Page 54 of The Writer

Cordova gives a dismissive shrug. “You ever know Daniels and Harrison to talk outside official channels? You ever see them say a word to each other at the Six?”

Declan considers that. The Six was seen as neutral ground for all members of the force; it was like Switzerland. For the most part, problems, conflicts, disagreements, and bad blood were left at the door. That meant you might find someone from IAU laughing it up with a homicide detective, or you might see a uniform putting away shots with someone from the DA’s office. There was no rank inside the Six. But even there, Harrison was an outsider. Other members of his team might belly up to the bar next to someone they were investigating, but notHarrison. He tended to occupy a booth in the back and hold court. As the alcohol flowed, some would wander over in hopes of gleaning some detail on an open investigation, while others might find themselves at his booth sharing something they’d bottled up, something they’d decided needed to come out. Declan has been going to the Six for years, but he can’t recall a single instance of seeing Harrison and Daniels talking. Here’s the thing, though: Guys like Daniels climbed the ranks because they understood information was currency. They also understood the importance of discretion.

Cordova takes a few steps down the sidewalk, turns, and comes back again. “He ever tell you he went up to Dannemora to talk to Lucero?”

Declan nearly chokes on the cigarette smoke. “What? When?”

“It was about a week before he had to give his deposition to IAU. A few days after I gave mine. Maybe a month after Lucero’s trial. Remember when he had all the Lucero files brought to his office so he could rehash every aspect of the case? He re-created our whiteboards, reread every witness statement.”

“Oh, you mean the first time he called me an ignorant bastard and tried to punch holes in our work?” Declan puffs. “You mean that time?”

Cordova nods. “Something triggered him, but he wouldn’t say what. I asked him a couple times and he just clammed up.”

“IAU was all over him, same as us. He was probably making sure we didn’t miss anything, right?”

“He has forty-one officers under his command,” Cordova says. “At any given time, he’s got three to five open IAU investigations on his desk. He’s not the sort to get rattled by thatkind of thing. I doubt you last long on that job if you do. Something else spooked him.”

“Before or after he drove up to Dannemora?”

“After,” Cordova says. “He had everything brought to his officeafter.”

They both fall silent for several moments, then Declan stomps out the cigarette. “Denise Morrow contacts Roy Harrison. Roy Harrison points her to Daniels—”

“With a personal number.”

“With a personal number,” Declan repeats. “He takes a drive up to Dannemora and chats with Lucero, and Lucero tells him something that seriously twists his panties.” Declan waits for Cordova to throw a wrench in that, because that’s what Cordova does, but his partner remains silent. Finally, he nods.

Declan says, “We need to take a ride up to Dannemora.”

“Ineed to take a ride up to Dannemora,” Cordova replies. “You’re going to do exactly what the LT said and take the day off.”

“No way, I—”

“You can’t give him or Harrison or anyone else an excuse to shut you down. Not until we know what this is about.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Excerpt fromThe Taking of Maggie Marshallby Denise Morrow

REMEMBER HOW I said Declan Shaw’s father was a good man on paper? Well, on paper, Ruben Lloyd Lucero definitively was not. His rap sheet began with multiple arrests for statutory rape early in life and only got worse as he got older. He’d been dating those first two girls; the parents had pressed charges because he was over eighteen and their respective daughters were minors. While that is technically a crime in the good state of New York, I did speak to both girls (now women) and both confirmed the relationships were consensual.

I can understand that, and I’m willing to give him a pass for those.

Why?

Here’s why.

When I was sixteen, I dated a guy who was in his second year at Columbia. He was twenty. If you’d asked me then, I would have told you I was madly in love with him and his feelings for me were so strong, it was like our souls were destined to spend eternity together. If you asked me now, I’d tell you the thrill and danger of dating a college boy when I was only a sophomore in high school was what sent my insides swooning, and he was most likely dating a half dozen co-eds in the days (sometimes weeks) we were apart. It wasn’t romance; it was a cultivated experience. It certainly wasn’t rape, not to me. And because my parents never found out and so never had the opportunity to press charges, it wasn’t declared rape by the law either.

So, yeah, I can give Lucero a pass for those early relationships.

But Ruben Lucero didn’t stop. After those two, there were no more underage girlfriends, no more parents pressing charges for statutory rape, but there were other girls, other charges. At twenty-two, just six weeks after completing probation, he was arrested for public indecency. He told police he was overtaken with the sudden urge to urinate while waiting for the subway and didn’t feel he could make it to the bathroom before his business became the business of other people on the platform. The police found no urine on the pavement. What they did find were four teenagegirls willing to testify they were standing five feet from Lucero when he decided to drop his pants and smile. That earned him thirty days behind bars, another year on probation, and an additional red mark on the sex offenders list. Two years after that, he was found in an alley with a fifteen-year-old female runaway from Ohio who had turned to prostitution rather than go back home to an abusive stepfather. Lucero pleaded no contest and agreed to enter a treatment program for sex offenders. His twenty-fifth birthday came and went. Post-treatment, Lucero reentered society as (hopefully) a cured man. On paper, anyway.

In order to secure the groundskeeping job at Central Park, he lied when asked if he had a criminal record. On his employment application, he reversed two digits on his Social Security number and gave his name as Lloyd R. Lucero rather than Ruben Lloyd Lucero. He told his interviewer everyone called him Lucky, and that stuck. That little bit of smoke and mirrors was enough to keep park personnel from discovering his past. They did fingerprint him, but apparently those prints were never processed, just placed in his file and forgotten. A former park administrator told me it was standard practice to hold processing during a new hire’s probationary period due to high turnover and a small budget, but I never found proof to back that up. If it was true, it doesn’t explain why nobody ran the prints when Lucero crossed the thirty-day mark.

Many would say Lucero kept his head down, managed to control his appetite for young girls, and stayed out of trouble. Again, on paper, that’s how it looked. Following the death of Maggie Marshall, the police raided RubenLucero’s apartment and found a number of books that appeared to have been stolen from young girls, frequent visitors to the park. They were souvenirs; there is no denying that. He kept the books of girls who interested him and whom he fixated on. Along with stealing the books, he took photographs of many girls. Some of those photos were shot at a distance; others were taken by hidden cameras (attached to the undersides of brooms and rakes to capture up-skirt shots). A few appeared to have been taken with the subjects’ consent: Girls in various stages of undress. Some pleasuring themselves. All underage.

Ruben Lucero was—is—a bad man.

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