Veronica stared impassively at us as we introduced ourselves around a massive mahogany and glass conference table inside what the NYPD called The Big Building." Chief of Detectives Andrew Gross then introduced the girl. "Veronica is a very brave young woman," he said "She'll tell her story in her own words."
The girl took a quick, deep breath. Her eyes were small green beads and they were filled with fear. "I wrote out something last night. Organized myself. I'll give my statement, and then there can be questions if you want."
Chief of Detectives Gross broke in gently. He was a heavyset man with a thick gray mustache and long side-burns. His manner was subdued. "That would be fine, Veronica. However you want to do it. However it happens to go is perfect for us. Take your time."
Veronica shook her head and looked very, very unsteady. 'I'm okay. I need to do this," she said. Then she began her story.
"My father is what you people call a man's man. He's very proud of it too. He's loyal to his friends, and especially to other cops. He's this "great guy," right? Well, there's another side to him. My mother used to be pretty. That was ten years and thirty pounds ago. She needs nice things. I mean, she physically needs things, possessions like clothes and shoes. She is her possessions.
"She's not the smartest person in the world, but my father thinks he is right up there and that's why he picks on her unmercifully. A few years back he started to drink a lot. And then he started to get really
mean, to hit my mother. He calls her "the bag," and "speed bag." Isn't that clever of him?"
Veronica paused and looked around the room; she checked our reaction to what she was saying. The conference room was eerily silent. None of us could look away from the teenager and the anger blooming in those green eyes.
"That's why I'm here today. That's how I'm able to do this terrible thing to "rat out" my own father. To break the sacred Blue Wall."
She stopped and stared defiantly at us again. I couldn't take my eyes away from her. No one in the room could. This made so much sense: A break coming from a family member.
"My father doesn't realize that I'm actually a lot smarter than he is, and I'm also observant. Maybe I learned that from him. I remember when I was around ten or so, I just knew I was going to be a police detective too. Pretty ironic, huh. Pretty pathetic, don't you think?
"As I got older I noticed observed that my father had lots more money than he ought to have. Sometimes he would take us on a "guilt trip" Ireland, maybe the Caribbean. And he always had money for himself. Really good clothes, fancy threads from Barneys and Saks. A new car every other year. A sleek white sailboat parked in Sheepshead Bay.
"Last summer my father was disgustingly drunk one Friday night. I remember he was going out to Aqueduct racetrack with his running dog detective pals on Saturday. He took a walk to my grandmother's house, which is a few streets away from us. I followed him that night. He was too far gone to even notice.
"My father went to an old gardening shed behind my grandmother's. Inside the shed, he moved away a workbench and some wooden slats. I couldn't tell exactly what he was doing, so I came back the next day and looked behind the boards. There was money inside a lot. I don't know where it came from, still don't. But I knew it wasn't his detective's pay. I counted almost twenty thousand dollars. I took a few hundred, and he never even noticed.
"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 DC 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 Metro Hartford 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 she 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 what he had done.
Chapter Eighty-Four
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 Metro Hartford 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 Alex. 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.