Two policemen were rushing over. At the corner, a third police car had stopped. The doors flew open. Peaked caps rose and started toward them. Already a crowd was gathering, as one by one, passersby figured out that someone had been shot.
Bolden leaned over and kissed Jenny on the forehead. He looked at her for a last moment, then rose and disappeared into the crowd. She would be all right, he said to himself. She would live.
34
“Her name was Dance? You’re sure of that?” Franciscus asked, after the officer in charge had explained what had happened as best as he knew. There were at least twenty uniforms securing the area, and as many blue-and-whites parked up and down the street. A crime scene had been set up, yellow tape forming a perimeter that ran from the burnt-out car down the block to where Franciscus stood.
“Yeah. Jennifer Dance,” he replied, double-checking his notepad. “She’s on the way to NYU Emergency. Gunshot wound to the shoulder. Don’t know how bad it is.”
“She with anyone? A guy, maybe? Six feet. Dark hair. Solid.”
“We got a report of someone running from the scene, but no description.”
“She talking?”
“Not yet. All she said was that one second she was standing there, the next she went down. I’ve got two men heading over to the hospital to speak with her. We’re still interviewing witnesses. Why? You got something I should know about?”
“Maybe. Can I get back to you?”
Franciscus patted the uniform on the shoulder and headed up the street toward the car.
Wisps of smoke rose from the engine block like steam from the subway grate. The hood was blown up into the shape of an arc. Somehow, it was still attached. Flames had charred the chassis and melted the windshield. A few firefighters stood around the wreck, extinguishers in hand. Franciscus joined them, waving at his nose. “What in the name of Jehovah is that smell?”
“Sulfur.”
“Sulfur? What is it, a stink bomb?”
One of the firefighters was bent forward, inspecting the bowels of the engine. “Got it!” he shouted, emerging with a twisted piece of metal the size of a wine cork with frayed wires sprouting from it. “Blasting cap,” he said, handing the misshapen chunk to the detective.
Franciscus inspected the blasting cap, turning it this way and that. “Tell me this: Why didn’t the whole car explode?”
“No gas,” said the firefighter, whom Franciscus figured to be an arson specialist. “There was only a gallon or so in the tank. Looks like they spread a little in the trunk and on the interior, but just enough to make a wicked fire. Not enough to go ka-boom. The whole thing was a very controlled job. Look at the hood. The force of the blast was directed up. Vertically. There was enough of a charge to make a loud bang, but not enough to blow this baby apart. This wasn’t about killing anybody, it was about making a big friggin’ noise and a heck of a lot of smoke.” He stuck his head back under the hood and pointed to the charred crust lining the engine wall. “ ‘Willy Pete.’ White phosphorus. It’s what made the smoke. Same stuff we use in our smoke canisters. This ain’t a stink bomb. No sir. What we got here, Detective, is a giant smoke bomb.”
Franciscus bent his head over the radiator. The vehicle identification number had been sanded down. He’d bet the license plates were stolen, too. He walked around the car. A Dodge Dart. What a pile. “So, I take it that we’re not talking Osama bin Laden?”
“More like Mr. Wizard.”
Franciscus was leaving 1 PP, heading back uptown, when the radio had started going crazy with chatter. A car bomb in Union Square Park. A report of gunfire. One wounded. Possible fatalities. All available units to respond. It sounded like war had broken out. He threw the siren onto the dash, and in a few seconds, had the Crown Vic up to sixty. As he neared Twelfth Street, he caught a plume of black smoke curling into the air.
The day was turning out to be one big bouquet of roses.
After learning that the file on the Albany bombing was missing, he’d made a beeline for Central Booking to check on the status of the perp Bolden had brought in the night before. Busted teeth or no busted teeth, Franciscus intended on finding out from him why he’d wanted to assault Thomas Bolden, and why his buddies had such a hard-on for Bobby Stillman, a woman with a warrant for capital murder on her head who had dropped off the radar a quarter of a century earlier. To his surprise, the perp had given himself a name-Trey Parker-a social security number, and had, thereupon, been flushed out of the system. No arraignment. No bail. Nada. This, in flagrant contravention of New York State law calling for a mandatory one-year sentence for those convicted of illegally possessing a firearm. Worse, Franciscus couldn’t find a soul who knew anything about it. The paperwork concerning his release had disappeared with Mr. Parker himself.
It was at this point that Franciscus had decided to talk to Bolden personally, and give him a heads-up that Parker might be looking for him. There was something about Bolden that he liked. Maybe it was that tattoo: “Never Rat on Friends.” Anybody else working with a tight-ass firm on Wall Street would have had the artwork removed long ago.
A call to Bolden’s office had led to a conversation with Michael Schiff, HW’s CEO, who was quick to inform him that Solomon Weiss had been killed that morning. The man had gone on to rant for ten minutes about Bolden being the killer and a lot of stuff that Franciscus still couldn’t bring himself to believe.
A real bouquet of roses, he thought as he walked into the Coffee Shop, looking for something to drink. The place had a juice bar over in one corner. A young Puerto Rican guy was sitting on a stool behind the counter, chewing on a section of sugarcane.
Franciscus took a seat on the sparkling ruby red barstool. “What do you have that’ll do an old fart some good?”
“You like wheatgrass?”
Franciscus made a face. He’d tried wheatgrass twice. The first and last times. You might as well eat lawn clippings. “Got some coffee?”
Franciscus tried to pay, but the man wouldn’t hear of it. In the end, he left a two-dollar tip on the counter.
“Excuse me, sir, but are you Detective Francioso?” A woman’s head protruded inside the front door, like a turtle peeping out of its shell.
“Close enough,” he said.
The woman stepped inside and looked around hesitantly. “I have a movie. One of the boys said you might like to see it.”
“A movie? What kind of movie?” Franciscus twirled his stool to get a better look at her. She was fifty with short, red hair, a kindly face, and a few extra pounds around the middle.
“I’m in town visiting my daughter. She’s a student at NYU. Journalism. We had a lovely day until this. We saw the Empire State Building-”
“Ma’am, you said you had a movie?”
“Oh, yes. I was outside in the park when everything happened. I was filming Sharon with some of her friends… musicians… they’re very good… when that poor young lady was shot.”
“You mean you filmed her being shot?”
She nodded. “I thought it was something the police might like to have. You might find something useful.”
Franciscus was on his feet in a heartbeat. “That’s very considerate of you. Do you think I might have a look?”
“Yes, of course.”
Franciscus guided the woman to a table in a quiet corner of the room. Helping him extend the two-inch-by-two-inch screen, she pressed the play button, then fiddled with a volume control. The picture appeared.
The images showed a young woman standing in the park listening to the horn quartet. The picture was steady. No zooming in and out. The lady knew how to make a home movie. The camera panned until the Coffee Shop was in view. The sky blue Dodge sat in the foreground. Her daughter walked into the frame, heading toward the restaurant. Next, he picked out Thomas Bolden and Jennifer Dance coming out of the restaurant and hurrying to the curb. Despite the line of customers waiting to get into the restaurant and the general lunch-hour to and fro, Franciscus was also able to spot three men emerging from the restaurant behind them and assuming a distinctly menacing stance.