Mac Marzara

Captain Mac Marzara is in charge of the 6th Precinct of the NYPD and is prejudiced against the gay men who are getting murdered by an unknown assailant. He is a character in NYC portrayed by Kal Penn.

Story[]

Chief Marzara advises Detective Patrick Read against seeing more in a disappearance than is there. In his 20 years of experience is that that most of the gay community of New York City came to get away and not be found.^[1]

Marzara grills Adam Carpenter about the interview he gave to Gino Barelli from The Downtown Native regarding police indifference to John Sullivan's disappearance. Patrick claims he listened to him, telling him to come back if he didn't reappear after 24 hours. DI Mulcahey is also present when a a large man dressed only in a cowboy hat, a necklace, and a jockstrap enters the room and slaps Adam out of his chair. Since Adam won't recant his statement, they throw him in a cell. Days later, Marzara shows Patrick six severed hands dangling from a cord, each from a different victim at a new crime scene.^[2]

Marzara and Read are frustrated by the dead end their investigations are leading to. Stewart's accusations against rich art dealer Sam do not hold up and the sex dungeon does not conform to the room described by Gino Barelli.^[3]

Another victim is found. Hans Henkes is found in his bedroom after several days in a state of decomposition accelerated by the heat. Skin lesions and cat bites complicate the obvious markers. Hans' partner Daniel Kanowicz is arrested as a suspect, although Patrick is as much against his guilt as he is against Hans as a victim of the Mai Tai Killer. Marzara and Mulchaey express their irritation at Patrick who first sees a connection between victims and now asserts the opposite. Marzara calls Patrick into his office to confront him about Gino, and accuses him of leaking the investigation details. Patrick confirms to his captain that he is a gay man, but that he is also a decorated officer. The power goes out, and Marzara tells his detective to go out and keep the peace.^[4]

Marzara is angered by an article in the Downtown Native in which Patrick revealed how he captured and stopped the Mai Tai Killer—a nurse and veteran named Whitely—after Patrick, Barelli and another man were kidnapped by the murderer, and how he cast a bad light on the precinct by depicting them as incompetent at their job. Marzara recognizes the narrow-mindedness of some of their colleagues, and asks Patick to help him improve the situation. Patrick, however, does not want to listen to him, saying that if Marzara really wants to improve he should reopen unsolved cases such as "a poor teenage boy who was beat half to death in the Bronx; A couple who were kissing in public and got pelted with bricks in the street; Assholes who turned up with baseball bats to a private party and smashed the place up, and the arson at the Ascension Club." He leaves the office, leaving Marzara pondering his actions.^[5]

Personality and Appearance[]

Mac Marzara is the Captain of the 6th Precinct of the New York Police Department and as such is a man of strong upholding law enforcement values and camaraderie. He is dismissive of homophobic jokes directed at victims and later even to members of his own team, ie Detective Patrick Read. ^[4] Marzara comes across as a man disillusioned by crime having worked for twenty years as a police officer and in an attempt to save the face of his precinct, even willing to have Patrick lead the precinct in improving its approaches to minorities such as the gay community.^[5]