Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder by O'Reilly Bill

Author:O'Reilly, Bill [O'Reilly, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2004-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

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19

LONG ISLAND

NOVEMBER 1994

Tommy O’Malley was in what he called “a black mood”—an emotional condition that visits some Irishmen often, but troubled Tommy only occasionally. The depression’s cause was his unanswered phone call to Ashley Van Buren earlier that morning. Tommy suspected she was visiting Shannon Michaels, whom he was to question in person later that day.

A man of force and action, Tommy did not like feeling out of control. But his thoughts about Ashley were now becoming incessant, and uncontrollable. He knew he was falling in love. Worse yet, he suspected his feelings might be unrequited.

Tommy was also distressed over progress in the GNN case. At least on paper, David Wayne was suspect number one, but he was still missing. According to a computer check, he had rented a car from Hertz for a full month. Tommy had sent a heads-up to police in the five states closest to New York saying that Wayne was wanted for questioning in a murder case. Wayne, he hoped, would get pulled over on some interstate. But nothing with him had yet materialized.

While not discounting Wayne, Tommy knew that Shannon Michaels had good reason to despise both Ron Costello and Hillary Ross. But, he asked himself, is my negative bias toward Michaels born out of jealousy? The very question made him angry.

Three goddamn murders. One missing suspect. What else can happen? Tommy thought. Oh I know: by the middle of next week, I’ll be as bald as Michael Jordan.

Disgusted with feeling sorry for himself, Tommy shifted his thoughts to his immediate environment. The Sunday morning traffic was light as he drove east from Manhattan toward the suburban enclave of Levittown, where he would visit his mother. Growing up, Tommy had had no idea that he lived in a ghetto. Levittown was a huge subdivision of identical, cheaply made houses sold en masse to veterans returning from World War II. Tommy’s neighborhood was a mixture of Italians, Jews, and Irish—all of whom had one thing in common: not much money. Dermot O’Malley, Tommy’s father, had been a New York City fireman. Providing for a family of five had exhausted every cent Dermot O’Malley ever earned. Luxuries did not exist in the O’Malley household. Life was very basic.

In hindsight, Tommy thought that Levittown closely resembled both the Bronx and Brooklyn—only with lawns instead of apartment stoops, and a few more open spaces. Whites had begun leaving the outer boroughs of New York City around 1950, when greedy real estate agents, called blockbusters, started buying apartment buildings in mostly white working class neighborhoods. Turn of the century buildings were then subdivided, often illegally, and rented to minority families. A building that had housed four poor Irish families, for example, was now home to eight poor black families.

Overcrowding then caused the buildings to deteriorate, and callous real estate owners often failed to provide repairs. Faced with a declining neighborhood infrastructure and influenced by inherited racial prejudice, many whites panicked. They began moving out to the suburbs in large numbers, lowering property values drastically.

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