Gravesend

by J. L. Abramo

  When he is done with the confessionals, he carries the envelope into Father Donovan’s office. Donovan is out of town attending an ecumenical council meeting. Eddie places the envelope on Donovan’s desk, alongside the mail that had arrived that morning. The priest could deal with all of it when he returned from Albany on Wednesday evening.

  Eddie locks up before leaving, climbs into his car, and rushes home to dinner with his wife and children.

  Murphy finds the address on 47th Street in Sunset Park. He had thought of calling for backup. Then he remembered that everyone else was out looking for a nondescript car that might belong to a nondescript multiple murderer, so he decided to rough it alone. Murphy drives past the house, parks up the street near 4th Avenue, and walks back.

  The doorbell is answered by a lanky man in his late twenties. He greets Murphy with a smile.

  “Victor Sanders?” Murphy asks.

  “That would be my brother,” the man says. “Are you another bill collector?”

  “Not exactly. Is your brother at home?”

  “I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Vic left town yesterday morning. To look for work. He said something about Philadelphia.”

  “Any idea where in Philadelphia?”

  “Nope. Though I suppose I’ll find out sooner or later—he’ll be looking for a handout.”

  “If you do, would you give me a call,” says Murphy, handing the man a card. “It’s important I speak with him.”

  “Detective Murphy? Has Victor done something wrong?”

  “It concerns drugs that went missing from Lutheran.”

  “Vic says he didn’t take the drugs.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Hey, he’s a fuckup, but he’s my brother. I have to believe him.”

  “Do you,” says Murphy, not really a question. He is thinking about his own brother, Michael. “Listen, if you hear from your brother tell him that the drugs may have been involved in the murder of two boys. Tell Victor that if he can help us, we can help him.”

  Murphy caught something in the man’s eyes when he mentioned the word murder. He is about to ask for some identification when the man shoves the front door into Murphy’s body, knocking the stunned detective to the ground.

  Sanders races off toward 4th Avenue.

  Murphy jumps up and takes off after Victor Sanders.

  Brother. Fuck.

  At 4th Avenue, Murphy spots Sanders on the opposite side heading toward the subway station. He negotiates the busy avenue, dodging a bus in the process. Murphy can hear the R train rumbling below the street. He watches Sanders take the stairs down to the 45th Street platform.

  At the subway entrance, Murphy has to snake his way through the crowd of commuters coming up. When he reaches the platform, he see the doors of the subway cars close and the train jerk to a start and pull out of the station.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Murphy pulls out his cell phone, a futile thought that he can call ahead to 36th Street. He gets no signal from the phone.

  Worthless piece of shit.

  Murphy runs back up to the street. His car is two blocks away. The phone will work up here, but the chance of catching Sanders at 35th or even Pacific Street are slim. And there’s no way of knowing where the fuck will get off the train. For a moment, Murphy considers hailing a cab. As usual, there is never a taxi when you need one.

  Instead, Murphy calls in an APB on Victor Sanders, mumbles motherfucker under his breath, and walks back to his car.

  Lorraine DiMarco is ready to call it a day. A shitty day. As she gets into her overcoat, her office desk phone rings.

  “How did it go, sweetheart.”

  “I’ve spent all afternoon trying to visualize how it might have gone worse, Dad,” says Lorraine. “No luck. How did it go with Frank Sullivan?”

  “What are you doing for dinner?”

  “I haven’t given it much thought, why?”

  “There’s something that I want to talk with you about. Your mother is at one of her functions at St. Mary’s and I thought you and I could have supper together.”

  “Sure. Want to go out?”

  “There’s enough leftover lasagna here to feed the Italian Army, how about that?”

  “Okay, as long as you let me eat it cold from the refrigerator,” Lorraine says. “I’ll be over at seven.”

  Lorraine walks down to the bus stop for the ride back to her apartment. She wonders what her father has to talk with her about. She wonders if she will have the courage to talk with him about a certain medical test, only thirty-nine hours away.

  Lou Vota questions the woman who Murphy had spoken with two days earlier.

  “Signora Valenti,” Vota says, hoping that the use of Italian might garner more thoughtful cooperation. “You described the vehicle to Detective Murphy as gray or green, please try to remember. È importante.”

  “Grigio. Chiaro,” she says.

  “Light gray, bene,” says Vota. “Sportelli?”

  “Quattro.”

  “Four doors, are you certain?”

  “Credo di si,” she says. “I think so.”

  “Good enough. Per favore, Signora, tell me everything else you can remember about the car.”

  The woman tells Vota that she saw the car parked on West 11th Street at the southwest corner at Avenue S on the day the Ventura boy was discovered. She had never seen such a car in the neighborhood before. She remembers the car because of the terrible damage to the rear on the passenger side, and the child seat in back on the same side. She has no clue as to the make or model, only that it was large and looked American. She did not see the license plates.

  Not much, but the best anyone has come up with near the Ventura murder scene after nearly five hours of walking and talking through the area.

  Vota can’t believe that the killer carried the boy from a car on 11th to the apartment building a block away, along Avenue S in broad daylight, without being seen by someone. He is sure that the killer must have driven into the alley alongside the building, carried the boy up the rear fire escape to the empty apartment, unlocked the door from inside, left the building and moved the vehicle.

  Then the killer would have walked back to the building and calmly entered the apartment, unnoticed.

  Vota is beginning to believe that they are searching for an invisible man.

  Vota decides to call it quits, at least for the day, and heads back to the 61st Precinct.

  When Vota walks into the Homicide squad room, Lieutenant Samson is on the telephone.

  “Okay, enough Tommy,” Vota hears Samson say. “Don’t beat yourself up. Go home.”

  Samson places the receiver in its cradle.

  “What was that?” Vota asks.

  “Tommy made the guy who may have lifted the drugs from Lutheran,” says Samson. “The suspect ditched him. We’ve got an APB out. Any luck?”

  Vota tells Samson what little he learned from talking with Signora Valenti.

  Samson fills Vota in on what he learned on the Addams case.

  “Someone I spoke to saw a car parked on Avenue I that he’d never seen before,” says Samson, “not far from where the milk truck was found. A light gray Oldsmobile, four-door sedan. He thinks it was a mid-eighties model. It was sometime after three, Sunday morning. The car had a smashed quarter-panel, passenger side.”

  “Bingo. Anything on the plates?”

  “No. Only that he’s pretty sure they were New York, and he noticed a bumper sticker. Baby on Board.”

  “That’s something at least.”

  “It’s really not very much help, Lou. Only another indication that the same perp did both boys. And we didn’t need one. We’ll put it out to all of the precincts; have them stop and check anything that fits the description, and piss off a lot of citizens.”

  “What now?” asks Vota.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to Douglaston to see if my kids remember me.”

  “Well, get going. I’ll call
in the all-points on the Oldsmobile.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, after my meeting with the detective from the 68th. Don’t forget to be here for Ivanov,” says Samson, grabbing his coat.

  Vota calls in the description of the suspect vehicle to Central Dispatch.

  “Are you joking, Sergeant? We’ll be stopping half the cars in Brooklyn.”

  Vota assures the dispatcher that he is dead serious.

  Vota phones Lorraine. Her machine picks up the call. He scoops up his overcoat and heads home to Red Hook.

  He sits at his kitchen table over a bowl of chili. He is feeling better today. He feels certain he has found the man who killed his boy. He feels so good, in fact, that he has taken the time to heat the chili. As opposed to eating it, as he often did, straight from the can. The bread is a week old.

  On his way back home, he noticed a For Sale sign on the lawn of a house not far from the Territo residence.

  The house sat on a large corner lot, across from the high school. The place looked unoccupied and would be fairly dark and quiet after school hours. He decides he will check it out more closely the next day.

  He places the empty bowl into the sink and runs hot water into it.

  He takes a bottle of Scotch into the boy’s room, and with it his Bible.

  He sits on the floor of his son’s bedroom.

  And reads.

  And drinks.

  Battling sanity.

  FOURTEEN

  Serena goes with basic black. She arrives at the Graziano Funeral Home at six-thirty, thirty minutes before the showing is scheduled to begin. She is banking that the boy’s parents had spent the afternoon at the wake and were taking a dinner break before the evening hours begin. She is hanging from her thumbs and thinking on her toes.

  Serena explains that she is one of Billy Ventura’s grade-school teachers, that she has a PTA meeting at seven and wants to see the boy one last time. She claims it may be her only opportunity. A Graziano son reluctantly shows her into the empty viewing room.

  Serena moves quickly to the casket and kneels before it. The door closes behind her host, who is off to prepare for the evening visitors. She stares at the boy’s small arms, one small hand covering the other. Serena takes a self-conscious glance behind her, confirms that she is alone, and lifts the boy’s arm at the wrist; holding on to what she is fairly confident is the sleeve of the boy’s first dress suit. His First Holy Communion suit.

  The small finger of the boy’s right hand is missing. Serena gasps, unsure of how loud a sound she has made.

  She carefully replaces the one hand over the other.

  Serena takes a long, hard look at her work. As sure as she is that she has succeeded in masking the damaged hand, she cannot help seeing it. She is certain that she will continue to see it for a long time. She hears a sound at the door behind her and collects herself. Serena rises and turns to the door as the Graziano son walks in.

  “The parents called, they’re on their way,” he says. “If you could wait ten minutes, you might catch them.”

  “I wish I could,” she says. “I’ll try my best to get back here before ten.”

  Serena walks past the man, leaves the room and the building. She has done something terrible. She has done something remarkable.

  She is ashamed and excited at the same time.

  Serena Huang believes that she has finally grabbed hold of a ticket to the big show.

  Tony Territo sits at the dinner table watching his family eat. Barbara has prepared grilled salmon, fresh broccoli rabe with lemon juice and garlic, and a salad of romaine and tomatoes. She has made every effort to avoid oil and fat and cholesterol.

  Anthony Jr. will have none of it, and instead gnaws on a large cheeseburger reheated in the microwave.

  Brenda, who believes that teenage girls should look like something from the streets of Bombay, sits staring into space.

  Barbara is fishing hunks of garlic from the serving bowl.

  Tony Territo has lost his appetite.

  “Is the dinner okay?” his wife asks.

  “It’s fine,” he says.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “What could be wrong?”

  Frank Sullivan has been standing outside the door of Levine’s Liquor Store for an hour, debating whether or not to enter.

  Finally Sully walks in, grabs a bottle of inexpensive red wine from a shelf, and carries it to the counter.

  “Did you hear about Annie?” Levine asks as he rings up the sale and bags the wine.

  “What about Annie?” Sully asks.

  “She threw herself in front of a train,” Levine says.

  Sully walks quickly out the door.

  “You forgot the wine,” Levine calls after him.

  Frank Sullivan hears nothing.

  Samson helps Alicia with the supper dishes. The girls are preparing for bed, with all of the teeth brushing, hand washing, pajama locating and general procrastination that the nightly ritual entails.

  “I’m sure you told me,” he says, “but where is Jimmy?”

  “Basketball practice. He’ll be home any minute.”

  “Is he free Friday night?”

  “For what?”

  “To babysit the girls, I thought that we could go out for dinner, maybe a movie.”

  “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the occasion?” Alicia asks, knowing full well.

  “German Unification Day,” says Samson, poker-faced.

  “Well, then, absolutely. Let’s ask the boy as soon as he gets back.”

  As if on cue, Jimmy Samson bops into the kitchen.

  “Listen. I was thinking,” says Jimmy. “If you guys wanted to get out on Friday night for Valentine’s Day, I could stay home and watch the girls.”

  “Sure, that would be great,” says Samson, catching the conspiratorial glance between mother and son.

  And loving it.

  Unable to find Lorraine at home or at her office, Vota decides to visit his mother’s sister in Bensonhurst. Of course, his aunt insists he join them for dinner.

  “How is Lorraine?” asks his Aunt Donna, as she sets the after-supper cake and coffee on the table. Donna has taken to mothering Lou ever since his mother passed away.

  “Very well and very busy,” Vota says.

  “When are you going to make an honest woman of her?” asks his Uncle Alfredo.

  “Lorraine is the most honest person I have ever known,” says Vota, suppressing a laugh.

  His aunt shakes her head over her husband’s lack of finesse. Lou and Donna exchange smiles, they both realize that Alfredo means well. He is an old-timer. Born in the old country, he has so little knowledge of American custom.

  “What I meant was, when are you two lovebirds going to tie the knot?” Al asks. Clueless.

  “Actually,” Vota admits, more for the benefit of his aunt, “I’ve been thinking about asking her soon, you know, with Valentine’s Day coming up.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a special holiday,” says Vota’s aunt, surprising him. “You’ll know when the time is right.”

  “What’s Valentine’s Day?” asks his uncle.

  Detective Murphy sits on a wood stool at Joe’s Bar and Grill on Avenue U. Murphy is working on a large plate of steamed mussels from the kitchen, a glass of bourbon and a mug of beer nearby to wash them down.

  Augie Sena is behind the bar, hobbling back and forth, his leg in a tall cast. A relentless workaholic, Augie was back behind the bar less than four weeks after a collision with a keg of Budweiser.

  “When is it coming off?” asks Murphy, trying to read the array of graffiti scribbled on the cast. “Stand still a minute. What did Mendez write there?”

  “I’ve been assured it will be off before the baseball season ends. I’d like to tear the fucking thing off right now. I’ve got an itch down there that’s driving me insane. Mendez wrote: Plastered again. Rey thinks that if he can come
up with really bad puns, people will forget that he was born in Puerto Rico. Landis wrote: Let thee who is without sin, stone the first cast. So people will forget that he was born in Gravesend.”

  “Try a wire coat hanger,” says Murphy, “for the itch.”

  “So, do you have a hot date lined up for Friday night, Tommy?” Sena asks, trying to move on.

  “What’s Friday?” says Murphy.

  “So, Joe Campo called me less than an hour after I spoke with him and said that he could give Frank Sullivan work at the store,” says Sal DiMarco, finishing the story.

  “That’s great, Dad,” says Lorraine, helping herself to another healthy slab of cold lasagna.

  “Tomorrow I’ll try to find Sully and tell him the news. I think he’ll go for it.”

  “Do you need any help getting the basement ready?”

  “No. I cleaned up some this afternoon. It’s ready. It’s a nice little apartment.”

  “It’s a great little apartment,” says Lorraine. She had used the rooms herself, while she attended law school at Queens.

  “There’s salad in the refrigerator,” says Sal.

  “This is good,” says Lorraine. “I have to get going soon.”

  “Wait for your mother; she should be back any minute. We’ll have coffee.”

  “Sure,” says Lorraine, unable to say no.

  But the longer she sits there the more difficult it is to keep quiet. And finally she lets go.

  “Tell me,” says Sal, taking his daughter’s hand.

  Bobby Hoyle has been moved to another cell.

  All ten inmates from Bobby’s former cell had signed a petition. They wanted to be able to watch the Islanders game on TV. They didn’t want Bobby back in with them.

  The inmate who attacked Hoyle remained unconscious.

  Bobby sits on his cot, tormented, unable to believe that all of this happened because he went out that night, because he couldn’t get through one single night without a cigarette.