The Patriots' Club

41

Detective John Franciscus drove slowly down the street, checking the addresses of the clapboard colonial homes. A light snow fell, adding a fresh layer to lawns already covered with six inches of the stuff. Icicles hung from bare branches that swayed in the wind. It was going to get worse before it got better. The forecast called for the brunt of the storm to hit the New York metropolitan area sometime that evening. Anywhere from six inches to two feet was expected. He turned up the heater a notch.

The hamlet of Chappaqua belonged formally to the city of New Castle. Though an NYPD detective had jurisdiction throughout the state, it was common courtesy to alert the local shop that he was paying a visit. Even so, Franciscus hadn’t phoned ahead. Crime folders, like Bobby Stillman’s, didn’t go missing without a reason. Men due to be arraigned did not commonly walk out of jail leaving no trace behind them. Other eyes were watching. It was best to be invisible for a while.

He pulled the car to the curb and killed the ignition, listening to the engine tick and the wind scuff the windshield. A look in the rearview to make sure his teeth were clean. A check of his necktie. A breath strip, and he was ready to go.

Franciscus climbed out of his car, checking for any ice on the pavement. Sixtieth birthdays and broken hips went together like beer and pretzels. Next house over, a man about his age was getting a snowblower out of his garden shed. Seeing Franciscus, he waved and shook his head disconsolately, as if he’d had enough snow for this winter. The image of the red-faced man struggling with his snowblower stayed with him. In a year, that would be him. Then what? What would a Wednesday afternoon hold in store for him?

Done clearing the snow, he’d go inside and take a shower. He’d come downstairs smelling of baby powder and aftershave, pour himself a Bud, and grab a bowl of Japanese rice crackers for some nibbles, before settling into the La-Z-Boy for a long, slow night in front of the tube. He’d end up watching reruns of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched. At some point, he’d fall asleep in his chair, only to wake up half out of it, dazed, and bleary-eyed, wondering how in the hell he’d gotten there in the first place. Not in the chair, but how he’d gotten to be sixty-three, retired, with a gold watch, a pension, and a zipper running down his breastbone that promised him twenty more years of the same.

Franciscus rang the doorbell. An attractive brunette in her mid-forties opened the door a moment later. “Detective Franciscus?”

She was a knockout, tall and willowy with hair cut short, nicely styled. Kovacs had been thirty-one when he’d called it quits. Franciscus had assumed his wife to be the same age. Put the word “widow” in front of a woman’s name and she became sixty, frumpy, and about as comely as a sack of potatoes. He returned the smile. “Mrs. Kovacs?”

“Please come in.”

“Call me John,” he said, stepping past her, into the cool of the foyer. “I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Not at all. When you mentioned my husband, I was glad to make the time. Please, call me Katie. Why don’t we sit in the den.”

Katie Kovacs led the way across the foyer, past an open kitchen and down the hall. Franciscus couldn’t help but notice that the place was tricked out with all the latest gadgets and gizmos. There was granite in the kitchen, a stainless-steel fridge, and a PC in the work nook. Immediately, he began working out what kind of money she had to be making to live in this kind of style. It was a professional hazard. A salary of eighty-five grand a year left you with a sizable chip on your shoulder.

“Here’s Theo,” she said, pointing to a framed photo hanging in the center of the wall.

So that was Kovacs, thought Franciscus. The picture showed a young policeman in his blues, his peaked cap worn soberly. Trusting eyes, toothy grin, chipmunk cheeks. Franciscus pegged him as the cheery, indomitable type. The guy who took KP three nights running and didn’t complain. He didn’t look like a cop who’d end things by eating his gun. But then, no one started out that way.

They continued down the hall. Katie Kovacs pointed out her office. A sleek desk ran along two sides of the room, dominated by three large flat-screen monitors on which a blizzard of red, green, and white symbols flashed like Christmas lights. Documents were stacked in several piles. A few stray papers littered the floor. She smiled apologetically. “I clean up every evening.”

Franciscus observed Kovacs’s business attire. She was dressed in navy slacks and a starched white blouse. “I hope I’m not keeping you from an appointment.”

“No, no,” she said. “I work out of the house. I like to dress to keep me in the right frame of mind. Otherwise, I’d be snacking all day and watching TV.”

“I doubt that,” said Franciscus as they continued down the hall. “May I ask what you do?”

“I’m a municipal finance specialist. I help cities around the state raise money. Just small issues: anything under a hundred million dollars.”

“Sounds exciting,” said Franciscus, meaning, It looks like you’re making some dough.

Kovacs chuckled. “It’s not.”

They sat on a long white couch in the den, under the watchful gaze of a forty-two-inch plasma screen. She had set out a tray with a coffeepot, cups, and saucers, and a few cans of soda. He accepted a cup of coffee and took a sip. He noticed that she didn’t serve herself anything. She sat across from him, perched on the edge of her chair. Her smile had disappeared.

“As I said on the phone, something’s come up that concerns your husband,” Franciscus began. “One of the suspects wanted in the bombing of Guardian Microsystems and the murder of Officers O’Neill and Shepherd has popped up on our radar. We’re calling her Bobby Stillman, but she went by a different name back then.”

“Sunshine Awakening, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes. So you recall the details of the case.”

“Intimately.”

“I’m sorry.” Franciscus knew that many survivors viewed suicide as murder by unseen forces.

“It wasn’t suicide,” she said, as if to underscore his thoughts. “Theo wasn’t the type. He was just thirty-one. He was still bubbling about making detective. I’ve read all the psychobabble the department gives the grieving widow about how a policeman takes a job home with him. That wasn’t my husband.”

Katie Kovacs took a breath. “Did you find her? The woman who got away? Bobby Stillman. Is that why you’re here?”

“Not exactly. She’s peripherally involved in another case I’m working. When I was checking her record, I noticed a few discrepancies with the paperwork on the case.”

“Just a few?” she asked sarcastically.

“You’re not surprised?”

“My husband didn’t kill himself, Detective. He was murdered.” She let the words sink in, then stood. “Will you excuse me, Detective Franciscus?”

“Call me John. Please.”

“I’m sorry, but after everything I’m not comfortable calling policemen by their Christian names.”

Franciscus stood as she left the room.

Katie Kovacs returned a minute later carrying a cardboard moving box. Setting it down on the coffee table, she took a seat next to him. She pried off the lid and began sorting through folders, newspaper clippings, and police files. “Here we are.” Kovacs handed Franciscus an article from the front page of the Albany Times Union dated July 29, 1980. “Read it,” she said.

“Sure.” The article detailed the storming of a house on Rockcliff Lane by the Albany Special Weapons and Tactics unit after a two-day siege, and the murder of its tenant and sole occupant, David Bernstein, a former New York University law professor. Bernstein, a self-styled underground revolutionary, who went by the moniker Manu Q, was suspected of carrying out the bombing of Guardian Microsystems, and later, to have shot to death the two Albany police officers sent to question him.

“Done?” she asked.

Franciscus nodded, and she handed him another photograph. It was an eight-by-ten of the notorious crime-scene photo that had made the rounds all those years ago. It showed Bernstein, or “Manu Q,” naked to the waist, lying in a twisted pose on a wooden floor. Bullet holes dotted his torso. Too many to count. He handed the picture back. “I’ve seen it.”

“Now take a look at these.” Katie Kovacs extended several black-and-white photographs, all showing spent bullets misshapen by impact. “Three eleven-millimeter slugs. All of them were fired from the same pistol. The Fanning automatic that was found in David Bernstein’s hand. The first two bullets were those that killed Officers Shepherd and O’Neill. The last one was dug out of Bernstein’s brain.”

Franciscus studied the pictures. They were standard ballistics shots, the slug placed in scale by a ruler. All three had similar markings. “Are you saying that Bernstein shot the policemen, then turned the gun on himself?”

“Not exactly. The coroner estimated that the bullet that killed Bernstein was fired from a distance of ten feet. It’s what drove Theo crazy. Not crazy crazy, so that he’d commit suicide, but regular crazy. How could David Bernstein shoot himself in the forehead from ten feet away? And, if he was already dead, why did the SWAT guys shoot him so many times afterward?”

“The article mentioned an exchange of gunfire.”

“The theory was that it was Bobby Stillman-Sunshine Awakening, the newspapers called her-firing at the police. But Bernstein’s pistol was fired only three times. It had eight bullets remaining in the clip.”

“And Bobby Stillman was never caught,” added Franciscus.

“They claimed that she escaped from a house surrounded by a SWAT team.” Katie Kovacs laughed disgustedly. “Not likely. Which brings me back to my original questions. How does a man shoot himself in the head from ten feet away? And if he’s already dead, why shoot him so many times?”

“Good question. Did your husband follow it up?”

“Theo was the original bull terrier. Once he got hold of something, he wouldn’t let go.”

“What did he find?”

“There was a second set of prints on the gun. A few of them were very clear. It was enough to convince him that David Bernstein was murdered before the SWAT team stormed the house. He told me he’d run the prints and gotten a man’s name.”

“He was sure it was a man?” asked Franciscus.

“I can’t say for certain, but I assume so. Otherwise he would have said something. Were you expecting it to be Bobby Stillman?”

“Maybe,” said Franciscus. “It would have made sense. And he never told you who the prints belonged to?”

“No,” she said, her shoulders collapsing. “Theo didn’t bring it up, and I never asked. I was nineteen. It was 1980. I was into Bruce Springsteen and Dallas.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You couldn’t have known what would happen.” Leaning forward, he rummaged inside the box. “What actions did the department take?” He was thinking of the file with the pages torn out of it at 1 Police Plaza. Of the detective who had erased his name from the case record.

“None. The chief refused to move on it. Bernstein was dead. They had the murder weapon. It was a good collar. There were already enough questions about why the police had failed to nail Bobby Stillman. He didn’t want any more about who really killed Bernstein.” Kovacs swiveled on the couch so she could look Franciscus more directly in the eye. “What upset Theo was that even his partner wanted him to let it go.”

“I assume they’d discussed the second set of prints.”

“Of course. Theo thought the world of him. Everyone did. He was the department’s shining star. The mind reader. They called him Carnac, just like the guy on the Johnny Carson show. ‘Carnac the Magnificent.’ Theo never did a thing without clearing it with him.”

“Carnac the Magnificent,” who had erased his name from the case’s master file at 1 Police Plaza. Franciscus slid forward on the cushions. “Any reason why his partner wouldn’t want to look into the matter?”

Franciscus had one answer. The partner knew who the prints belonged to, and knew better than to get involved.

“Theo never said a word, but it upset him terribly. He did as he was told and let the case go. He was ambitious. He wanted to be chief. He said that in the long run everything would balance out. He’d win more than he’d lose. Two months later, he was murdered. You know the funny thing? A few days before, he’d traded his Smith and Wesson for a Fanning eleven-millimeter.”

“His partner had one, too, didn’t he?”

Katie Kovacs snapped her head in his direction. “How did you know?” When Franciscus didn’t answer, she looked away, her eyes focused on some faraway place. “He had eyes that looked right into you, right down into your soul.”

“What was his name?”

“Francois. He was a French Canadian originally. He left the force after Theo’s death. He told me he’d had enough of police work. I don’t know what’s become of him.”

“Detective Francois?”

“No, that was his first name.” She took a breath. “Francois Guilfoyle.”

Franciscus must have twitched or moved somehow, because Katie Kovacs asked him if he knew the name. He said no, he’d never heard of him, but he’d look him up. She packed up the box and returned the lid. “If you’d like, you can take the box. Maybe you’ll find something useful.”

“Thank you. I’ll get it back to you soon.”

“Take your time. I’ve spent twenty-five years asking the chief to take a second look, but it hasn’t done me any good.” She stood and together they walked toward the door. “I’m sorry if I didn’t answer your questions.”

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, you’ve answered them all.”