Page 19 of Witness 8

She took Alison’s heirloom necklace from her pocket and weighed it in her hand. It was surprisingly heavy, and durable, even though it looked as light as lace. The workmanship was exquisite. It was unique and quite beautiful. Handed down toEsther by her mother, who had smuggled it out from Nazi-occupied Poland. And who, in turn, had given it to Alison.

It meant a great deal to both of them. Their family. Their survival, even, was bound up with their hearts in the little diamonds studded along the silver lace of this necklace.

It was probably worth north of fifty grand. She could pawn it for ten thousand, easily.

Ruby balled up the necklace and threw it into the river.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text message from one of her West 74thStreet clients. It contained a link to a secret chat called ‘Neighborhood Watch’. Ruby looked through the messages in the group. The neighbors were going to have a meeting about the Jacksons, and the murder of Maggs.

And they were inviting Ruby to come along.

5

Ben Gray

The All American Diner sat across the street from Gray’s precinct. If he wasn’t a cop, he wouldn’t have gone near the place. The stars and stripes covered almost every available surface, invariably beneath laminate. The table tops. The menus. Even the floor. It was an assault of Americanness. And that’s the way some people liked it.

Not Sergeant Ben Gray.

This country hadn’t given him or his old man so much as a dime. A flag doesn’t put food on the table. Of course, most of his brother cops were patriots. It came with the territory. And Gray learned to keep his true feelings about his country to himself. That kind of talk ended in broken bottles and bar stools flying through the air – most of them in his direction. So he kept his mouth shut. He ate the eggs and drank the coffee in the All American Diner with his fellow officers before their shift, and didn’t say shit.

And he had quickly figured out a way to make his own dime. And it wasn’t with overtime either.

Gray sat at the counter, the only surface not covered in the Star-Spangled Banner. Same seat. For eighteen years. Staring at the same eggs on his plate. The only other people in the diner were cops, or the odd tourist. The place never got that busy.

The door to the diner opened and a large man in a thick leather jacket and blue jeans walked into the place toa rousing reception. Every cop in the precinct knew Mick Buchanan. Former lieutenant. Retired these past ten years. Gray looked over his shoulder, saw Buchanan’s car parked outside – Mercedes S Class. Only a few months old.

And he knew Buchanan hadn’t bought that car with his pension.

Buchanan waved, said hello and shook hands with a few cops, then made his way to the vacant stool beside Gray. He was a huge man with a big face, and hands that could make basketballs look small when he held them. The stool groaned as it accepted his weight. To an outsider, he had a genial air about him. To an insider, this was a man that you feared. For the past five years, Buchanan had run New York’s Finest – one of the largest criminal organizations in the city. He had a piece of almost every pie, because what criminal doesn’t like police protection, and he ran their own independent operations too.

‘How’s the desk life treatin’ you, Ben?’ asked Buchanan.

‘I’m bored shitless. I got two years left before they can punch my ticket on the pension and then I’m free and clear. Like you.’

‘I heard,’ said Buchanan, lowering his voice, ‘you had sometroublethe other day.’

Gray’s stomach tightened.

‘No trouble. I had to let an arrest go. Stupid, really. The lawyer, he had evidence on our friends in the towing company and he had my arrest sheets. He knew all about it. Instead of him bringing all that shit up in open court, I fumbled the arrest. I don’t want that shit out in the open.’

‘He had evidence?’

‘He had a thick file of documents.’

Buchanan nodded. ‘You remember what happened with the speeding-ticket thing?’

Gray nodded. Almost thirty cops had lost their jobs over what seemed like a small scam. It had hit Buchanan’s organizationfinancially, and some cops went to jail – the cops who’d conveniently lost a speeding ticket for a small payment.

‘You remember Sykes and Kovax?’ asked Buchanan.

Both of these men were also indicted for the ticket-fraud scheme. But they didn’t get to trial because they were also part of New York’s Finest.

What Buchanan feared the most was not rival criminal gangs – he feared his friends above all else: the cops who were up to their necks in the organization and knew who ran it from the ground up and how. Because cops can’t do time in prison. Didn’t matter if they got six months for taking a bribe, or six years. Prison time for an ex-cop is a death sentence. So they make deals, and they rat on their friends. It’s survival.

‘What happened to Sykes and Kovax was a goddamn tragedy,’ said Gray.

‘They got . . .depressed, you see.’