sped up the hill. I held my breath. My rational side told me I was safe in this car; no one would stop me. But my nerves jumped out of control. I closed my eyes and averted my face as they shot by.
I blew out a relieved but anxious breath. It was clear where they were heading.
If Iâd only left five minutes later, I would have been caught.
I knew I couldnât do this forever. I had one chance, and that was to turn myself in to someone who would hear my story first. I drove down the hill toward West Dover, the realization beating through me that I was a fugitive in three murders now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I tâs funny, how you might not speak to a person for years, someone who was once a key part of your life. But then, when you need someone in a moment of crisis, theirs is the one name that comes to mind.
In my case, that was Joe Esterhaus.
Joe took me under his wing when I was a rookie on the Nassau County police force, and I guess he caused me to leave it too. I come from a family of cops. My father was one. He and Joe came up together. My older brother too, out of the One Hundred and Fifth Precinct in Queens, and he happened to be on assignment in lower Manhattan and rushed into the South Tower on his twenty-eighth birthday when it was hit by a plane the morning of September 11. It was why I signed up, as a twenty-four-year-old bond salesperson on Wall Street, trying to give some honor to his life. I never really wanted to be a cop. I wanted to be a soccer player. Iâd played left wing on the soccer team at Boston College. My junior year, we even made it to the Big East championship game.
Joe was one of those people in your life that you would always want in your foxhole, no matter how hard he pushed you or even yelled at you in public. He ran the respected Nassau County Street Crime Unit, and it wasnât just that heâd known me since I could first kick a ball, or went to my First Communion, even my high school graduation. Or just because of my brother Michael, whose death made them all weep like babies. For them all.
It was that his best friend, my dad, Timothy Edward Stansi, was a first responder. Heâd lost a son that day, and took a leave, and spent that last good year of his life picking through the ruins, never finding a sign of him. By 2003 he was dead from congestive lung disease.
That was why I was fast-tracked out of cadet school and put straight onto the Street Crime Unit. It was a way for Joe to keep a promised eye on me. He kept me under his wing. Though it didnât take long for me to realize it wasnât for me.
When Dad got sick, Joe became kind of a second father to me. Before the incident at the Haverston Projects, he was the first person I would have called, and if I told him I wasnât guilty, no matter how it looked, I wouldnât have had to say another word.
But soon after, things just fell apart. It was an angry time back then, after Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima in the city; everyone pointing fingers, shouting about racial profiling and trigger-happy cops. We ended up cleared by a department review, but he was forced to resign. He started drinking, and his wife, Grace, died from breast cancer. I went to law school for a year. Then I met Dave, at an advertising cocktail party. Our lives just moved in different directions. I suppose we both kind of reminded ourselves of a different past. Mine moved forward; Joeâs, well, his was never the same.
Truth was, I hadnât spoken to him in a couple of years.
Still, he knew half the people of any importance on the forces in New York and on the Island, and the other half would probably say they knew him.
I pulled the car over on Route 100, not knowing where to go or who to call, my name out there in connection with three murders. I wished that my dad was around, but he wasnât.
The only other person I could think of was Joe.
âWendy!â
âJoe, thank God, I didnât know who else I
I blew out a relieved but anxious breath. It was clear where they were heading.
If Iâd only left five minutes later, I would have been caught.
I knew I couldnât do this forever. I had one chance, and that was to turn myself in to someone who would hear my story first. I drove down the hill toward West Dover, the realization beating through me that I was a fugitive in three murders now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I tâs funny, how you might not speak to a person for years, someone who was once a key part of your life. But then, when you need someone in a moment of crisis, theirs is the one name that comes to mind.
In my case, that was Joe Esterhaus.
Joe took me under his wing when I was a rookie on the Nassau County police force, and I guess he caused me to leave it too. I come from a family of cops. My father was one. He and Joe came up together. My older brother too, out of the One Hundred and Fifth Precinct in Queens, and he happened to be on assignment in lower Manhattan and rushed into the South Tower on his twenty-eighth birthday when it was hit by a plane the morning of September 11. It was why I signed up, as a twenty-four-year-old bond salesperson on Wall Street, trying to give some honor to his life. I never really wanted to be a cop. I wanted to be a soccer player. Iâd played left wing on the soccer team at Boston College. My junior year, we even made it to the Big East championship game.
Joe was one of those people in your life that you would always want in your foxhole, no matter how hard he pushed you or even yelled at you in public. He ran the respected Nassau County Street Crime Unit, and it wasnât just that heâd known me since I could first kick a ball, or went to my First Communion, even my high school graduation. Or just because of my brother Michael, whose death made them all weep like babies. For them all.
It was that his best friend, my dad, Timothy Edward Stansi, was a first responder. Heâd lost a son that day, and took a leave, and spent that last good year of his life picking through the ruins, never finding a sign of him. By 2003 he was dead from congestive lung disease.
That was why I was fast-tracked out of cadet school and put straight onto the Street Crime Unit. It was a way for Joe to keep a promised eye on me. He kept me under his wing. Though it didnât take long for me to realize it wasnât for me.
When Dad got sick, Joe became kind of a second father to me. Before the incident at the Haverston Projects, he was the first person I would have called, and if I told him I wasnât guilty, no matter how it looked, I wouldnât have had to say another word.
But soon after, things just fell apart. It was an angry time back then, after Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima in the city; everyone pointing fingers, shouting about racial profiling and trigger-happy cops. We ended up cleared by a department review, but he was forced to resign. He started drinking, and his wife, Grace, died from breast cancer. I went to law school for a year. Then I met Dave, at an advertising cocktail party. Our lives just moved in different directions. I suppose we both kind of reminded ourselves of a different past. Mine moved forward; Joeâs, well, his was never the same.
Truth was, I hadnât spoken to him in a couple of years.
Still, he knew half the people of any importance on the forces in New York and on the Island, and the other half would probably say they knew him.
I pulled the car over on Route 100, not knowing where to go or who to call, my name out there in connection with three murders. I wished that my dad was around, but he wasnât.
The only other person I could think of was Joe.
âWendy!â
âJoe, thank God, I didnât know who else I
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