Matson's Case No. 4: Matson Case Files, #4

By Pablo Zaragoza

NYC Detectives Matson and Smith receive the case of Mattie James, once a high-end prostitute, retired and peddling on a street corner, murdered and dumped in an alley. Matson's wife Sissy, whom he had rescued from the street life, says Mattie's shabby, unkempt appearance doesn't sound like the Mattie she knew who enjoyed living in luxury.
 
While the detective duo investigates Mattie's murder, New York City experiences the chaos of the Civil Rights Movement, the murder of Malcolm X, and reverberations of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination in Memphis, TN. With riots on street corners an everyday occurrence, one ray of hope for Matson comes from Searle, a white college student who arrives in the Big Apple in a show of solidarity with suppressed black folks.

 

In the midst of keeping peace and rendering justice, Matson refuses to relegate Mattie's murder to the cold case bin. His keen interest in solving her murder leads him on a wild goose chase that involves finding her source of White China, pure heroin that he found in her peddler's satchel, plus sorting out her high-priced clients suffering from syphilis, and coordinating with the CIA's drug trafficking arm operating in Southeast Asia.

 

When Smith queries why the endless dogged pursuit ten years in the making, Matson tells him that everyone – queen or prostitute – deserves the same treatment by the men in blue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pablo Zaragoza
• Release date: Aug 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201353421

Book preview

The Cold Case Of Mattie James

Pablo Zaragoza

To my family – my children, father, mother, brother,

uncles, and cousins – whose stories inspire me to write.

Special appreciation to Susan Giffin for

her excellent first-line editing of all my books.

Table of Contents

Title Page

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY PABLO ZARAGOZA

COPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

I am sitting in my office at One Park Place and gazing out the window. Today, as with the past few days, it is overcast and rainy.

Every Wednesday, I teach at the police academy. I try to give the young recruits a sense of what it takes to protect and serve this city. It’s good for these officers to learn about the history and traditions of the department because they are standing on the shoulders of giants.

On May 7, 1844, the New York State Assembly passed the Municipal Police Act, authorizing the formation of a police department and the abolition of the Night Watch system. Under the mayor’s control, the police were extremely political. When the Republicans controlled Albany, they created the New York City Metropolitan Police, due to highly political and corrupt policing at the time. The Municipal and Metropolitan Police clashed, but the state government intervened to help the beleaguered Metropolitan Police.

In 1845 the city government decided to create a professional police force to tackle the increase in crime. The city was bursting at the seams with immigrants and slaves fleeing the Southern States. The Night Watch system that had been in place since the time of the Dutch couldn’t handle the increasing amount of crime. By 1857 the Municipal Police had become the Metropolitan Police and absorbed police departments in the five boroughs.

Rioting has always been part of life in New York City. The Dead Rabbit Gang attacked the Metropolitans after the state militia left the city. Little Germany rioted because salons were closed on Sunday. The Tompkins Square Riots occurred in 1875 when thousands of unemployed, poorly educated men and women took to the streets. Many times, the streets of New York City ran red from the activities of gangs, the Mafia, urban unrest, and the depraved forces of mad men.

Police work, especially the art of detection, has changed considerably since I started on the force. Back then, we didn’t have the benefit of DNA analysis, CODES, computers holding millions of fingerprints in their memory and the ability to analyze them in the blink of an eye, and sophisticated fiber analysis that can, in some cases, reveal the manufacturer of a carpet, a sheet, a towel. We now have victimology to help us determine the type of person that might have committed the crime; profiling helps to narrow down the pool of suspects.

In the 1960s, we had only a few tools but a lot of brain power. We looked, we asked, we knocked on doors, we kept notes; that was how we did things back then. That’s what I want to impart in my students, to use their brains and not rely solely on the crime lab to solve cases, but sometimes the crime lab gives us the only lead we have.

Stella, my assistant, steps into the office, carrying a large manila folder. I thought you had put this one to rest, Chief.

We get resolutions and convictions, Stella, but nothing completely goes to rest.

Well, this folder has certainly seen better days.

Off and on for twenty years, I’d take this case out and try to solve this woman’s murder, but I didn’t have the tools.

I understand, but most cops would have left it on the shelf and forgotten about it. Mattie James really had no family, she was in her early sixties, and, by all accounts, she was a street personality.

Everyone deserves the same treatment by the men in blue. Queen or prostitute, we gather evidence, analyze what we have, and send it upstairs to the DA to serve justice. Mattie James got justice, although late, but she got it.

All right, Chief. You see your cadets in three hours. Enjoy.

She left the room, and I started to leaf through the pages of typewritten notes, the interviews, report books I had filled out, and the suspects examined and released with insufficient evidence to convict. As I examined each page, it was like setting the clock back to 1964 when the streets were bloody one more time in Harlem.

Mattie James, no one knew her real first name, came from the same patch as Bumpy Johnson – South Carolina. Like most young black women who came up north in the 30s and 40s as part of the great migration, she was alone. She had left her family and walked her way to the Big Apple, using rural roads to avoid cities. Because riders would lynch black folks on sight, it was dangerous to be black in the South then.

Mattie had found her way to Harlem, hungry, cold, and homeless, and there she met the queen of Harlem, Madame Stephanie St. Clair. As Bumpy Johnson’s boss, St. Clair controlled the numbers racket in Harlem. Mattie became one of her runners, picking up bets from the local bookies and giving the tickets to Bumpy. For a fourteen-year-old black woman in those times, she was rich. She lived in a heated apartment and sent some money home.

As she grew older, she resembled a beautiful Nubian princess, and she figured that men would pay to be with her. She made a lot of cash, working prostitution and the numbers. When her body started to sag and her belly grew, she turned to moving weed for the musicians and artists she knew. She had a long list of clients: Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant, and the small fries that played with them.

Mattie, ever industrious, knew enough people in government and in the streets to stay clear of the law. She quit in the mid-50s, had a son, and wanted him to grow up away from drugs, booze, and gambling that had helped her to survive. Then one morning, I met her, and she became my first cold case.

CHAPTER ONE

In the summer of 1964, Sissy and I were still living in the apartment with our two kids, Robert (Bobby to avoid confusion at home) and Emily. We had made it our home now for over seven years. It wasn’t much, but it was clean, no rats, no cockroaches, no strange smells. Sissy was a clinical psychologist for the state mental health services at Bellevue while working toward her PhD.

My partner Harvey Smith and I worked well together. After the Chinatown case [Matson’s Case No. 3], no one hounded us with doubts about what we could and couldn’t do. We cleared most of our cases, and our conviction rate was nearly 100 percent. Smith’s wife Liz was expecting, and he tried to finish work and get home as early as possible.

When we came in that morning, we couldn’t have imagined what the day would bring. It was 93 degrees Fahrenheit. In a building with no air-conditioning, the sweat rapidly stained our armpits, and people not using deodorant produced a lot of unpleasant odors.

We were up for the next case on the blackboard, and as soon as we entered the office, we had one in Harlem, close to the house of an elderly black woman. A police officer found her in an alley near Lenox and East 135th Street. We drove over there.

When we arrived, bug-eyed pedestrians were gaping over the police barrier, trying to get a peek at the dead body. Forensics chief, Harry O’Neal, and his crew were just arriving on scene.

Boyo, how you doin’? he asked me. He had been my boss when I first started in the department.

I’m good, sir, and Rebecca, how is she? I asked.

My bonnie Becca is just fine. Wondering when you and Sissy will be back for dinner. It’s been a few months now.

Sissy’s had to take calls the last few weeks, but she’ll be off night rotation soon.

Well, let’s get to work.

We crossed the barrier and signed the logbook that registered everyone who had been on the crime scene. If a fingerprint or shoe print popped up, we would know that it was not one of ours. One officer, a young black man barely out of the academy, was standing over the body. He was visibly shaken, turning an ashen color. He had found the body in the early morning as he was patrolling the neighborhood.

I put my hand on his shoulder and asked, You found the body, son?

Yes, sir, and you are?

I’m Detective Robert Matson, and what’s your name?

Charles Robinson.

How long has it been since you graduated the academy, son?

Four weeks.

This is your first dead body?

Yes, sir.

All right, let’s step back and let Mr. O’Neal and his crew process the scene. You can fill me in on what happened and what you saw.

He took me step by step over what he had seen and done that morning. I had just finished coffee at the bodega on Lennox and started to walk up to East 135th Street. When I turned right, I spotted something out of place in the alleyway. Street people often slept in alleys, so I went over to make sure that everything was all right. That’s when I noticed that the person was very still. I knelt down and heard no breathing sounds, felt for a pulse but found none. I used my walkie-talkie to report it and stood over the body until now.

Did you see anyone in the alley when you got here?

No, sir.

Do you know the victim?

No, sir. I don’t know her. He sounded a bit indignant that I had asked if he knew her.

I ask because this is your beat. You know the folks in the neighborhood, and they know you. Is she one of those folks that you’d see on a daily basis while doing your rounds?

He calmed down a bit. No, she’s not from this neighborhood, but you should ask my partner, Steve Reilly. He’s been doing this beat longer than I have.

Is he the one handling the logbook?

Yes, that’s Steve.

I walked over to him. Have you ever seen the victim before?

Steve was a little nervous. He had been on the job for only a year and had never faced a situation like this one. She looks like a lady who had a little stand on the corner of 116th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, he said.

You got a name?

The neighborhood people called her Mattie, Mattie James.

What kind of stand was it?

It was more like a briefcase with legs. She sold candy, cigarettes, maps of the city, Chicklets. I don’t know how she made a living that way, but she was always clean and respectful.

Mattie James, I remembered that name. It was one of Bumpy’s women, one of his high-priced girls, but this couldn’t be her. I remember a stately black woman with full ruby lips and a dazzling smile. I walked over to the corpse. This was the body of an overweight, older woman, with her wig partly askew on her head, showing patches of balding that could indicate syphilis.

The Medical Examiner’s wagon came to pick up the body while O’Neal was still taking pictures of the crime scene. I jotted down some notes. The alley was dark with trash bags stacked everywhere, and overflowing garbage cans reeked of decaying food. Cockroaches were crawling on the body as I came closer to inspect it. The detective on scene should always assess the body and the crime scene for himself and not rely on the forensic team to do his job. Photographs are helpful, but the sights, smells, and observations of the scene can be extremely helpful.

Boys, make sure you put butcher paper underneath the body, so we don’t lose any trace evidence. I need those clothes because I think I see blood and semen stains on them. Make sure you put the wig in a paper bag, O’Neal ordered.

We know the drill, sir. We’ve been doing this for a while.

I don’t care if you’ve been doing it for a month of Sundays. I want it done right. Besides, I was one of you not that long ago, and I know how things get cocked up.

The men from the ME’s office knew better than to argue with O’Neal. They placed butcher paper on the gurney before carefully hoisting the body onto it. They then folded over the edges of the paper to cover the corpse.

O’Neal proceeded to photograph the area. He found two cigarette butts and some plastic and cellophane, as though a bed had been made for the body. He placed the items in brown paper evidence bags with pre-printed labels which we filled out with the date, time, and bagger’s name. The date sticks in my mind – July 16, 1964 9:00 a.m. It’s funny how certain bits of useless information stick in your mind and pop up unexpectedly.

The rain was coming down hard, big drops were hitting the window, and they made a distracting noise. I refocused and started to read again.

Smith had been trying to get information from the peepers at the police barricade, without much success, so we signed out of the crime scene and headed to the victim’s spot on 118th Street across from Morningside Park, with its small ponds, waterfall, and geese and ducks that the neighborhood kids fed. In 1964 it wasn’t as developed as it is today, with trails in the wooded areas, some swings, slides, and other playthings that small children enjoy.

We found Mattie James’s corner. Her red suitcase was still there, although most of the merchandise was gone, and a few coins lay scattered in the open case. There were no signs of a struggle, save for scuff marks on the pavement where someone had been dragged to the curb and some tire tracks where Mattie might have been taken. For now, this was speculation at best.

I went to the squad car for my camera. I’d send photographs of the tire tread marks to Bill Wheeler for analysis to determine the make and model of the car. I saw a piece of a broken heel from a woman’s shoe in the gutter. I used a piece of paper to pick up the heel to avoid contaminating it with my fingerprints and placed it in an evidence bag.

People were milling about nearby. One woman asked, Where’s Mattie?

Smith asked, Did you know Miss James?

Not really, except to buy cigarettes from her in the morning. She all right?

She’s dead, Miss.

Dead? How could that be? I saw her yesterday.

At what time? Smith asked.

Around 4:00 p.m. when I got out of work. I usually cross through the park to get home. I bought a pack of Camels from her.

Your name is?

Doris, Doris Martin.

Smith asked for her address in case we had any further questions. By the time we got back to the crime scene, O’Neal and his team were wrapping up. There isn’t much here, laddie. We might be able to get a blood type from the semen and blood, but most of the other stuff is going to be hard to process, he said.

I gave him the piece of heel that I had found in the gutter. I think she wasn’t murdered here in the alley. She may have been violated here postmortem by some perverse bastard, but she did not get killed here.

Why do you say that? O’Neal asked.

Someone had laid her body in the alley on a bed of plastic and cellophane. There was very little blood there for the injuries she had sustained. The blow on the head, the lacerations to her face and neck would have caused massive bleeding, but there was no cast-off blood, no spatter patterns, no blood anywhere, nothing.

We’ll visit the ME’s office when he’s ready for us, maybe tomorrow, Smith said.

That was wishful thinking on Smith’s part because that night, things changed.

CHAPTER TWO

That afternoon at about 3:00, the 9th Precinct was in an uproar. There had been a shooting. Information was sketchy, at best. A cop had shot a kid, and all hands had to be on deck. As Smith and I were about to go to the scene, Captain Jack McCarthy came up to us.

I want you guys to drop everything and look into this.

Why, Cap? Smith asked.

It’s a black kid, and the officer involved is a white veteran of the force. I don’t want the public to scream whitewash, okay?

Understood, we said at the same time.

The Internal Affairs boys will want to ride shotgun, but I’ve already talked to their chief, and he understands that we need to put a black face in the mix before this gets ugly.

Chief, are we there for decoration or to investigate? I asked.

"Since when have I ever thought of you as window dressing? You’re one of the best that I’ve got. The commissioner and I intend for you to investigate and give me a straight answer." Our captain was ex-Marine and all spit and polish. He didn’t tolerate monkey business from anyone. He trusted us mostly because Smith and I were ex-military and because we got results.

I had received two commendations from Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent Lyons Broderick for the Southern District of New York in 1962. He was now the commissioner of police for New York City, a good and fair man who evaluated one’s work and not the color of their skin.

When we arrived at the scene, some three hundred students were on the street. As I left the car, the taunts of Oreo, Uncle Tom, and pig started flying. The two principals were sequestered inside the apartment building where the shooting had occurred. The area was cordoned off, and the victim was sprawled out on the front steps. Two other boys—Cliff Harris and Carl Dudley—had also been moved to an apartment away from the crowd.

Shouts from angry neighborhood youths, We want justice! When do we want it? Now! reverberated in the neighborhood. The apartment in question was in Yorkville on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was a white working-class neighborhood. Three soaking wet black boys were standing on the police line. What were they doing here? I thought their presence was odd.

I walked over to them and asked, Why are you guys all wet?

The building super doesn’t like us sitting on his stoop, so he hosed us, said one of the boys with a serious look on his face.

He was laughing as he hosed us and was calling us dirty black niggers. We weren’t doing nothing except waiting to go back to class.

What class?

We be takin’ summer school classes, so we don’t have to repeat the ninth grade.

Speak for yourself, dummy! one of the other wet students shouted. I’m here because I’s taken enrichment classes.

Enrichment, my ass. You like that Susie Parker, and she takes those fancy classes. You’re there to see if you can get some, chirped another dripping wet student.

Was the victim part of your group? I asked.

No, sir. He came out and saw us getting wet, and he rushed over here to get into it with the superintendent.

What happened next? I asked.

He rushed into the vestibule and then came out. That’s when the shooting started.

Did the police officer identify himself?

It happened so fast; I couldn’t say. But he came out shooting.

Did the victim have a weapon of any kind? Smith asked.

They all shook their heads, and then one of them said, We didn’t see one, officer. You are an officer, right?

Yes, I’m Detective Matson. We’ll get to the truth.

I jotted down their names and statements in my notebook. We told them that we would be in touch individually to see if they recalled any details later that they didn’t remember now.

Bottles started to fly toward the officers on the line. Forensics chief, Harry O’Neal, and his team were collecting evidence as I approached the stoop.

What’s up, my friend? I asked.

I do not like it when a bairn is gunned down on the street.

A bairn?

A little child, a fifteen-year-old child.

I know it’s tough, my friend, especially for us who have children. Did you find a weapon?

We have not found anything, other than blood and the casings from the discharged weapon. It looks like he was coming out of the building when he was shot.

That’s what the witnesses said. He went into the building to confront the super, when the officer came out and confronted the victim. Do we have a name for the victim?

Ah, laddie. I looked in his pants pocket and found a bus pass in the name of James Powell.

At least I can call him by name.

I always wanted to make it personal. Calling the deceased ‘the victim’ makes him or her an object like a chair or a glass, but a name gives them humanity.

Smith was waiting for me in the vestibule. He had interviewed a few teenagers and heard, The pig shot the boy for no reason. You people just want to murder black folks. But nothing that would tell us what had happened.

I looked outside and saw seventy-five cops holding back hundreds of kids who wanted blood. Three officers were stationed in front of the superintendent’s apartment. Smith and I entered. The individuals in question had been separated: Patrick Lynch, the super, was in the kitchen; Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan was in the living room; and each of the boys who had been with Powell were in separate bedrooms.

As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I could tell from Lynch’s face that the last thing he was expecting was a black detective. He was a fat, bald, white man sitting on a metal chair next to a Formica table. He kept looking at the floor, shaking his head, looking frightened. Finally, he opened his eyes wide, and sweat poured out of him.

I pulled up a chair and parked in front of him. Mr. Lynch, tell me what happened.

He was silent for a while, gathering his thoughts and trying to figure out how he was going to spin the story without looking like a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard. His eyes darted around the room, trying to find a white face, but there were just the two of us.

I told those kids to get off my stoop, he said.

Some of the witnesses said you insulted the kids, called them dirty niggers.

No, I didn’t say that. He was shaking.

Those kids didn’t want to get off your stoop. They put out cigarettes and dirtied up your steps. You’re the one who had to clean up after them. I could see that you’d get angry, I said.

Sure, I was upset, but I never called them names. I just sprayed them with the hose to make them leave.

You mean you didn’t say anything to these kids? You just sprayed them with water? I scrunched up my face to indicate I wasn’t buying what he was selling.

That’s the honest truth. I might have told them to get off my stoop, but I didn’t call anybody a dirty nigger. He was sticking to his story. I let him stew for a while.

I went to the living room. Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan was an impressive man, 6’ tall and muscular. He had been on the police force for New York City for seventeen years. I read his jacket before coming to the crime scene. He had been involved in two shootings: one of a man trying to push him off a roof, and the other of a man trying to loot a car in front of his building. Last month, he prevented a suicide from jumping off a building, and he had gone into a burning building and saved women and two children from burning to death. He gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to victims of the fire. How did this tragedy come about, I wondered.

I sat opposite him in a comfortable chair. He was sitting on the edge of the sofa. He wasn’t nervous. He knew what was coming. He’d heard about me and knew that I was a straight shooter, not a political hack trying to find a scapegoat.

Now slowly tell me what happened, I said.

I was across the street at the store when I heard the sound of broken glass. I ran outside and identified myself.

Was James Powell facing you or away from you?

He was facing me. I fired a warning shot and asked him to throw down his weapon.

You clearly saw a weapon?

Yes, sir. He had a knife. I fired the warning shot when I saw him raise the knife, but he started coming at me.

You’ve disarmed suspects before. The kid was 5’8 tall, 120 pounds soaking wet. Why didn’t you just disarm him?"

I don’t know. I felt my life was being threatened. I blocked his attack with my gun and fired another round. Then a third shot to his belly. He slumped over and went down. I called the police for backup while the crowd started to gather around the boy and me. They didn’t attack me because I was carrying a gun, and I was willing to use it.

Did you think you’d killed the boy?

I wasn’t sure. He was bleeding really badly, but I wasn’t sure.

Did you check for signs of life while you were waiting for backup? I asked.

Look at my hands. I tried to stop the bleeding, but the only thing I got was kicked in the back by one of those kids.

Okay, we’ll see about getting you out of here, but we’ll talk again.

Next time, I’ll have my rep with me, he said. You can’t use any of this. They are spontaneous utterances following a stressful situation.

Lieutenant Gilligan, I know the law, and I know that I’ve got less than forty-eight hours to put this to rest.

I asked the officer at the door to take Lt. Gilligan out the back door and home. I didn’t need to make an incendiary situation worse.

I went to the first bedroom. Clifford Harris was sitting on the bed with his hands folded in his lap. I could tell that he’d been crying. I sat down next to him.

What happened? I asked.

James got mad that the white dude hosed our friends and called them dirty niggers, and then laughed at them as they got off his stoop wet to the bone. He was going to knock some sense into the fat man. The man saw James and went inside.

Did James have a weapon? I asked.

He took a little time before answering, I don’t know.

Did James ever carry a knife?

"He was a little wild. He got caught a couple of times jumping the turnstiles to get on a train for free. He got in trouble for breaking a car window, but he was cleared. He was small but