Sunrise Highway

by Peter Blauner

  Joey looked around the house, both hands on his pistol grip, doing the math with the current market.

  “How much is the policy for?”

  The question startled Randy as much as the slamming door. “What’s it to you?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  The elbow lowered a little, but the barrel stayed at Randy’s temple. “I don’t know. I think a million point five. I got it right before I got laid off. What’s the difference?”

  “And you’ve been keeping up with the premiums?”

  “Yeah, but I’m about to miss the next payment.”

  “Your family doesn’t get the money if you fucking kill yourself, idiot.”

  It felt good to drop the mask and speak in his real voice for a second. Randy flinched a little, like he’d just heard the feral growl of some beast in nearby bushes.

  “What’d you just say to me?”

  “Didn’t you read the fine print on your policy?” Joey readjusted his grip. “They don’t pay off on suicides within the first two years. And I bet it hasn’t been that long.”

  In his raging stupor, Randy was trying to recalculate. He looked like someone with a shellfish allergy, realizing he shouldn’t have ordered the shrimp cocktail.

  “What am I gonna do?” He wailed, face crumpling. “I can’t even think straight anymore.”

  “Just listen carefully,” Joey said, mind racing as his voice stayed even. “Lower the gun but don’t let it go.”

  Sirens were approaching in the mid-distance. Emergency Services would be here any minute to break the door down and take away his control of the situation.

  “Don’t let it go?” Randy looked confused, his barrel away from his temple and aimed uselessly at the ceiling.

  “Point it at me,” Joey said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Someone may be looking in that window right now, watching us through binoculars. The only chance you have to get that money is if I help you.”

  “By shooting me like it’s in self-defense?”

  Joey tried to get away with a subtle nod, in case anyone outside could hear them. But that wasn’t going to be enough of a cue for Randy.

  “If you want to commit suicide by cop, you wouldn’t be the first,” he said slowly. “And no one else will ever know.”

  He saw the gun rise in Randy’s hand again and then stop at his side, as he tried to think this through. “Would that even work?” he asked, hesitating.

  “I’ll make sure it gets put in the right way,” Joey said with growing urgency.

  The sirens were almost out front, and once ESU entered the house, it was all over.

  The .45 started to come up again and then stopped at Randy’s hip. “But what’s in it for you?”

  He was losing his nerve again, his natural chickenheartedness reemerging. He needed to be pushed to follow through. The sirens were right outside now, the bright emergency lights washing into the kitchen.

  “What’s in it for me? Honestly?” Joey managed a half smile. “I’m gonna screw that blond little wife of yours till she forgets your name, beat your kids like they were my own, and live off your money in your house after you’re gone.”

  “Hey, fuck you,” Randy said, as the gun finally came up with purpose.

  Joey pulled his trigger twice, striking him in the chest both times.

  Randy looked aggrieved as he dropped his gun and clapped both hands to his blossoming wounds. Like he’d just figured everything out. He fell in stages and collapsed on the floor as the crowd cheered and the announcers screamed something about Buckner letting the ball go between his legs and Mookie getting to first base. The cat stayed focused on licking up whatever remained.

  15

  AUGUST

  2017

  “Shouldn’t you be getting home to your man?” Kevin Sullivan asked. “Or are you looking for excuses to stay out on a school night?”

  “Maybe I just want to check in on my old partner.” Lourdes stuck her chin out. “What’s so funny ’bout that?”

  They were in Sullivan’s house in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, a predictably humble two-story row house among the more blatantly grand townhouses. It was the first time she’d ever been to his home—no great insult since most of the guys she worked with had never been there either. She’d been hoping to see a couple of photos of the wife and kid he spoke about so sparingly.

  “Maybe I just heard you were moving and figured you could use a hand packing up.” She leaned against a blank wall, trying to guess what kind of furniture might have been there.

  “Most everything’s in storage or at Goodwill,” he said, tearing off another strip of duct tape for a wardrobe box.

  That was Sully: wrapped up tight and self-contained. Sixty-five years in a house he’d inherited from his parents, forty years with the NYPD, and he didn’t ask a single person to help him move.

  The big man had more institutional knowledge than the Smithsonian, more street wisdom than Iceberg Slim, and—as she was given the privilege of learning in the brief time they worked together—more depth of feeling than three generations of family in a Spanish-language soap opera. But you’d need a rubber hose, third-degree lights, and a vial full of truth serum to even find out that he’d once been married.

  “But if you came by just because you wanted to talk, that’s okay too,” he said, all gruff diffidence as usual.

  “How much did you get for this place anyway?” she asked, deflecting, feeling a little reticent herself at the moment. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “A little over two, though I probably could have held out for more. Needs a new kitchen. New bathrooms. But the bones are still good and it’s just down the street from Prospect Park. Good place for someone just starting a family. Sorry you didn’t make an offer?”

  She half smiled and cast her eyes to the side. Might as well have a target on my chest. Sully getting right to the heart of the matter, as usual. That’s what you get, going to see an old-school detective first grade with something on your mind.

  “Where you moving?” she asked.

  “I got a distant cousin with a family up in Albany, says she wants to spend time with me. But who the hell knows? Sixty-five-year-old widower living in your attic? Who needs that? But at least I’m handy around the house.”

  Lourdes realized that at least half the reason she hadn’t checked in on him lately was because of her own fear. You heard too many stories of old cops who hit mandatory retirement age and were dead within a year or two. She made a mental note to see if he kept his gun unpacked and within easy reach.

  “So what’s doing with the job?” he asked.

  “That Far Rockaway thing with the body washing up on the beach?”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d be in on that.” He nodded. “Never did lack for ambition, did you?”

  Somehow it sounded more like a compliment than a dig, coming from him.

  “How’s Borrelli been on it?” he asked.

  “You know…” She let her voice trail off, no need to spell out that it would have been different if he was the one working with her. “It could be connected to a bunch of Long Island murders going back fifteen years, with bodies buried up and down Sunrise Highway.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Nassau and Suffolk County?” His bushy Irish eyebrows shot up like matching apostrophes.

  “What’s the matter? You’ve done cases out there?”

  “As infrequently as possible.” He went to an open box and fished out two lowball glasses.

  “And what’s your beef?”

  “I’m not saying there’s no good people in those departments but…”

  “But?”

  He pulled a half-empty bottle of Four Roses Single Barrel from a cabinet above the refrigerator.

  “A ninety-four percent confession rate? Gimme a break.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that?”

  “I’ll tell you wha
t’s up. They do whatever they please out there, with hardly any accountability. It’s another world. They never had a Knapp Commission to make them clean up their act. Just some kind of state investigations commission that got buried thirty years ago.”

  “And why’s that?”

  He rubbed his hands together and held up his palms, like a magician showing he had nothing up his sleeve. “No one knows. It was just on and then it was off. A woman named Martinez called me once to ask about a case I had with them and then I never heard from her again. Maybe she got taken off it, maybe she didn’t find anything. All I know is that Suffolk’s had the same district attorney for at least thirty years and he lets his little favorites in the police department do whatever they want.”

  “Wait. The DA doesn’t run the police department. They’re separate entities.”

  “Not as much as they should be out there. In the city, we work with the prosecutors, but we fight them sometimes as well. Out there it’s hand in glove. Which rarely makes anyone better at their jobs. Any case I had with them I tried to keep my distance. That ninety-four percent baloney that Long Island juries let them get away with don’t play in Brooklyn, chica.”

  It still cracked her up to hear this old Irishman with Starsky-era sideburns finally going gray talking el barrio with her. But then she looked up and saw that his old .38 Smith & Wesson service revolver was on the same shelf where the Four Roses bottle had been. He saw her looking and shut the cabinet door.

  “Yeah, well, I got at least six bodies between here and Montauk, so B.B. and me gotta work with them, the state police, and the FBI on a task force.”

  “Six?” Sullivan whistled. “Dayum, girl.”

  “Tell me about it. I was just in the Suffolk chief’s office asking if they had any other open cases and this Joseph Tolliver looked at me like I had just named him as my baby daddy.”

  “Tolliver? Name rings a bell.” Sullivan rubbed an earlobe and looked up. “He ever work in the city?

  “Not that he mentioned. In fact, he kicked us out of his office as soon as he could.”

  Though come to think of it, she’d gone out first and B.B. had lingered behind for almost a full minute with the door half-closed. Like the two big men were hanging out and having a laugh at her expense. Hard not to get an attitude.

  “Yup, that’s how they roll out there,” Sullivan said. “They’ve stopped claiming the ninety-four percent confession rate, but they’d still rather deep-six a case or shift it to another category than have anyone looking over their shoulders.”

  “Any advice on how to deal with that?”

  He poured two bourbons neat and handed her one without asking if she wanted it.

  “Save your outrage for the victims,” he said. “And the doer if you ever find him. Any leads?”

  “Not much. Our man’s slick. And sly. He changes up his approach every once in a while.”

  “What else? What are the basics? Concentrate.”

  “The victims are all women. And they’re getting darker, more isolated and vulnerable.” She swirled the liquid around in her glass without lifting it. “Most of them were working girls.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He let that breathe for a second, waiting to see if she was going to say more. She looked up to see him sitting on a radiator, draining half his drink and then resting his glass on his knee. Expectantly. Giving her room. A lot of detectives had a gift for talk. Not that many had his gift for silence.

  “So we’ve started reaching out to the local escort services—again.” She put her head back. “And you know how that goes…”

  “Yep…”

  “If they weren’t that eager to help with a personal matter, you know they’re not going to roll out the welcome mattress when it’s an official murder investigation.”

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” he said.

  “It’s just common sense. A prostitute’s not going to help a cop unless he’s paying for her time…”

  “I’m saying let’s not jump to any conclusions about your sister being involved,” he broke in. “I know that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “It’s what I’d be thinking—if I was you.”

  She rested both shoulders against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. Useless to argue. Sullivan was the first cop, besides her aunt, who she’d told about Izzy being in the wind. Even before the twenty-four hours had passed so she could call Missing Persons. He was retired nearly two years but he was still the best investigator she’d ever worked with. He took it as seriously as his own child being gone. Knocking on doors, reaching out to his contacts at the precincts and beyond, tapping into the databases, walking the streets in the middle of the night.

  It was Sully who’d generated the only viable information they had so far, finding a photo of Izzy online. A picture Lourdes herself had taken about a year before her sister disappeared. Ysabel glammed up and posing in their mother’s bedroom. Wearing a red dress that Lourdes could barely fit into herself. The formerly tubby girl smoking hot with false eyelashes and hair extensions. It pierced Lourdes to the heart, remembering how they’d been vamping it up for Izzy’s OkCupid profile. Her sister finally coming out of her shell after a lifetime of depression and bipolar delusion.

  Back in May, Sullivan had found the picture on a Sugar Daddy website based in Ronkonkoma. For younger women “seeking arrangements with older men of means.” Baby steps toward prostitution. Sully knew it was true as well. By the time they got to it, the email address Izzy had used to open the account was closed and the cell phone number she’d posted was no longer in service.

  “You think she’s dead?” Lourdes asked Sullivan, not for the first time.

  “I don’t know.”

  He’d promised he’d never lie to her.

  “But how likely is it that she’s alive if we haven’t heard anything in all this time?” Her hand tightened around the glass.

  “Don’t you think you’ve got enough riding on this case already?”

  “Can’t help myself.” She put the drink down. “How do other people stand it? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “They drink. Some of them.”

  She knew it was crazy to blame herself. But then again the whole family was crazy. Except for maybe her and Aunt Soledad. Mami in assisted living, Papi upstate, Georgie, the brother she barely knew, dead from an OD, and Izzy until recently living in a fantasy world, overeating in front of her computer and telling everyone she was going to marry either Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees.

  After the fallout had settled from the dead lawyer in the park case, Lourdes had thrown herself into a family reclamation project. Finding a facility out on the island that could handle Mami’s dementia on her benefits, paying a couple more visits to Papi in prison, and pulling together a team of doctors for Izzy.

  For a while, it worked. It was like having Mami taken care of deprived Izzy of justification for being a mess. She went on new medication, dropped a ton of weight, started auditing classes at John Jay, and began hinting that she’d met “someone nice” online.

  But then the drama started all over again. She claimed Lourdes was jealous of her weight loss (which maybe she was, a little bit). She started staying out late and refusing to say where she’d been. She accused Lourdes and Soledad of trying to control her and stopped taking her meds. And then one night she didn’t come home at all.

  “A lot of prostitution outcalls go from the city to Long Island,” Lourdes said.

  “True enough.”

  “She could have run into the same psycho.”

  “And if your aunt had a mustache, she’d be your uncle.”

  “Fuck you, Sullivan. My aunt has a mustache.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Look: not that many sex workers in New York. Izzy could’ve gone on one of those calls.”

  “Say there’s about a hundred thousand sex workers in the area, and each goes
on an average of two calls a night. It’s possible, but not likely.”

  “So you admit it. It’s not impossible. She could be wrapped up and lying in some swamp off Sunrise Highway right now.”

  “Jaysus. And they call me a morbid bastard? She could also be alive, you know.”

  “I’m just trying to be real and prepare myself for the worst.”

  “If you want to be real, then you can’t be prepared.”

  She looked out his window, dusk falling over the men gathered outside Farrell’s bar across the street, the dwindling tribe of cigarette smokers. A couple of them were leaning against her car, and it was hard to resist the urge to open the window and yell at them to get off it.

  “How’s my Camry?” Sullivan came up to look over her shoulder.

  “My Camry now. And it’s still running, thank you very much.”

  “You changing the oil regularly?”

  “Yeah, of course.” It annoyed her, thinking about how much Mitchell had to take it to a garage instead of doing it himself.

  “How’s the alignment?”

  “The alignment’s good and so’s the tire pressure.”

  “You keeping up with the other contracts?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, it’s a twelve-year-old car, Sullivan. No one’s gonna steal it or strip it.”

  “Still a good car, if you’re taking care of it.”

  “Yeah, though I’m thinking of trading it in and throwing the extra money at an SUV.”

  He grunted in disapproval as she turned around. “What do you need a bigger car for? You planning on buying a dog or starting a family?”

  “Fuck you. Are you just saying that because I’m a woman in her thirties?”

  “That and the joke about naming the chief as your baby daddy.”

  “It was a joke, Sully.”

  “And the fact that you brought it up last time we had lunch.”

  “I did not.”

  “Your eggs had just come. You said, ‘How can I even be thinking of having a baby with how loco the rest of my family is?’”

  “Oh…”

  “Listen.” He finished his drink. “If I’d lost someone, I’d look for something to take their place.”