Page 12 of Paranoia

They chatted for a few minutes and Trilling was surprised how comfortable he was talking to Mariah. She said she had been on the job for only about six months. “They loved having a Black female in the program. Especially one who could do all the physical training. I thought it was kind of fun.”

“That’s how I felt about the Army.”

They talked some more. At one point, Mariah laughed and put a hand on Trilling’s arm.

The next thing he knew, they were exchanging phone numbers. It had happened to Trilling only a couple of times in his whole life.

He almost forgot why he was here. Until Terri Hernandez yelled over to him, “Hey, Super Jock, let’s go have a look at the body.”

Trilling took a moment to say good-bye to Mariah. He saved her number on his phone as “Mariah Paramedic.”

CHAPTER 19

THE CITY PROVIDES me with a car. I appreciate the few quiet moments I spend driving it—today, for example, heading north into the Bronx. The only problem is, today it also gave me time to obsess about Mary Catherine. Almost as soon as I got into the car, I called the apartment. My daughter Juliana answered the phone and treated me like she and my wife were teen girls torturing a boyfriend. Juliana giggled while she said, “Mary Catherine is not available right now.” I could hear both of them snickering. “She’s resting and won’t be accepting calls for some time.” In the background, I heard Mary Catherine say, “At least not until we finish the next episode ofCall the Midwife.”

Frankly, I was relieved to hear Mary Catherine in such a good mood. I couldn’t dwell on whatcouldhappen. I could only work to create the best circumstances for her and the baby. If that meantnot bugging her during the day with phone calls, I could live with that.

That left me free to concentrate on some of the information Walter Jackson had found. Like the magician he was, Walter had uncovered tidbits that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to look for. Not only had four cops who at some point had all worked narcotics in the Bronx died recently but also at least three convicted drug dealers who’d been arrested by the Land Sharks narcotics team had died in the last month. Two from drug overdoses and one from autoerotic asphyxiation.

Walter had said, when he explained all this to me, “I know a lot of drug dealers die young. I’m not sure this means anything.”

“Every death means something.”

Walter had said, “You’re right. What I meant to say was, I’m not sure these deaths are connected to our retired cops. Although it does look like the victims were all investigated by the Sharks back in the day.”

Walter had also pointed me to possibly the biggest suspect the Land Sharks had ever arrested: Richard Deason. His name was on a youth center in the Bronx. I remembered some controversy after he was arrested about leaving his name on the building. I guess, in the long run, it was too much trouble to change it.

Even now, almost twenty years on, it might be hard to find someone in the Bronx willing to talk about Richard Deason. Deason had provided money for several projects in the borough. But he’d also been caught on an FBI wiretap admitting to a homicide. The FBI gave the information to the NYPD, where a smart detective had tracked down the location of the alleged homicide and was able to find several blood spatters with DNA that connected to the victim.

It was one of those cases in which a forensics team used a relative of the victim to determine the origin of the blood through DNA. They’d had to do it that way because the victim had disappeared. No one would’ve ever known what happened to him if not for an errant comment on this FBI wiretap.

I talked to a couple of my informants. They knew Deason’s name but hadn’t been active back in the days when he’d ruled the Bronx. I then decided to go outside of my ring of professional informants.

I stopped at a bodega on Van Cortlandt Avenue. The family who ran it made a decent living with a small café that had three tables, in addition to the four aisles of groceries and one of freezers. As soon as I stepped through the door, I heard a woman’s voice shout, “Ricardo, look who’s come to visit!” An older woman hustled out from behind the counter and wrapped me in a bear hug.

A moment later, her lanky husband, Ricardo, joined in the hug.

Ricardo asked, “What brings you up to the Bronx, Detective Mike?”

His wife, Monica, shushed him and said, “What would you like to eat? We have some delicious pupusas.”

I’d met Ricardo and Monica Salazar years ago when I was still involved in hostage negotiation. A gunman had been caught in the middle of an armed robbery and held the couple for almost five hours. It ended when I convinced the gunman that nothing good would come from hurting anyone. When I’d walked up to the front door of the bodega and talked to the guy face-to-face, I’d softened his stance, and he’d released the couple right then. A few minutes later, the gunman surrendered as well. Ever since, the Salazars treated me like one of their family. And I appreciated it.

After I accepted a pupusa to go, I explained I was just looking for some information. Ricardo Salazar got serious and said, “How can we help?”

“Do you remember a guy in the Bronx named Richard Deason? He was—”

“We remember Mr. Deason. I heard he died in jail.”

“Yeah, someone shanked him.” I noticed the expressions on the Salazars’ faces. “Did you know him personally?”

“Yes, Detective Mike, we did.”

CHAPTER 20

THE SALAZARS HAD one of their daughters come out to watch the counter as they led me to their tiny back office. Ricardo Salazar shut the flimsy door in the hope they would have more privacy. All three of us crammed into the room. I sat awkwardly with my notebook on my knee.

Ricardo and Monica sat in matching hard metal chairs with straight backs. They looked worried. I tried to put them at ease.

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