Cat & Mouse - James Patterson [41]
Soneji got in your face, applied intense pressure, and then waited for you to make a crucial mistake. I was trying not to make one right now, not to end up like Manning Goldman.
The latest homicide scene was up in Riverdale. Detective Groza talked nervously as he drove the Deegan. His chattering reminded me of an old line I try to live by—never miss a good chance to shut up.
Logically, the Riverdale area should be part of Manhattan, he said, but it was actually part of the Bronx. To confuse matters further, Riverdale was the site of Manhattan College, a small private school having no affiliation with either Manhattan or the Bronx. New York’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, had attended Manhattan, Groza said.
I listened to the detective’s idle chitchat until I felt he had talked himself out. He seemed a different man from the one I’d met earlier in the week at Penn Station when he was partnered with Manning Goldman.
“Are you okay?” I finally asked him. I had never lost a partner, but I had come close with Sampson. He had been stabbed in the back. That happened in North Carolina, of all places. My niece, Naomi, had been kidnapped. I have counseled detectives who have lost partners, and it’s never an easy thing.
“I didn’t really like Manning Goldman,” Groza admitted, “but I respected things he did as a detective. No one should die the way he did.”
“No, no one should die like that,” I agreed. No one was safe. Not the wealthy, certainly not the poor, and not even the police. It was a continuing refrain in my life, the scariest truth of our age.
We finally turned off the crowded Deegan Expressway and got onto an even busier, much noisier Broadway. Detective Groza was clearly shook up that morning. I didn’t show it, but so was I.
Gary Soneji was showing us how easy it was for him to get into a cop’s home.
CHAPTER 43
MANNING GOLDMAN’S house was located in an upscale part of Riverdale known as Fieldston. The area was surprisingly attractive—for the Bronx. Police cruisers and a flock of television vans and trucks were parked on the narrow and pretty residential streets. A FOX-TV helicopter hovered over the trees, peeking through the branches and leaves.
The Goldman house was more modest than the Tudors around it. Still, it seemed a nice place to live. Not a typical cop’s neighborhood, but Manning Goldman hadn’t been a typical cop.
“Goldman’s father was a big doctor in Mamaroneck,” Groza continued to chatter. “When he passed away, Manning came into some money. He was the black sheep in his family, the rebel—a cop. Both of his brothers are dentists in Florida.”
I didn’t like the look and feel of the crime scene, and I was still two blocks away. There were too many blue-and-whites and official-looking city cars. Too much help, too much interference.
“The mayor was up here early. He’s a pisser. He’s all right, though,” Groza said. “A cop gets killed in New York, it’s a huge thing. Big news, lots of media.”
“Especially when a detective gets killed right in his own home,” I said.
Groza finally parked on the tree-lined street, about a block from the Goldman house. Birds chattered away, oblivious to death.
As I walked toward the crime scene, I enjoyed one aspect of the day, at least: the anonymity I felt in New York. In Washington, many reporters know who I am. If I’m at a homicide scene, it’s usually a particularly nasty one, a big case, a violent crime.
Detective Carmine Groza and I were ignored as we walked through the crowd of looky-loos up to the Goldman house. Groza introduced me around inside and I was allowed to see the bedroom where Manning Goldman had been brutally murdered. The NYPD cops all seemed to know who I was and why I was there. I heard Soneji’s name muttered a couple of times. Bad news travels fast.
The detective’s body had already been removed from the house, and I didn’t like arriving at the murder scene so late. Several NYPD techies were working the room. Goldman’s blood was everywhere.