Fishtown: A Jack Regan/Izzy Ichowitz Novel

by Neal Goldstein

  She looked down the Schuylkill River to the skyline of Center City Philadelphia. It was time for her to change locations. Maybe it would shake her out of the melancholy funk she was in. She decided to rent the apartment over the coffee shop on Frankford Avenue in Fishtown. She liked the gritty and hip feel of the neighborhood. She read the card the creepy real estate agent had given her, “Fishtown Realty, Jerome Kastanski.” He told her he would give her a month -to -month lease for the place. She didn’t appreciate how the man had invaded her personal space when he walked her through the apartment, bumping into her and patting her on the back. She almost gagged when he breathed his bad breath in her face. It was a shame she was using her college kid persona or else she would have seriously hurt him when he intimated that she could have the place for a super discount if she went out on a date with him.

  Chapter 3

  Fishtown is roughly defined by the triangle of streets between the Delaware River, Frankford Avenue and York Street, not that anyone actually cared about the boundaries, at least not before the neighborhood became the signature destination for hip artists, even hipper restaurateurs and the young professional crowd who followed them. Now home owners in blocks adjacent to the traditionally recognized boundaries fight to have their properties designated within the golden triangle. The difference between a West Kensington row house listing and a comparable property in Fishtown, a block or two away, could run as high as several hundred thousand dollars.

  According to legend, Fishtown got its name back in the day when it was the center of the Shad Fishing Industry on the Delaware River. In the 18th and early 19th century, enterprising German American families cornered the market by buying fishing rights on both sides of the river all the way north to Trenton and south to Cape May. The Shad Fishing Industry is long gone, and most folks believe the neighborhood was so named because of the distinctive smell of fish that had been left to rot on the banks of the Delaware River at the foot of Frankford Avenue.

  The Germans who originally settled the area were followed by waves of Polish and Irish immigrants who later sought their fortunes in America. Today many of the descendants of these immigrants, several generations removed, still reside in the row houses crammed into the narrow streets that intersect the Frankford Avenue business district. These long-time residents, many of whom are police, firefighters, tradesmen, and Teamsters now share their streets with a smattering of lawyers and artists, and other assorted yuppies in a somewhat tentative détente.

  Some enterprising developer targeted the vacant lot at Shackamaxon Street and Delaware Avenue, across from Penn Treaty Park, for luxury condominiums. Penn Treaty Park, a lonely stretch of grass with a few scraggly trees and a plaque denoting its historical significance, is sandwiched between vacant warehouses and piers and the new slots’ casino parking lot. According to local lore, the park is the location where the Quaker, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, who made his way to the ‘New World’ to escape religious persecution, first made land and purchased from the Lenape Indians what would eventually become the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

  McKinney Brothers, the sub-contractor hired to prepare the Shackamaxon site for construction, dispatched their surveyors and heavy equipment operators to clear the lot of debris and excavate the surface for the new high rise building’s foundation. The front-end loader operator assigned to clear the northwest corner of the lot, jumped out of the cab of his vehicle when his shovel unearthed a gruesome find. As he screamed for help and frantically gestured for attention the rest of the crew stopped their work. When the hum of activity ceased, Bob McKinney stepped out of the double wide trailer that served as the construction office to find out why operations had come to a halt.

  He quickly made his way over to the operator, who was now surrounded by his co-workers. McKinney removed the unlit cigar stub from his mouth, “What the fuck…”

  He stopped in mid rant as he gaped at the skeletons in the trench near the blade of the front-end loader that were lying side by side holding one another’s hands.

  “Holy shit!”

  In less than an hour, the construction site had been transformed into an active crime investigation scene. The laborers and heavy equipment operators had been replaced with police officers, crime scene technicians and assorted personnel from the Medical Examiner’s Office. The entire site was cordoned off with the bright yellow Crime Scene tape; the construction trailer was designated the command center. McKinney and his crew were herded across Delaware Avenue to the park awaiting permission to return to their excavation work. The crew’s chances of returning to the job any time soon were almost as good as the return of the Lenape Indians or hitting a jackpot at the slots parlor.

  One of the construction workers uploaded the video from his smart phone that showed the remains of the four full and partial skeletons, hands interlocked, and concluding with McKinney’s closing “Holy Shit” remark on YouTube. Within 10 minutes there were over five thousand hits. The viral video attracted an army of newspaper reporters and their TV and radio counterparts to the crime scene. Helicopters normally used for traffic reports flew over the area trying to obtain footage for their afternoon broadcasts. The resulting dust swirls created by the low hovering helicopters rendered the aerial shots completely useless. Except for the Hooters billboard, it looked like a war zone in Afghanistan or Iraq.

  Larry Jackson, Chief of Homicide was the officer in charge. He was an imposing figure, at six feet three, one hundred ninety-five pounds of muscle. He still looked capable of filling in at linebacker for Temple University, where he had played for the Owls twenty years before. Jackson gave the Medical Examiner the okay to remove the remains after being assured that the bodies were not part of a pre-colonial burial site or of any other archeological significance. He watched as the technicians photographed every inch of the trench and sifted through the dirt and debris, filling plastic evidence bags with soil and parts of clothing and other objects they had uncovered as the cadaver dogs sat on their haunches awaiting their handlers’ direction to search for more buried remains.

  “Captain, Mr. McKinney is rather insistent that he be allowed to get his men back to work. What should I tell him?” one of his detectives asked.

  Jackson smiled, “I suppose I should let him know his men won’t be returning to their jobs anytime today. You know I used to delegate those sensitive assignments to Izzy. He used a Yiddish term that I think meant compassion whenever he had to convey bad news.”

  Jackson thought about Ichowitz as he waited for his detective to escort the construction manager across the six lanes of Delaware Avenue. Ichowitz had been Jackson’s ‘rabbi’ when Jackson was assigned to Homicide. Larry Jackson was the first African American detective to achieve this prestigious assignment; Ichowitz had been the first Jew. According to Ichowitz they were ‘mishpocheh’, the Yiddish term for family, and clearly had each other’s back. Thinking about Ichowitz reminded Jackson that there was something about the crime scene that bothered him that he could not quite grasp. Something his instincts told him Izzy would be able to figure out.

  Jackson walked over to the trench where the bodies had been discovered and watched as Louis Delgado, MD, the Chief Medical Examiner and his assistant supervised the removal of the remains.

  “Anything of interest you’re willing to share?”

  The M.E. shielded his eyes from the sun’s rays that shone over the detective’s shoulder. “There’s something weird about this,” Delgado replied.

  “Weirder than skeletons holding hands?”

  Delgado nodded. Jackson waited.

  “Those two,” Delgado said as he pointed at the two bodies closer to the south end of the trench were buried much later than the other two.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “From the condition of the remains; the other two are significantly more degraded than those two. See?” he pointed at the interlocked hands of two
of the skeletons. The difference in the condition of the skeletons became immediately apparent.

  Jackson nodded. “Can you tell how much later those two were buried here?”

  Delgado shook his head, “Not until we get everything back to the lab and do forensics.”

  “Any guess?” Jackson pressed.

  Delgado took a deep breath as he considered his response. “Dunno, could be 10 or 20 years, maybe longer. Like I said we need to do forensics, but it’s weird. Don’t ya think?”

  Jackson watched as the M.E. supervised the careful removal of the bodies. Christ, just what I need, a fucking mystery, he thought. Four skeletons buried in a vacant lot, two of which had been buried 10 or 20 years after the first two. How the hell could that be?

  Chapter 4

  They were sitting on the sofa in their living room listening to Miles Davis’ classic Blue and Green, one of Jack’s favorite albums. “Why can’t we just get in the car and drive down to that place you mentioned and get married?”

  “Elkton Maryland?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You know we can’t do that.”

  Kate O’Malley who had emigrated from Ireland with her son Liam had only planned on staying in the states with her uncle for a month or two until she figured out a more permanent plan to dissuade her son’s father’s family from taking the boy to Northern Ireland. All of that changed when she met and fell in love with Jack Regan.

  She was 18 years old when Michael Flynn the star player on one of Ireland’s premier football teams swept her off her feet. She didn’t know until after she found out she was pregnant that Flynn was also a member of one of the most notorious criminal families in the UK. The Flynns watched out for their own and wanted the boy, with or without his mother, to live in Belfast where they could be sure he was safe and could eventually be taught their ways.

  Nine years later, she still looked like the comely lass who tended bar at the family pub in Dublin. Her hair was the fading scarlet color of Red Maple leaves in autumn and her light green eyes that sparkled with intelligence, were a killer combination that lured many a suitor before a single word had been spoken.

  She realized the current battle of wills she was waging with Jack’s mother over the wedding arrangements had put him in an extremely uncomfortable position. Kate’s uncle explained that Jack’s mother’s family came from the equivalent of the gentry back in Ireland. Adding the Regan family’s public profile to that rendered the marriage of their youngest son an event that required something worthy of a spread on the society pages of the local newspapers. “Trust me sometimes ya have ta go with the flow. The Regans are good folks. Let them put on their show.”

  She turned to him and said, “Liam told me he’s in favor of a big wedding.”

  He gave her a skeptical look, “He did?”

  She laughed and moved closer and gently moved the lock of hair from his forehead, “Yeah, I think your mother bribed him with a trip to Disneyland or somethin. Anyways, I’ve been givin considerable thought to the matter,” she paused and took his hands in hers. “I don’t want my relationship with your family to start off on the wrong foot.”

  “I love my family, but this is our wedding. What do you want to do?”

  She gave him a mischievous smile, “Let’s agree to the big wedding your folks want, but there is one thing though.”

  She could see the relief on his face. “What?”

  She patted the baby bump that was just beginning to show and said, “I don’t want to put the wedding off too long and look like I’m about ta have our baby as I’m waddling down the aisle.”

  He laughed and took her in his arms.

  “We can call my mother in the morning and let her know that Liam convinced us a big wedding is the way to go. That way we can let her think she out maneuvered us and give all the credit to the boy,” Jack said.

  After putting up an initial fuss, Jack’s mother surrendered and agreed the wedding would be in 6 weeks. She enlisted the entire family to assist her in making the impossible happen on schedule. His sister Annie would help Kate get the gown. His father pulled the strings necessary to get the Basilica for the wedding ceremony and the Four Seasons hotel across the street from the church for the reception. His twin sisters handled the invitations. Two wedding planners were at his mother’s beck and call to run interference with the caterer, the florist, the music and the thousands of details that needed to be addressed to make sure the wedding went off without a hitch.

  All Jack had to take care of was his and Liam’s tuxedos. Even Izzy did his part by working diligently with his therapist so that he would be ready to walk down the aisle and stand next to Jack without a cane.

  Before he knew it everything was in place and the wedding was less than 48 hours away. Jack could finally relax.

  Chapter 5

  Howard Keel, SAC of the FBI Philadelphia office shook his head as he hung up the phone. He looked out the glass partition that separated his office from the agents and waived for Special Agent Rico Valdez.

  “What’s up boss?” Valdez asked as he entered.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but I just got a call from the Assistant Director. It appears that our friends from Langley need our assistance with their guests at Gitmo.”

  “Nooris and Rabinowitz?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought the Agency was the expert in extracting intell. Did they run out of water or something? ” he asked with a shake of his head.

  “Apparently the two internees want to cooperate in a very high level matter. However, they insist that Jack Regan and Detective Ichowitz be brought in to assure that the Justice Department honors whatever commitment the spooks have offered them.”

  Valdez didn’t attempt to conceal his skepticism. “Why Regan and Ichowitz?”

  “I don’t get it either but the big mahoffs in DC and Langley are calling the shots so we need to make arrangements with Mr. Regan and the detective. I’m told time is of the essence. Can you get hold of Mr. Regan?”

  “Boss, I think we have a slight problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Jack Regan’s getting married on Saturday.”

  “Shit, I completely forgot about that. But if I got the message from the Assistant Director straight, this involves a matter of national security of the highest order.” He drummed his fingers on his desk as he considered his options. After a few moments, he looked up at his agent and said, “I’m afraid Mr. Regan may have to alter his plans.”

  Within the hour Valdez had located Police Commissioner John Regan at the Grape Tavern in Manayunk. Mike O’Malley was hosting a dinner for the families of the bride and groom. The commissioner’s driver approached him, whispered in his ear and nodded in the direction of the FBI agent standing at the door.

  “Commissioner, sorry to interrupt your party, but my boss needs to speak with you,” Valdez handed him his cell phone.

  After listening for a few moments Regan said, “Really?” He looked annoyed as he listened some more, “Tell your people to meet us at the PAB in an hour.”

  “What’s wrong?” Patricia Regan could tell from her husband’s reaction to the call that there must be something going on that upset him.

  “Don’t worry, everything’s OK, but duty calls. Jack and I need to attend an emergency meeting. Catch a ride home with Annie OK?”

  His parent’s exchange caught Jack by surprise and he shook his head in response to Katey’s questioning look.

  When they got in the car he asked, “Dad what’s going on?”

  The senior Regan told him that Nooris wanted Jack and Izzy to authenticate some deal they had brokered with the federal authorities. He phoned Ichowitz, filled him in and asked him to meet them at the Police Administration Building.

  After a few moments of silence, while Jack thought over what his fathe
r had disclosed, he said, “I must be missing something. Why does Nooris want Izzy and me to verify the deal? Except for questioning him as part of a murder investigation, I had very little contact with him before I happened upon the robbery at the Barnes Foundation last July; and he tried to kill Izzy for God’s sake! Why would he choose to trust us with something this important?”

  “I guess we’ll find out when we hear what the feds have to say,” the commissioner replied.

  Jack, his father and Ichowitz were already waiting in the commissioner’s conference room when their visitors arrived. Howard Keel along with Special Agent Rico Valdez, Robert Linkletter, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and a man introduced to them as “Mr. K” were ushered into the room.

  “Commissioner, thanks for arranging this meeting,” Keel began. “Mr. Regan, sorry to intrude on your wedding plans, and Detective Ichowitz, I appreciate your coming here as well. Believe me, were this not a matter of critical consequence to our national security we would never have bothered either of you. What we are about to tell you is subject to the highest security obligations required under the Patriot Act. Gentlemen you are not authorized to disclose anything you hear to anyone outside this room, under any circumstances, do you understand?”

  They nodded.

  “Mr. K, please explain to these gentlemen why we asked them to meet with us.”

  The mysterious visitor who had been identified only by an initial radiated an aura of violence without any outward movement. His eyes narrowed as he looked across the table at them.