The Night Falconer (18 page)

“They ever find any tunnels?”

“Nope.”

“But you think there might still be one.”

“Maybe. You still haven’t told me much, if anything, about what else you know about the shootings in the park.”

“What do you know about Los Miembros?” I asked.

“Not much, unfortunately. Why, do you think the shootings are tied to your case?”

“Maybe.”

He sat a little taller in his chair. “Oh, man. Maybe that’s how Watisi is connected. Maybe some of the people he’s helped finance are part of Los Miembros. Maybe he’s hired them too, like he’s hired that falconer.”

“You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions and you’re missing something,” I said.

“What?”

“Two young men are dead and another person was almost killed last night. Seems like a little too much activity for a dispute over some apartments, don’t you think?” I looked at my watch.

“Yeah, but—”

“I think we need to get back to the courtroom. We’ll miss the hearing,” I said.

* * * * *

Nicole and I took a seat in the back row of the courtroom. LaGrange, who’d smiled pleasantly at Nicole when I’d introduced them, sat in the front row, notepad and pen in hand. Judge Peabody made the protestors leave their signs outside and gaveled everyone into silence. For their part, Dr. Lonigan and a few of the other plaintiff apartment owners sat stoically beside their counsel, a businesslike brunette in a dark gray suit and black stockings.

Unfortunately, we were out of luck when it came to Watisi. I should have guessed. The wealthy developer apparently wasn’t required to appear in person and had sent two middle-aged male attorneys in his stead.

“If Watisi isn’t going to show, this may not be getting us anywhere,” I whispered to Nicole. I’d already told her what I’d learned from the reporter.

Up front, the hearing appeared to have bogged down before it even started over some procedural motion or question. The judge had the opposing attorneys before his bench discussing an arcane section of the housing statutes in tones that were barely audible to the rest of us in the room.

This was the sort of thing that always drove me nuts about going to court. Half the time, the lawyers and judges would spar over puny conditions that only tangentially related to the matter at hand. They managed to create a mini-bureaucracy right there before your eyes.

My phone began to vibrate from inside my jacket pocket. I pulled it out and quietly and thankfully slipped out the door.

The call was from Marcia in Charlottesville.

“You okay?” she wanted to know when I answered. I made sure to stand far enough away from the TV camera crew that they wouldn’t overhear what I said.

“Yeah, fine. Sorry I didn’t call you last night. It turned into kind of a late evening.”

“How’s everything going?” she asked.

“Not so good.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Darla was shot last night.”

“What?”

“Took a bullet in the leg. She’s going to be out of action for a while. But she’s going to be okay.”

“Does the client still want you to keep working?”

“I haven’t talked to her yet. Things are a little crazy at the moment.” I told her about the courtroom and the protestors. I glanced down the hall at the distant TV personnel. They were busy interviewing one of the activists who’d also stepped out of the courtroom, but thankfully no one was paying me any attention.

“Maybe you should just let the police handle the whole investigation.”

“Can’t,” I said. “We’re in too deep now. And besides, I think we may even have found our falconer.”

“So he exists.”

“Looks that way.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“We’ll be all right.”

“How’s Nicole?”

I thought about the scene from the park the night before. “Proving herself more than worthy,” I said.

“But if you’re in some danger,” she said.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

“I can get a ticket and fly up there this afternoon.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said. “Unless you want to go to work with me too.”

“Call me first thing tomorrow?” she said.

“Will do.”

“I miss you.”

“Miss you too.”

We said good-bye and hung up.

Just in time too because down the hall outside the courtroom, a minor jostle was beginning as people began to move out through the doors. Apparently, the hearing was already over. That quick.

I saw Nicole come out, followed by a whole posse of people, Barry LaGrange and a TV news reporter among them. A cameraman and the interviewer were scrambling to get quality shots and sound bites.

I had half a mind to duck for cover. The talk with LaGrange had gone okay, but the last thing I wanted was to see my face displayed on any City news program again.

No one could have anticipated what happened next.

A small round woman with long graying hair tripped and accidentally bumped into someone in the crowd in front of her.

“Hey!”

She lost her footing and began falling forward toward the wall, directly into the back of a goateed young man who was stooping over to pick up one of the signs propped there.

“What the??”

The young man, apparently fearing he was under attack (the woman must have been with the opposition camp), swung his sign at the woman in a defensive reflex that had the same effect as tossing a piece of meat into a pit of hungry alligators.

The woman screamed. All brimstone broke loose. The man began beating her with the sign. Nicole, who was closest to the action, naturally rose to the poor woman’s defense. I knew her Tae Kwan Do classes had been stimulating and educational for her, but I hadn’t counted on seeing the results in live action in a courthouse.

Pretty soon, others had joined in the fray. Signs were swinging. Cries and shouts were ringing down the corridor. It was hard to tell which side was which. I felt obliged to join in, for no other reason than to help Nicole and protect the innocent old woman who’d been wrongly attacked.

I didn’t see Dr. Lonigan, but I did spot Barry LaGrange out of the corner of my eye, notebook still in hand, attempting to shrink for cover behind a water fountain.

By the time the court deputies with the help of the two detectives had managed to end the altercation and the shouting died down, we’d all provided some outstanding footage for that night’s telecast. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. All declined to file charges. Not because they weren’t hopping mad, but because they were fresh from the experience of witnessing the city’s legal machinery in action, and no one was that crazy.

I could almost see the next day’s headlines and the title for LaGrange’s column being considered now:

PET PROTECTORS PUMMELED

ANIMAL INSTINCTS ERUPT

FUR FLIES OVER FELINES

Weep and take your pick.

* * * * *

Later, with Dr. Lonigan on the sidewalk outside, we sat on a bench licking our wounds.

“That had to be about the most idiotic thing I’ve ever been involved with in my life. Particularly with everything’s that’s gone on.”

“Just speculation,” I said. “But how do you know one of those crazy people in there isn’t behind this whole thing, for some reason?”

“Because many of those people I know personally. They would no more harm a cat than they would shoot Darla.”

“Look,” I said, “For better or worse, we’ve got a real situation here. We can’t have distractions like what just happened in there and reporters running around sticking their noses into everything. I don’t care if someone wants to use what you say happened to your cat to further their cause, as long as they don’t try to get in my face about it. I’m not here to defend hunting or anything else. I’m here to do a job and that job is finding out what’s going on with this guy, his bird in the park, and whoever’s shooting people.”

Amen to that.

Nicole screwed up her mouth. “Dr. Lonigan, I’m going to say this and if you want to try to fire us over it, you go right ahead.”

“Go ahead,” Lonigan said.

“I don’t exactly know how well you are connected to these animal rights people, but if you have any influence over them, you need to tell them to back off.”

Lonigan narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Just what my dad was trying to say a couple of days ago. These people might’ve read about this guy in the park with the owl or whatever and be trying to set up this scenario to claim there is illegal hunting so they can stir up trouble. Raise some money or whatever they’re into.”

“That’s crazy. Why would anyone go to such great lengths to do that?”

“I don’t know. All I’m saying is that you need to tell your animal friends to back off of our action.”

Lonigan looked at us for a long moment. “All right,” she finally said. “I’ll make some calls.”

“Thank you.”

“What about Watisi?”

“He didn’t show this morning, obviously,” I said.

“Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Maybe, but if I had his kind of money, and could avoid dealing with the crowd we had in there this afternoon, I think I’d choose to hire the best lawyer I could find and put him or her between me and the circus too. And now we find out he wasn’t even required to show.”

“Neither was I nor the rest of the apartment owners. But we wanted to look the judge in the face and let him know how strongly we felt about this situation.”

“What, your faulty wiring or your missing pets?”

“Our missing pets, of course. And our faulty construction too. And, well, the whole mess this situation has become.”

“No housing judge in his right mind is going to touch this case with a ten foot pole. It looked like the judge was looking to for an excuse to postpone. I had to take a phone call. Is that what went on in there?”

Lonigan’s voice dropped an octave. “Pretty much. That’s why I need you people or the police to come up with something more concrete we can use against Watisi.”

“All right,” I said. “You’re an oncologist, right?”

“Yes.”

“Which means you’re a specialist. You mostly get referrals from other doctors, clinics, whatever.”

“Exactly.”

“But let’s say you’re the family doctor out there. Sick kid walks into your exam room. What do you do? Start assuming right up front the kid’s got cancer?”

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

“You’d have on open mind, right? You’d start ruling out possibilities.”

“Okay, so you’re doing the same thing as an investigator. Don’t patronize me. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. All I’m trying to get you to see is that whoever shot Hicks and now Darla and whoever took your cat may not necessarily be the same people.”

“Yes, but they could still all be working for Dominic Watisi.”

“Have you heard anymore from the police?” I asked.

“No. Why?”

“I suspect another reason Watisi didn’t show this morning is that it would have put him more on their radar screen.”

“So you’re still after him?”

“I’m after whoever looks guilty.”

“Including your man who may be this falconer?”

“Including everyone.”

“Good,” she said. “With Darla incapacitated, you’re all I’ve got left.”

“Are we supposed to take that as a vote of confidence?” Nicole asked.

“Take it for what it’s worth,” Lonigan said.

We all sat in silence.

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” I said.

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Lonigan said. “I’m the one who hired Darla and she’s the one who hired you.”

I said nothing.

Nicole said: “What my dad’s trying to tell you, Dr. Lonigan, is that he’s going to find out who tried to kill Darla and me last night, whether you want to keep hiring us or not.”

“Why, because he’s some kind of cowboy with an action-hero complex?”

Nicole glanced at me and smiled. “I’ve never quite heard it put that way before, but yeah.”

21

I decided I needed to revisit the scene of the Meer shooting in daylight to see if anything struck me anew. I went alone. Nicole said she wanted to check online for more information about illegal immigrants in the city, Los Miembros, and any possible links she might find to Watisi.

Unbroken by last night’s rain, the humidity was building once more. The sun was out, a hazy smudge overhead baking the ball fields and the North Meadow. People were out running and riding bikes, as usual, many of them dripping in sweat. Sailboats skimmed along the surface of the reservoir. The heat made the water look cool and inviting.

This time when I caught sight of him, the skinny kid in the baseball cap was jogging from 106
^th
Street, straight out of Spanish Harlem into the park. His face was set in a grimace. It was a moment or two before I remembered him, the same kid I’d watched idly from the van a couple of days before. He wore the same blue jean shorts and yellow tee he’d been wearing three days before. What was he doing over here in the park?

“Yo, my friend, what’s up?” I moved to intercept him on the grass and held out an arm to stop his progress. It was a spur of the moment decision, fueled as much by desperation as anything else.

He stopped, eyeing me with suspicion. “No friend of yours,” he said, and tried to push around me.

I held out my arm, refusing to give ground. He was a rangy kid, much stronger than he looked. It was hard to place his foreign-sounding accent, but one thing was sure. He hadn’t picked it up around New York City.

“What you want?” His eyes grew small with suspicion.

“Just hang on a second. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

As he looked me up and down again, the apparent irritation in his eyes took on a cast of fear.

“Don’t worry. I’m not with immigration or the police.”

“No government?”

“No government.”

He seemed to relax a little. “What you want?” he asked again.

I began to appreciate just how thin he was. His arms were not only lean; they were tubes of skin and bone. And his forehead showed signs of temporal wasting. I found it hard to peg his age exactly.