Ambush.
He came from behind a parked minivan—Damon Parker, Evelyn Parker-Steele’s brother.
If there were ever a contest for Most Hated Man in America, Damon Parker would enter, then campaign hard to win. When he was growing up, his heartless bastard of a father must have pounded home the message that nice guys finish last, because Damon had made a career in TV news as a guy who was anything but nice.
He was better known for his sneak-attack, in-your-face confrontations than he was for his journalistic integrity, and judging by the camera crew behind him, I was about to be his next victim.
“Detective Jordan,” Parker bellowed—not so much at me as to the unseen audience who would watch him rake me over the coals later tonight. “The people want to know!”
That was his catchphrase and the title of his syndicated TV show: The People Want to Know.
My catchphrase is I don’t give a shit what the people want to know, but the Public Information Office frowns on cops who blurt out what they’re thinking on camera.
I kept walking toward the car, but Parker and his crew cut me off.
“The people want to know,” he thundered as if he were a block away instead of thrusting a microphone in my face, “why their tax dollars are funding a police force of thirty-five thousand, and yet NYPD Red, Blue, or any other color have been unable to track down the monster who savagely tortured and murdered four innocent victims.”
“No comment,” I said.
“No comment is a comment, isn’t it, people?” he barked to the faithful who tuned in to hear him rant on a nightly basis. “Of course he won’t talk. He’s been muzzled by the mayor. And do you want to know why? Because there is a fifth victim. A victim that Mayor Spellman in his desperate attempt to cling to a job he has failed at refuses to share with you. Can you at least comment on victim number five, Detective?”
Victim number five? The man was a master of manipulation. I’m trained not to get sucked in, and it was all I could do not to take the bait.
“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” I said. Politely. Just the way I was taught.
“Then let me tell the people what the mayor doesn’t want them to know,” he said. “This fiend—this Hazmat ogre has been terrorizing New Yorkers to the point that many of them have barricaded themselves behind closed doors. I’ve been to Astoria, to Bensonhurst, to Kew Gardens, and the people are so afraid to come out at night that the small businesses in those neighborhoods are suffering. The restaurants go empty. Mom-and-pop stores that count on the locals have been forced to shut down. The fifth victim is the economy of the city of New York.”
It was pure bullshit, but it was brilliant. He was campaigning for Sykes and using me as his stooge. I did my best to navigate past him without shoving. I’m sure he would have loved it if I got physical. Nice piece of police brutality footage if he could get it.
And then Kylie came through the front door of the precinct.
One of the things they teach you at the academy is this: Sometimes the press will resort to desperate measures, attacking the officer or the department with inflammatory statements in an effort to provoke an emotional response. Do not react. Maintain your composure and continue to be assertive but polite.
I’ve always done my best to steer clear of any confrontation with the media, but I’m sure that my partner, if she’d even heard the mandate, had decided that compliance was optional.
“Damon,” she yelled from the top of the stairs.
Kylie and I travel in completely different circles. As the wife of a producer, she gets to meet a lot of people in the TV business, and it was clear that she knew Parker.
Parker turned, and Kylie charged down the steps. “What in God’s name are you doing, Damon?”
The matador had waved the red cape.
The bull advanced cautiously. “What am I doing?” Parker said.
All that was missing was the sound of the crowd screaming, “Olé!”
“I’m seeking the truth,” he said. “The people want to know the truth, Detective MacDonald, and I’m the one they depend on to bring it to them. That’s what I’m doing. It’s what I always do. Only this time it’s personal. My sister was murdered, and I want her killer brought to justice.”
He had used up his fifth victim crap on me, and suddenly he had morphed into the grieving brother.
“Are you even looking for my sister’s killer?” he said, trying to drive one of his trademark verbal stilettos right through her. “Or have you been instructed to fan the flames of Evelyn’s so-called confession and brand her as a murderer in an effort to tarnish the candidate that my dear sister so deeply believed in?”