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 wasn’t just that he’d 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. He’d 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 didn’t take long for me to realize it wasn’t 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 wasn’t guilty, no matter how it looked, I wouldn’t 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; Joe’s, well, his was never the same.
Truth was, I hadn’t 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 wasn’t.
The only other person I could think of was Joe.
“Wendy!”
“Joe, thank God, I didn’t know who else I could call,” I said, the nerves clearly audible in my voice. “I wasn’t even sure this number was still good.”
“It’s all right. I’m glad you did. Wendy, before you say another word, you have to be careful about the phone.”
“I think it’s safe, Joe. I stopped at a market on the way. I bought a disposable one.”
“Good. That was smart. Wendy, we’ve all heard the news. No one can believe a word of what they’re saying. What the hell is going on?”
“Joe, listen, before I tell you anything, you need to believe me—what they’re saying isn’t true! I didn’t kill Dave, I swear. You know that. And I damn well didn’t kill that government agent the way it’s being said. It was entirely self-defense. He was shooting at me ! I’m scared, Joe. I stumbled into something, and I’m being set up. I saw something . . . and now to keep it quiet they’re trying to kill me too.”
“Who’s trying to kill you, Wendy?”
As calmly as I could, which wasn’t easy under the circumstances, I told Joe everything that had happened to me over the past twenty-four hours. How I’d met Curtis at the Hotel Kitano bar and ended up in his room.
“First, I swear, Joe, nothing really went on . . . We kissed a little, that was all. I know how all this must sound—”
“Wendy, I don’t care about that stuff. But they’re saying you killed a government agent . . .”
“It’s true. But it was one hundred percent self-defense, Joe. I was actually in the bathroom, getting ready to leave . . .”
No matter how many times I went through it, I
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 wasn’t just that he’d 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. He’d 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 didn’t take long for me to realize it wasn’t 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 wasn’t guilty, no matter how it looked, I wouldn’t 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; Joe’s, well, his was never the same.
Truth was, I hadn’t 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 wasn’t.
The only other person I could think of was Joe.
“Wendy!”
“Joe, thank God, I didn’t know who else I could call,” I said, the nerves clearly audible in my voice. “I wasn’t even sure this number was still good.”
“It’s all right. I’m glad you did. Wendy, before you say another word, you have to be careful about the phone.”
“I think it’s safe, Joe. I stopped at a market on the way. I bought a disposable one.”
“Good. That was smart. Wendy, we’ve all heard the news. No one can believe a word of what they’re saying. What the hell is going on?”
“Joe, listen, before I tell you anything, you need to believe me—what they’re saying isn’t true! I didn’t kill Dave, I swear. You know that. And I damn well didn’t kill that government agent the way it’s being said. It was entirely self-defense. He was shooting at me ! I’m scared, Joe. I stumbled into something, and I’m being set up. I saw something . . . and now to keep it quiet they’re trying to kill me too.”
“Who’s trying to kill you, Wendy?”
As calmly as I could, which wasn’t easy under the circumstances, I told Joe everything that had happened to me over the past twenty-four hours. How I’d met Curtis at the Hotel Kitano bar and ended up in his room.
“First, I swear, Joe, nothing really went on . . . We kissed a little, that was all. I know how all this must sound—”
“Wendy, I don’t care about that stuff. But they’re saying you killed a government agent . . .”
“It’s true. But it was one hundred percent self-defense, Joe. I was actually in the bathroom, getting ready to leave . . .”
No matter how many times I went through it, I
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