The Law of Second Chances

8

Melvin Gertz was short and slight, and he had a huge nose that took over his small, narrow face, making him look a little lopsided. He also had a permanent five o’clock shadow, and to make matters worse, his blue doorman’s uniform always looked like he’d slept in it the night before. No wonder this guy works the night shift, Nick Walsh thought as Melvin opened the front door of the apartment building for him and Tony Severino.

Melvin wasn’t exactly overjoyed at seeing the two detectives either.

“I told the cop last night I don’t know nothing. People come and go. I open the door for them. That’s it.”

This was a guy who needed Nick’s special brand of persuasion. Nick didn’t need any prompting.

“Melvin, you think you don’t know anything, but you may have a valuable piece of information. You could give us something that could help us solve the whole case.”

“Me? Really? You guys are pulling my leg.”

“No we’re not,” said Nick. “It happens all the time. Remember the cabbie who delivered the baby in the backseat just last week in the Bronx? It was all over the news.”

Melvin was confused. “Yeah, I remember that, but what’s that got to do with me?”

“You give us information that blows open this case, you’re going to be a hero just like that cabdriver.”

“I already told ya, I don’t know nothing.”

“You let us be the judge of that. You just tell us everything you’ve seen. And when the TV cameras are on you and the news reporters are fighting for a quote, put in a good word for Tony and me, will you?”

“Sure thing,” Melvin said as he took a pen and pad from his uniform pocket. “What’s your names again?”

Nick noticed that Tony Severino had turned his back to them. His partner couldn’t keep from laughing at Melvin’s gullibility. Nick handed the doorman a card with both his and Tony’s name on it.

“That’s me, Detective Nicholas Walsh. You can call me Nick.”

“And you can call me Philly,” Melvin told Nick. “That’s what everybody calls me.”

“How come?” Nick asked.

“Well, when I was a kid, I loved Philly cheesesteaks. Everybody in the neighborhood started calling me Philly and the name stuck. And I kinda like it too. I never liked Melvin-never forgave my mother for that one.”

Nick knew what Melvin-Philly was talking about. A lot of guys in his neighborhood had nicknames that had stuck for life.

Once Philly got to feeling good and started talking, he was a treasure trove of information, as Nick knew he would be.

“Two nights before the murder, she comes home with this beautiful woman-tall, dark hair, a knockout.”

Nick interrupted. “You’re talking about Angie coming home with a woman?”

“Yeah, Angie. I didn’t think anything of it, you know. I figured they were just friends or something. Anyway, when I came on the next night, I was telling the day guy about how good-looking this broad was when the two of them come walking out dressed to the nines. They weren’t holding hands or anything like that but-what am I trying to say-they looked like they were together, if you know what I mean. Then the day guy tells me he didn’t see them all day. I don’t want to say anything bad about anybody, you know what I mean-I’m just telling you what I saw.”

“Great, Philly. It’s exactly what we want-your observations.”

That was when Philly laid the big bombshell on Nick and Tony.

“Speaking of seeing things-there’s two gay guys on the first floor here who saw the guy who did it. They say he ran right by their window, stopped, and practically posed for them. They were pretty surprised that nobody came by to talk to them.”

Nick looked at Tony, who shrugged his shoulders, letting Nick know he didn’t have a clue.

“See what I mean, Philly?” Nick said. “We didn’t even know about those guys. This is the kind of stuff that’s gonna get you in the newspapers.”

“Well, I better get my uniform clean and get a haircut. My wife won’t believe this.”

Nick was trying to get a picture in his mind of the woman who was married to Melvin “Philly” Gertz. Probably an old battle-axe who leads him around by the nose, he thought as he looked at that nose again. She’s certainly got a lot to work with.

“Those two guys,” he asked, “would they happen to be in right now?”

“They sure are, and they’ll want to talk to you. I know you guys are macho cops and everything, but Paul and David, they’re really great.”

“I’ll take your word for that, Philly. Why don’t you give them a buzz and see if we can talk to them right now.”

“I sure will.” Philly picked up the telephone receiver on the wall. Before he started dialing the number, Nick slipped in another request.

“Do you think you could come down to the station when you get off and maybe look at a few pictures? See if you can identify this woman from some photographs we have at the station?” That lie always rolled off the tongue so easily: “Maybe look at a few pictures”-actually, it’s several books full of pictures, and you may be there for a few hours!

“Sure thing,” Philly replied. “Whatever you guys want.”

Paul and David were both in their mid-thirties, clean-cut and very fit. Paul worked at home and had converted one of the two bedrooms into an office. Tony questioned Paul in his office while Nick and David chatted in the living room.

“We were sitting in the living room watching TV–I can’t remember what show it was. I think it was NYPD Blue,” Paul told Tony. “We heard this noise. It sounded like a blasting cap or a firecracker. You know, you don’t normally think, hey that’s a gunshot, because frankly I never heard a gunshot before except on TV. We both went to the window. We didn’t rush or anything-just kind of curious. The sound had been pretty close.”

“Did you see anything?” Tony asked.

“Yeah. We look out and to the left we see this car with the driver’s door open, and there’s a man lying on the ground. And there’s this other man leaning over him-he could have been checking him out to see if he was okay. I’m not saying he’s the person who shot the man-I couldn’t say that. I didn’t even know he was shot at the time. I found that out later. Anyway, the man who was leaning gets up and he walks toward us and then he sees us at the front window. He’s looking at us and we’re looking at him-and then he takes off. I wrote a description down right away. So did David. And we didn’t compare our descriptions. Nobody came to talk to us, so we figured you must have caught the guy.”

Paul handed Tony the description he’d written. Tony took a couple of minutes to read it, then looked up at Paul. “How far away from you was this man when you saw him?”

“Well, when we first saw him he was maybe twenty, thirty feet, but when he came closer, he was six or eight feet from us.”

“What about the lighting? Was it light enough for you to get a good look at him?”

“Oh yeah, I’ll show you before you leave. We have security lights on the side of the building. It’s like daylight out there.”

“Could you see if he had a gun on him?”

“I didn’t see a gun.”

“Did you see him take anything off the deceased, like a wallet or something?”

“No.”

At about the same time, in the living room, David was at the window showing Nick exactly where the man was standing when they spotted each other.

The two men agreed to come to the station the next day to give a sworn statement and “look at a few pictures.”

After the interviews, Tony had wanted to quiz Angie about her mysterious girlfriend right away. “If we go to her apartment right now we may catch her before she goes to bed,” he told Nick.

Nick suspected that Tony simply wanted to catch Angie in her negligee again.

“Let’s go tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll call first, so she’s not surprised and defensive. We’ll tell her we’re trying to tie up some loose ends.”

Nick saw the disappointment on Tony’s face, but his partner didn’t argue with his decision.

“Did you tell Philly not to say anything?” Tony asked when they were in the car and driving back to the station.

“Oh yeah. When I got through with him, he was only going to talk to movie producers after he and I solve the case together.”

Tony chuckled. “I gotta admit, Nick, you certainly have a good line of bullshit.”

Nick ignored the compliment. “What did you think of David and Paul?” he asked.

“Well, they’re very credible. Their descriptions are consistent and so detailed. I can’t believe we have people scouring the neighborhood for witnesses, and they miss the two guys who had front-row seats to the action.”

“It happens. At least we found them and now we have something to go on.”

Tony glanced again at the two descriptions. Both David and Paul had written that the man leaning over Carl Robertson had been about five-seven or five-eight, with somewhat unruly or greasy hair. He was thin and dressed totally in black. Paul wrote that the man appeared to be Latin, perhaps Puerto Rican or Cuban, based solely on his skin color. David noted that he wore no jewelry and that his eyes appeared to be brown and glassy.

“How about Angie’s girlfriend?” Tony asked. “Any possible connection to the murder?”

“I don’t know,” Nick replied. “It may be a red herring but we gotta check it out.”

“If Angie is a switch hitter and this woman looks as good as Philly says, I think we should set up a surveillance.”

Nick looked at him and smiled. “I’ll let you handle that.”