Chapter 81
I MANAGED TO stagger to my feet in time to help Maggie handcuff Leonard Barr.
As we pushed his wrists together behind his back, I got Maggie’s attention and held up his left hand for a moment.
He was missing his middle and index finger.
The same injury sustained by whoever had broken into the Office of Technology and Innovation.
It was one of the first signs we were really on the right track.
We helped Barr to his feet. He groaned a little but seem to be mostly unharmed. He looked down at Maggie, who was at least a foot shorter than him, and grunted, “You did pretty good. I’m impressed.” That was all he said.
There were Swisher Sweets cigar butts littering the bare concrete floor.
The butts with little white plastic tips added to the general odor of the storage unit.
The still-smoldering fire this jerk-off had set hadn’t helped the odor at all.
Maggie found a towel to thrash it a few times and put it fully out.
We were standing together in front of the open storage unit when a dark-blue Cadillac SUV rolled up to the gate. A tall man in his fifties, with hair dyed unnaturally black, popped out of the SUV and came toward us.
When the man was about thirty feet away, I called out, “Please stop there, sir.”
“What’s this all about?”
“Police business, sir.”
“I could figure that out myself. I’m Pry’s stepfather, Vic Watson.”
Maggie mumbled, “So that’s who he must’ve been calling while we waited out here.”
The stepfather took in the scene, letting his eyes linger on the wisps of remaining smoke coming from the open storage unit. “Why are you harassing Pry?”
I said, “We’re not harassing him, we’re arresting him.”
“On what charge?” Watson’s volume was rising, and I could hear the outrage in his voice.
“Assault on a police officer to start.” Barr started to squirm to get away. I used the oldest tactic there was. I grabbed his hand and cranked it into an awkward angle while I held his elbow. The pain made him stand up on his tiptoes and drop any ideas he had about escaping.
The stepfather looked at the storage unit and said, “It looks like you tried to burn him out of there.”
“He did that himself.”
“Sure he did. If I was to listen to the cops, I’d think Pry was the source of virtually all crime in the greater New York City area.”
“Sounds like bad parenting to me.”
Watson frowned and shook his head. He had no comeback. “Where are you taking him?”
Finally a reasonable question. I said, “We’ll book him at the 48th Precinct. Not too far from here, over on—”
“I know where the 48th Precinct is. I’m a business owner in the Bronx. Do you understand what that is? One of the few people who still pays your salary.” He paused for a moment and said, “I’ve already called an attorney.”
“That’s smart. Your stepson will need one.”
We started walking Barr past him to our car.
I still had a firm grip on his right hand in case he began acting up again.
Maggie turned to face Watson as we passed.
It was a good tactical move. You never know how someone will react when a family member or friend is being arrested.
Too many cops have been injured by someone jumping on them at the last minute or pulling a weapon or some other stupid shit.
Barr’s stepfather said, “I suppose you’re the two who upset my wife earlier today.”
It was Maggie who got the last word in. “Your wife’s an asshole.”
I didn’t even try to keep a straight face.