Cop Without a Badge (Chapter 19)

Chapter 19

Maher felt the trigger begin to yield against the pressure of his finger. Since the Smith & Wesson was a double action weapon, the trigger mechanism would go through two steps before firing. First the hammer would cock, and then, as the trigger passed the half way point, the hammer would drop the round.

Maher held his breath and pressed the trigger hard. The was positioned for the deadly click.

Maher continued applying pressure, and he braced for the bullet. Suddenly his eyes popped open as the distant memory of his Catholic upbringing moved to the forefront of his psyche. I could go to hell for doing this!

Maher placed the gun on the floor and climbed out of the tub. He collected a phone book and cordless phone and climbed back in the tub. He looked up the number for St. Joseph’s Church in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and dialed. After several rings a man answered.

“St. Joseph’s. Father Daly speaking.”

Father Daly sounded sleepy. Of course, it was three o’clock in the morning.

“Sorry to wake you, Father.” 

“That’s quite all right.”

After a long pause, Maher said: “Father Daly, my name is Kevin.”

“My name is Kevin, too,” Father Daly responded.

“I’m depressed,” Maher stated somberly. “And I’m contemplating ending my life.”

“Nothing could be that bad.”

“Father you have no idea.”

Father Daly waited for Maher to continue. Now what do I say? Maher wondered.

“I want you to hear my confession before I do this,” Maher finally said. “I don’t want to go to hell.”

“If you kill yourself,” Father Daly said sternly, “you will go to hell.”

“Unless I get absolution.”

Father Daly laughed. “So you’re trying to get absolution before you commit the sin?”

Maher, ever the player, was trying to work a deal with the priest. As if the priest was a cop and God was a judge.

“It doesn’t work that way, Kevin,” Father Daly said. “Besides there is no absolution for suicide.”

“You’re sure there is nothing we can do here?” Maher asked.

“I’m sure,” Father Daly responded.

“If you commit suicide, you won’t be able to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.”

Maher tossed Father Daly’s statement around in his mind. I hadn’t thought of that. So if I kill myself, where would I be buried?

“You’ll burn in hell,” Father Daly added.

Neither of them spoke for at lest a minute. Finally Father Daly said, “Kevin, why don’t you tell me why you want to kill yourself.”

“It’s a long story, Father. My life is totally fucked up.”

“I’ve got plenty of time, Kevin.”

Three hours later – after the car chase, the FBI, the DEA, Uribe, Beth, Beverly, and the missing Mary Catherine – Father Daly probably wished there was an absolution for suicide. But his patience paid off. At the end of the telephone conversation, Maher promised Father Daly he wouldn’t kill himself. Then Maher hung up the receiver and began to cry. What am I going to do? I have to do something to turn my life around.

Early in January, Maher was sitting on the welfare couch, daydreaming. He didn’t hear Colaneri’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

“What the hell happened to you?” Colaneri asked when he saw Maher slouched outside the welfare office.

The last time Colaneri saw Maher, Maher was driving a $100,000 Porsche. He had a swagger about him then, the cocksure attitude of a winner. Now Maher looked defeated.

“I’m going through a hard time,” Maher said.

“I can see that,” Colaneri noted, the thought: I’ve seen homeless people who looked less alone that he does.

“Look,” Colaneri finally said, “when you get done, stop into the office.”

After picking up his welfare check for $75, Maher walked across the hall and spent an hour hanging out with Colaneri. The next day Maher was back again. And the next. It gave Maher a place to go, a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  Once in a while, Colaneri would “loan” him $20. A month later, Colaneri invited Maher to come over to his house.

“My wife, Patti, will cook you a good meal,” Colaneri said.

And so Maher became part of the Colaneri family. Patti’s reaction, however, was mixed. At first she, too, was taken by Maher. But by February she grew suspicious of Maher’s motives.

“I think this guy is using you,” Patti said one night.

“Come on, Patti,” Colaneri countered. “He’s just a troubled kid.”

“He’s not a kid,” Patti pointed out. “He’s older than you are.”

“By four months,” Colaneri noted.

Yes in many ways Maher seemed much younger than Colaneri. Perhaps Maher’s four years in prison –which robbed him of an adolescence- could account for the fact that part of him never grew up. As for Colaneri, maybe the presence of his wife and kids so early in his life forced him into an escalated process of maturity. Whatever the reasons, it was true. Colaneri was four months younger than Maher, was the older brother.

Eventually Patti warmed to Maher again and made an effort to understand him. She came to the conclusion that while he was jaded in some ways, in other ways he seemed almost innocent.

The more time Maher and Colaneri spent together, the more Colaneri felt comfortable playing the role of big brother.

“You shouldn’t be doing coke,” Colaneri said one day.

Maher laughed. “Coke?! What are you talking about. I don’t do coke anymore.”

Colaneri stared at Maher. Maher quickly diverted his eyes.

“You gonna lie to me now?” Colaneri asked. “I’m trying to help you, and you lie to me?”

“Sometimes I take a hit,” Maher admitted.

“And where do you get the money to buy it?” Colaneri demanded.

“I get a gram sometimes. It only cost – “

“I didn’t ask you what it costs,” Colaneri cut in. “I asked where you get the money.”

Maher didn’t respond.

“You use your welfare money to by cocaine?” Colaneri pressed. “Or do you use the money I loan you?”

Maher took a deep breath.

“It’s hard, Bobby. It’s hard to stop.”

“You want to be my friend?” Colaneri asked.

“Sure I do,” Maher responded.

“Okay. Then stop that shit.”

Maher knew that the pain of withdrawal could not possibly hurt more than losing Colaneri’s friendship.

“Okay, Bobby. I’ll stop.”

And this time Maher felt certain he would succeed.

A few days later, Colaneri turned his attention to Maher’s alcoholism.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” Maher protested.

“Then why do you get drunk every time we go out?” Colaneri asked.

Maher had a million excuses. Colaneri listened to Maher’s rationalizations, sitting patiently while Maher explained all the events in his life that made him drink the way he did. Prison. Beth. Beverly. Mary Catherine. Ultimately, Maher talked himself out.

“You through?” Colaneri asked.

 Maher nodded.

“Good,” Colaneri said. “Because everything you just told me is bullshit. You’ve got to stop making excuses and quit drinking so much.”

From that day on, Maher drank less, especially whenever he was around Colaneri. Colaneri’s faith in him had become more important than drugs.

And then there was Maher’s temper. One day Maher was driving and Colaneri was a passenger. A pickup truck darted in front of Maher, blasted his horn and raced up beside the truck, screaming and making obscene gestures at the driver. Then Maher jammed his foot on the accelerator and sped away.

“Kevin, you’ve got to stop that shit.”

“He cut me off,” Maher protested. “The dumb fuck cut right in front of me.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, let me tell you about a homicide from several years ago.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Maher asked, already calming down.

December ’85,” Colaneri began, “I was paged at home around eleven o’clock at night. My partner, Mike Barbire, was working that night and he was called to the scene of a stabbing on Paterson Plank Road, near the entrance to Brendan Byrne Arena. A while male named Vasile had been knifed in the chest. You know how he wound up getting stabbed?”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you how,” Colaneri said. “Vasile was riding with a friend – they had just left the hockey game – and they were merging into traffic when a pickup truck cut them off.”

Colaneri looked over his shoulder through Maher’s rear window.

“Just like that truck back there cut you off,” Colaneri noted.

Maher shrugged, not giving Colaneri anything.

Colaneri continued, “The driver of the car Vasile was in and the driver of the truck, who was a white male, exchanged words. Vasile gets out the passenger seat and goes over to say something to the driver of the pickup. The driver stabs Vasile in the chest. But Vasile didn’t go down right away. He walks over and gets back in the passenger side of the car. The pickup truck takes off. Vasile’s friend now sees that Vasile is bleeding profusely and drives up Washington Avenue to Executive Motor Inn. That’s when I arrived.”

Colaneri paused, allowing the story to sink in.

“The blood was unbelievable,” Colaneri added.

Maher and Colaneri rode along in silence for a long time.

“You catch the guy?” Maher finally asked.

“Vasile’s friend couldn’t remember the license plate number of the truck. He wasn’t even sure what kind of truck it was. Could have been a Toyota, he said. Or a Chevy Blazer. The only thing he was certain about was that it was white. We even hypnotized the guy, hoping that would bring something out of his subconscious.”

Colaneri shook his head.

“Nothing.”

“You catch the fucking guy?” Maher asked again, his voice showing some impatience.

“It ‘s the toughest kind of homicide to figure out,” Colaneri said. “No connection between the people. And we don’t even know for sure if the driver of the pickup was at the hockey game. He could have been down the road at the Barge Club.” 

Maher was taking all this in.

“You meet Bobby Rehberg,” Colaneri  said. “Bergen County homicide squad.”

Maher nodded. “Yeah. He worked on the Molese case.
 

“That’s right. And Bobby worked with me on the Vasile homicide.”

Colaneri took a deep breath. “We never solved it. The case is still open.” Then: “A real shame. A young guy dying for no reason. And it all started over something like you just did.”

Day after day, Colaneri counseled Maher. He continued to loan him money on occasion and even found Maher work – as a dispatcher for a local trucking company.

Maher felt indebted to Colaneri and often wished he could find a way to repay his kindness. In May 1993, Maher found the perfect opportunity.

Maher had gone into Manhattan on night and stopped by The Z Bar, the place where he had met Mary Catherine. Although he didn’t hold out much hope – serendipity had only brought him trouble in the past – Maher half believed he would walk in and see Mary Catherine sitting at the bar.

Maher walked in. Mary Catherine was not there.

But Maher did see a familiar face, that of Lewis Klein. Klein had been a regular at 439 East 9^th Street. He was a coke dealer.

“Hey, Kevin,” Klein said. “Long time. No see.”

“Hello, Lewis,” Maher said flatly.

Maher wasn’t pleased to see Klein.

Klein had been one of Mary Catherine’s main suppliers of crack.

“What are you up to?” Maher asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“Same old thin,” Klein said.

“Dealing?” Maher noted.

“Yeah,” Klein responded.

“What about you?” Klein asked Maher.

“Nothing much. I’m living over in Jersey. Got a job with a trucking company.”

“Jersey,” Klein exclaimed. “I’ve been over to Jersey a lot. Fort Lee.”

“What’s going on in Fort Lee?” Maher wanted to know.

“I got customers over there,” Klein said. “I do about five thousand a week in business in Jersey.”

Maher looked at Klein with disdain. And how many other Mary Catherines are you fucking up over there? Maher knew blaming a drug dealer was like blaming the gun if you shot yourself. Still, Maher felt Klein’s crack cocaine was the reason he had lost Mary Catherine. Maher didn’t care about the fact that if Klein hadn’t sold crack to Mary Catherine, somebody else would have. Klein was standing right there in front of him. Why don’t you put a bull’s-eye on your chest, motherfucker, Maher thought laughing to himself. ‘Cause I’m going to bang you out. And at that moment, Maher decided he would pin on his imaginary badge one more time.

“Listen Lewis,” Maher said as he leaned in on Klein, “I know a guy over in Carlstadt who wants some coke.”

“You know the guy?” Klein asked.

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” Maher snapped.

“I’ll have to get back to you.”

Klein gave Maher his beeper number and address, a sleazy hotel on Times Square.

The following morning, Maher stopped by the Carlstadt police headquarters and found Colaneri at his desk.

“Hey, Bobby,” Maher said, “I got one for you.”

“Got one what?” Colaneri wanted to know.

“A DD,” Maher said. “He’s transporting shit from New York to New Jersey.”

“Is that right?” Colaneri asked with a smile.

“Yeah, I told him I had a new customer for him.”

“Well,” Colaneri said, “bring him on over.”

Maher and Colaneri worked out the details of the sting. The entrapment issue would not be a factor because Klein had previously transported cocaine to New Jersey.

“Pull off Route Seventeen onto Paterson Plank Road,” Colaneri instructed. “Just drive like you always do. And speed up when you go past Tenth Street. I’ll have a patrol car waiting to pull you over.”

At eleven-thirty that night, Maher picked up Klein in Times Square. Klein showed Maher an “eight ball,” which was a small packet of crack.

“This is what your guy wants?” Klein asked.

“That’s it,” Maher answered with a smile.

Maher followed the course he and Colaneri had mapped out. As Maher exited Route 17 and zoomed past 10^th Street, a patrol car, lights flashing sirens blaring, pulled him over.

“License and Registration,” Sergeant Dave Smith said in a monotone.

“I don’t have a valid license,” Maher responded, following the script.

“Step out of the car,” Smith demanded.

Smith slapped handcuffs on Maher’s wrist. The Smith asked Klein for some identification. Klein could not produce any and was arrested.

At Carlstadt police headquarters, Klein was searched. All he had on him was a crack pipe. Even though a computer check turned up priors on Klein in Fort Lee, in the absence of an appreciable amount of cocaine, Klein could only be charge with “possession of drug paraphernalia.” He was released ROR.

This made everyone angry, especially Maher. On the way back into the city, Maher asked Klein what he did with the drugs.

“I had the shit tucked in the back of my belt,” Klein said.

Since Klein’s hands were cuffed behind his back, he was able to work his fingers under his belt and remove the tiny packet of crack cocaine.

“I slipped it out of my belt,” Klein explained, “and stuffed it in the seat of the police car.”

Maher dropped Klein at his hotel and raced back across the Hudson River to Carlstadt. Maher and Smith searched the patrol car. Sure enough, stuffed between the cushions of the backseat was an “eight ball.”

“Don’t worry,” Maher told Smith, “I’ll get the bastard for this.”

The next day, Maher again met Klein in Times Square. 

“My friend Barry still wants to make a buy,” Maher told Klein. “Only he doesn’t want an eight ball, he wants an ounce of cocaine.”

Klein’s eyes lit up. An ounce would bring a nice profit.

Soon, Maher and Klein were back on Route 17. Klein kept glancing at the speedometer.

“Stay under the fucking speed limit, will you?” Klein pleaded.

Maher glided the car off Route 17 and drove to the hotel where an undercover Carlstadt police detective was waiting.

This time Klein was caught with a significant amount of cocaine and was charged with far more serious crimes than possession of drug paraphernalia.

The Carlstadt police had quite a few laughs over the drug dealer Colaneri and the fact that Maher had been arrested twice in twelve hours.

As summer arrived, Maher bore little resemblance to the person who sat in a bathtub with a gun in his mouth. He had brought his drinking under control. He was content, looking forward instead of backward, and it appeared Maher finally had everything under control. His drug habit. His emotions. With Colaneri’s help, his life had been transformed. But then, on July 14, 1993, something happened to upset his carefully constructed yet fragile existence.

Maher had his television tuned to A Current Affair, and although he wasn’t paying attention to the show, a woman’s face flashed on the screen. He snapped his head around. It can’t be. It can’t fucking be!

But it was. The woman on Maher’s television was Mary Catherine Williams.

A Current Affair was doing a promo for the next day’s program. According to the promo, Mary Catherine Williams was believed to be one of the victims of the most notorious serial killer in New York State history: Joel Rifkin.

Maher picked up the phone receiver and called Doherty. Doherty wasn’t home. After a mostly sleepless night, Maher reached Doherty at his office the following morning.

“You been reading about the guy the State Police picked up?” Maher asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Doherty replied. “The one they found with the dead body in a truck. Joel Rifkin.”

“I saw a thing on A Current Affair,” Maher said, sighing. “They believe Rifkin killed this girl I used to date. Mary Catherine Williams.”

Maher began to cry. Doherty tried to comfort him.

“That’s too bad, Kevin. I’m sorry.”

“I loved her,” Maher confided.

Doherty listened sympathetically as Maher reminisced about Mary Catherine.

“I have her address book in my closet,” Maher said at one point.

“You have her address book?!” Doherty almost jumped through the receiver. “Get it out and bring it to the phone!”

Maher raced to the closet and dug around until he found Mary Catherine’s address book. He returned to the phone.

“Okay, Jimmy. I’ve got it.”

“Turn to the R section,” Doherty said. “See if Rifkin is listed.”

Maher opened the address book. In addition to the names and phone numbers, Mary Catherine had written sideways notes to herself in large block letters. Sometimes she jotted down a quote from the Bible. This made Maher recall her little TV altar stand with the picture of Jesus. Tears filled his eyes, and he could barely see the pages as he flipped to the R section.

“There’s nothing here, Jimmy.”

“Try the J section,” Doherty suggested. “Maybe she just used first names.”

Maher turned to the J section and found an entry: J.R. There were two phone numbers.

“Jimmy,” Maher said as he looked at the phone numbers, “what are the first three digits of Rifkin’s telephone number?”

Since the Rifkin case was so prominent, Doherty, as did many other law enforcement officers, had a case file on his desk that detailed the serial killings. Doherty opened the folder and checked for Rifkin’s phone number.

“Four-eight-one,” Doherty said.

Maher finished the number. “Four-one-six-four.”

“Bingo,” Doherty almost shouted.

It was Rifkin’s unlisted phone number.

Maher read the second number listed before J.R. It was Rifkin’s mother’s number.

“Don’t lose that book,” Doherty said.

The following morning, Doherty followed police protocol and called the New York State Police, the lead agency in the Rifkin investigation.

“I have information that looks like it is relative to Joel Rifkin,” Doherty told a trooper who answered the phone.

“We’ll get back to you,” the trooper said.

Click.

Doherty stared at the receiver in disbelief. He had found the tone of the trooper’s voice unacceptably dismissive. Doherty’s instincts told him that working with the New York State Police was not going to be pleasant.

Later that day, Maher bought a Daily News to see if there was anything about Mary Catherine in the paper. Since the moment Rifkin had been arrested two weeks earlier and subsequently confessed to seventeen murders, there had been an enormous amount of media interest. Everywhere you turned- radio, television, magazines, newspapers – there were stories about the infamous murderer.

Maher leafed through the pages of the newspaper. There was a large picture of Joel Rifkin staring out from the page.

Until now, the only photos Maher had seen of Rifkin were snapped after he had been taken into custody. IN those pictures, Rifkin was always covering his face with his arm or pulling the hood of his prison garb down to obscure his features.  But this was a posed portrait of Rifkin, a smiling face that belied the horror he was capable of inflicting.

Maher studied the photo in disbelief. Joel Rifkin, the caption said. But Maher didn’t know him as Joel Rifkin. Maher had always referred to him with a derisive nickname.

The nerd.

The man in the photo was the same man Maher had caught choking Mary Catherine Williams that horrifying day on 9^th Street.

Cop Without a Badge (Chapter 18)

Chapter 18

Maher took Sammy into the office and calmed him down.

“Okay, Sammy,” Maher said. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was driving a cab,” Sammy began, “right behind a Range Rover. This BMW pulled up and these Chinese guys in the BMW started shooting.”

“You get a look at their faces?”

“Yeah.”

Maher went to a phone and called Harkins.

“You know about the robbery in Manhattan,” Maher said, “the one that happened a few hours ago?”

“Robberies happen every few minutes,” Harkins noted.

“The one where the jeweler was killed and they got away with two hundred and fifty thousand?”

“Yeah,” Harkins said, now interested.

“Well, I’ve got a witness.”

“Can I talk to him?” Harkins asked. “I don’t know if he’ll talk to you,” Maher said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

Sammy adamantly refused to speak with the police. Maher called Harkins again.

“He won’t come forward,” Maher reported to Harkins. “He’s scared. I’ll have to work on him.”

Maher convinced Sammy to call 577-TIPS, the confidential hot line set up by police.

“You don’t have to give them your name,” Maher explained. “They’ll assign you a number.

Sammy hesitated.

“You’ll get a thousand dollars, Sammy,” Maher said. “Couldn’t you use a thousand dollars?”

But when Maher told Harkins that Sammy had agreed to make the call, Harkins said that the detective who was handling the case was against it.

“He feels that if Sammy calls, it might taint his testimony. The detective wants to handle Sammy himself.”

Maher got Sammy to agree to meet with the detective. At the precinct, Sammy wondered aloud why he couldn’t just call.

“That way,” Sammy said, “I get paid and I don’t have to give my name.”

The detective promised Sammy he would make sure he was paid for his help and that his name would remain secret. Maher had to promise Sammy he would stick with him through the process. So Maher walked Sammy through the entire ordeal, from picking a suspect out of a photo lineup to Sammy testifying before the grand jury. The suspect was indicted.

But Sammy wasn’t paid.

“I don’t want to taint your testimony,” the detective said.

Sammy was furious. And Maher was disgusted.

“If he lied to me about money,” Sammy speculated, “he could be lying to me about keeping my name out of it. No way I’m testifying at the trial.”

“I don’t blame you,” Maher said. “Fuck them.”

Considering that Sammy was the sole witness to a vicious crime, it might have been prudent to make the promised payment.  Instead, it looked like the prosecution had lost a witness. Or, more to the point, they had lost a witness, unless Maher could turn Sammy back around, which meant Maher now wielded power in a major homicide case. This time Maher would ask for money. And it would have to be a hell of a lot more than $1,000 that would have made Sammy happy.

At the end of March 1991 Maher was in a strip joint in Queens called Pussycat. Just like in a Western, two men walked in. One of them gave Maher a challenging look. Although Maher didn’t recognized him at that point, the man was the owner of another bar with whom Maher had gotten in a fist fight several months earlier.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Maher slurred.

A bouncer intervened. The man glared at Maher and then walked out.

A few minutes after the man left, Maher remembered where he had seen him before.

“I know who that prick was,” Maher told the bartender. “He owns a bar down the street.”

Maher shoved off the bar stool, sauntered outside, and drove off to the other bar. Just as he was making a U-turn in front of the place, a Chevy S-10 Blazer rammed the driver’s door of the Porsche. The window shattered, and hundred of small chunks of glass rained inside the car. Maher glared at the driver of the Blazer and realized that the collision had not been an accident. The driver of the blazer was the owner of the bar.

Maher looked through the windshield and, to his horror, saw another Blazer, this one a full-sized model with monster wheels. The monster Blazer pulled in front of the Porsche. Now the Porsche could not go forward, so Maher reached for the shifter and pushed it from drive toward reverse. But the shifter wouldn’t go past neutral. A piece of glass had lodged in the shifting mechanism.

As Maher was trying to force the shifter into reverse, one of the bar owner’s cronies jumped from the S-10 and ran to the passenger side of the Porsche. The crony tried to open the Porsche’s door buy it was locked. Instinctively, Maher reached to his waistband for his gun. But instead of a gun, his hand wrapped around a beeper. Maher ripped the beeper from his waist band and, holding like he would a weapon, pointed it at the crony. Since it was dark – and since Maher kept his hand in constant motion – it was a convincing act. The panicked crony ran.

“He’s got a gun!” the crony screamed.

At that point, another one of the bar owner’s cronies stepped from the darkness and fired two shots at the Porsche. The bullets pieced the front left fender. Maybe pulling a beeper wasn’t such a good idea, Maher thought. Instead of waiting for more shots in his direction, Maher “power-braked” the Porsche – held his foot on the brake while jamming the accelerator to the floor – then slid his foot off the brake. The Porsche catapulted head-on into the front of the monster Blazer and began pushing it backward.

Another two shots. One round hit the rim of the rear left tire, and one round hit the tire itself, which instantly deflated. Maher kept his foot on the accelerator and turned the steering wheel until he cleared the front of the Blazer. The Porsche screeched away, two Blazers in pursuit.

Maher sped toward the upper level of the 59^th Street Bridge, taking a sharp right turn onto the ramp. But the Porsche was traveling too fast, and it spun out. The monster Blazer hit the front of the Porsche – which was now facing the wrong way on the ramp – springing the hood. Since the mangled hood was blocking  his vision, Maher stuck his head out the window and hit the accelerator, speeding back down the entrance ramp in the wrong direction. Even with a flat tire, he managed to lose the two Blazers.

The Porsche, Maher’s financial safety net, was now totaled. In April Maher received a check for $39,000 from the insurance company, well below the market value. Maher bought a $34,000 1991 Corvette and pocketed $5,000, which he added to the pool of funds he used to buy cars at auction for M.A.P. Auto Sales.

M.A.P. was doing well. But then something happened that Maher could have never anticipated. New York City began repairs on the 59^th Street Bridge.  Traffic was diverted away from the entrance to the bridge, and the street that ran past M.A.P. no longer had a steady flow of potential customers. Before long, the area around the car dealership looked so much like a ghost town you could almost see tumbleweed blowing down the street.

“They’ll finish the construction soon,” Maher assured his partnet, Mark Pasquale.

They didn’t. By August 1991, plummeting sales forced M.A.P. to fold. Maher and Pasquale wholesaled the remaining cars on the lot, each netting $15,000.

As Maher and Pasquale were closing out the operation, a New York City cop stopped by M.A.P. The cop told Maher he had to find a home for his dog. Maher offered to take the dog, an eighteen-month-old German shepherd named Zena.

Maher and Zena moved back to New Jersey.

In February 1992 Maher spent an afternoon drinking with a friend on Long Island, then headed back to Jersey. As usual, Maher exceeded the speed limit by about forty miles an hour. He was pulled over and given a Breathalyzer test by a state trooper using a portable device. Maher registered 0.09. (A reading of 1.0 indicates intoxication.)

“I’m taking you in,” the trooper said.

Maher protested. “I blew point zero nine.”

“I’m taking you in,” the trooper said again.

At the State Police barracks, the Breathalyzer showed 1.0, indicting Maher was legally drunk. Maher was charged with DWI – driving while intoxicated. He was held overnight and then released.

As serious as a DWI was, Maher wasn’t worried. He had been charged in Suffolk County. And his friend Jim Doherty worked in the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. When Maher got back home to New Jersey, he called Doherty.

“Of all the fucking crimes you could have commited,”Doherty bristled, “you commit the worst one.”

Doherty went on to say that because of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and “all these other anti-drinking groups” there was pressure from the top to not let anyone plead out on a DWI.

“I’ll do the best I can for you,” Doherty said with a sigh, adding, “I’ll tell somebody all you did for me in the past. But you’ve got a tough road here.”

When Maher hung up the receiver, he felt nervous. Doherty didn’t sound hopeful. And Maher knew that he could get up to one year in jail for DWI conviction.

The heart is resilient muscle, a fact Maher proved when he walked into the Z Bar in Greenwich Village in March 1992. As Maher surveyed the room, his eyes locked on a pretty brunette. He walked over to her and started a conversation. Her name was Mary Catherine Williams.

“I’m an actress,” Mary Catherine said. “I’ve been in three movies.” She rattled the titles of the films. “You see any of them?”

“All of them,” Maher lied. “They were great.”

“I have an idea for a screenplay,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Its about my life. About a homecoming queen from North Carolina.”

“You were homecoming queen?”

“Yes. You think it would make a good movie.”

“Absolutely,” Maher reacted.

“For now my father is sending me money,” Mary Catherine said. “But as soon as I get my screenplay written, I’m going to pay him back. Of course, I’m up for a lot of parts in big movies. All I need is one break. Just one good part. You know what I mean?”

Maher nodded.

“What do you do?” Mary Catherine asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“You in a hurry to go somewhere?”

“No,” Maher laughed.

A couple hours later, they left the bar. Maher dropped her off at her apartment and soared to New Jersey. The next day Maher called her, and they met again that night.

“You want a hit?” Mary Catherine asked as she pulled a small amount of coke.

Maher shrugged. He hadn’t done any coke in several months. One hit was no big deal.

The went to Maher’s apartment, sniffed coke, and made love. The next morning Maher woke up and looked beside him at Mary Catherine. She was so beautiful, so angelic. This wasn’t Beth, the wife of a Mafia hit man. This wasn’t Beverly, a coke whore. This was different.

For the next week, Maher and Mary Catherine were inseparable. They talked for hours, mostly about dreams.

“I’m going to turn my ideas into a movie and be rich and famous,” Mary Catherine would say.

“I’m going to win my lawsuit against the railroad and get two million dollars,” Maher would say.

While Maher was romancing Mary Catherine, Doherty had been dealing with Maher’s DWI problem. He called Harkins and explained the fix Maher had gotten himself into. But Maher had beaten Doherty to it. He already spoken to Harkins.

“We’ve got a problem here, Jim,” Harkins said. “Kevin as usual, has stumbled onto something. He’s got a guy who was a witness to a Chinese gang robbery, and the witness is the only one who can identify the robbers. Kevin is the only one who knows the whereabouts of the witness. The witness is scared, but Kevin says he can deliver him.”

It was a moral dilemma. Squash a DWI. Or let a murderer go free.

“Look at it this way,” Doherty pointed out. “Kevin swears he blew a zero point nine on the portable Breathalyzer. And he blew a one point zero at the station. That’s right on the edge.“

Harkins laughed: “That’s just like Kevin. Right on the edge.”

“Tommy,” Doherty said, “can you write a letter or get the DA to write a letter about what Kevin has done for the Manhattan DA’s office?”

Harkins sighed. “I was wish I wasn’t a Dee Wee.”

“Yeah,” Doherty agreed, “Me, too.”

Harkins spoke with Manhattan assistant district attorney Deborah Gelb about writing a letter to the Suffolk County DA’s office. She agreed to do it.

On April 10, 1992, Gelb sent a two-page memo to Robert Creighton, chief investigator for the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. After introducing herself and explaining the relationship between Maher and the Manhattan DA’s office, Gelb wrote:

He has had a seventeen year rapport and record of cooperation with one of our Senior Detectives, Thomas Harkins, which began in 1975 with our Detective and Senior Investigator on your staff, who was Supervisor of Detectives them, James Doherty.

Kevin’s history of cooperation is remarkable in that only on the initial contact with him did he request any help from us back in 1975. Since then and only through his direct involvement were we able to make arrests, prevent serious injuries or death and obtain convictions in the following types of cases:

Gelb listed four cases on which Maher had aided the Manhattan DA’s office. Then, noting that Maher’s action were “at great personal risk to himself and owing nothing to this office,” she concluded by writing:

Kevin has a matter pending in your jurisdiction…. The foregoing information is provided to you for the purpose of assisting you and the Court in determining the ultimate disposition of the pending case and I hope you and the court will take it into consideration.

Courtesy copies of the letter went to Harkins and Doherty.

As a result of the intervention by the Manhattan DA’s office, Maher was allowed to plead the DWI down to a misdemeanor. He was fined $275, lost his driver’s license for ninety days, and was required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Appreciative of Harkin’s effort, Maher did everything he could to convince Sammy to testify at the trail. But Sammy steadfastly refused. The case against the Chinese gang charged with the jeweler’s homicide was dismissed.

May and June were happy months for Maher. His relationship with Mary Catherine had resonance. But there was something mitigating against a happy ending.

Cocaine.

By July, Maher was doing almost as much coke as he used to do during the Uribe days. And Mary Catherine’s consumption of the insidious white crystal shocked even Maher. She would snort twenty-four hours a day for three days, then sleep motionless for an entire day and night. When she woke up, she’d start the process again.

“Mary Catherine,” Maher said one night as concerned about her condition grew, “You’re doing too much coke.”

“No, I am not,” she protested.

“Yes, you are,” Maher insisted. “We both are.”

The sad and predictable scenario of drug abuse began to play out. Mary Catherine – who had been living with a roommate in an East Side apartment – was told by the roommate she had to leave.

Maher called the roommate hoping to change her mind.

“Look,” the roommate said, “I’ve been putting up with her shit for a year. I can’t deal with it anymore.”

The roommate explained that every time it seemed like Mary Catherine had gotten herself under control she would go on anther coke binge.

Maher knew the pattern well. He recognized it in his own life. He finally understood what thousands of “occasional” coke users had found out too late: Snorting coke could never be an occasional indulgence. It was powerful stuff. As destructive as a bullet. As addictive as heroin.

Maher summoned up all his inner strength. I ain’t doing that shit no more, he told himself. He would stop for good. And he would help Mary Catherine stop as well.

Maher asked Mary Catherine if she wanted to move in with him while she looked for a place to live, but she said she had already rented an apartment.

“I met this guy,” Mary Catherine said. “Joe Leo. He owns some apartments on Ninth Street.”

Maher didn’t like the sound of it. And when he saw Mary Catherine’s new apartment a few nights later, he didn’t like the look of it.

At one time, 439 East 9^th Street housed two retail stores. But the owner of the building had converted the two storefronts into living spaces. The narrow front door of the building led into a hallway. There were two interior doors downstairs, one on either side of the hall, which opened into two adjacent storefronts. At the top of a set of stairs was a third apartment.

Mary Catherine’s apartment was the one on the left. The single window on the street was blocked by a steel gate. There was no bathtub or shower, just a sink and a toilet. It was stark and cold. The only flicker of warmth in the place was provided by a candle Mary Catherine had placed on a tin TV stand. Next to the candle was a picture of Jesus. Rosary beads were draped over the frame. There was a small pillow in front of the TV stand, where Mary Catherine would kneel and pray.

“It’s just until I get the screenplay done,” Mary Catherine said. “Or until I get my big part.”

Maher looked around the room. There was a crack vial on the coffee table. And a crack pipe.

“You’re not smoking crack?” Maher said with a gasp.

“Sometimes,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s cheaper than coke.”

“Don’t do that shit!” Maher shouted.

“Don’t tell me what the fucking do!” she screamed. “IF you’re going to tell me what to do, just get out!”

Maher turned and left the apartment. As he headed for his car, he crossed 10^th Street, which was crawling with whores. A stroll. Mary Catherine lives a block away from a hooker stroll. Maher felt a wave of nausea. Drugs. Whores.

Déjà vu.

Although preoccupied with Mary Catherine’s condition, Maher had another problem: He had run out of money. So Maher sold his Corvette for $22,000, bought a 1966 Cadillac Coup De Ville with 18,000 miles on it for $7,000, and netted $15,000 out of the transaction. Maher wouldn’t have had to sell his Corvette if he could have held out another month. In mid-July 1992 Maher’s wrongful termination lawsuit against New Jersey finally found its way onto a court calendar. Following two days of court proceedings , New Jersey Transit offered a settlement: $85,000 in back pay, but no punitive damages. Although, Maher’s attorney was willing to continue, Maher was not. Beth had obtained a judgment for half any punitive damages awarded, and Maher didn’t want Richard O’Rourke to enjoy any of the money from the lawsuit. With back pay, Beth was entitle to only a small amount: $2,500.

After deducting $2,500 for Beth and $23,000 for the attorney, Maher wound up with a little under $60,000. The first thing he did when he got his check was drive to the Harbor Hoboken and talk to a counselor about Mary Catherine. Maher said he wanted to place her in the twenty-eight-day program.

“Does she have insurance?” was the first thing out of the counselor’s mouth.

“No,” Maher replied.

“Then payment will have to be in cash or certified check. Twenty-two thousand. In advance.”

The Harbor wasn’t a charity, it was a business run by businessmen.

The counselor explained that The Harbor wouldn’t accept Mary Catherine until she had undergone a complete physical. Maher would first have to check Mary Catherine into a hospital. The Harbor would pick her up from there.

Maher raced through the Lincoln Tunnel to Mary Catherine’s apartment. She had “big eyes.” (Big eyes,” a street term, referred to the bulging eyeballs, dilated pupils, and permanently raised eyebrows of someone on a cocaine high.)

“Let’s go,” Maher said.

“Go where?” Mary Catherine asked.

“To a hospital.”

Mary Catherine frowned. “Why? Are you sick?”

No. You are.”

“What are you talking about?” Mary Catherine asked, sneering.

“I’m going to put you in a drug program called The Harbor. Twenty eight days.”

Mary Catherine laughed derisively. “Oh, yeah? And who’s paying for this?”

“I am,” Maher said.

Tears formed in Mary Catherine’s eyes. Knowing he had struck an emotional chord, Maher now sought to seal the deal with a professional incentive.

“Look,” Maher said, “no one’s going to five you a part in a movie when you’re in this kind of shape. And you can’t write a screenplay when you’re crazed out of your mind. You go to The Harbor and sober up.”

Mary Catherine walked over and hugged Maher tightly.

“Okay, Kevin. I’ll go.”

Maher rocked her in his arms for a long time. Then:

“All right. Mary Catherine, pack your stuff.”

“Not today, Kevin. Tomorrow.”

Maher knew that, for an addict, tomorrow never comes.

“No,” Maher insisted. “You come with me right now.”

“I can’t, Kevin. I have to tell people I’m going away or something. I can’t just disappear.”

“You come with me right now!” Maher said firmly.

“Tomorrow, Kevin. Just let me get myself together. Okay? Tomorrow. I promise.”

Maher drew in a breath. Mary Catherine smiled.

“I’m meeting this screenwriter later on. Then I’ll come back here and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go to the hospital. Okay?”

Reluctantly, Maher left.

When Maher returned the following day, Mary Catherine had “big eyes” again. Naturally, she said she couldn’t go to the hospital right then. There were things to do.

“Tomorrow, Kevin. I’ll go with you tomorrow.”

Maher spotted a crack pipe on the floor next to the couch. It enraged him. Walked over and crushed the glass with his foot.

“Who do you think you are?” she screamed.

“I’m somebody who fucking cares about you!” Maher shouted back.

“Who the fuck are you to care about me?” Mary Catherine bellowed.

Maher walked over to the coffee table and picked up an address book. It was open to a page filled with names. John. Barry. Lou. Vinny. First names only. Never a last name. Maher knew all too well what that meant.

“You’re turning tricks now to support your fucking habit?”

Mary Catherine stomped over and ripped the address book out of his hands.

“What I do is my fucking business. Now get out of here!

Maher walked out of the apartment. It was September, and a hit of winter was in the air. He stood on 9^th Street and closed his eyes, then spun back toward the apartment and started for the door. Something stopped him. And then, as much as it hurt him to do it, he walked away.

Over the next few days, Maher came to terms with himself. With Beth, he had felt obligation. With Beverly, lust. But what he had once felt for Mary Catherine had been free of obligation, seasoned, not permeated, with desire. But the Mary Catherine of 439 East 9^th Street was not the Mary Catherine of those first days and weeks. He couldn’t love Mary Catherine blindly; the emotional cost was too high. For he didn’t just see Mary Catherine’s decline when he looked at her, he saw something even more terrifying: his own precarious hold on sobriety. When he faced Mary Catherine soul to soul, it was like looking in a mirror. So, just as he was learning to love himself again, he would learn to love Mary Catherine in different way. Not as an object but as a person. Not as a lover but as a friend. So he was learning to love himself again, he would learn to love Mary Catherine in a different way. Not as an object but as a person. Not as a lover but as a friend.

Over the next few weeks, Maher stopped by 9^th Street often. He would bring Mary Catherine food and small presents. Sometimes she was sober. Maher hung on to the memories of those meetings. Sometimes she was incoherent from the crack and Maher would hold her, talk her down.

When Mary Catherine wasn’t home, Maher would stop in to see Joe Leo, the owner of building. Leo- who had inherited the building from his father-lived in an upstairs apartment. He was about forty, tall and lanky with dark brown hair. His favorite saying – actually, his only saying – was “there’s nothing like sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

Sometimes, when Maher left the 9^th Street storefront and headed for his car, he would stop for a moment and watch the hookers parading on the corner of 10^th Street. Mary Catherine, whom Maher had once loved, still did love, had become a whore. She now openly entertained johns in her home. It cut Maher each time he saw some man shuffle into the storefront. But what could he do?

There was a pimp, of course. Peter. A stocky man with a pleasing disposition and a slick patter. Peter’s presence made the hookers feel safe. And the hookers made Peter a lot of money.

One afternoon in September 1992, Maher was in the apartment of Alicia Wittington, an exotic dancer who lived across the hall from Mary Catherine. Maher heard a scream. He recognized the tortured howl as Mary Catherine’s.

Maher ran into the hall. He pounded on Mary Catherine’s door. There was silence.

“Open the door!” Maher yelled, pounding harder.

More silence.

Maher began kicking the door: “Open the fucking door!”

Finally, the door cracked open a few inches. A man peeked out. His eyes, which were magnified by a pair of thick glasses, we cold and emotionless.

“What the fuck is going on?” Maher said. Maher recognized the man. He was one of Mary Catherine’s regular johns. Although the man was large and hulking, he was strangely withdrawn. Maher always referred to him as “the nerd.”

“She took a hit of crack, that’s all,” the nerd said.

Maher peered into the apartment. He could see the entire space, but he couldn’t see Mary Catherine.

“Where’s Mary?” Maher yelled. “Where’s Mary?”

“Calm down,” the nerd said.

Maher grabbed the nerd’s shirt and shouldered his way into the apartment. Sitting behind the door was Mary Catherine. She was nude from the waist down. Her face was white, and her lips were purple. She was tying to say something but couldn’t speak.

“I told you,” the nerd said. “She took a big hit of crack.”

Maher studied the nerd for a beat, the looked at Mary Catherine. There was terror in her eyes. Something wasn’t right.

“He choked me,” Mary Catherine squeaked. “He tried to kill me.”

Maher saw a flash of red. He drew back his fist and hit the nerd as hard as he had ever hit anyone before. The nerd’s glasses flew off his face, and he crumpled to his knees.

“You sick motherfucker!” Maher screamed. He grabbed the nerd by his hair and dragged him to the front door, walking him along his knees. Then Maher pushed open the door and kicked him out. The nerd tumbled onto the sidewalk.

Maher returned to Mary Catherine’s apartment and made her drink a glass of water. As soon as she regained full consciousness, she started looking around.

“Where’s my stem?” Mary Catherine moaned.

Maher spotted the stem, or crack pipe. He picked it up.

“Here’s your fucking stem,” Maher said.

He threw the pipe on the floor and crushed it. This sent Mary Catherine into a frenzy. She began pounding on Maher’s chest.

“Get out! Get the fuck out! Leave me alone!”

“Hey! I just saved your fucking life!”

“Fuck you! Get out of my apartment!”

Maher walked over and ripped the mirror off the wall. He held it in front of Mary Catherine’s face.

“Look! Look at yourself!”

Mary Catherine turned away. Maher stared at her for a moment, shook his head, and then returned to Alicia’s apartment.

“What’s going on?”

“She had a fight with a john. I threw him out.”

The intercom buzzer went off. Maher bounded into the hall. The nerd was standing outside. Figuring that the nerd had gone somewhere and picked up a gun or a knife and was coming back to seek revenge, Maher rushed to the door like a charging bull. In seconds, he had the nerd by the shirt.

“No, no, no,” the nerd whined. “Please don’t hit me.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“My glasses.”

Maher scowled.

“Please,” the nerd begged. “I’ve got to drive back to Long Island.”

Maher turned to go to Mary Catherine’s apartment. Holding the glasses, Mary Catherine stepped into the hall. She walked around Maher and went outside with the nerd. Then they started down the street.

“You’re not going with him, are you?” Maher shouted. “He just tried to fucking choke you to death.”

Mary Catherine didn’t respond. She and the nerd disappeared around the corner. But Maher wasn’t surprised. He knew why Mary Catherine followed the nerd. The nerd had something she was willing to be strangled for.

Crack.

The third day after the incident, Maher found Mary Catherine sober. She was standing outside, engaged in a lively discussion with Peter the pimp.

“You come live with me at my house in Westchester. I’ll clean you up, baby. There are lots of rich fuckers in Westchester. We’ll make a fortune. We’ll hire a screenwriter. I’ll be your manager.”  Peter bantered away.

Maher and Mary Catherine walked into her apartment, and Maher renewed his offer to pay for her stay at The Harbor.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Maher pleaded. “If I hadn’t been there, you’d be dead. Now, let’s  go. Now.”

“Tomorrow,” Mary Catherine said, her sweet smile softening her drug-ravaged features. “I’ll go tomorrow.”

Maher thought about calling Mary Catherine’s parents. But who would they believe? Me? Or their daughter?

Maher showed up again at 439 East 9^th Street the next day. He was going to grab Mary Catherine and say, You said you would come with me tomorrow. This is tomorrow.

But Mary Catherine wasn’t home. Alicia had no idea where she was. Neither did Leo. Another day went by. And another. No Mary Catherine.

“Oh she probably hooked up with some rich guy,” Leo said. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back.”

But two weeks later, she still wasn’t there. Maher was frantic. And now Leo had a different take on the situation.

“She probably ran off,” Leo said. And then: “I got somebody to rent the apartment.”

“You can’t do that Joe,” Maher said.

“Look, Kevin,” Leo countered. “I been through shit before. She ain’t coming back. And I got to make a living.”

“But she left all her stuff.”

“They always do,” Leo said.

“You can’t just through her stuff in the street.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll take it,” Maher said. “When she shows up, tell her I have her stuff.”

Maher filled two large leaf bags with Mary Catherine’s clothes and personal belongings. As he stuffed the things into plastic bags, he felt numb. Beth. Beverly. And now, Mary Catherine.

Mary Catherine’s disappearance sent Maher into a depression. He stayed home virtually around the clock. What if she calls? I need to be here. Every time the phone would ring, Maher’s stomach would churn. But it was never Mary Catherine. October turned to November. Still no Mary Catherine.

By December he was out of money again. Where the fuck did it all go? Maher wondered. To live, he traded the mint-condition 1966 Cadillac for $4,000 cash and a 1984 Nissan. By the end of the month, the $4,000 was gone, too, and Maher went on welfare. It was an embarrassing ordeal. The welfare office was in the same building as the Carlstadt police headquarters, and the “welfare couch,” as Maher called it, was in the hall area through which Carlstadt police officers had to pass to reach the detective bureau. Once in a while, Colaneri would walk through. Maher didn’t want Colaneri to see him. Whenever he saw Colaneri approaching, Maher would hide around the corner until Colaneri was gone.

On Christmas Eve 1992 Maher stared out his window and watched as couples strolled under sparkling Christmas lights. Everyone seemed happy except him. He had no one to love. No family to turn to. His father was dead. His mother had moved to California the previous summer. And he was estranged from his sister. Suddenly his mind flashed with disjointed images and emotions.

Poor little Harold.

Poor Alice and Marcia.

I lost Beth.

I cheated on Beth. If I was a good husband she wouldn’t have gone to someone else.

I miss my son, Bobby.

Beverly hurt me so much. How could we hurt each other like that?

Mary Catherine is missing.

At 3:00 A.M., Maher walked to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. I look like shit. He reeled with self-hatred. All the bad things that happened in my life I did to myself. I fucked up.

Maher stumbled into the bedroom and retrieved his Smith & Wesson 9mm. He returned to the bathroom and climbed in the bathtub. This way, he thought as he leaned back against the cold porcelain, I won’t mess up the floor. The blood will run down the drain.

Maher put the barrel of the gun in his mouth. Then he closed his eyes, curled his finger around the trigger, and slowly began to squeeze.