Homicide - A Year On The Killing Streets Part 23

Pellegrini noticed the metal rod almost immediately after the photographs came upstairs from the crime lab, two days after the body was discovered. There was no doubt about it: the metal rod in the picture was the same one that Garvey had recovered during the trainees' second-day search on Newington Avenue. When Garvey pulled the tubing out of that rear yard, it still carried a hair and a clot of coagulated blood-blood that had since been matched to the victim. Yet the day the body was found, the metal tubing had somehow been overlooked.

Pellegrini remembers that morning at the scene and the vague premonition that warned him to slow everything down. He remembers that moment when the ME's people came for the body and asked if everyone was ready. Yeah, they were ready. They had walked every inch of that yard and checked every detail twice. So what is that G.o.dd.a.m.n piece of metal doing in the photographs? And how the h.e.l.l had they missed it in those early hours?

Not that Pellegrini has any idea what the metal tubing has to do with his murder. Maybe it was dumped there with the body. Maybe it was used by the killer, perhaps to simulate s.e.xual intercourse. That would explain the blood and hair, as well as the v.a.g.i.n.al tearing discovered at autopsy. Or maybe the d.a.m.n thing was lying in the yard earlier, jetsam from a broken television stand or curling iron that somehow got mixed up in his crime scene. Perhaps the blood and hair were swept into the tube when the old man came out to clean his yard after the body was removed. There was no way of knowing, but the fact that a piece of evidence had not been noticed for twenty-four hours was unnerving. What else had they missed?

Pellegrini reads further into the case file, reviewing some of the reports from the canva.s.s of the 700 block. Some of the interviews seemed to have been carefully performed, with detectives or detail men asking follow-up questions or encouraging witnesses to elaborate on answers. Others, however, seem perfunctory and halfhearted, as if the officer involved had already convinced himself that the interview was a wasted effort.

Pellegrini reads the reports and thinks of questions that could have been asked, should have been asked, in those first days, when memories are fresh. A neighbor says she doesn't know anything about the murder. Fine, but does she remember any noise in the alley that night? Voices? Cries? Automobile sounds? Car headlights? Nothing that night? What about in the past? Any problems with anyone in the neighborhood? You've got a couple of people living nearby that make you nervous, right? Why's that? Did your children ever have any problems with these people? Who don't you want them going near?

Pellegrini includes himself in this critical a.s.sessment. There are things he wished he had done in those early days. For example, the pickup truck that the Fish Man used the week of the murder to carry junk from his burned-out store-why hadn't they taken a better look at that vehicle? Too quickly they had bought into the argument that the little girl had been carried into the alley, presumably by someone traveling no more than a block. But what if the Fish Man had done the murder up on Whitelock Street? That was too far away to carry the body, but it was the same week that he had access to a neighbor's truck. And what might a careful search of the truck have yielded? Hairs? Fibers? The same tarlike substance that stained the little girl's pants?

Landsman had left the investigation believing that the Fish Man was not the killer, that they would have broken the store owner in the long interrogation if he were indeed their man. Pellegrini still isn't sure. For one thing, the Fish Man's story has too many inconsistencies and not enough alibi-a combination sure to keep a man on any detective's list. And then, five days ago, he had blown his polygraph.

They performed the lie detector test at the State Police barracks in Pikesville-their first opportunity to schedule it since the investigation had centered on the store owner. Incredibly, the Baltimore department did not have a qualified polygraph examiner of its own; although it handled close to half the homicide investigations in Maryland, the BPD had to rely on the State Police to accommodate its cases on an ad hoc basis. Once the test had been scheduled, they needed to find the Fish Man and convince him to take the examination voluntarily. In a manner as convenient as it was coercive, this was accomplished by locking the old man up on an outstanding marital support warrant-now several years old-that Pellegrini had discovered in the computer. The warrant had never been served and the legal issue was very likely moot; nonetheless, the Fish Man was soon in police custody. And once a man lands at City Jail, even a lie detector test begins to seem like a reasonable diversion.

At the State Police barracks, the Fish Man proceeded to blow the box, sending the polygraph needle soaring on every key question about the murder. The polygraph result was not, of course, admissible as evidence, nor did every homicide detective believe in lie detection as an exact science. Still, the result added to Pellegrini's suspicions.

So, too, did the arrival of an unexpected, if not entirely credible, witness. The man was a smokehound all right, as unbelievable a character as a detective might find. Arrested for a.s.sault in the Western District six days ago, he tried to make friends by a.s.suring the booking officer that he knew who killed Latonya Wallace.

"And how do you know that?"

"He told me he did it."

When Pellegrini got to the Western District that day, he heard a story about two old acquaintances drinking at a west side bar, about one acquaintance saying that he had recently been picked up and questioned for the murder of a little girl, about the other acquaintance asking whether he had committed the crime.

"No," the first man said.

But later in the conversation the liquor got good to that man, who turned to his companion and said he would tell the truth. He did kill the child.

In the course of several interviews, the new witness related the same story to the detectives. He had known the man with whom he had been drinking for years. The man ran a store up on Whitelock Street, a fish store.

And so a second polygraph was scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Leaning back in his chair, Pellegrini reads the reports of the new witness's interrogation with a mind balanced between serene hope and committed pessimism. In two days, he is sure, the man will also blow his box, failing the polygraph just as miserably as the Fish Man did. He will do this because his story is so perfect, so valuable, that it can't possibly be true. A barroom confession, Pellegrini tells himself, is almost too easy for this case.

Pellegrini knows, too, that soon he will have a separate suspect file on the new witness as well. Not only because the willingness to implicate someone in a child killing is unusual behavior, but also because the new man himself knows the Reservoir Hill area and has a police record. For rape. With a knife. Nothing, Pellegrini tells himself again, is ever easy.

Closing the file with the office reports, Pellegrini reads through a draft report of his own, a four-page missive to the captain outlining the status of the case and arguing for a complete, prolonged review of the existing evidence. Without any primary crime scene or physical evidence, the report argued, there wasn't much point in looking at any particular suspect and then attempting to connect him to the murder.

"This tactic might be successful in certain circ.u.mstances," Pellegrini had written, "but not in a case where physical evidence is lacking."

Instead, the memo urged a careful review of the entire file: Since the collection of that data was accomplished by no less than twenty detail officers and detectives, it is reasonable to believe that a significant piece of information may exist, but has not yet been developed. It is the intent of your investigator to limit the number of investigators to the primary and secondary detectives. Since the collection of that data was accomplished by no less than twenty detail officers and detectives, it is reasonable to believe that a significant piece of information may exist, but has not yet been developed. It is the intent of your investigator to limit the number of investigators to the primary and secondary detectives.

In simple terms, Pellegrini wants more time to work the case and he wants to work it alone. His report to the captain is clear, yet bureaucratic; generally succinct, yet written in the departmental prose that makes anyone with a rank higher than lieutenant feel warm and fuzzy all over. Still, it could be better, and if he is going to get the time to review the case properly, the captain will have to be on board.

Pellegrini pulls the staple from the top page and spreads the draft on his desk, prepared to spend another hour or so at the typewriter. But Rick Requer has other ideas. On his way out of the annex office, he catches Pellegrini's attention and cups his hand to his mouth in a repet.i.tive, arclike motion-the international hand signal for uninhibited alcohol consumption.

"C'mon, bunk, let's go have a couple."

"You leaving?" asks Pellegrini, looking up from the file.

"Yeah, I'm out of here. Barrick's squad is already in on four-to-twelve."

Pellegrini shakes his head, then waves at the sea of paper on his desk. "I got some stuff here I wanted to go through."

"You working over on that case?" asks Requer. "It'll wait 'til tomorrow, won't it?"

Pellegrini shrugs.

"C'mon, Tom, give it a night off."

"I don't know. Where you going to be?"

"At the Market. Eddie Brown and Dunnigan are already down there."

Pellegrini nods, mulling it over. "If I get a few things done," he says finally, "I might see you down there."

No way, thinks Requer, walking toward the elevators. No way are we going to see Tom Pellegrini at the Market Bar when he could just as easily spend four hours beating himself up over Latonya Wallace. So when Pellegrini sidles up to the bar a half hour later, Requer is momentarily startled. Suddenly, without warning, Pellegrini has let go of the Case Without Pity and come up for a little air. By any reckoning, a drinking session at the Market Bar is a fine time and place for some back slapping and confidence building; Requer, already half-smoked on good Scotch, is just the man for the job.

"My man Tom," Requer says. "What are you drinking, bunk?"

"A beer."

"Hey, Nick, gave this gentleman what he wants on me, man."

"What're you drinking there?" asks Pellegrini.

"Glenlivet. Good s.h.i.+t. You want one?"

"No. Beer's fine."

And so they settle down, one round after another, until other detectives arrive and the scene photos and witness statements and office reports seem a little less real, and Latonya Wallace becomes more cosmic joke than tragedy. Sisyphus and his rock. De Leon and his fountain. Pellegrini and his little dead girl.

"I'll tell you this," says Requer, holding court and bringing the liquor to his lips. "When Tom first got up there, I thought he wasn't any good at all. I mean that ..."

"And now that you seen me work," says Pellegrini, half serious, "you know you were right."

"No, bunk," says Requer, shaking his head, "I knew you were all right when you put down that case in the projects. What was that boy's name?"

"Which case?"

"The one from high-rise. East side."

"George Green," says Pellegrini.

"Yeah, right, Green," agrees Requer, waving the empty shot gla.s.s in a brief semaph.o.r.e at Nicky the bartender. "Everyone told him that the case was a loser. I even told him that. I told him to ..." Requer pauses as Nicky pours, downs half the shot and tries to continue. "What was I sayin'?"

Pellegrini shrugs, smiling.

"Oh yeah, this case was no f.u.c.kin' good, no f.u.c.kin' good at all. Drug murder up in the high-rises, right. Black kid over on Aisquith Street, so n.o.body's gonna give a d.a.m.n anyway. No witnesses, no nothing. I told him to forget the motherf.u.c.ker and go on to something else. He doesn't listen to me or anyone else. Stubborn motherf.u.c.ker didn't listen to Jay neither. He just goes out on his own and works the case for two days. Didn't listen to none of us and guess what happened?"

"I dunno," says Pellegrini sheepishly. "What happened?"

"You solved the motherf.u.c.ker."

"I did?"

"Stop f.u.c.kin' with me," says Requer, turning back to an audience of CID detectives. "He went out and solved the motherf.u.c.ker on his own. That's when I knew Tom was going to work out."

Pellegrini says nothing, embarra.s.sed.

Requer gives a quick glance over his shoulder and realizes that even with half a drink on, the younger detective isn't buying any of it.

"No, seriously, Tom, seriously."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Listen to me."

Pellegrini sips his beer.

"f.u.c.k it, I'm not sayin' this 'cause you're here, bunk. I'm sayin' it for the truth. When you came up, I thought you were gonna be bad, I mean no good at all. But you've done a h.e.l.luva job. Really."

Pellegrini smiles and hails Nicky for one last one, pus.h.i.+ng his empty across the bar and pointing to the shot gla.s.s in front of Requer. The other detectives turn to another conversation.

"I wouldn't say the same thing about Fred," says Requer quietly enough so that the comment goes no farther than Pellegrini. "I wouldn't."

Pellegrini nods, but he is suddenly uncomfortable. He and Fred Ceruti had transferred into Landsman's squad together, filling vacancies that occurred within weeks of each other. Like Requer, Ceruti is black, but unlike Requer-who had six years' seasoning in narcotics before the transfer to homicide-Ceruti is fresh from the Eastern District with only four years on the force. He has been pushed up to the sixth floor of headquarters by the captain, who saw him do good plainclothes work at the district level. But to Requer, those credentials aren't enough.

"I mean I like Fred. I really do," says Requer. "But he isn't ready for homicide. We've walked him through cases and shown him what needs to be done but it doesn't get through. He's not ready yet."

Pellegrini says nothing, aware that Requer is the veteran investigator in his squad and one of the most tenured black detectives in the homicide unit; he made his way up to CID at a time when black officers were still hearing racial jokes in the district roll call rooms. Pellegrini knows for a guy like that to sit here and punch the Italian kid's dance card while letting Ceruti pa.s.s is not an easy thing.

"I'll tell you this," Requer tells the other CID men at the bar. "If someone in my family got killed, if I got killed, I'd want Tom to work it." A detective's compliment.

"You really must be drunk," says Pellegrini.

"No, bunk."

"Well, Rick," says Pellegrini, "thank you for that vote of confidence. I might not solve your murder, but I'd definitely make some overtime on it."

Requer laughs, then calls for Nicky. The bartender pours one last shot, on the house, and the detective sends the Scotch sailing down his throat in one fluid, practiced motion.

The two men leave the bar, walking through the restaurant and out the double doors on the Water Street side. In three months, the Market Bar and Seafood Restaurant will become Dominique's, a French restaurant of considerable means. The clientele will be dressed better, the food more expensive, the menu a little less comprehensible to the average homicide detective. Nicky will be gone, the price of a drink will climb into the four-dollar range and the departmental crowd that frequents the bar will be told that their patronage no longer suits the restaurant's image. But for now, the Market Bar is as much BPD territory as Kavanaugh's or the FOP lodge.

Pellegrini and Requer turn on Frederick Street and saunter down the same stretch of pavement where Bob Bowman made his legendary midnight ride. No homicide detective can pa.s.s the spot without smiling at the thought of a drunken Bowman, borrowing a mounted man's horse long enough to parade back and forth in front of the Market Bar's plate gla.s.s windows, through which a half-dozen other detectives could be seen losing control. On a good day, Bo was five-foot-six. Perched on that stallion, he looked like a cross between Napoleon Bonaparte and Willie Shoemaker.

"You all right to drive?" asks Pellegrini.

"Yeah, bunk, I'm good."

"You sure?"

"f.u.c.k yes."

"Okay then."

"Hey, Tom," says Requer before crossing to the Hamilton Street lot, "if the case is gonna go, then it's gonna go. Don't let it get you down."

Pellegrini smiles.

"I mean that," says Requer.

"Okay, Rick."

"Really."

Pellegrini smiles again, but with the look of a drowning man no longer willing to fight against the current.

"Really, bunk. You do what you can do and that's it. If the evidence ain't there, you know, it ain't there. You do what you can ..."

Requer hits the younger detective's shoulder with an open hand, then fishes in a pants pocket for his car keys. "You know what I mean, bunk."

Pellegrini nods, smiles, then nods again. But he keeps his silence.

FRIDAY, APRIL 8.

"Brown, you piece of s.h.i.+t."

"Sir?"

"I called you a piece of s.h.i.+t."

Dave Brown looks up from the current issue of Rolling Stone Rolling Stone and sighs. Donald Worden is on a tear, and nothing good can come from that. and sighs. Donald Worden is on a tear, and nothing good can come from that.

"Gimme a quarter," says Worden, palm open.

"Let me understand this," says Brown. "I'm here at my desk reading a magazine-"

"One of them art school magazines," Worden interjects.

Brown shakes his head wearily. Although his most recent creations have been limited to renderings of dead stickmen in his crime scene sketches, David John Brown is indeed the product of the Maryland Inst.i.tute of Art. In Worden's mind, this fact alone makes suspect his credentials as a homicide detective.

"Reading a magazine of rock 'n' roll and popular culture," Brown continues, "interfering with no one, and you walk through the door and address me as fecal matter."

"Fecal matter. What the h.e.l.l is that? I didn't go to college. I'm just a poor dumb white boy from Hampden."

Brown rolls his eyes.

"Gimme a quarter, b.i.t.c.h."