Paranoia (Michael Bennett #17)

CHAPTER 42

MY MEETING WITH Assistant Medical Examiner Aurora Jones this morning had left me contemplating the apparent suicide of Roger Dzoriack. I’d studied philosophy when I attended Manhattan College. That included several classes on logic. I often joked that the only thing logic classes did for me was keep me out of discussions of politics. Logic and politics do not mix well. But in police work, logic often comes in handy. And logic dictated that if Roger Dzoriack’s suicide was actually a murder, then the other suicides I’d been investigating might also be murders.

That meant I needed to make a trip to Florida and take a closer look into the deaths of Ralph Stein and Gary Halverson. I had the reports, but although it was clear that their deaths were considered suicides, I’d never really considered the use of propane tanks as a method of suicide. After I did a little research, however, I discovered that wasn’t as suspicious as it had originally seemed to me—apparently propane explosions had been used several times in suicides. There had even been another case in Palm Beach County, just north of where the two retired NYPD detectives had lived in Hollywood Beach, Florida. Maybe that’s where they’d gotten the idea.

It would seem a simple matter to fly from New York City to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on one of the dozens of flights from LaGuardia every day. That wasn’t my holdup. It was the unending bureaucracy of the NYPD. I couldn’t approve my own travel even though I was the acting supervisor of my squad.

I took Celeste Cantor at her word that I could drop by anytime. I wanted to propose this trip in person. It would be no big deal for her to approve it. Which is how I found myself at One Police Plaza, the single place in the greater New York City area I actively avoided. And why, three minutes after I entered Cantor’s office on the second floor of the building, I stood in shock, hearing her deny my request.

“I can’t approve a trip to Florida on this case,” she told me. “We’re trying to keep it quiet, and any kind of expense will draw attention. If not now, in the future. I sent you all of the reports from the explosion that killed Ralph and Gary. Why do you feel you have to go down there in person anyway?”

“You know as well as I do that reports don’t tell the whole story, Celeste. If you really want me to get to the bottom of this, I need to go to Florida.”

Cantor’s assistant tapped on the door, then stuck his head in and said in a soft voice, “Everyone’s waiting for you in the conference room.”

Cantor nodded impatiently. “Tell them I’ll be right there, Chuck.” She turned toward me and said, “Don’t we have enough of these suspicious NYPD deaths here in New York for you to find out everything you need to know? Or is it in every New Yorker’s DNA to go to Florida at some point?” She smiled at her weak joke.

I said, “I hear what you’re saying. I even understand it on one level. But now I’m in too deep on this case. I can’t just walk away. I wouldn’t think you’d want me to walk away.”

Cantor said, “You’re a really bright guy, Mike. I have every confidence you’ll figure this out.” She started walking toward the door. Just as she slipped out of the office, Cantor looked over her shoulder and said, “Keep me in the loop on anything you find out.”

I didn’t want to risk saying something I might regret. I took a breath and nodded. Then I followed her out the door and found myself alone and unprotected.

As I headed to the elevator, I heard a voice yell out, “Bennett, what are you doing here?”

I turned to see Internal Affairs Detective Sergeant Dennis Wu walking toward me. This visit had just gone from bad to awful.

Wu said, “You supervising that madhouse while Grissom is on vacation?”

I nodded.

“Still working with that crazy Army vet, Rob Trilling?”

“Are you deliberately trying to insult a young man who’s done nothing but public service his entire adult life?”

“No, I’m deliberately trying to insult you. Mainly because you’re an asshole.”

“At least we feel the same way about each other. Excuse me, Detective Sergeant, I have real police work to do.”

Wu couldn’t let that little jab slide. As the elevator doors closed, he said, “And I’ll be keeping an eye on you while you do it.”