“Get your paw off me, Hal.”
“Do we know each other?”
“Not really.” All cops looked alike to Hal Shipley. It wasn’t a matter of race. We were Blue. NYPD Blue. “Back it up.”
Shipley took a glance around the small room, then turned and went into the hallway. I had sent Petrie’s partner in to sit with Angela Wilson. She wanted a go at the reverend, but I told her to save it for a day or two. She was whimpering now, and Shipley’s ears picked up the sound.
“Is that Angela?” he asked.
“Let’s take your business downstairs.”
“Who’s your supervisor, Detective?”
“Someone who doesn’t like you any better than I do. You lead down and I’ll follow.”
Hal Shipley’s laced shoes had a better shine than my loafers. The three-piece suit was an affectation he had sported for years, though its material showed it as clearly off the rack from some discount store.
When he reached the first floor he was ready with questions.
“You’ll wake the neighbors, Hal. Try the vestibule.”
I joined him in the space that separated the building entrance from the locked door to the apartments above, and I leaned against the row of metal-fronted mailboxes. There was no room for him to posture for me or to squirm if he didn’t like the direction of my questions.
“How’d you know Wilson was dead?” I asked.
“Friends, Mr. Chapman. We have many mutual friends.”
“Which one of them told you? And how? In person, by phone call?”
“I’m not here to answer questions. I’m here to ask them.”
Shipley swiveled toward the glass panes in the upper part of the front door and looked out.
“You got peeps with you, Rev? Leg breakers or what?”
I could see over Shipley’s head. Two husky men in overcoats were standing guard beside his double-parked, dark-tinted-windows SUV.
“Pallbearers, Detective. Wynan’s honorary pallbearers.”
“A little premature, don’t you think?”
“My people have a tradition, Mr. Chapman. I’d like to say a prayer over Wynan.”
“What part of ‘it’s a crime scene’ don’t you understand? The medical examiner is having a look at the deceased right now.”
“Well, before they remove the body to the morgue.”
“Why don’t you help us for a change, Rev? Tell me where the killer is.”
“If only I had the power to know,” Shipley said.
“Surely you’ve figured out who he is.”
Shipley’s eyes narrowed and he stared into mine. “Now, how would I-?”
“Or she. Who she is.”
The reverend was a man who couldn’t easily be baited. He fixed his gaze but never blinked.
“Wynan was shot,” Shipley said. “That’s what I’ve heard. Is that much the truth?”
“The gospel, Rev.”
I took a plastic case of Tic Tacs out of my pocket and popped two in my mouth.
“Was-was there a fight?” he asked.
“Now we’re getting into need-to-know territory. I’m just not able to tell you.”
“Angela-she’s the one who found Wynan?”
“Yes, she did.”
“I think I can offer her some measure of comfort, if you’ll let me see her.”
“I got the firm impression that she worships somewhere else, Rev. She doesn’t have quite as much admiration for you as her old man did.”
“Time to mend fences, Detective. A time to heal, a time to mend.”
“I know you think cops are heathens, but I’ve spent plenty of time in church. To everything, Rev, there is a season. A time to refrain from embracing.”
“Ecclesiastes.”
“The Byrds. A time for dying, and this wasn’t meant to be Wynan Wilson’s moment. So why don’t you tell me what kind of work he did for you?”
“Certainly. That’s no mystery, Detective,” Shipley said. “Wynan was a helping hand at the community center I run. He assisted me in recruiting newcomers and did minor chores, taking care of the mail and such.”
The reverend could bullshit with the best of them.
“Where did he recruit, Rev? At AA meetings?”
“Are you implying that Wynan had a drinking problem? I never saw the slightest evidence of that,” Shipley said. “What he did after hours was quite his own business.”
“Looking around his apartment tonight, can’t say I saw a computer. How’d he handle that mail for you?”
“He was responsible for recording the names and addresses of contributors, which he’d pass along to my secretary. Make a record of the checks and so on.”
“I don’t think the man was a skilled banker, Rev. Kind, gentle, fond of the ladies, but I doubt he was the J. P. Morgan of your organization.”
“We’ll have to ask my secretary just what his duties were. I’ve got a lot of responsibilities so I’m not exactly hands-on with everything,” he said, glancing out the window again.
“Word is you’re hands-on with the cash. Word is-”
“You can stand in this-this half a hallway, Detective, and be as rude as you want, but it won’t get you answers to-”
“For the moment, Rev, this vestibule is my office. That’s as good as it gets in the NYPD. It’s my office and you’re my witness. There’ll be a subpoena on your desk before noon asking for the name and address of every contributor, a copy of every letter that has come in during the last year. That is, if the IRS doesn’t have that stuff already. Make sure nothing disappears between now and then.”
Hal Shipley laughed at me. In my face. Then he took his phone from his pocket and appeared to be texting someone.
“Wynan Wilson was your bagman. Excuse me. One of your bagmen. You can practice that asinine guffaw till it chokes you, Rev, but that’s the worst-kept secret in the hood. Now, when’s the last time Wilson brought money to you?”
Shipley ignored me and kept texting. When he finished the message, he looked up and spoke to me. “I have no idea what you’re referring to, Detective.”
“You think I don’t know why you showed up in the middle of the night, shot out of a rocket, to get here and be alone with Wilson? Alone in the apartment? He must have shorted you a few bucks.”
“You about done, Mr. Chapman? ’Cause I got places to go.”
“You going to pay a condolence call on Takeesha Falls?”
“Miss Takeesha will be mighty sad about Wynan,” Shipley said, shaking his head. “You seen her yet?”
“Good try, boss. Mighty good try. Yeah, Keesh and I had a real come-to-Jesus moment. She was so broken up she almost regretted being such a straight shooter.”
Shipley snorted again. “I’ll call that bluff on you.”
“Course you will. No doubt you’ve got her hidden away, right where you want her.”
“What’s up with your imagination, Mr. Chapman? It’s running you wild. People know better than to talk to me this way.”
“I’m shaking in my boots, Rev. What are you going to do? Organize a protest?”
His iPhone buzzed and he unpocketed it again to look at the response to his text.
“I’m going to be all over you, like horseflies on a pig’s ear, till I get to the bottom of this, Reverend Shipley. There’s a man upstairs who met an untimely end-a good old guy-and he was all wrapped up in your business. And it stinks to high hell,” I said. “I’m going to be-”
“You’re gonna be sitting this one out, Detective,” Shipley said, holding up his phone to my face.
“I don’t work for you, Rev. And unless you’ve got a pipeline to the police commissioner, I doubt that text you just sent has any relevance to this homicide.”
“I’ve got a better pipeline than that, Mr. Chapman. This here’s a return text from the mayor’s chief of staff. The police commissioner answers to City Hall.”
“Twelve noon, Reverend,” I said. I’ve had smackdowns from the top brass for better reasons than my interface with a total jackass.
Shipley walked out and started down the steps of the old brownstone. One of his lackeys opened the rear passenger door of the Suburban. He looked back, cocked his thumb and forefinger as though firing a pistol, and called out a single word to me: “Gotcha!”