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My grandfather said, “They told you it happened down the street and not on school grounds, right?”
“I’m not looking to assign liability. Just wondering what happened.”
My grandfather held up his hands like he was trying to keep me calm. “I know, I know. Didn’t mean to come on so strong. I’m just so used to dealing with parents who’re outraged about one thing or another. One father complained that we were talking about Jesus in class. Imagine that, a Catholic school that mentions Christ. God save us from stupidity.”
I waved off his apology. “I haven’t been mad at the school for anything since I got detention in sixth grade for horsing around with Matthew Callahan.”
Seamus sighed. “All I know is what the boys told me. They were wearing their school shirts and I think that’s what attracted the other boys. It’s sort of a cool thing now to single out kids in any kind of a religious school. Maybe that’s what they were trying to do.”
“Any ideas on how to keep it from happening again?”
“If the boys stayed on school property, they’d be fine.”
“I understand that. But I also don’t want them to be afraid to walk down the street. There should be some kind of middle ground.”
“That’s the way it is with everything. Politics, sports, anything humans are involved in. Thereshouldbe some middle ground, but usually no one looks for it. People stake out their positions and rarely want to listen to the other side.” He leaned in and looked at me more closely. “Sweet Jesus but you look tired. Did you get any sleep last night?”
I just shrugged. A homicide detective’s universal answer to that question. Then I heard the opening chords to the piano solo from “Layla” and reached for my phone. It was Terri Hernandez. I picked up immediately.
Terri said, “They just found a body in New Rochelle. It’s Juliana’s friend, Suzanne Morton.”
I muttered, “Shit.” I popped up and headed for the door, waving good-bye to my grandfather. He nodded back. How many times had this happened on the job over the years? Even before he was a priest and worked in the bar he owned. When the NYPD called, I went running. It rarely mattered who I was with or what I was doing.
At least my grandfather understood the meaning of the wordduty.
Chapter17
AS I NAVIGATEDthe roads north, I was torn. Should I phone Mary Catherine and Juliana to break the news or wait until I had more information? It was always a tough call. I could hardly even contemplate what hearing words like that might mean to me. I let the idea wash through my brain and felt my anxiety rise.
The whole drive was just images of Suzanne Morton in my house, laughing and preparing for life after school.
About forty minutes north of the city, wedged in with half a dozen other towns in Westchester County, New Rochelle was not the kind of place accustomed to murder.
I pictured Suzanne’s parents, David and Rachel. I didn’t envy the poor New Rochelle police officer who would have to drive to notify her parents in Yonkers that their daughter had been found, and that she was dead.
Every cop remembers giving their first death notification. There’s nothing in the academy and no training that can adequately prepare you to tell someone a family member is dead. It doesn’t matter if the death is from a car accident, a drowning, or a homicide—it’s difficult to look at a mother’s face and tell her that her child won’t be coming home.
My first notification was about eight days after I started with the NYPD. I was in the Bronx and my training officer got the call that we were to notify a family that their daughter had been struck by a truck and killed in East Harlem. My training officer said the best way to learn was to do it by myself. Later, I realized the veteran patrol officer hated to make notifications. Seeing people in grief tore him up.
He’d paused at the front of the building with me, saying, “Be honest, be direct, and try to be helpful. Those are the only rules. If helpful means you stand there and listen to them cry for ten minutes, that’s what you do. If helpful means leaving them alone, then you exit immediately.”
My right hand had trembled as I knocked on the second-floor apartment door not far from Yankee Stadium. A woman, about forty-five and dressed in surgical scrubs, answered the door. She was a nurse about to go on shift. As soon as she saw me, she blurted out, “Who is it? My husband? My son? My daughter?” Later I realized that nurses see as much death as cops do. They know the dangers out in the world.
I’d wanted to stick to the script and make sure I had everything perfect. Instead, I just looked at the ground and sort of mumbled, “I’m so sorry. Your daughter was hit by a garbage truck. She was pronounced dead at the scene.” At the time it might’ve been one of the hardest things I’d ever said to someone. And the response was exactly what I thought it would be: the woman stumbled back, plopped onto a small, floral couch, and started to weep.Wailmight be a more accurate term.
I had no idea what to do. I stepped into the apartment and eased onto the couch near the woman. I just sat there while she sobbed. I asked her if I could help in any way or perhaps make a phone call. She just shook her head.
About twenty-five minutes later, my training officer came up to the apartment to see what had happened. He said I did the right thing sitting with her. No death notification has ever been easy.
Now I found myself parked in the lot beside the bland tan building that housed the police department on North Avenue in New Rochelle. I raced up the sidewalk’s low incline toward the front steps. Just as I made it through the set of glass doors, I saw Rachel and David Morton standing by the reception desk. My stomach tightened, and I tried to put on a calm face.
Rachel looked up as I was walking toward them. She immediately burst into tears. David took her in his arms and stroked her hair. He just stared at me silently.
“I am so sorry. I was hoping for the best. I don’t know what to say.”
David Morton had a distant look on his face as he said to me, “Someone stuffed our little girl in a cabinet behind an empty construction office. They think she’s been there at least two weeks.” His voice started to break, then he said in a louder voice, “Two fucking weeks.”
Over the years, I’ve found that families of a missing person feel their loss twice when that missing person turns out to be a homicide victim. The pain can be unbearable. Families are ripped apart, and parents have even committed suicide over the death of a child. I know never to take the reactions of a grieving family personally. They have a lot to process. I stood with them in reception until a detective stepped out to meet them. She looked at me like I was a representative for the family.
