Killer Heat (21 page)

Where's my kid, Chapman? I want to see my kid."

Five o'clock on a Sunday morning and the Manhattan North
Homicide Squad room was as quiet as the morgue. Jimmy Dylan's basso
voice shattered the silence as the heavy door swung shut behind
him.

“Jeez, Mr. Dylan. I got a funny feeling you're the last guy in
the world he wants to talk to right now.”

Mike, Mercer, and I were chewing on the remains of egg
sandwiches that Mercer had picked up at one of the greasiest spoons
in all of Harlem, a block away from the station house.

“Your father used to look the other way now and then. Decent
people, hardworking people-he gave them a break first time out,”
Dylan said, his green eyes aflame with rage. He was about Mike's
height but much stockier, with red hair and sideburns tinged with
gray. “You're a disgrace to his name.”

“Fortunately for you, Kiernan didn't fall too far from the
tree.” Mike had predicted that Jimmy Dylan would show up before
daybreak. Kiernan must have had second thoughts about calling one
of his father's business lawyers, hoping he could skate through the
ABC violations-Alcoholic Beverage Control laws-and be out of court
before he was missed.

Instead, he had phoned one of his high school friends-a defense
attorney-who was driving in from his vacation at an inn in Montauk,
almost three hours away. But Charlie the bartender must have gotten
the news to Kiernan's brothers and given them the choice of telling
their father.

“Where's my boy, Chapman? What the fuck do you mean bringing him
here to a homicide squad office?”

“Temper, temper, Mr. D. Can't you see there's a lady here?”
Dylan's ruddy complexion deepened in color, as the flush streaked
down his neck and disappeared beneath his blue and white striped
oxford cloth shirt.

“I wouldn't give a damn if she was Mother Mary. Where's
Kiernan?” Two uniformed cops came pounding up the staircase and
pushed open the door behind Dylan. Mike got to his feet and held
out his arm.

Mercer stood up next to him.

“Game's up for the moment, Mr. D. We're talking to Kiernan. You
can see him when we're done.”

“He's got rights, dammit. He's got the right to see me.”

“I'm the prosecutor working with the detectives. Your son
actually didn't want us to contact you. He was very firm about
that. Kiernan's called a lawyer,” I said, standing behind Mercer.
“They can meet as soon as he arrives. Meanwhile, he's comfortable
and having something to eat.”

Dylan took a step in my direction, wagging his finger at me.
"He's...

he's just a kid, missy. You keep me away from him and there'll
be hell to pay. You'll never set your ass in a courtroom
again."

“I'm handling this, Coop, okay?” Mike gave me his most
exasperated look before he turned back to Dylan. "Trust me, Mr. D.,
you got no more control over where that skinny ass goes than the
rest of us do.

No more threats, got it?"

“Kiernan's got rights.”

"Jeez, you sound like all the lowlife morons I take off the
streets.

Everybody and his mother's got rights. Don't know what they are
or how to use 'em but slap the cuffs on any scumbag around and
bam! He's got rights. Kiernan may be your son but he's a grown man.
Only kids that have a right to be questioned in the presence of a
parent are minors, under the age of sixteen."

“I want to be with him. I want to make sure he knows what he's
doing,” Jimmy Dylan said, wiping the sweat off his neck with the
cuff of his shirt. “What's with this homicide bullshit?”

“Cool your heels for a while. We finish up with Kiernan,
there'll be plenty of time to chat with you.”

Dylan grabbed Mike by the shoulder. “Don't play God with me,
Chapman. This here's my son and there's something bigger than a
lawnmower chewing up my guts from the minute Junior called to tell
me about this. If it's my problem you want to know about,
then deal with me and let go of my kid.”

“What problem would that be, Jimmy?” Mike brushed his hand
away.

Dylan nodded in my direction. “Where can we go to talk?”

“Right here. Right now. You think this is gonna be a secret,
backroom conversation?”

“It's personal. It's confidential.”

“I got news for you. It's not confidential anymore. Even Kiernan
had a few things to say about it.”

“He what?” Dylan said, pounding a tight fist into the
open palm of his left hand.

The door opened again and a young man in a sweatshirt and chinos
came into the room. One of the cops tried to stop him as he pulled
out a business card to identify himself.

“Mr. Dylan. Frankie Shea,” he said, approaching to shake hands.
“Kiernan called you?”

“Yeah.”

“I got a stable of lawyers. I got guys who do all the licensing
for me with the SLA, deal with all the nuisances and aggravation.
Why the hell did he reach out for you?”

Shea lowered his voice. “My office does a lot of-um-like violent
crime stuff. My boss is on the panel for homicide assignments.
Kiernan was just a little nervous about these guys who brought him
in. One of you Chapman?”

“Mike Chapman, Mr. Shea. This is Detective Mercer Wallace and
Alexandra Cooper, from the Manhattan DA's office.”

Shea was short and wiry, with chiseled good looks and the edgy
air of a lightweight boxer.

“You holding my client?”

“Yeah. He just had some chow. He wanted to take a nap till you
got here.”

“Want to tell me what this is about?”

“Sure. We'll step into the lieutenant's office.”

Dylan roared again. “For me you had no place to talk, Chapman?
You got a mouthpiece still green behind the ears-look at him-and
you're going to tell him what's going on before you tell me?”

“Hey, Mr. D. He's got rights, you know what I mean?”

“Frankie, tell him I can sit in on this.”

“Sorry, Mr. Dylan,” Shea said, scratching his head to think of a
way to say what he needed to without further infuriating his
friend's father.

“There could, you know, be some kind of conflict down the road.
I mean, if you and Kiernan-well, I just can't let you do it.” Mike
and Frankie Shea spent about fifteen minutes together in Peterson's
small office before coming back to us.

“You fellows want to escort Mr. Dylan downstairs to wait for a
bit longer?” Mike said to the two cops. “When Mr. Shea tells you
he's ready, you'll get your shot.”

Jimmy Dylan was fuming. He stood his ground until Shea urged
him to make things easier by moving along.

Kiernan had been held in an interview room down the hall. Mike
and I walked Shea to the door, and as we opened it Kiernan picked
his head up from the table, where it had rested next to the debris
from the sandwich and soda Mercer had given him.

Shea stepped in and patted Kiernan on the back a few times,
before asking us to close the door and leave.

Jimmy Dylan had gotten no farther than the top of the steps.
When he heard Mike's voice, Dylan asked to come back into the room.
He was sweating profusely now, and the veins in his neck looked
like they were pumping up to an explosion that would blow off the
top of his head.

“If this is about that whore, Chapman, just let my boy go,
okay?”

“Grab a chair, Mr. D.” He waved the cops off and pointed to the
door. “Which whore would that be?”

Dylan looked over at me.

“Now's not the time to worry about Ms. Cooper's sensibilities.
She knows more whores than the Queen, I promise you. Give me a
name.”

“Amber Bristol.”

Mike knew as well as I did that there was little chance we would
get another word out of Kiernan Dylan after Frankie Shea finished
his sit-down. He would chide his friend-his client now-for having
talked too much already. He would advise him to take the hit on
the ABC violation and walk out of court with no other formal
charges held over his head.

The kid would carry with him just the ugly label that Mike had
wanted to pin on him like a scarlet letter-person of interest in a
homicide investigation. Maybe that would be enough to bring
someone-a witness, a cohort, a conspirator-out of the woodwork to
head us in the right direction.

“He didn't do anything to Amber. My Kiernan's a decent kid.”

“You know what happened to her?”

“I know she's dead, Chapman.”

“Murdered.”

“Yeah, I heard that.” Dylan reached for one of the napkins and
wiped his sweaty face. “Kiernan had nothing to do with her. I mean,
maybe he met her a couple of times. Stupid of me to let her into
the Brazen Head to begin with, but I got rid of her on my
own.”

“You what?”

Dylan realized Mike thought he meant something more
dramatic.

“Told her to get lost, get out of my life. That's what I
mean.”

“Why is that?”

“Look, Chapman, you probably know more than I do. The newspaper
articles, they just talk about the temp job she worked. Maybe you
and your investigators don't know what else she did to pay the
rent.”

Dylan paused to test the waters. “You know how crazy that girl
was?”

“Just crazy enough to keep you interested in her,
apparently.”

“Yeah, well, I lost interest, okay? I wasn't into any rough
stuff, you know what I mean? It was getting too far-out for me,
Amber's shenanigans. And her big mouth, talking to some of these
men about-well, about me and her relationships. She was getting to
be a loose cannon.”

“She didn't take the breakup very well, did she?”

Dylan didn't answer.

“You must have been scared shitless when she went off the radar
screen.”

“I didn't notice. It's exactly what I wanted, that she head back
home to Idaho.”

“Then why'd you bother to clean out her apartment?”

“Clean out her apartment? Talk to the Neanderthal
superintendent who used to drool over her. You can't pin me with
that.”

“Why not? You didn't let Kiernan do it alone, did you?”

Dylan's eyes widened again and he shouted an answer. “Leave the
kid out of this, for chrissakes. He's never been to her apartment.
He wouldn't even know how the hell to find it.”

Mike put his forefinger in his ear and shook it up and down.
“Must be something wrong with my hearing. Coop, didn't Kiernan
tell us something a little different?”

“What'd he say? What did he tell you? I do everything possible
to give that kid every chance I can and now he steps in his own
shit? What did he say?”

“Excuse me, Mr. D., but I think it was yours he stepped in.”

“Where is he? Let me talk to him.”

“See, it's a bit late, 'cause Kiernan's already given us some
important information, so maybe you should just tell us what you
know. Put it in perspective for us. If it makes things go easier
for your kid, all the better.”

Jimmy Dylan heard a door close in the hallway and Frankie Shea's
footsteps coming toward us.

“Your man ready for us?” Mike asked the young lawyer. “Look,
Detective Chapman. Of course Kiernan wants to do everything
possible to cooperate with you in your investigation. What are you
charging him with this morning?”

“We're waiting on word from the local precinct about the results
of the canvass. Violations for serving alcohol to minors-how many
counts and all.”

“So the sign on the door, that's all for show?” Frankie pointed
to the gold lettering of the word HOMICIDE.

“Three dead girls, and Kiernan Dylan knew two of them.” Jimmy
Dylan took a deep breath. “Two? Who's the other one?” Frankie Shea
ignored Dylan. “I'm afraid your long ride uptown and the effort at
intimidating my client did wonders for all of our sleep
deprivation but very little for your case. He's got nothing more to
say to you. From now on, you get the idea that you want to talk to
Kiernan Dylan, you call me.”

“He's coming home with me?” Jimmy Dylan asked, smiling for the
first time since he arrived at the station house.

“No, sir. They'll take him downtown to be arraigned, but he'll
be out by the end of the day,” Shea said. “They've got nothing on
Kiernan.”

“Can I see him now, before you take him out of here?” Mike
walked away from us to get his prisoner. I knew he didn't want to
see an 'I told you so' expression on my face, so I stifled my
annoyance at having wasted the opportunity for a more careful
interrogation.

Kiernan entered the squad room in front of Mike.

“Pick up your head, boy,” Jimmy Dylan said. “You got nothing to
be ashamed of. You've done nothing wrong. You own a joint that
sells liquor, and all this crap goes with the territory. Cops like
to throw their authority around when they should have better
things to do.” The young man's eyes were bright red. He had
obviously broken down while talking with Frankie Shea, perhaps
becoming even more embarrassed when he learned from Shea that his
father had inserted himself into the middle of the
investigation.

Kiernan headed straight for his father. I assumed the emotional
older man would embrace his son and wait until later, when they
were home, to chide him for talking to us.

“I'm really sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to involve you in
this.”

“Do what Frankie says, kid. We'll-”

“Tell me it's okay, what I said to them, Dad,” Kiernan said,
starting to blubber as he looked his father in the eye.

I gathered up my notes, trying to glance away from the painful
encounter, while Frankie Shea urged his client to stop talking and
get the arrest process under way.

“Say something, Dad. I couldn't help what I said about her. I
didn't know-”

Jimmy Dylan reached out to grab Kiernan's arm with his left
hand, and with his strong right fist he hauled back and punched
his numbertwo son squarely on the jaw.

Kiernan Dylan's knees gave out and he fell backwards, smacking
his head against the corner of a metal file cabinet.