by Ray Green
‘So, what’s happening then, Don?’ asked Mark, after taking a first sip of his beer.
Don’s already-furrowed features creased up even further and his tired-looking, grey eyes drooped as he gave a slight shake of his head. ‘It’s a real puzzle, Mark,’ he said running the fingers of his right hand back through his frizzy, grey hair and rubbing the nape of his neck.
As he didn’t seem to be about to elaborate further, Mark prompted him. ‘So, what do you know so far?’
The older man sighed. ‘Well not much really. It doesn’t look like a mugging or random killing: she had cash and credit cards in her purse, and some pretty expensive jewellery, but nothing appears to have been taken.’
Mark felt the bile rise in his throat as he recalled the horrific photograph in the autopsy report showing the diamond pendant which he had bought her for her twenty-fourth birthday, askew around her ruined, blood-soaked neck. He fought back the almost overwhelming urge to vomit.
‘You OK, Mark? You look kinda pale,’ said Don, a look of genuine concern across his face.
‘Yeah, yeah … I’m OK. Go on.’ Mark took a generous mouthful of his beer, swirling it around his mouth before allowing it to course down his throat, washing away the bitter taste lingering there, still threatening to erupt.
‘You sure? I mean you don’t look—’
‘I said I’m OK,’ shot back Mark, the words sounding much sharper than he had intended. ‘Sorry, Don … I didn’t mean to snap at you at like that. It’s just that I’m, well … I guess the whole thing’s still kind of … raw.’
The older detective laid a comforting hand on Mark’s wrist. ‘Yeah … I guess it must be. No offence taken.’
Mark gave a weak smile. ‘Thanks … anyway, you were saying?’
‘Right, so it doesn’t look to be a random mugging. Some of her co-workers at the New York Times seem to think that there’s maybe someone out there who’s got a grudge against the newspaper, but there’s absolutely no evidence of that. And even if there was someone like that, why would he’ – or she, thought Mark – ‘just pick on a relatively junior journalist? It just doesn’t make any kind of sense.’
‘Sure doesn’t,’ agreed Mark shaking his head. ‘So, what have you got?’
Don leaned forward, lowering his voice and glancing from side to side. ‘To be honest, this has all the hallmarks of a professional hit.’
No shit, Sherlock, thought Mark. He did his best to hide his disdain at the other man’s woefully inadequate detection skills. After all, he still needed to find out if Don had uncovered anything that might be useful to him.
‘Why d’you say that, Don?’
‘Look,’ he replied, looking distinctly uncomfortable, ‘I don’t think I should be sharing all the details with you. O’Reilly would have my balls for breakfast if he knew I was even talking to you about this.’
It didn’t matter. Don wouldn’t have known that Mark had already seen the graphic details in the autopsy report, including the bizarre calling card.
He felt the bile rise in his throat once more. This time the urge to vomit was almost irresistible. ‘I need to visit the men’s room,’ he blurted, rising to his feet and rushing away, barging past a couple of other customers in the process.
He didn’t make it as far as a cubicle; he just barely avoided throwing up all over the floor by diving for the wash basin nearest to the door. Thankfully, there was no-one else in the room to witness the unedifying spectacle as his stomach erupted. Still gasping for breath, he turned on the faucet and flushed the stinking mess in the basin away, finally taking a few gulps of water, before wiping his face with a paper towel. He took a couple of minutes to compose himself before returning to the table.
‘Christ, man … you look like shit,’ declared Don, upon his return. ‘You sure you don’t want to leave this whole thing for a while?’
Mark gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘I’m fine … let’s carry on. Look, I know you’re not supposed to share every detail of your investigation with me; I really appreciate you even meeting with me like this.’
Don acknowledged the comment with a nod.
‘So,’ continued Mark, ‘if Julia really was the victim of a professional assassin, the question is “Why?”, what had she possibly done to deserve such a fate?’
Don lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘She was an investigative journalist, right?’
Mark nodded.
‘So, my guess is that she was probably investigating something which someone, somewhere didn’t want investigated. I reckon she was about to expose something important and she was killed to keep her quiet.’
So, Don wasn’t quite as clueless as Mark had assumed. It was the only logical conclusion, and the one which Mark had also reached. The central question was what she had been investigating. She hadn’t shared anything about it with Mark before her death.
The most obvious place to find an answer was among the files and papers which Don had seized from the New York Times office. Frustratingly, Mark had no access to these crucial documents, so how Don would respond to his next few questions was absolutely critical.
‘I see where you’re coming from, Don. I think you’re probably onto something there.’
Don’s tragic expression lightened a little, there was even a hint of a smile.
‘So,’ continued Mark, ‘any clues as to what she might have been digging into?’
The smile – if it could be described as such – evaporated, and the gloomy visage returned. ‘Well that’s where the trail goes cold. We’ve collected all her files and papers from the New York Times office, and as far as I can see, the only thing she seemed to be working on just prior to her death was an investigation into employment of illegal immigrants in the building industry.’
Actually, Mark had been aware that Julia was working on this, but it was hardly something which was likely to provoke such dire retribution from someone intent on shutting her up. There had to be something more.
‘That’s it?’ he said.
‘Yeah I know,’ replied Don, ‘not exactly headline news that a lot of the workforce in the building industry is made up of illegals is it?’
Mark’s heart sank as he sensed another dead-end looming. In desperation he asked, ‘There must be something else … did you find anything specific which she might have been concentrating on?’
Don shrugged. ‘Well she did seem to have been looking into one particular outfit over in the Bronx … Port Morris area.’
It was a straw that he readily clutched. ‘Ah, so maybe there’s something to be learned there. What’s it called?’
‘Johnson Brothers … but I’m afraid I’ve already been to see them. It’s a rinky-dink little outfit owned by two brothers scratching a living out of small projects. I don’t doubt that some of their workers are probably illegals, but I wasn’t about to get distracted by pulling them up over that. There are plenty of much bigger companies out there doing exactly the same.’
Mark didn’t buy it: if Julia had focused on this little company, she must have had a reason. Don must have missed something important.
‘So, right now, you don’t have any good leads?’ said Mark.
Don’s droopy face drooped even more. ‘’fraid not. I’m gonna go through all Julia’s stuff again, in case we’ve missed something but, right now, I’m kinda stuck.’
Mark sensed that it was time to wrap things up. ‘OK, well, I appreciate your bringing me up to speed, Don.’
‘Sure thing.’
Mark didn’t finish his beer: his stomach still felt too delicate, but as he shook hands with his colleague outside the bar, he felt re-energised. Now he had two, potentially-promising things to work on: investigating hotels close to the hairdressing salon and figuring out what secrets Johnson Brothers Builders might hold.
The net’s closing, bitch.
Chapter 33
James and Kyle sat in the rented Toyota, surveying the dilapidated industrial unit jus
t across the street. It had been easy to find the address of Johnson Brothers on the internet: they had a pretty slick-looking website, completely at odds with the ancient, down-at heel warehouse/office block that the two men were now looking at. The drab, grey paint on the block-built walls was peeling in many places and dirty everywhere. It was punctuated with numerous rust streaks crawling down the walls from the edge of the corrugated-iron roof. There were two large, slatted roller doors: one open, one closed. The closed one probably started life as blue in colour but was now a multi-coloured graffiti fresco; the dominant inscription read ‘fuk the fuz’. The spelling left something to be desired, but the underlying sentiment was clear enough.
Their research had not managed to turn up any details of the internal layout of the building, so their plan would have to be flexible, according to what they found.
‘Ready?’ said James.
‘Uh, huh … let’s do it.’
‘OK then … I’ll give you about three minutes before I follow you in.’
The two men touched clenched fists before Kyle stepped out of the car and made his way across the street. There was no obvious sign of an office or personnel door, so he made for the large roller door at the front of the warehouse, which was open. He hesitated for a moment, but then stepped inside.
James was meant to wait for around three minutes, but when he checked his watch, time seemed to have slowed to a near-standstill as he watched the seconds tick by. One minute, one minute-thirty, one-forty-five, two minutes … Oh fuck it, I can’t wait any longer – I’m going in.
He got out of the car and made his way towards the open roller door, stepping through into a dimly lit space stacked with piles of building materials: building blocks, sheets of corrugated metal, plastic pipes, bags of cement, and more. As his eyes adjusted from the bright sunshine outside to the gloomy interior of the building, he could see a handful of guys at the far end of the room. Two of them were deep in conversation over a sheet of paper which one of them held; the rest seemed to be moving materials around. None of them paid him any attention whatsoever. He could, however, hear faint voices coming from his right. As he looked towards the source of the sound, he saw an open door; above it was a faded sign reading ‘Office’.
As he stepped through the door, he could see Kyle standing in front of a desk. Behind it, sat a young woman, chewing boredly on some gum. She wore exaggeratedly black eye makeup and bright red lipstick. Her jet-black hair was piled up on top of her head in almost a beehive style, highlighting the huge hoops which adorned her ears. Her accent was pure Brooklyn.
‘I told ya buddy … we ain’t got no vacancies right now. Truth is, we ain’t got hardly any work for the people we already got. So it don’t matter how much experience you got … we just ain’t hiring right now.’
Suddenly she noticed James’s presence. As she glanced up at him, her expression changed: she stopped chewing and gave him an inviting smile.
She turned back to Kyle. ‘Look buddy, I got a customer waiting, so why don’t you just beat it? We ain’t got no work for you, and that’s that.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Kyle, ‘… uh, can I just use your men’s room before I go?’
She laughed: a sound which could have shattered glass. ‘Men’s room? You think we got separate Men’s and Ladies’ rooms here? There ain’t no “ladies” here, anyway, and I’m the only girl.’ Her strident laugh filled the air again. ‘I just gotta make sure the door’s locked when I’m in there. Anyway, it’s through there,’ she said, pointing, ‘back into the warehouse and first on your right.’
‘Thanks for your help,’ said Kyle, his voice thick with sarcasm. He disappeared back into the warehouse.
‘Now sir, how can I help you?’ said the woman, discreetly taking the gum from her mouth and disposing of it somewhere behind her desk. She smiled, batting her long, black, false eyelashes. ‘My name’s Jessica, by the way.’
‘Well, Jessica,’ said James, drawing out his words, ‘I’ve just bought a plot of land over in Upper Montclair and I want to build a house there.’
The girl’s eyes lit up. ‘Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Why don’t you take a seat, while we go through some details?’
‘Thanks.’ He pulled up the battered, metal-framed stacking chair and sat down.
Jessica grabbed a notepad and pen. ‘Let’s get your name and contact details first.’
‘Wayne Robertson,’ he said. ‘Here’s my card.’ He handed her the false card he had printed back at the hotel.
‘Say, Wayne … I love your accent. You Australian by any chance?’
Why the fuck does nearly everyone I meet in the USA think I’m Australian? he thought.
‘No,’ he replied, smiling … ‘English.’
‘English, huh? I’d love to visit England sometime. No chance on my salary though: it barely covers my food and rent. Nothing left over for fancy holidays. Guess I gotta wait for some rich guy to take a liking to me.’
‘I’m sure you’ll get a chance one day,’ said James … ‘pretty girl like you … I mean it surely won’t be long.’ He figured that a bit of flattery might help spin the conversation out long enough to avoid exposing the gaping holes in his story.
That piercing laugh rang out again. ‘Well, ain’t you the charmer then? So how come you want to build a house here in New York City?’
‘Oh, I come here on business a lot … I hate staying in hotels, and my rented apartment – that’s the one on my card – just isn’t right for me, long term. So … I figured I’d build a house in a nice New York suburb.’
He could almost see her mentally assessing what level of wealth this English stranger might have.
‘What sort of house you got in mind?’ she said.
‘Oh, my architect’s already drawn up the plans: inside area six thousand square feet; five bedrooms, tennis court, games room, swimming pool, and a sauna.’
‘Wow! That’s quite a spread. You got a big family?’ she said, obviously fishing.
‘No, it’s just me. I like a lot of space and I want to have plenty of spare bedrooms for visitors.’
Her eyes widened a little as she moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘You know, I’d love to chat a bit more – you know, find out more about your business and so on. How about you invite me out for a drink sometime?’
Subtlety clearly wasn’t Jessica’s strong suit.
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ he said, judging that this was the best response to keep her onside.
She flashed him a broad smile. She actually was quite a pretty girl underneath all the paintwork and the downmarket hairdo.
‘Here’s my number,’ she said, scribbling it in her notebook – the first thing she had written in it since he had arrived – and tearing off a page.
‘Thanks, Jessica.’
‘Oh, you can call me Jess … all my friends do,’ she added.
She treated him to another broad smile – thankfully without the abrasive laugh this time. He was struck by what beautifully even teeth she had and their dazzlingly white tone. She might be on a pretty limited income, but he guessed she had spent a fair bit of it on dental work to achieve the perfect smile.
It’s all about priorities, he mused: dazzling smile or trip to England? Seems like she’s relying on ensnaring a rich man to achieve the latter, but I guess the perfect smile is all part of the strategy to do so. Well, whatever, I wish her luck in finding Mr Right.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘let’s get a few more details down, and then I can make an appointment for you to see Mr Johnson. He’s out on site just now, but I’m sure he’ll be very interested in this project.’
James was fast running out of bullshit. Come on Kyle – I’m out of time here.
It was as though Kyle had somehow sensed his unspoken plea. A strident whooping sound split the air.
‘Fuck it!’ exclaimed Jessica, rather shattering her professional demeanour. ‘Fire alarm. Right, we gotta get outta here right now. It’s
probably just some glitch with the system, but anyway we gotta get outside.’
***
The moment Kyle had stepped out into the warehouse he had started to look for a means of triggering the fire alarm, but he had drawn a blank. He couldn’t see any smoke detectors, even though he was sure that there must be some, somewhere in the building. What about one of those ‘break glass to activate’ manual triggers? He couldn’t see one of those either. In desperation he dived into the bathroom to which the receptionist had guided him and bolted the door behind him.
The room was filthy: greasy marks all over the greyish floor tiles; cracked white – well, once white – tiles on the walls; peeling, yellowing paint on the ceiling. When he looked into the toilet bowl itself, the tobacco-brown staining spoke of something which had not been cleaned in months – maybe years. There was no sign of any smoke detector.
He slammed down the lid of the toilet and sat down to consider his next move. On the back of the door, facing him, was a calendar; the tall, leggy model depicted wore only a tiny thong and white stilettos. She stood, legs apart, hand on hip, and enormous breasts thrust forward. Her left forefinger pulled provocatively at her lower lip as she locked her gaze onto the camera. How on earth did that girl on reception tolerate having to share these facilities with her male co-workers? Hardly relevant to the task in hand but… He banished the thought from his mind.
What to do next? To make any further progress, he’d have to venture further into the warehouse, at risk of being challenged by one of the workers there. Still, there was nothing else for it, so he unbolted the door and stepped outside.
He didn’t have to go far: as soon as he tentatively exited the bathroom and turned to his right, almost the first thing he saw was a red, glass-fronted box attached to the wall, with a small, pointed hammer hanging on a chain alongside it. Taking a brief glance all around to ensure he wasn’t being observed, he grasped the hammer and smashed the glass. Immediately, a piercing siren rent the air. He dived straight back into the bathroom to wait while everyone evacuated the building.