Prologue
On a hot summer night in New York City, a policewoman named Maura Walsh walked into a strip club. She was pretty – maybe even more attractive than the dancers the men were paying to see. But the uniform made it clear she was there on business, and everyone gave her a wide berth. She walked directly over to the bar, pocketed a wad of cash the bartender handed her and left.
A short time later, the same scenario played out at a house of prostitution. It was located in a building where tenants had complained about male customers showing up at all hours of the day and night, but no one ever seemed to do anything about it. Maura Walsh went into the office of the woman who ran the business, closed the door and accepted more money.
The next stop was at a restaurant. It was a trendy singles place, and lots of young people were eating and drinking and having a good time. She sat down at a table, but didn’t eat or drink anything. The manager came over, they had a brief conversation and money changed hands.
An hour after that, Maura Walsh was found shot to death on the street in the Little Italy section of Manhattan.
The news accounts the next day described her in glowing terms as a hero cop, a decorated five-year veteran of the force and the daughter of Deputy NYPD Commissioner Mike Walsh.
There was no mention of the strip club, the house of prostitution, the restaurant or the payoffs she took.
That would all come later.
One
Crazy, senseless crimes always seem to happen in the summertime in New York City. Son of Sam was in the summer of 1977. The Preppie Murder Case, when Robert Chambers inexplicably strangled Jennifer Levin during sex after picking her up at a singles bar on the Upper East Side, happened in August of 1986. And I was attacked, brutally beaten and left for dead on a hot summer night in Central Park twelve years ago, just like the night when Maura Walsh was murdered.
“You should take some time off, Jessie,” Danny Knowlton, the assistant city desk editor at the New York Tribune where I work these days as a crime reporter, said to me when I walked into the newsroom on this summer morning.
“I’m fine, Danny.”
“A week, even a couple of weeks – no problem. It’s summer. Go to the beach or something. Enjoy yourself for once.”
“Maybe later.”
I knew why Danny Knowlton was so concerned about me, and it wasn’t because he was a warm, caring human being. Danny was a newspaper editor. And the words “warm, caring human being” and “newspaper editor” rarely belonged together. Certainly not in the case of an editor like Danny Knowlton, an ambitious young guy who was always looking for a big story to help him further his career.
No, my happiness and health was important to Danny because I’d been very good for him recently.
I had broken a huge Page 1 exclusive: the truth about what really happened to me during the attack in Central Park twelve years ago as well as the truth about the murders of several other women. It had implicated some of the most powerful people in the city. Since then, I’d been on the front pages of newspapers around the country; on the covers of magazines; and a regular topic of conversation by all the TV talking heads on the 24-hour news cycle.
Jessie Tucker, media superstar.
Just like I’d been after the first attack.
But the trauma and emotion I went through to get this sensational story – both now and in opening doors to fears I’d left behind me long ago – had taken their toll on me.
Danny Knowlton thought the answer to all this was rest and relaxation, but I knew better. I knew what I really needed now. I needed another story. So I decided to go after the biggest story around.
“I want to work on the Maura Walsh story,” I told him.
Three weeks ago, Policewoman Maura Walsh was found shot dead on a Manhattan street. It was only the third time a female NYPD officer had died in the line of duty. Maura Walsh was also the daughter of Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Walsh, and the whole Walsh family had a long, honorable tradition with the NYPD. Despite a massive police investigation, no one had been able to find out any more since then about who killed her or why.
I’d been dealing with all the aftermath of my big Central Park story when it happened and hadn’t been involved in the Tribune coverage.
But I was the paper’s crime reporter, and now I wanted to write about Maura Walsh.
“We went really big on the coverage of that story at the time,” Danny pointed out to me. “If there’s an arrest in the case, we’ll jump back on it. But there’s a whole lot of other breaking news out there now which has pushed Maura Walsh off the front page…”
I looked over at the front page of the Tribune on his desk. The headline said: HEAT WAVE IN THIRD DAY: NO END IN SIGHT. I had an editor once who refused to run these kind of weather stories. He said it never made sense to make people buy the paper to tell them the weather they already knew. But the Tribune didn’t follow that policy these days.
“We’re going to keep telling people it’s hot outside?” I said. “I think they already know that, Danny.”
“Don’t knock weather stories – they sell newspapers for us.”
“So would a good story about the murder of a woman police officer.”
“A lot of other reporters in town have already covered that story, Jessie.”
“Not the way I’ll do it.”
That wasn’t my ego talking. There were a lot of good reporters at the Tribune and elsewhere who covered breaking news, but my job at the paper was to be the crime specialist who went beyond the daily headlines to get the real story. I explained to Danny now how I wanted to do that with Maura Walsh.
“Let me do a deep dive into the Maura Walsh story. An in-depth look at how a woman cop from a legendary NYPD family like this lives – and tragically dies – on the streets of New York City. I’d talk to other cops, friends and family. I have a source in the department who might even be able to get me an interview with Maura Walsh’s father. The deputy commissioner hasn’t talked to anyone about his daughter’s killing since a brief press conference right after it happened. If I could get him to really open up to me, it would be a helluva exclusive.”
I could tell right away Danny liked the idea. And why not? It would be another feather in his cap as my editor if I could pull this off. We talked for a while about the logistics of how I would do it – and when it might run. Maybe a big Sunday piece for the Tribune. And we could break it first on the website Saturday night. Then push it out on Twitter, our app and all the other social media throughout the weekend.
“And you’re absolutely sure you want to keep working, Jessie? After all you’ve gone through recently?” he asked, even though I think he knew what I would say.
“Yes.”
“What are you looking for? Even more Jessie Tucker headlines?” He smiled.
“No, I’d just like to get some answers about Maura Walsh.”
I walked back to my desk in the newsroom and grabbed a granola bar from my desk drawer.
“How’d it go with Danny?” asked Michelle Caradonna, the reporter who had recently moved next to me.
“He wanted me to take some time off, but I said no.”