the 1990s. I wasn’t sure I wanted my daughter pretending to be someone on the bar scene in the nineties. I was a young person in New York at the time. It may have been fun, but it’s not what you want to think about your kids doing.

I heard the familiar squeal of “Dad.” It was an excited sound, and she was happy to see me, despite her objections to a visit. I turned with my arms open to give her a hug.

As she jumped up to hug me, I caught a quick glimpse of her costume. A low-cut cocktail dress. Really low-cut. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t want to make her self-conscious. Unthinkingly I slipped off my sport coat and draped it over her shoulders. She frowned at me but kept it there.

Part of me knew that I wanted everyone to see my gun and badge clearly. Sometimes it helps as a father if you’re big and everyone knows you’re a cop.

I said, “You said you’d be finishing up soon, so I thought I might give you a ride back home. Save you the effort of riding on the subway.”

Juliana said, “Thanks, Dad.” She took a moment to introduce me to the director. He was a little older than I was and couldn’t have cared less that there was a visitor on the set. He gave me a bored nod and told Juliana to be back on set tomorrow.

As we walked off the set, I was already thinking of how I would ask Mary Catherine to come by and hang out during the filming. It was the only way I would ever get some peace.

The next day, I sat at my desk and looked at several cases that had caught my attention. My review of homicides in Manhattan and the Bronx included the murders of two Canadian tourists.

One had occurred before the ambush and one just after. At first glance the two cases seemed unconnected, until you noticed that both men had criminal records for narcotics trafficking in Canada.