Cop Without A Badge (Chapter 8)

Chapter 8

Alice Molese had not merely been murdered, she had also been sexually mutilated. In addition to a slashed throat, both her breasts had been cut off. And in a particularly grisly display of misogyny, a knife had been inserted deep into her vagina and pulled upward all the way to her neck.

Maher tossed the police report on the desk of Fair Lawn lieutenant, Joseph Messere. Also in the room were Bergen County investigators Francis P. DelPrete and Robert Rohberg, tow of the forty-eight cops who had been assigned to the case, described by the media as the most heinous homicide in Bergen County history.

Reports of the bloodbath – which had led the newscasts on all the local stations in the area and was on the front page of newspapers across three states – included the gory details of how Alice was killed as well as the particulars of how Marcia Ferrell and her son, Harold, were put to death. Harold’s head had been almost completely severed from his five-year-old body, with only a piece of skin connecting it to the torso. Marcia Ferrell – who apparently put up quite a struggle – had suffered multiple stab wounds.

The eyes of millions of people were looking apprehensively toward Fair Lawn, New Jersey. What if some homicidal maniac was on the loose? After all, who else would have been so cruel and sadistic?

“Brian Molese,” Maher said, then added: “Brian butchered her because he hated her so much.”

Maher glanced at the crime scene photos for an instant, which was as long as he could bear to look. Poor fat Alice sat slumped in a corner of the dining room, a look of dull surprise on her frozen features. Maher swallowed hard to keep from throwing up.

“Molese asked me to kill Alice twice,” Maher told the three cops.

“Why didn’t you report it to the police?” DelPrete asked.

“Why did it take you three years to come forward?”Rehberg followed up before Maher could answer.

“I did go to the cops,” Maher fired back. “Sergeant Jim Doherty in the Manhattan DA’s office.”

Messere called Doherty, and Doherty confirmed Maher’s statement about reporting Molese’s solicitations. Satisfied, Messere hung up the receiver and looked at Maher.

“Molese discovered his wife’s body,” Messere said.

Molese has been particularly upset about the loss of a large ring that he claimed once belonged to Kink Farouk. According to Molese, he bought the ring from Frank Sinatra.

Maher laughed derisively. “King Farouk! He’s been telling that bullshit story for years.”

“You’ve seen the ring?” Messere asked.

“I sold the ring,” Maher answered.

Maher related how, in an effort to save the house from being seized for back taxes, he took all of Alice’s jewelry into Manhattan and cashed it in at the 47^th Street Jewelry Exchange.

“I sold everything except an antique necklace,” Maher recalled. “Alice really loved that necklace – so I didn’t sell it, I pawned it. At a place called Providence Loan Association in the Bronx. I got thirteen hundred for it.”

“You still have the pawn ticket?” DePrete wanted to know.

“Yeah,” Maher replied. “I still have it.”

“You have receipts?” DelPrete pressed. “For the items in Manhattan?”

“Yes,” Maher answered. “I saved the receipts.”

DelPrete and Rehberg took Maher to his apartment to pick up the pawn ticket and the sales receipts, then headed to Fordham Road in the Bronx, where they stopped into Providence Loan Association. The necklace – which had been collecting dust for three years – had been sold less than a week before. Nonetheless, DelPrete and Rehberg were able to confirm that the necklace – listed among the items Molese claimed were taken in the “burglary” – had indeed not been sold.

Next stop for the investigative trio was the 47^th Street Jewelry Exchange. The man who purchased Alice’s jewelry was still right where he was three years ago. Since the jeweler had been suspicious of Maher at the time, he had photocopied Maher’s driver’s license and saved all the paperwork pertaining to his transaction.

“What’s the problem?” the jeweler asked, now even more suspicious.

“The woman who owned the jewelry is dead,” Maher said.

The jeweler gave Maher a look of understanding sweetened with sympathy. “So you need this information for the settlement of her estate?”

“No,” Maher shot back. “I need the information for the police. She was murdered.”

Maher nodded over his shoulder. “These two gentlemen are detectives from Bergen County.”

The stunned jeweler quickly rifled through his files and made photocopies of the transactions involving Alice’s jewelry.

Mission accomplished, Maher, DelPrete, and Rehberg returned to Fair Lawn police headquarters.

“These may be quite helpful,” Rehberg said, referring to the receipts. “It raises the possibility that Molese lied about the jewelry.”

Maher was indignant. “Possibility?!”

Rehberg noted that there could be other explanations for why Molese reported the jewelry stolen. For example, what if Molese knew about his wife’s jewelry collection but didn’t know if she still owned any of it? Discovering that the jewelry was missing after Alice Molese’s murder, Brian Molese may have assumed it was stolen.

Maher was only half listening. “He did it. He killed Alice. Why don’t you just go and arrest him?”

“We don’t have enough to charge him,” Rehberg countered.

Maher grew agitated. “Don’t you understand? The faggot son of bitch killed Alice. Lock the bastard up!”

“He is the prime suspect,” DePrete acknowledged, “but we have no physical evidence to link him to the crime.”

DelPrete asked Maher if he would be willing to work undercover to help nail Molese.

“You could wear a wire,” DePrete suggested, “and you could arrange a meeting with –“

“No,” Maher broke in, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” both DelPrete and Rehberg asked in unison.

“I locked up Scofield,” Maher answered.

DelPrete and Rehberg sat in astonishment as Maher launched into the story of how Ronald Scofield, Molese’s homosexual lover, had murdered a prostitute.

Before he left police headquarters, Maher have a sworn statement detailing everything he could recall about his association with Molese, from the days at Green Haven to the night Molese battered Alice as Scofield looked on. The following day, Beth also gave a sworn statement.

A week passed. Then a month. Brian Molese still had not been charged with the murder of Alice Molese. Indeed, the case was growing cold, which is why Maher was engulfed in a cloud of frustration when he entered 1 Hogan Place and stormed up to Doherty’s desk.

“You have to do something, Sergeant Doherty,” Maher exclaimed.

Doherty sighed, “What can I do, Kevin? It’s not my case. It’s my jurisdiction. Hell, it’s not even my state.”

Maher paced for a moment, then stopped and faced Doherty.

“If I hadn’t moved Beth and Bobby out of the house that would have been them being carried out in body bags instead of Marcia and Harold. Beth would be in Marcia’s grave and Bobby would be in Harold’s grave.”

That thought had to Doherty. He placed his hand on Maher’s shoulder.

“There’s nothing we can do right now, Kevin”

Maher knew Doherty was right. And so, at lest for the moment, it looked as if Brian Molese had gotten away with murder.

As the shock of hearing about Alice abated, Maher and Beth again withdrew into their private world, doing what any other suburban couple might do. They were parents to Bobby, who was now eight years old, bought a German Shepherd named Samantha, took a vacation to Disney World in Florida, and socialized with a circle of friends who included their coworkers and neighbors. By fall of 1979, they were no longer struggling with life, they were embracing it. And due to Beth’s promotion to circulation manager at New York magazine and Maher’s frequent overtime stints at ConRail, they were earning a combined income of $60,000. They could afford more than the necessities now, they could afford dreams. And Maher had one overriding dream: a fast car.

Of course, it was a fast car that got Maher into trouble in the first place.

“I’d like to buy a Corvette,” Maher had said to Beth in early September.

“If it will make you happy,” Beth answered, “do it.”

Thus Maher’s love affair with speed was renewed when he purchased a 1979 blue Chevrolet Corvette, model L82. The price was $12,500, half of which Maher had to fork over as a down payment because of his credit history.

As fast as the car was right out of the showroom, Maher wasn’t satisfied. So he went to Larry Birnholz, a mechanic who was familiar with making high-performance modifications on Corvettes.

“I want to make a few changes on my car,” Maher told Birnholz.

At Maher’s request, Birnholz installed a high-performance intake manifold and Holley carburetor, which were designed to increase the speed of the Corvette. When Birnholz was done, Maher had a vehicle that would do a quarter mile in fourteen seconds. And a quarter mile just happened to be the distance of a drag race.

There was a place in Queens where an intersection of parallel roads and bridges crisscrosses in such a way that a perfect quarter-mile course lay between the bridges. The stretch of asphalt – an ideal layout for drag racing – was called Connecting Highway, and every Friday and Saturday night a collection of souped-up cars would roar to the starting line at one bridge and zoom to the finish lone at the other bridge. The spectacle would attract thousands of onlookers who gathered on the overpass and looked down on the urban raceway. Wagers as high as $4,000 or $5,000 were made by the drivers.

The weekly racing event had its origins in the 1950s and had become a long-standing tradition. The police did their best to prevent them by asking the fire department to hose down the highway, the wet pavement making it difficult for tires to establish traction. But on summer nights, the water would quickly evaporate, and the show would go on.

When Maher arrived on the scene, a star was born. Weekend after weekend, Maher’s Corvette crossed under the bridge in first place, earning the title “Fastest Street Car in Brooklyn and Queens.” But just as the fastest gun in the West had to keep looking over his shoulder, so did Maher. Each week, someone showed up at Connecting Highway with a newly modified machine and took aim at Maher’s title. Although Maher kept winning his margin of victory was getting smaller. So he dispensed with the ’79 Vette and stopped in at Malcom Conners Chevrolet in Paramus, New Jersey, where he ordered a 1980 Corvette.

When the new bright red Corvette – a car for which Maher had paid $14,000 – arrived, the first thing Maher did was call Chevrolet and order a 1970 LT1 short block engine (1970 was the last year that Chevrolet made a high-compression ratio). Then Maher had a series of special high-performance modifications made, not only to the short block but also to the heads. Triple-angled valve job. Ported and polished angle plug cylinder heads. Doug Nash five-speed transmission. LT1 intake manifold. The cost of the modifications was $5,000. Next, Maher contacted Henry’s Axles in Anaheim, California, and phoned in specifications for a custom-designed rear end. To manufacture the design Maher described, Henry’s Axles would have to take the drive shaft from a Diamond dump truck and mold two half shafts for the Vette, the modify the ten-bolt Corvette rear end housing to fit a large twelve-bolt, heavy duty ring and pinion post unit, and then grind the housing so it would accept a 2.73 rear-end ratio.

“Sure,” the man from Henry’s Axles said. “We can do that.”

A few weeks later a tractor-trailer truck pulled in front of Maher’s house. Inside the trailer was the Frankenstein rear end along with a bill from Henry’s Axles for $3,700.

Maher took the Vette to Frank’s Sunoco in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, where he fitted the car with the Henry’s Axles hybrid.

By the time Maher was finished, he had $30,000 invested in a one-of-a-kind vehicle. It was such an extraordinary specimen that word quickly spread about the car. And the legend of Maher’s Vette grew as he blasted the beast through a quarter mile at Connecting Highway in an amazing eleven seconds. In short order the car came to the attention of Vette magazine and was featured in the December 1980 Issue. The nature of the conversion, the legend of its performance at Connecting Highway, the magazine article, all of these things added to its value and mystique.

In 1980 Maher had seemingly escaped his past and had come up a winner, at lest the way such things are measured in the blue-collar corners of New York and New Jersey. And, except for the occasional calls from Doherty, there were a few reminders of the days before Beth and Bobby.

Doherty had phoned once to tell Maher that Detective Greg Demtriou – whom Maher had met at the Manhattan DA’s office – had been shot chasing a bank robber on 42^nd Street.

“Greg is so fast,” Doherty related, “that he outran the uniformed cops. That’s how he got shot.”

Doherty went on to say that Demetriou would recover and that he would awarded the NYPD Medal of Honor.

The second call from Doherty included humorous bits of news from one of Maher’s first cases.

“Remember Henry Bohle?” Doherty asked. “He hired you as a hit man to kill his partner Louis Izzo.”

“Yeah,” Maher said. “ What about him?’

“Well,” Doherty began, “I get a call the other day from Izzo. He’s panicked. Whispering into the phone. Izzo says ‘Sergeant. Guess who just showed up for work?’ And I say: ‘Who?’ And Izzo says: ‘Henry. He’s back sitting at his desk like he just got back from a long weekend.’”

Maher and Doherty started laughing.

“What?” Maher said between chuckles. “Bohle gets out of prison and five years later goes right back to work?”

“That’s right,” Doherty continued.

“So Izzo asks me: ‘Sergeant, what am I supposed to do?’ I tell him: ‘The guy served his time, paid his debt to society, there’s nothing you can do about it. Maybe you should sell your share of the business or buy him out.’”

“That’s really funny,” Maher observed.

“Not so funny for Izzo,” Doherty countered.

And then they both broke out into hysterics. Which is exactly how Maher wanted to remember the past, if at all. With a laugh.

“I’m retiring, Kevin,” Doherty said suddenly. “I’ve had enough.”

“You can’t do that!” Maher exclaimed. “Who will I call when I need to talk to somebody?”

“You can still call me,” Doherty said with a laugh.

But that’s not what Maher meant, and Doherty sensed it. Maher was hooked on the undercover action.

“Hey, Kevin,” Doherty assured him, “I still know a lot of people on the job.”

During the first six months of 1981, Maher carried on with his relatively sedative life. But then on the morning of June 9, Maher was shaken by a news report on WINS radio that Brain Molese had been shot. Details of the shooting were sketchy for a couple days, but on June 12 a newspaper article appeared under the headline SURRENDER OF SUSPECT SOUGHT.

Detectives at the Sixth Precinct are trying to negotiate the surrender of Brian Molese, the former husband of a Fair Lawn woman murdered in her home.

Molese, 39, and his roommate, Christopher Crosthwaite, 20, were both shot Monday night with a .22 caliber handgun, allegedly by a couple they invited for a drink at their East 10^th Street apartment.

Molese and Crosthwaite, who had both been shot in the mouth, had been treated and released from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village. The article stated that police knew the identity of the suspect – which was being withheld pending further investigation – and that the suspect’s lawyer was former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark.

Maher put the paper down. Ramsey Clark? Who the hell could have shot Molese? And then it occurred to Maher exactly who must have done it. Molese had mentioned meeting him at Manhattan House of Detention, a place known by inmates as “The Tombs.” And then man Maher had in mind, a notorious contract killer, always used a .22.

Maher checked in with his police sources, and although he was not given the suspect’s name, he was told that the suspect’s initials were J.S., which confirmed what Maher knew already. A few days later, the suspect was identified: Joseph “Mad Dog” Sullivan, perhaps the most feared hit man working the murder-for-hire territory.

The legend of Joseph “Mad Dog” Sullivan began in 1971 when, on Good Friday, he became the only man ever to escape from the maximum-security confines of Attica Prison. He was captured six weeks later and, after completing nineteen years of the original twenty – to thirty-year sentence for manslaughter, was paroled in 1975 at the age of thirty-six.

By summer 1981, Mad Dog had become the suspect of several homicides. And now he was being sought in connection with the shooting of Brian Molese. (Molese and his roommate, Crosthwaite, were extremely lucky, having survived only because of a faulty silencer, which fragmented the small-caliber .22 slugs and slowed their velocity as the exited.)

But why did Mad Dog shoot Molese? Did it have anything to do with Alice’s murder? More to the point, did Molese hire Mad Dog to kill Alice?

Police were speculating that the shooting occurred because of a narcotics deal gone bad. But Maher thought otherwise. Whatever it was that caused Sullivan to shoot Molese, Maher was certain it had something to do with the grisly murders at 24 Sanford Road.

When Sullivan was apprehended in early 1982, he remained silent about his role in any of the homicides with which police had charged him. (His wife, Gale, who had been in Molese’s apartment when the shooting occurred, was also arrested.) If fact, the only statement Mad Dog gave to anyone about anything was to Bergen County detective Frank DelPrete when DelPrete visited him in an upstate prison.

“I’ll tell you two things,” Mad Dog said. “I’m no snitch. And I don’t kill kids.”

Since Maher knew people on both sides of the fence, he went fishing for a clarification of Mad Dog’s statement. An explanation filtered back from the street, and it was corroborated by two police sources.

According to those sources, in autumn 1978 Mad Dog had indeed been hired by Molese to “kill everyone in the house.” But when he cased 24 Sanford Road, he found out that one of the occupants was a five-year-old boy. This infuriated Mad Dog, who had a son the same age.

“I don’t kill kids,” Mad Dog said with a snarl at Molese.

He offered to “whack the two women but let the kid live.” Molese countered that “the kid has to die, too.” Even Mad Dog was shocked at Molese’s heartlessness.

Although Mad Dog was not going to carry out the contract, he demanded that he be paid for “the time I put in so far.” Molese told him that he didn’t have any money right then but promised to pay immediately after Alice, Marcia and Harold were dispensed with.

A week after this conversation about killing Alice, Fair Lawn Police received an anonymous phone call.

“There’s going to be a murder this Thanksgiving,” the voice said. “At twenty-four Sanford Road. Everyone in the house is going to be killed. And it will be made to look like a robbery. The killer will be Brian Molese.”

Maher’s street source insisted Made Dog made the call, which would explain one element of his statement to DelPrete: “I’m no snitch.” Mad Dog was saying to DelPrete: I called you guys and told you about the murders, but I’m no snitch. I did it because of the kid. Now the statement, each half taken in context, made perfect sense. “I’m no snitch. And I don’t kill kids.”

Fair Lawn Police treated the anonymous call seriously. They went to 24 Sanford Road and spoke with Alice. But Alice assured the cops that it had to be some kind of mistake.

“Brian would never harm me,” Alice said, “he loves me.”

Maher found this part of the account comforting. It confirmed his belief that Alice could not be convinced Molese wanted to kill her. She had been warned. And she chose to ignore the warning.

Maher’s sourced picked up the story two years after the murder. Fugitive Mad Dog came out of hiding, went to Molese’s apartment, held a gun in Molese’s mouth, and said: “Where’s my money?” Obviously MOlese gave Mad Dog the wrong answer. Mad Dog shot Molese three times in the mouth and then went after Crosthwaite.

Mad Dog was not someone to fuck with. Maher’s street sources related how Mad Dog shot and killed a man in a bar one night for stepping on his shoe. How Mad Dog, at the age of twenty-four, instigated the Rahway Prison riots in 1963. How Mad Dog, shortly after being released from prison, accepted and carried out the contract killing of Jimmy Hoffa.

“Mad Dog whacked Jimmy Hoffa?” Maher asked his source incredulously.

“Is that true?”

But it didn’t really matter whether Mad Dog was the contractor who made Jimmy Hoffa disappear. Where legends are concerned, in the case of both heroes and villains, the likes of demarcation between the factual and apocryphal are always blurred. The point was, Mad Dog could have killed Jimmy Hoffa.

Ironically, Mad Dog’s father – who died when Mad Dog was twelve years old – had been an NYPD detective. A friend who knew Mad Dog as a child told a newspaper reporter that after his father died, his mother would make him kneel down in front of a photograph of his father and pray that he would grow up to be half the man his father had been.

By 1982, Maher’s winnings from the drag races at Connecting Highway had allowed him to buy two additional cars – a $21,00 1982 Cadillac El Dorado for Beth, and a $14,000 1982 Camaro, which was a replica of the Indianapolis 500 pace car. Although he never intended to race the Camaro, the blue and silver beauty was still too slow for Maher’s sensibilities; so he replaced the 305-cubic-inch engine with a 400-cubic-engine.

As much as the Corvette was a symbol of Maher’s skill with automobiles, the Camaro was a symbol of his lost dreams. If only I had had a chance, Maher would think every time he looked at the Indy 500 trim on the Camaro, I could have won at Indianapolis. While most people have reason to contemplate what could been, few would be likely to purchase a constant reminder of some long past missed opportunity. Yet that was exactly what Maher had done by parking an Indy 500 replica in his garage.

In April 1982, Detective Frank DelPrete phoned with a bit of good news. The Bergen County district attorney was ready to go to the grand jury in the Molese case. Notwithstanding the evidence the Bergen County prosecutor’s office and the Fair Lawn Police Department had painstakingly gathered over the previous three years, DelPrete had a request.

“I’d like you to testify before the grand jury,” DelPrete said. “And don’t worry the testimony will be sealed.”

“I’d love to put that bastard away,” Maher answered.

On a beautifl April morning, Maher arrived at Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, New Jersey, and took the witness stand. He told the grand jury about the day Molese say in Green Haven Prison and said with a sneer, “I married the fat bitch for her money,” and then said: “I want her killed. And I want you to kill her for me.”

Maher held the panel entranced as he described how Molese came home on furlough with homosexual love, Ronald Scofield, brutally beat Alice, and then, at a diner in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, solicited him a second time to murder Alice. “ “Brian said, ‘We gotta put Alice out of her misery. She’s a fat slob. All she does is smoke and eat. Help me kill her, Kevin.’”

There was a hush in the room when Maher stepped down from the witness stand.

After a month of examining evidence and hearing testimony from twenty witnesses, the grand jury returned a four-count sealed indictment in which Molese was named as one of three coconspirators in the slayings of Alice Molese, Marcia Ferrell, and Harold Ferrell. One of the other coconspirators was unidentified, and the third was identified only as J.S.J.S. of course, stood for Joseph “Mad Dog” Sullivan.

At 3:00 P.M. on May 6, 1982, Brian Molese was arrested at his 10^th Street apartment in Greenwich Village. But it would be a while before he stand before a jury in New Jersey. Molese, it seemed, was facing criminal charges in New York. So instead of being extradited across the Hudson River, Molese was deposited in Manhattan Correctional Facility to await trial for embezzlement.

Following Molese’s arrest, there was a surge of media attention focused on him and the murders. As pieces of Molese’s story were revealed day by day on the front pages of newspapers in three states, the event leading up to the killings exhibited plot twists worthy of a Hitchcock thriller.

In March 1979, Molese found himself deeply in debt and was facing foreclosure on the house at 24 Sanford Road. Coincidentally, in February, a month before the murders, everyone at 24 Sanford Road – Alice Molese, Marcia Ferrell, and Harold Ferrell – took out a $90,000 insurance policy. Then, six days before the murders, Marcia’s mother died, leaving her a house and $21,000 in cash. With her estate now valued at more than $150,000, Marcia named Brian and Alice Molese as trustees.

The stage was set. If Marcia died, her estate went to Harold. If Marcia and Harold died , Alice would take control of the Ferrell estate. But if Marcia and Harold and Alice died, Molese would come into a small fortune in insurance money. Adding to the windfall was a triple indemnity clause in all three policies. Essentially the clause specified that should Alice, Marcia, and Harold died in an accident involving public transportation, or should they be murdered, the insurance company would pay three times the $90,000 face amount on each policy. Now that Alice, Marcia and Harold actually had been murdered, the death benefits totaled $810,000.

A short time after the triple homicide, Molese sought to collect on Alice’s insurance and also wrote a letter t o the insurance company evoking his power as trustee and executor of Marcia’s estate. However, since he was the prime suspect in the homicides, the Bergen County prosecutor’s office instructed the insurance company to withhold payment of death benefits pending further investigation.

Molese, no better off financially than he was before the murders, was now desperate. So when Marcia’s father asked Molese to step aside in order that Marcia’s estate could be settle in an expedient manner, Molese demanded money. Incredibly, in order to gain control of his deceased daughter’s affairs, Marcia’s father paid Molese – who he knew was almost certainly his daughter’s murderer - $7,500 to relinquish any and all claims to the estate.

It had already been six years since Maher had worked with cops on a case. Yet every day he thought about the action, the thrill, the danger. Indeed, the two professions he most coveted as kid – a race car driver and a cop – were among the most dangerous. He had transformed himself once into a modern-day bounty hunter and was now a hero at Connection Highway, but these were approximations of the real thing. So he had spent the six years between 1976 and 1982 in an endless post-mortem. Why did I steal the RoadRunner? Why did I run from the cops? Why did the DA come after me like that? Why didn’t I give up the Cross Bay bank robbers? Depression set in.

Exacerbating Maher’s depression was the fact that his mother was going through a rough time. Once again divorced and alone, she had moved in with Maher and Beth for a short time and then moved to Maher’s sister’s house. But Susan – now married and with a son to raise – didn’t seem as welcoming to her mother as Maher thought she should be. Maher and Susan argued often. Soon they weren’t speaking at all.

About the only thing that seemed to lift Maher’s spirits during this period was a visit to Doherty.

Doherty had tried retirement for a couple of months in 1980 and had hated it. So he took a job on Long Island working for the Defense Department that involve investigating applicants who were seeking security clearance.

The lowest-level clearance enabled someone to view documents labeled Official Use Only. The second level of clearance provided access to files designated Secret. The next level, Top Secret material. The highest level, which meant that there were no restrictions on a individual so designated, was called Q Clearance. The president has Q Clearance, of course. And only a handful of others.

Doherty also investigated breaches of security. While his job sounded exciting, Doherty was not happy. As a police detective, he had always followed a case through from the beginning to its conclusion. As a federal investigator, however, he often handled only a portion of an investigation. For Doherty, accustomed to being in charge of an investigation, it was a frustrating experience. So he looked forward to Maher’s visits, when he could reminisce about the good ole days.

On one particularly hot summer afternoon in 1982, Maher left his job at ConRail early and drove his Indy replica to Long Island to see Doherty.

“I never worked like this before,” Doherty said. “I find something but I don’t go any further. I just get the piece of the investigation pertaining to Long Island. I’m not allowed to go to Washington, where the case really is.”

After venting his frustration, Doherty asked Maher: “So Kevin. You been staying out of trouble?”

Maher shrugged. “Staying out of trouble and staying bored.”

“Well,” Doherty said with a smile, “better bored than dead.”

Maher looked away.

“What is it?” Doherty wanted to know.

Maher took a long breath and said: “I met a couple car thieves in Queens who specialize in Corvettes. They’re selling Vettes to a chop shop in Jersey.”

Doherty raised his eyebrows. He could see where this was leading. But what should he do? Should he make every effort to dissuade Maher from stepping back into the fray? Or should he act the cop and question Maher further?

“What do you know about these auto thefts?” Doherty finally asked, the cop in him winning the inner struggle.

“All I know is that some guys are grabbing Corvettes in Queens and dumping them in a body shop in Kearny.”

“If they’re stealing cars in New Jersey and selling them in New Jersey,” Doherty pointed out, “That’s interstate transportation of stolen property. A federal crime.”

Doherty wrestled with himself again. Then: Maybe you should talk to an FBI agent over in Jersey.”

Maher smiled. Fighting it, Doherty smiled, too, then stood and walked across the room, disappearing into an office. He returned an moment later and handed Maher a piece of paper that contained a name and phone number.

“The auto theft guys tell me you should talk to agent Bob DeBellis. FBI office in Newark.”

Prior to meeting with Maher, DeBellis had placed several calls to verify that Maher was who he said he was. So when Maher walked into the FBI’s headquarters on Raymond Boulevard in Newark, New Jersey, he got right to the point.

“There’s a body shop in Kearny that’s receiving stolen vehicles,” Maher said.

DeBellis jotted down the name of the body shop.

“If this checks out,” DeBellis told Maher, “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars.”

“It’ll check out,” Maher said with emphasis.

And then Maher smiled. After a six-year hiatus, he was back on the job.

Cop Without a Badge (Chapter 7)

Chapter 7

Maher sat in an office at 1 Hogan Place and sighed. I thought this kind of stuff was behind me. But clearly it wasn’t. Sitting across from Maher were Detective Louis DePasquale and Assistant District Attorney John Malady.

“We think Scofield killed a prostitute, “ DePasquale began. (The woman’s name been withheld to protect the privacy of her parents.)

“How do you know he did it?” Maher asked, doubtful that Ronald Scofield actually murdered someone.

“We think he did it,” Malady said.

DePasquale explained the details of the case.

A white male and a female prostitute, using the alias “Mr. and Mrs. Adams,” checked into the Dixie Hotel at 250 West 43^rd Street, a pay-by-the-hour hotel just off Times Square. About half and hour later the white make exited the hotel. A maid found the prostitute dead, her body stuffed under the bed. It was a particularly brutal crime. The woman had been struck a total of eight times, detaching her right eye. The killer had used both a telephone and a six foot floor lamp as weapons. In addition, she had been strangled by the telephone cord.

DePasquale had the placed dusted for prints and came up empty. No physical evidence could be linked to the killer. The only lead was the registration card. The name of phony – of course. And so was the address – 98 Babbitt Road, Beford Hills, New York. But although there was no 98 Babbitt Road in Bedford Hills, the street actually existed. And the man had inexplicably added an actual Zip code in Bedford Hills. This led DePasquale to conclude that the suspect had more than a passing knowledge of that town.

“I ran a check of recent parolees and work release participants from the Tuconic prison at Bedford Hills and came up with Scofield,” DePasquale remarked. In addition, DePasquale noted that Scofield’s family lived in Bedford Hills. “Which means he knows the streets and the Zip codes.” Furthermore, DePasquale had learned that the agency handling Scofield’s release program was five blocks away from where the murder took place. DePasquale interviewded Scofield, but Scofield refused to answer any questions. Without some other form of intervention – such as a confidential informant Scofield trusted – Scofield would talk.

“We need you, Kevin,” Malady said.

Maher thought about how Scofield just sat there as Molese pummeled poor Alice. Locking up Scofield would not only be an adventure, it would also be a pleasure.

“Sure,” Maher said. “I’ll do it.”

DePasquale and Malady smiled.

“How much?” Maher said.

“How much?” DePasquale looked at Malady. Malady looked back at DePaquale.

“Well, I ain’t doing it for nothing,” Maher stated with emphasis. He wanted to be paid. But how much didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he would be receiving money to act in a law enforcement capacity.

DePasquale offered $500 for the job. Maher accepted.

Maher was a veteran at wearing a wire. So he was as unruffled as a surgeon when he glided his 1971 Chrysler to a stop in front of the Scofield’s house in Bedford Hills later that evening. Even the car had been prepped. Standard procedure in situations like these was to remove a fuse, rendering the car radio inoperable . The reason for this slight modification was to prevent sound from obscuring a tape confession. Police had observed over the years that the first thing that many suspects did when they climbed into a an automobile was turn on the radio and crank up the volume. This behavior was not intended to muddle any recording done in the car, rather it appeared to be a reaction designed to prevent someone from outside the car overhearing the conversation. Cops had disabled radios many times, yet suspects never seemed to get it.

Scofield was no exception. The moment he slid into the car, he reached for the radio and snapped it on. Nothing.

“The radio is broken,” Maher said matter-of-factly.

Scofield glanced nervously out the window. The street was empty. After a beat, Maher kick-started the conversation.

“Ronald,” Maher said, “what the fuck did you do?”

“What are you talking about?” Scofield’s eyes were wide with fear.

“Man these fucking cops were all over me. They said someone who looked like me killed a fucking whore.”

Maher and Scofield were similar in appearance. So Scofield bought Maher’s line. He mulled over what Maher was saying for a minute or so.

Maher pressed. “The cops kept asking me about Bedford Hills.”

Scofield began to look like a cornered rabbit.

Maher grabbed Scofield’s shoulders. “Come on, Ronald. What the fuck did you do?”

“I couldn’t get it up, Kevin.”

Maher studied Scofield for a moment. That’s what this is all about. He couldn’t get it up?

Scofield, without any further prodding, continued. “She kept playing with me but I couldn’t get it up. Then she said she was leaving. I asked for my money back but she wouldn’t give it to me. So I hit her with the telephone.”

Scofield opened the car door. “I gotta get out of Bedford Hills.”

“Where are you going?” Maher wanted to know.

“I don’t know. Somewhere in Manhattan. Scofield stepped out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll call you.”

Maher drove back to the city where he, DePasquale, and Malady listened to Scofield’s impromptu confession. When the tape was over, DePasquale was happy enough, but Malady had a look of concern.

“Not enough,” Malady said with a sigh.

Maher was incredulous. Malady explained that Scofield’s confession contained nothing specific about the crime.

“I want to make sure I get a conviction,” Malady said. “So I need you to go back to Scofield to describe the murder in detail.”

Maher sighed. Being a cop wasn’t so easy after all.

A few days later, Scofield called and asked Maher if he could borrow some money. This time they met at a seedy West 44^th Street hotel. Maher, fitted with a tape recorder, handed Scofield $50.

“Ronald, you gotta tell me what happened.”

“ I told you what happened,” Scofield retorted. “I hit the slut with the phone.”

Maher leaned in. “Listen. I’ve been in jail long enough to know what they need for an arrest, an indictment, and a conviction. You tell me every detail of what happened from the time you picked her up until you left the hotel room, and I’ll be able to tell you, without a fucking doubt, whether or not they’re jerking your chain.”

Scofield frowned, and Maher thought Scofield was spooked by the straightforward request for a blow-by-blow account of the murder. But then Scofield started into the story.

“Okay, l-l-let’s see,” Scofield stammered. “She wanted to leave – she was lying on the bed and she started to get up – I got pissed off and whacked her with the phone.”

“How many times?”

“I don’t know. Three. Four, maybe.”

“And that killed her?”

“No! No!” Scofield was exasperated.

“When I realized she was hurt bad…” Scofield’s voice trailed off.

“How bad?” Maher pressed. “How bad was she hurt?”

“I knocked one of her eyes out.”

“Which eye?”

Scofield touched his right eye. “The right one.”

Maher grimaced. “ But she was still alive?”

“Yeah, she was squirming around the bed. And the bitch wouldn’t die. The fucking bitch wouldn’t die!”

Maher was sickened by what he was hearing. Scofield continued.

“I couldn’t let her live, Kevin.”

“Why not, Ronald? Why couldn’t you let her live?”

“I was on a work release program. I figured if she talked, they’d violate my parole.”

Maher felt like drawing back his fist and driving it into Scofield’s face.

Scofield went on with his gory tale.

“I chocked her with the phone cord, bit the bitch just wouldn’t fucking die!”

Maher winced at the words.

Scofield continued. “So I threw her on the floor and beat the shit out of her head with the fucking floor lamp.”

“You left her on the floor?”

“I stuffed the fucking whore under the bed.”

“Which way was the body facing?”

“Does that matter?” Scofield thought for a moment. “She was face down.”

Maher continued to extract specifics from Scofield, including the color of the furniture in the room and the type of furniture. Feeling he had enough to satisfy ADA Malady, Maher left. He stopped off in the lobby bathroom on the way out.

“I got this motherfucker now,” Maher whispered under his breath as he relieved himself. “This stupid motherfucker is going down.”

Maher rendezvoused with DePaquale, and he listened to the tape . Scofield was putting himself away for a very long time. The came the sound of Maher walking into a bathroom, followed by the sound of a zipper. Maher could be heard whispering: I got this motherfucker now. This stupid motherfucker is going down. Next came the sound of him relieving himself and then a flush.

“I forgot I had the Nagra on,” Maher said.

Both Maher and DePasquale laughed.

The next day Malady listened to the tape and immediately issued an arrest warrant. Then Maher testified in front of a grand jury as CI #667903. Scofield, as Maher had predicted, was indeed going down.

Since Maher had joined Penn Central, There had been a financial restructuring of the railroad was a new name – ConRail. Maher’s supervisor informed him that there was an opening in the signal and communication department of ConRail’s New Jersey region. The pay would be higher and the work would be a lot easier than the effort required in replacing railroad ties. And so, in mid-October 1976, Maher resigned his job at ConRail New York and signed on with ConRail New Jersey. He would start his new job on October 26. All was well in the Maher/Eschert household. Until the phone call from ADA Malady.

“Kevin,” Malady began, “there will be a discovery hearing in a few days and I’m going to have to turn over the minutes of the grand jury hearing.”

Although Malady insisted that he was not require to divulge Maher’s name, Maher knew that Scofield wasn’t that stupid. Scofield would know immediately who the unnamed CI was. For the first time since he started playing cop, Maher was frightened. Scofield knew where Maher lived. And even if Scofield were locked up, Scofield had a brother. And he had friends with nasty dispositions.

Still reeling from Malady’s call, Maher received another call.

“Hey, Kevin. It’s William Hand.”

William Hand was an inmate Maher had met during his term at Coxsackie Prison.

“I want to do a bank,” Hand said. “I need a wheel man. You interested?”

An invitation to a felony. Maher shook his head. Is there no way to go forward? Yes, there is a way to go forward. Say no. Hang up the receiver.

“When?’ Maher asked, surprising himself.

“Tomorrow.”

They agreed to meet that evening at Maher’s house to discuss the job.

Maher tried to reach Doherty but he wasn’t in and couldn’t be reached. Maher looked at the wall clock. He would be meeting Hand in two hours. He had to talk to someone in law enforcement before the meeting. It occurred to Maher that bank robbery was a federal crime. And he recalled having met FBI agent Al Garber in Doherty’s office.

Maher decided not to waste time on the telephone and drove directly to the FBI’s New York headquarters, an apartment building in east 69^th Street. Maher entered the building and walked up to the reception desk.

“Agent Al Garber,” Maher said. “Tell him Kevin Maher is here to see him and it’s important. Tell him I’m Sergeant Doherty’s CI.”

A moment later, Garber emerged.

“Hello, Kevin. What can I do for you?”

“I’m going to rob a bank,” Maher said.

Garber led Maher d own the hall into a small room.

“Tell me about this bank,” Garber asked.

“First Federal Savings and Loan. Fourteenth Street and First Avenue. Hand says it’s an easy bank.” Maher laughed. “He told me a friend of his has robbed it three times.”

“When?” Garber wanted to know.

“Tomorrow.”

Garber shook his head. “It can’t be tomorrow. You have to stall him for a few days.”

Garber explained that the policy at the Justice Department was to move cautiously. Before they arrested a suspect, the FBI would always “identify” the suspect first, checking to see if another bureau was involved. What if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was already on Hand’s case?

“If you don’t take him off now with me,” Maher protested, “he’ll fund someone else and do the job anyway.”

Garber remained hesitant.

Maher pressed. “The guy is a heroin addict. And he’s running around the city with a gun.”

Garber grimaced. Certainly Hand was capable of acting on impulse, knocking off the first bank he saw. At least this way, with Maher, it was a “controlled bank robbery,” which was how the FBI referred to such an operation. Garber grabbed the phone and called a group supervisor. It was resolved that they would do they best they could to communicate with other bureaus. The bank robbery was on. For the next half hour, Garber briefed Maher on what he expected. When he finished, Maher got to the fee.

“How much do I get for this assignment?”

Garber offered Maher $1,500. Maher smiled. He got $500 from the Manhattan DA’s office for the Scofield case. And he would receive three times that much from the feds for his work on the Hand robbery. In the beginning, the adventure had been enough. Now the money was getting good enough to turn the adventure into a career.

But then reality hit him. Scofield! What about the Scofield and the discovery hearing?

“Agent Garber,” Maher said, “I have a problem.”

Maher explained the Scofield situation and Garber suggested that Maher entered the witness protection program.

“We can put you in North Dakota,” Garber said.

Maher was not overwhelmed by the idea of living in North Dakota. After a brief discussion of the options, Garber and Maher agreed that, in addition to the $1,500 he was getting as a fee, the FBI would pay an additional $1,000 for “relocation”. Maher chose New Jersey. Garber fired back that the FBI did not relocate people a few miles across the Hudson River and countered that a destination much farther away would be safer. Maher held his ground: New Jersey. Finally, Garber consented.

Hand arrived at Maher’s house sweating and shaking. Not a good sign, Maher thought. Hand was in need of a heroin fix.

“We do the bank tomorrow morning,” Hand said, his voice trilling from the involuntary shakes. “Ten o’clock.”

Hand asked Maher to meet him at an intersection on Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. Although Maher pressed Hand about an address, it was clear that Hand did not want Maher to know where he lived. Unfortunately, Hand was sitting in Maher’s living room. So Hand knew where Maher, lived.

Maher sighed. The sooner this job was over and the sooner he got to New Jersey, the better.

The following morning, Maher drove his cream 1971 Chrysler 300 to an intersection on Tremont Avenue and waited for Hand to appear. A moment later, Hand –more than a few convulsions past his heroin fix – stumbled out of a large frame house near the corner. So much for his secret address, Maher thought, laughing to himself. The dumb fuck makes a big deal about meeting him on a corner, then walks out of a house a few feet away.

“you’re driving your car, man,” Hand said as he climbed into Maher’s car. His voice was soaked in suspicion. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Maher was quick with a response: “It’s got a 440 under the hood, man. You want to get away or not?”

Hand mulled that over for a minute then countered. “They can trace your car.”

Maher fired back another volley. “No they can’t. I put on stolen plates.”

In fact, the plates were not stolen. But it was the best response Maher could come up with on the fly.

Hand reached into his jacket pocket and removed two guns: a .32 and a .357 magnum. The .357 looked new and bristled with power. The .32 clearly was old, even a bit rusty. Hand gave Maher the .32.

“Let’s go,’ Hand said, rocking back and forth in the seat.

Maher navigated the Manhattan traffic and turned onto 14^th Street. As had been laid out by Garber, Maher double-parked his car behind a double-parked van. Although the van looked innocuous enough, there were six FBI agents crouched inside, each with an automatic weapon.

Hand nervously scanned the street then turned to Maher: “Okay. We wait for an old woman to walk into the fucking bank. And then we jump out. You follow her into the bank and grab her and we’ll use her as a hostage.”

Maher took a deep breath. Taking a hostage had never been part of the plan.

Hand passed Maher a wool ski mask. “Put this on. When we jump out, pull it over your face.”

Maher started to say something, something like, “William, it’s seventy-five degrees outside. A wool ski mask is a dead giveaway.” Instead, Maher just popped the wool cap on his head and say there as Hand scanned the area for an elderly hostage. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Maher’s forehead was sweating profusely. Where the fuck are all the old ladies? Suddenly Hand’s eyes widened. Maher turned to look out the windshield. Maybe there is an old lady coming down the fucking sidewalk. But it wasn’t an old lady. It was a uniformed police officer, strolling west on 14^th Street. The officer ambled past the car, lowering his eyes as he passed. You could hear him thinking: Ski caps?

Instead of continuing west, the officer turned and walked east, once again passing the Chrysler. He stopped a few feet in front of the car and stared through the windshield at Hand.

The steady gaze of the cop made Hand start to tremble slightly. “I ain’t going back to prison, Kevin. You hear me? I ain’t going back to no fucking cell.”

Maher peered through the windshield at the young officer, who didn’t look more than twenty years old. He had a shiny new holster and a deep blue uniform that hadn’t seen many laundry cycles. A rookie for sure, perhaps a Police Academy graduate with only a few days on the force. Please, officer. Walk away. Just walk away. But the officer kept his eyes fixed on the car.

Hand was now taking breaths in little choking gasps. “I’m telling you, Kevin, I ain’t getting taken alive. I’ll waste the fucking cop if I have to.”

Maher sneaked a look at the FBI van. Do they realize there’s a foot cop out there? Then Maher glanced back at the officer. Slowly, the officer slid his walkie-talkie off his belt and raised it to his lips. Maher watched in horror as the cop mouthed the words: New Jersey plates. FMS 953. Maher’s earlier response to Hand’s trepidation about the car – I put on stolen plates – now had an ominous ring to it as the cop stood waiting for a response on his walkie-talkie.

“You said you had hot plates on this fucking thing,” Hand blurted out, then began rocking back and forth again on the seat. Had slid his fingers over the .357. “I’m going to waste the stupid motherfucker.”

Maher decided no matter what, he couldn’t let Hand shoot a cop. Maher grasped the .32. He could feel the grit and rust. Although he wasn’t even sure if the gun would fire, Maher slowly moved the barrel of the .32 toward Hand’s side and prepared to pull the trigger if it looked like Hand was going to fire at the cop. As the tense seconds ticked by, Maher’s mind raced through the repercussions of what he was about to do.

If the cope comes over, what do I do? What if the cop sees my gun? He doesn’t know I’m a good guy. I know this fuck beside me is about to kill a cop, so what do I do? Do I just sit here and let it happen? No; I have to shoot Hand. But when the cop sees the gun, is he going to start shooting at me? Or what if I kill Hand and get arrested? Am I going to get charged with murder? How does that work? I was born a Roman Catholic. I was an altar boy. And now I’ve got to kill a guy? Fuck!

Although Maher wasn’t aware of it, an FBI surveillance team had taken up a position in a furniture factory across the street from the bank. The team commander got on radio and instructed the cop to leave the area immediately. But even after the officer received the urgent message, he lingered, his eyes probing the car.

Hand raised the .357 slowely. Maher steadied the .32 and slipped his finger around the trigger. Then he turned his head. He didn’t want to see the blood. He would look away and squeeze the trigger. Maher tightened his finger, applying pressure to the trigger. Suddenly…

“He’s leaving!” Hand said with a growl. ‘He’s leaving!”

Maher – now drenched with sweat – relaxed the tension in his finger and looked through the windshield. The cop was walking away. And an old lady – laden down with shopping bags – was shuffling toward the bank.

“You get out of the car first,” Hand yelled. “The minute you get in the bank, grab the old lady.”

Maher and Hand bounded from the car and ran toward the bank.

The FBI would have preferred to arrest Hand in the act. That way, they would be able to charge him with bank robbery. Otherwise, they would only be able to charge him with attempted bank robbery, which carried a far lighter sentence. As illogical as the distinction might seem to a layman, that was the way the law worked.

While it was in the best interests of the FBI not to intervene before Hand had a opportunity to pull of the heist, they couldn’t allow a dangerous felony such as an armed robbery to occur. What is an innocent bystander were killed and it was later revealed that the FBI could have prevented the tragedy?

Maher and Hand moved quickly across the sidewalk. As Hand reached out for the revolving door, a flood of tellers and customers burst out of the bank. Then several pedestrians stepped toward him. The hot dog vendor dropped a bun and whipped around. Two con Edison employees, wearing bright blue hard hats, stopped working and ran toward the bank. A cashier jogged out of a Blimpie fast food restaurant. Suddenly, every one of them – the tellers, customers, pedestrians, hot dog vendor, Con Edison employees, even the Blimpie cashier – drew guns. They were all either FBI agents or NYPD cops.

A stunned Hand was tackled and thrown to the sidewalk. He surrendered without incident. So did Maher. They were shoved in a paddy wagon together, booked for attempted bank robbery and a weapons charge together, and they were arraigned together at Southern District Court. As Maher and Hand stood before a judge, several federal marshals burst into the courtroom.

“Your Honor,” one of the marshals explained, “We have an arrest warrant for Kevin Maher in South Carolina.”

After a brief discussion at the bench, Maher was handed over to the federal marshals.

Once outside the courthouse, Maher was uncuffed. The South Carolina warrant, just like the arraignment, was phony – designed to protect Maher’s cover.

“Good work,” one of the marshals said.

Maher smiled. It was good work.

As Maher walked down Centre Street to retrieve his car, he felt a swell of pride. I’, a good cop, he thought as he strode along, buoyed by a natural high. But then a sudden depression seized him. He wasn’t really a cop. In fact, he could never really be a cop because someone with a felony conviction was not allowed to be a cop. Maher bolstered himself again by reasoning that he was kind of a cop. But that didn’t take away the sting of the one thundering realization that shook his senses: All I ever wanted to be was cop. Just because I was a wild teenager who stole a car I’ll never be a real cop.

It just didn’t seem fair.

For the next two years, Maher did as Beth and he had agreed: he retired his imaginary badge. The frequent queries from various detectives no longer even tempted him. And whenever someone from his prison days surfaced with some felonious scheme, Maher politely declined.

“You better get somebody else,” Maher would say. “I’m out of the business.”

Life continued to improve for Maher and Beth. They saved some money and moved to a nicer place, in Wood-Ridge. At twenty-five years old, Maher had found contentment. Events prior to his relocation to Edgewater seemed surreal, as if they never had occurred. But then, on the night of March 23, 1979, as Maher and Beth settled in to watch the evening news, there came a bleak reminder about Maher’s bizarre past. The demons of 24 Sanford Road returned. And this time the evil was a hellish as it gets.

The news anchor stared out somberly from the television screen: “A mass murder in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Coming up after this message.”

Maher snatched the phone receiver and dialed Doherty. “Sergeant Doherty. Turn to channel seven.”

Maher and Beth sat silently through a commercial. On the other end of the phone, Doherty, a receiver pressed to his ear, watched silently as well. Finally the newscast returned.

“A mass murder in New Jersey,” the anchor repeated. “For more on this late-breaking story we go to correspondent John Johnson, who is standing by live in Fair Lawn.”

The image on the television screen changed to John Johnson standing in front of the Molese house. Indeed, it was a late-breaking story – the body bags were just being removed. One normalsize body bag. On gigantic body bag. And one tiny body bag. Maher began to feel ill. Beth placed a hand over her gapping mouth. They knew. Before John Johnson uttered a word, they knew.

“A brutal triple homicide tonight in this quiet New Jersey community. The bodies of two women and a boy - their throats slashed – have been discovered inside the house at Twenty-four Sanford Road, in Fair Lawn. The victims have been identified as Marcia Ferrell, her fiver-year-old son, Harold Farrell, and the owner of the house..”

Johnson glanced at his notes, then looked up, staring directly into the camera. “…Alice Molese.”