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It was late afternoon by the time John Macy, the mayor’s aide, showed up again at Manhattan North. He wore a Brooks Brothers charcoal suit, a red power tie, and an extraordinarily smug expression.
Macy said, “I told you the mayor needs to be informed.”
I wanted to reply, And I told you I was busy trying to catch a killer. I hope you haven’t endangered someone else’s life by distracting me. But in deference to Harry Grissom, I just smiled and nodded. I had promised Harry that I wouldn’t make any waves.
Macy didn’t help with my plan. He said, “I can’t believe I had to go through that much trouble just to get a detective with the NYPD to fill me in on a case. I’m busy too. You have any idea how many people work in the mayor’s office?”
I said, “About half of them.”
Macy gave me a disgusted look but didn’t say anything. Then he shook his head and started marching toward Harry Grissom’s office.
Brett Hollis stepped up next to me. “You just had to say something, huh.”
“Did you hear how he set me up? If this were a criminal case, that would’ve been considered entrapment.”
Hollis and a couple of nearby detectives started to laugh.
Harry trudged out of his office and gave me and Hollis a curt hand signal. We followed him and Macy to the conference room Hollis had turned into his tip-line headquarters.
At a nod from Harry, Hollis explained the operation to Macy. “We’re getting three to five thousand leads a day over the tip line. Eighty percent of them can be discounted immediately.”
“It seems a little arrogant to discount so many leads so quickly,” Macy interrupted.
“Think of it this way, Mr. Macy,” Hollis said. “How many calls a week does the mayor’s office get about problems?”
The sharply dressed man shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe five hundred?”
“And each of those calls is equally important?”
Macy pursed his lips. “I take your point, Detective Hollis.”
Hollis continued with his explanation. “About half the calls to the tip line are either encouragement—like someone saying, ‘You guys are doing a great job’—or insults. A lot of those are really nasty. Let’s say that leaves us with two thousand concerned citizens offering what they think is relevant information. More than half of those tips are something along the lines of ‘The guy who lives next door to me is creepy.’ Of the thousand or so tips remaining, about ten percent are new information. Bu
t that’s still a hundred leads a day for someone to follow up on, with either a direct interview or a phone call. So far, not one lead has been useful. But we still are doing everything we can.”
“Does this include leads on all the open homicides? Including the one on Staten Island?”
I stepped in on that one. “We have our doubts about whether the Staten Island murder is connected.”
Macy looked outraged. “How can that be? It’s clearly the same killer.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What is that assessment based on, Mr. Macy? You don’t have any experience in homicide, even if you were a cop for, as you put it, about five minutes. If we homicide detectives don’t use our experience and instincts, nothing would ever get done. We’d waste our time following leads that clearly mean nothing. But we appreciate you coming from the mayor’s office and telling us which homicides are related and which aren’t.”
Macy scowled at me for a few seconds, then looked at Harry Grissom. “Is this what you call controlling your people, Lieutenant? When we met with the chief of detectives, you assured him I’d get full cooperation. I don’t think insulting me should be considered cooperation.”
Harry glanced at me, then at Macy. I knew the look on his face. He was choosing his words carefully. Finally, he straightened his tie and said, in the steady, calm voice of an FM radio host, “We’re trying to cooperate, Mr. Macy. You’re not making it very easy.”
“Task Force Halo is supposed to be a joint task force. Maybe you can tell me why the FBI is not involved in the case,” Macy countered.
I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t about to touch this, especially given the evidence we’d been pursuing that indicated the murders might be tied to similar crimes in Atlanta and San Francisco, and that we continued to work through media and police sources—not federal channels. Which reminded me once again that Emily had yet to come through with the information she’d offered to track down.
Harry said, “That’s an issue we’ll discuss. We’ll make a decision based on our discussions. We will apprise you of the decision once we’ve made it.” Then he turned and walked back to his office.
I tried to hide my smile.
Damn, my boss was good at handling assholes.
Macy looked at me and said, “You don’t seem to understand I speak to the mayor.”
