“I became more observant after that. Recently, over, say, the past month or so, my father and his friends were up to something. His goombas. It was so obvious. They were always together after work. One night I heard him mention something about Washington, D.C., to his pal Jimmy Crews. Then he went away for four days.
“He got home on the fourth afternoon. It was the day after the MetroHartford kidnapping. He started to ‘celebrate’ at around three, and he was flying high by seven. That night, he broke my mom’s cheekbone. He cut her eye and could have put it out. My father wears this stupid signet ring from St. John’s. The Redmen — now the Red Storm, you know. I went to my grandma’s shed that night and I found more money. I couldn’t believe it. There’s so much money there, all cash.”
Veronica Macdougall reached under the table and hoisted up a powder blue backpack, the kind kids wear to school. She opened it. She pulled out several stacks of bills and showed us the money. Her face was a mask of shame and pain.
“Here’s ten thousand four hundred dollars. It was right there in my grandmother’s shed. My father put it there. My father was in on that kidnapping in Washington. He thinks he’s so goddamn smart.”
Only then, once she was finished telling us what her father had done, did Veronica Macdougall finally break down and cry. “I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m so, so sorry.” I think she was apologizing for his crimes.
Chapter 86
I BELIEVED HER, and I was still reeling from hearing Veronica Macdougall’s chilling confession about her policeman father. An intriguing question was whether the crew of Brooklyn detectives had “masterminded” the earlier bank robberies, too. Had they murdered several people in cold blood before they attempted the MetroHartford kidnapping? Was one of the detectives the Mastermind?
I had plenty of time to think about it during an interminable day of politicking and infighting involving the FBI, the mayor, and the New York police commissioner. Meanwhile, the five Brooklyn detectives were put under surveillance, but we weren’t given the go-ahead to bring them in. It was frustrating, maddening, like being stuck for a day on the Long Island Expressway in a traffic jam, or on a New York subway. The detectives’ attendance records were being checked against the days all of the robberies took place. Credit and spending checks were run on each of them. Other detectives, even snitches, were quietly interviewed. The money found at Brian Macdougall’s mother’s house had been retrieved and it was definitely part of the ransom.
As of six o’clock, nothing had been decided. None of us could believe the delay. Betsey surfaced briefly and reported that no progress had been made so far. Around seven, I went and checked into a hotel for the night.
I kept getting angrier and angrier. I took a hot shower, and then I leafed through a Zagat’s guide looking for a good place to eat downtown. Around nine, I finally ordered from room service. I’d been thinking about Christine and the Boy. I didn’t feel like going out. Maybe if Betsey had been available, but she was tied up, raging against the machine at Police Plaza.
I propped myself up in bed and tried to read Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane. I was on a string of books that I’d enjoyed lately: The Pilot’s Wife, The Pied Piper, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the Lehane.
I couldn’t concentrate. I wanted to take down the five New York detectives. I wanted to be home with the kids, and I wanted little Alex to be part of our family. That was the one thing that had kept me going strong lately.
Finally, I started to think about Betsey Cavalierre. I had been trying not to, but now I remembered our “date” in Hartford. I liked her — it was as simple as that. I wanted to see her again and I hoped she wanted to see me.
The phone in my room rang around eleven o’clock. It was Betsey. She sounded tired and frustrated and decidedly non-peppy for her.
“I’m just finishing up here at Police Plaza. I hope. Believe it or not, we’re set to take them down tomorrow. You definitely wouldn’t believe the bullshit that’s gone on today. Lots of talk about the detectives’ civil rights. Plus the effect on morale inside the NYPD. Making the arrest ‘the right way.’ Nobody’s willing to say these are five very bad actors. They’re probably killers. Take their sorry asses down.”
“They’re five very bad actors. Take their sorry asses down,” I said to her.
I heard her laugh and I could picture her smile. “That’s what we’re doing, Alex. Bright and early tomorrow morning. We’re taking them down. Maybe we’ll get the Mastermind, too. I have to be here at least another hour. I’ll see you in the morning. Early.”
Chapter 87
FOUR O’CLOCK comes very early in the morning. That was the hour we were scheduled to hit the homes of the five detectives. Everything was set. The politicking was done; at least I hoped it was over.
Three-thirty comes even earlier, and that was when we met somewhere in Nassau County out on Long Island. I didn’t know much about the area, but it was upscale and pretty, a far cry from Fifth Street and Southeast. Someone on the team said the neighborhood was unusual because a lot of cops and also Mafia people lived there in apparent harmony.
This was a federal case, and Betsey Cavalierre was officially in charge of the arrests. It illustrated the regard in which she was held back in Washington, if not in New York.
“I’m happy to see that everybody is bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. Night? Whatever time zone we’re in.” She offered up a joke and got a few smiles from the troops. There were about forty of us, a mix of police and FBI, but the Bureau was definitely in charge of the morning’s raids. She divided us into five teams of eight, and I was in her group.
Everybody was ready, and incredibly pumped up. We drove to a split-level house on High Street in Massapequa. No one seemed to be up in the suburban neighborhood. A dog started barking in one of the yards nearby. Dew glistened on every manicured lawn. Life seemed good out here where Detective Brian Macdougall lived with his battered wife and bitterly angry daughter.
Betsey spoke into her Handie-Talkie. She seemed extremely cool under fire. “Radio check.” Then, “Team A, through the front door. Team B, kitchen, Team C, sunporch. Team D is backup. . . . Now. Go! Take him down!”
The agents and police detectives swarmed toward the house on her signal. Betsey and I got to watch them quickly move in. We were Team D, the backup.
Team A was inside the house fast and clean.
Then so was Team B. We couldn’t see the third team from where we were parked. They went in the back.
There was shouting inside. Then we heard a loud pop. Percussive, definitely a gunshot.
“Oh, shit.” Betsey looked over at me. “Macdougall was waiting for us. How the hell did that happen?”
There were several more gunshots. Someone yelled. A woman began to scream and curse. Was it Veronica Macdougall’s mother?
Betsey and I jumped out of the car and moved quickly toward the Macdougall house. We still didn’t go inside. I was thinking that four other houses were being hit right now. I hoped there wasn’t more trouble like this.
“Talk to me,” Betsey said into her Handie-Talkie. “What’s happening in there? Mike? What the hell is wrong?”
“Rice is down. I’m outside the master bedroom on the second floor. Macdougall and his wife are inside.”
“How is Rice?” she asked, very concerned.
“Chest wound. He’s conscious. Wound is sucking bad, though. Get an ambulance here now! Macdougall shot him.”
Suddenly a window on the second floor opened. I saw a figure come out of the window and run in a low crouch across the attached garage roof.
Betsey and I sprinted toward the man. I remembered that she’d been a good lacrosse player at Georgetown. She could still move.
“He’s outside! Macdougall’s up on the roof over the garage,” she reported to the others.
“I got him,” I told her. He was angling toward where the garage roof intersected with a row of feathery-looking fir trees. I couldn’t s
ee what was beyond the trees, but I figured it had to be another yard, another house.
“Macdougall!” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Stop! Police! Stop or I’ll shoot!”
He didn’t look back, didn’t stop, and didn’t hesitate. Macdougall jumped down into the trees.
Chapter 88
I RAN WITH MY HEAD DOWN, right through a barrier of thick bushes that scraped and cut my arms until there was blood. Brian Macdougall hadn’t gotten very far into the yard next door.
I raced for a dozen steps after him, and then I tackled him. I aimed my right shoulder at the back of his knees. I wanted to hurt Macdougall if I possibly could.
He went down hard, but he was as loaded up with adrenaline as I was. He rolled and twisted out of my arms. He popped up fast, and so did I. “You should have stayed down,” I told him. “You’re not supposed to make mistakes. Getting up was a mistake.”
I hit Macdougall with a hard, straight overhand right. It felt very good. His head snapped back about six inches.
I bobbed a little. Macdougall threw a wild hook that missed me completely. I hit him again. His knees buckled, but he didn’t go down. He was a tough street cop.
“I’m impressed,” I told him, taunted him. “You still should have stayed down, though.”
“Alex!” I heard Betsey yell as she entered the yard.
Macdougall threw a pretty good punch, but he telegraphed it a little. It glanced off the side of my forehead. I could have taken the punch if it had connected. “That’s better,” I told him. “Get the weight off your heels, Brian.”
“Alex!” Betsey called again. “Take him down, goddamnit! Now!”
I wanted the physical contact with Macdougall, the release, just another minute in the ring. I felt I’d earned it, and he deserved whatever got doled out here. He threw another looping punch, but I sidestepped the hit. He was already tired.
“You’re not beating up on your wife or your little girl now,” I said. “You’re dealing with somebody your own size. I fight back, Macdougall.”
“Fuck you,” he snarled, but he was gasping for a breath. His face and neck were coated with sweat.
“Are you the man? Are you the Mastermind, Brian? You kill all those people?”
He didn’t answer me, so I hit him hard in the stomach. He doubled up, his face tight with pain.
Betsey had come up to the two of us by now. So had a couple of other agents. They just watched; they understood what this was about. They wanted it to happen, too.
“Balls of your feet.” I gave Macdougall a fight tip. “You’re still fighting back on your heels.”
He mumbled something. I couldn’t make it out. Didn’t much care what he had to say. I hit him in the stomach again. “See? Kill the body,” I told him. “I teach my kids the same thing.”
I threw another uppercut into his stomach. He wasn’t flabby, and the punch felt good, like hitting a heavy bag. Then a sharp uppercut right on the tip of Macdougall’s chin. He went down hard on the lawn. He stayed there. He was out.
I stood over him, panting a little, sweating some. “Brian Macdougall. I asked you a question. Are you the Mastermind?”
Chapter 89
THE NEXT TWO DAYS were draining and wildly frustrating. The five detectives were being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center at Foley Square. It was a secure place where mob informants and crooked policemen were sometimes kept for their own safety.
I interviewed each of the detectives, starting with the youngest, Vincent O’Malley, and ending up with Brian Macdougall, who appeared to be the leader. One after the other, the detectives denied any involvement in the MetroHartford kidnapping.
Hours after my initial interview with Brian Macdougall, he asked to see me again.
When the shackled detective was brought into the interrogation room at Foley Square, I had a feeling that something had changed. I could see it in his face.
Macdougall was visibly upset when he spoke: “It’s different than I’d thought it would be. In jail. Sitting here on the wrong side of the table. It’s more a defensive game, you know. You try and hit the ball back over the net.”
“You want anything?” I asked him. “Cold drink?”
“Cigarette?”
I called for cigarettes to be brought into the interrogation room. Someone popped in with a pack of Marlboros, then immediately left. Macdougall lit up and he puffed luxuriously, as if smoking a Marlboro were the greatest pleasure the world had to offer. Maybe it seemed like it now.
I watched his eyes drift in and out of focus. He was obviously bright, thoughtful. The Mastermind? I waited patiently to hear what he wanted from me. He wanted something.
“I’ve seen a lot of detectives do this,” he said, then he blew out a cloud of smoke. “You know how to listen. You don’t make mistakes.”
There was a brief silence. We both had all the time in the world. “What do you want from us?” I finally asked.
“Right question, Detective. I’ll get to that soon. Y’know, I was a decent enough cop in the beginning,” he said. “It’s when those first ideals go that you have to be careful.”
“I’ll try to remember,” I said, smiling faintly, trying not to condescend.
“What keeps you going?” Macdougall asked. He seemed interested in my answer. Maybe I amused him. More likely, he was playing with me, though. That was okay for now.
I looked into his eyes and I saw emptiness, maybe even remorse. “I don’t want to disappoint my family, or myself. It’s just the way I’m built. Maybe I don’t have much of an imagination.”
Smoke drifted through his fingers. “You asked me what I wanted? It was the right question. I always act out of self-interest, always have.” He sighed out loud. “All right, let me tell you what I’m looking for.”
I knew enough to listen, not talk.
“First of all, nobody got hurt from MetroHartford. We’ve never hurt anybody on any of our jobs.”
“What about the Buccieris? James Bartlett? Ms. Collins?” I asked.
Macdougall shook his head. “I didn’t do those jobs. You know I didn’t do them. I know you know.”
He was right; at least I didn’t believe they had done the earlier jobs. The style was different for those. Plus, the detectives’ attendance logs showed they had worked on several of the days when robberies took place. “Okay. So where do we go from here? You also know that we want to get the person who set up the jobs. That’s what we care about now.”
“I know that. So here’s my offer. It’ll be hard for everybody to swallow, but it’s nonnegotiable. I want the best deal that I ever saw as a cop. That means witness protection inside a country club like Greenhaven. I’m out in ten years maximum time. I’ve seen that same deal on counts of murder one. I know what can be done and what can’t be.”
I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t have to. Macdougall knew I couldn’t make the deal by myself. “Let me hear the punch line,” I said. “What do we get from you?”
He stared into my eyes. His look was unwavering.
“In return — I’ll give him to you. I’ll tell you how to find the guy who planned the jobs. He’s called the Mastermind. I know where he is.”
Part Five
ALL FALL DOWN
Chapter 90
THE FBI, THE NYPD, AND THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT were holding a series of high-level meetings to try to frame the best possible response to Brian Macdougall’s offer. I was fairly certain that nothing decisive would happen with Macdougall until at least Monday.
At four-thirty I took the shuttle back to Washington. Betsey Cavalierre and Michael Doud stayed in New York, just in case something happened.
I had some important business myself. That night, the kids, Nana, and I went to see Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. We had a good time, though we’d hoped to see more of Samuel L. Jackson in the film. I had been noticing a subtle change between Jannie and Damon. Since she’d been sick, Damon was much more patient with her. Jannie
was also pulling some punches with her brother, torturing him less. They had grown up a lot in the past few weeks. I figured they were becoming friends, and that would last for the rest of their lives.
Early on Saturday, I decided to have a heart-to-heart with the kids. I had already taken some good counsel from Nana about what needed to be said to them. Her own response was typical Nana: She was sorry as could be about what had happened between Christine and me. As for little Alex, she said she couldn’t wait for him to come. “I love babies, Alex. This will add ten years to my life.” I almost believed her.
“This is not good,” Damon proclaimed as he stared across the breakfast table at me. “Is it?”
I grinned at him. “Well, that’s only half true. Where do I begin with this?” I said, stumbling a little out of the gate.
“At the beginning,” Jannie suggested.
The beginning? Where exactly was the beginning?
I finally just dove into the subject matter. “Christine and I have been very close for a long time. I think you both know that. We still are, but things have changed lately. After the school year, she’s going to move away from the Washington area. I don’t know exactly where she’s going yet. We won’t be seeing her as much, though.”
Jannie’s jaw dropped, and Damon spoke up. “She’s different in school, Dad. Everybody says so. She gets mad easy. She always looks sad.”
It hurt for me to hear that. I felt it was partly my fault. “She went through a very bad, very scary thing,” I said to him. “It’s hard for anyone to imagine what it was like for her. She’s still recovering from it. It might take a while longer.”
Jannie finally spoke, and her voice was surprisingly small. Her eyes were full of concern and worry. “What about the Big Boy?” she asked.