Free SIREN'S TEARS (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 3) by Lawrence de Maria

wanted to know how I making out with tips.
    Four detectives were in the D.A.’s squad room when I finally made it upstairs. In addition to Cormac, there was Paul Vocci, who ran the unit, Tom Smith, who I’d met on the Denton murder  case, and a fresh-faced cop I didn’t know. Vocci and I had not always gotten along, but now we owed each other, big time, from the same case. Cormac and I had also been thrown together by circumstances years ago, when I lied to a Grand Jury to save his career after a child molester in his custody mysteriously did a half-gainer off a balcony. We’d barely known each other back then but now were fast friends. I thus had great hopes for my relationship with Vocci, although he didn’t have Cormac’s sense of humor.
    “This is Ned Thompson,” Vocci said, indicating the new kid on the block. “He just came on board.”
    “You’re the toasted bagel with diet margarine,” I said, shaking his hand.
    “Yeah. How did you know?”
    “Because these guys would never eat anything healthy. In a year they’ll have you ordering bagels with lard.”
    “I heard you were a wise guy,” Thompson said, but without malice, taking his bagel and coffee and heading back to his desk.
    I looked at Vocci.
    “ I bet that if you guys ever stopped feeding your faces and got out of the office once in a while the crime rate in this borough would plummet.”
    “We’d be crazy to do that,” Vocci said. “Staten Island has the lowest crime rate in the city as it is. It goes to zero, they’ll shut us down and ship us to Harlem or Bed-Stuy. We protect, serve and eat. It’s in our union contract.”
    Maybe I was wrong about his sense of humor. Or Cormac was rubbing off on him. I pulled him aside.
    “How’s Mike doing, Paulie?”
    At mention of the District Attorney, Vocci turned serious. With the exception of the new guy, Thompson, everyone in the room had been party to a massive coverup to protect Michael Sullivan. It was a scheme I orchestrated, and we all committed numerous felonies in the process. I was still surprised that we managed to pull it off.
    “Mike has his good days and bad days,” Vocci said. “He really loved her. He’s thrown himself into the job.”
    “I’m glad he decided to run again. I feel rotten that she took a bullet for me. Several, in fact.”
    “He doesn’t blame you for anything, Alton. Let it go. There was no way it was gonna work out for her. Or Mike. He’s grateful you wiped a real scumbag off the board. We all are.”
    “I wanted to thank you for getting Cormac back here.”
    “I’m having second thoughts. I’ve put on five pounds since he showed up.”
    “You guys talkin’ about me.” It was Cormac, barely intelligible with a mouthful of bagel. “Least you could do is do it behind my back. Get over here, Alt. You didn’t come down here to swap spit. What do you need?”
    I sat at his desk and told him Father Zapotoski’s story. The other detectives went about their business, which was fine by me since I felt slightly ridiculous. I could tell by the look on Cormac’s face that he thought I was ridiculous.
    “He told me he went to the 123 and they said they would look into it.” The 123, in Tottenville, is the southernmost of the three Island precincts, thus the southernmost of any police stations in New York State. “Did it ever make it out of the precinct?”
    “I doubt it,” Mac replied. “No one around here has said anything. But I’m not back that long. I’ll ask around. But if the precinct guys thought he was a crackpot or senile, they wouldn’t bump it up the ladder.”
    “They’d just ignore it?”
    “I didn’t say that. Given how slow it is out there, they would have jumped on anything that made sense. Balls, the last murder in Tottenville was committed by a Redcoat. They must have thought it too flimsy to take serious. I mean, what have you got? Three natural deaths, an old man’s hunch and some newspaper obits.”
    “He’s a