The Blessed Virgin Mary ascended to heaven on a cloud of roses supported by angels in the framed print on the living room wall of Ana Mendoza’s Brooklyn home in Flatbush.
Ana hugged her wedding photo tightly, while clutching a rosary. Its beads ticked against the frame’s glass as she rocked on her sofa, her face a portrait of agony. A grieving daughter on either side stroked her arms. Their tears fell on the younger Ana and Phil, who smiled at Gannon from a happier time.
“Why did they take my Felipe? Why?”
Ana’s raw, choking sobs tore at Gannon. This was the part of his job that he hated, meeting bereavement face-to-face.
The Mendozas had agreed to allow him and Angelo Dixon into their home for the WPA’s profile, to offer a tribute. A proud family, they struggled with their words in honoring their beloved husband, father and grandfather.
Throughout his years, Gannon had faced many situations whenever he made “death calls.” People had cursed him, threatened him or slammed doors on him. He never took it personally. Rejecting him was their right. What amazed him was how most people had invited him into their homes, while they praised the dead, showed him pictures, stared blankly or cried on his shoulder.
No matter how any times Gannon had done it, he always believed he was trespassing on a private moment of mourning; that he’d only gained entry largely because the bereaved were stunned by their loss and vulnerable. He was always respectful of their suffering. Experience had taught him when to offer words of compassion and when to sit in silent understanding. At times like this, Gannon steeled himself to be at his very best because he believed this was one of his greatest duties.
The families of the dead deserved nothing less.
And so he was more than patient with Ana Mendoza as she fought her anguish to talk about her murdered husband.
“I had a bad feeling yesterday morning,” Ana said. “I didn’t want him to go in, but I never told him. I don’t know why. Somehow, he must’ve known, because before he left he kissed me and said he loved me.”
The house filled with sobbing from Ana’s daughters and daughter-in-law. Her grandchildren, those old enough to grieve, cried too, while the little ones played.
“Why did they do this?” Esther Paulson, one of Ana’s daughters, asked Gannon. “I’ll never see my dad again. Our children are without their grandfather. Do these killers have a conscience?”
Esther’s sister, Valerie Roha, hardened her tear-stained face. “We want the hammer of justice to come down hard on them,” Valerie said. “It won’t bring my father back, but he didn’t deserve to die this way. None of them did. My father was a good man.”
Gannon’s gaze went to the mantel and framed photos of Phil Mendoza as a U.S. marine, local baseball coach, amid those of his children and grandchildren. Dixon’s camera clicked as he shot Ana with her daughters in the seconds before she fell into a session of inconsolable weeping. The women helped her to her bedroom while her son, Juan, finished a phone call in the kitchen.
“…yes, I told the FBI this morning that Dad thought they were being watched… Right. I’ll be there in about half an hour… Okay. Thanks.”
After ending his call, Juan Mendoza, a New York City Corrections Officer at Rikers Island, took his mother’s place on the sofa. His face was drawn. He hadn’t slept.
“Got everything you need?” Juan asked. “Because I have to go.”
Gannon seized this chance to build on the fragment of Juan’s telephone conversation that he’d overheard.
“Juan, I’m sorry, but I need to ask you about this. As you know, there’ve been rumors that investigators think this could be an inside job—”
“Are you saying that my father or his crew—”
“No! No. Forgive me. No, nothing like that. Let me clarify. There’s speculation that someone inside the company tipped the suspects about the route and the amount of cash your father’s crew was carrying. Have you heard anything on that? Did your dad raise any concerns on that, given all his years on the job with the company?”
Juan clasped and unclasped his hands while looking long and hard at Gannon, thinking carefully about the question. Then Juan’s red-rimmed eyes shifted to the wedding photo his mother had left on the coffee table and his focus seemed to drift before he spoke.
“A week or so before the attack, my dad and I went to a Yankees game. He rarely talked about his job, when out of the blue he tells me that he thought someone was casing his crew for a hit, that he’d sworn he’d seen the same guy appearing at various drops and that he was thinking of doing something about it.”
“Did you tell the FBI this? Did your dad tell someone, give you details?”
“Whoa! What are you doing? You’re writing this down?”
Gannon looked up from his notebook.
“I want to use it in the story.”
“No. No way.”
“Why not?” Gannon shot Dixon a glance, then looked at Juan. “You know we’re journalists and this information is critical. I could keep your name out of the story. Have you told any other reporter about this?”
“No. I haven’t. No, don’t write that. I shouldn’t have said anything—look, I’m not thinking straight.”
“But Juan—”
“No. Don’t use that. I take that back. Sorry, but I’m kind of messed up right now, okay? You saw my mom. Forget what I said. I misspoke myself.” Juan cleared his throat. “Please do not write that. I have to meet my brothers-in-law to pick out my dad’s casket, okay? Do you understand?”
Gannon swallowed his disappointment and, out of respect, agreed not to use the information from Juan Mendoza.
“So what’re you going to do, Jack?” Dixon asked later when they were in his SUV, heading for the Brooklyn Bridge. “That sounded like a dynamite lead. One of the dead crew providing a tip on the killers?”
It was dynamite, but the circumstances put Gannon on a moral and ethical tightrope. As they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River, he searched Lower Manhattan’s skyline for a solution.
Lisa Palmer flinched, pierced by the image of muzzle fire.
The memory vanished as she let out a breath.
Shivering, she hugged herself and continued looking out the window at the city. At times she felt like a prisoner here.
Her hotel was not far from the Empire State Building. Maybe they could take the kids there, or go to Central Park? It’d been a long time since they’d seen the sights.
Bobby used to take them on Sundays.
Turning from the window, she picked up her tea, sipped from the cup, gazed at Ethan. His thumbs blurring, he was engrossed in the beeping and pinging of a computer game on his portable player. Taylor was rewatching the animated movie they’d seen on TV last night. She liked to do that. She was smiling, listening on a headset.
Rita was on the sofa chair reading a James Patterson thriller.
