Pincus grunted in disgust, nodded, then followed us to the interrogation room where his daughter was waiting, hands cuffed in front of her. Her father squeezed her shoulder, then wrenched a chair out from the table and sat down.
“I’m listening.”
“Mr. Pincus, by her own admission, your daughter is a junkie and a dealer,” I said. “She was involved with Rodney Booker, also known as Bagman Jesus, now violently deceased. Samantha was not only selling crank for Booker but she told a very credible source that she knows who killed him. She’s a material witness, that’s why we’re holding her, and we need her to tell us who Booker’s killer is.”
“I’m not admitting she was dealing,” Pincus told us, “but if she was, she’s not doing it now and she’s not using either.”
“Well, everything’s fine, then,” I snapped.
“Listen, her mother and I are on her. Early curfew. No cell phone. No computer. She volunteers in a soup kitchen so she can see how bad life can get — and she works underneath my office.”
Pincus lifted his daughter’s cuffed wrists so I could see her watch. “It’s a GPS. She can’t go anywhere without me knowing. Sam has become a model of sobriety. I give you my word.”
“Is that all, Mr. Pincus?”
Samantha wailed.
“Where’s your decency?” Pincus spat. “Booker was scum. He was dealing to kids who sold to kids. Not just to my daughter but to other girls. Many good girls. We reported him.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I demanded.
“The Fifth Street Association. Look it up. I filed a complaint on behalf of the association in February, and again in March. Again in April. The cops did nothing. We were told, ‘If you don’t have proof, fill out a form.’ ”
“You own a gun, Mr. Pincus?”
“No. And I’m asking you for a break. Release Samantha into my custody. Jail, even for a night, could destroy this child.”
We agreed to let the girl go, gave Pincus a warning not to let her leave town.
As soon as the two had left the squad room, Conklin and I went to our desks and called up Pincus’s name in the database. He didn’t have a sheet, but Conklin found something else.
“Neil Pincus has a license to carry, and he’s got a registered Rohm twenty-two,” Conklin said over the top of his monitor. “A cheap dirty little pistol for a cheap dirty little lawyer. That son of a bitch lied.”
Chapter 85
CONKLIN AND I were at the door to Pincus and Pincus, Attorneys- at-Law, by noon, and we had four other cops with us. When the door opened, we pushed past the reception area, and I handed Neil Pincus a warrant.
I said, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Pincus blinked stupidly. “What?”
“Did you think we wouldn’t find out about the gun?”
“That… thing was stolen,” Pincus said. “I reported it.” The lawyer pushed back his chair, said, “I kept it in here.”
I opened a desk drawer, bottom right, saw the metal gun box. I lifted the lid, stared at a cardboard box for a Rohm .22. The box was empty.
“You kept this gun box locked?”
“No.”
“Where’d you keep the ammo?”
“Same drawer. Look. I know that’s a violation, but if I was going to need the gun, I was going to need it fast. Sergeant, I rarely opened the box,” said Pincus. “It could have been stolen any time in the last six months. You turn your back for a second around here, take a phone call or take a piss —”
I stepped in front of Pincus, jerked open the rest of his desk drawers as Conklin did the same to brother Al’s matching desk in the next room.
Then the six of us jacked open the file cabinets, tossed the supply room, looked under the cushions on the cracked leather sofa. After a short while, the Pincus brothers settled down, talked over us to their clients, acted normally and entirely as though we weren’t there.