Flame Out

by M. P. Cooley

  The judge walked forward slowly, embracing his brother and kissing his cheek.

  “Am I interrupting business, brother?” He asked, squinting at Hale and me.

  “Police officers, right?” Jake frowned “Been a long time since I had a visit from you. Here about Vera, right?”

  The four of us took seats around a table in the far corner.

  “I’m June Lyons, from the Hopewell Falls PD, and Hale Bascom—”

  “Before we start,” the judge said, despite the fact that we already had. He handed the bag to his brother. “Natalya made your favorite soup. Beef borscht.”

  Jake opened the bag and smiled. “She even included sour cream.”

  “She has always taken care of us,” the judge said to me, winking conspiratorially. “A container waits for me in the car.” Without looking, the judge called over his shoulder. “Brian!”

  The young man moved from around the bar faster than I would have expected of someone with his build. Only when he approached our table did I realize he was limping. One foot was in a scuffed suede military boot, and the other was prosthetic.

  “Brian, put this away for your father, so he has something to eat later.” He shoved the bag into Brian’s hands and patted his nephew’s belly. ‘‘And do not eat it! You have had plenty!”

  Brian ducked down behind the bar with the food, I assumed to put it in the refrigerator, watching us the whole time.

  “So we’re here today, gentlemen, to ask you about Vera Batko,” Hale said.

  The judge didn’t hesitate. “That was a long while ago, but no one could forget Vera,” he said, easing into his telling. “When she was a girl, she was the prettiest thing you ever saw, if a little cheeky. I introduced her to her husband. I thought I made a love match: she was a little wild, and I thought Taras would calm her down, settle her. Taras, he needed a little joy in his life.” He nudged Jake in the ribs. “Broke my brother’s heart.”

  “So you knew Vera?” I asked Jake.

  “Everyone knew everybody, out here on the Island. I tried to protect her when she was young . . .”

  “Because you were sweet on her,” the judge teased.

  “I was no such thing,” Jake said grabbing his brother’s elbow and pushing it away. “She was a child. Of course later, much later, she’d disappear from town and then show up again, all hollowed out. See that table, next to the jukebox?” I twisted, looking at a scarred wooden table shoved in a corner. “She’d get drunk and dance up there.”

  “The lady had problems,” Hale emphasized “problems,” “and you served her?”

  The judge threw his thick arm over his brother’s thin shoulders, forcing Jake to slump down. “Do not blame Jake. Better she get it here, where there were people who could watch out for her.”

  “We usually cut her off before things got rough and made sure she got home safe,” Jake added. “None of the guys she ran off with were from the neighborhood.”

  “Yes,” the Judge said. “A social club like this, we can keep the riff raff out.”

  Considering the owner was a felon, I doubt they were worried about how classy their clientele was.

  “So you worked here?” I asked Jake. “After you got out of prison.”

  “A long time after, in fact.”

  “I thought ex-cons couldn’t bartend?”

  Jake’s nostrils flared at Hale’s question. “That’s at a regular bar. We don’t follow the same rules at a social club like this. Maxim here helped me apply for a certificate of relief of disabilities”—the disability being two felony convictions for assault, I thought—“and I bought the place, got it running.”

  A group of five men came in, calling out to Brian, dropping their voices when they saw us. The men all wore train uniforms, the bar a quick hop over the bridge from the Rensselaer train station.

  “Freddie,” Jake yelled, pointing to a man who hung in the doorway, hesitant to join the rest of the group. “I don’t need to tell you what will happen if we have a repeat of last time?”

  The man shook his head frantically, joining his friends in the corner.

  “Sorry, officers,” Jake said, still staring at the man who was trying to duck behind his friends. “A troublemaker. Please continue.”

  “How about your other brother, Judge Medved?” Hale asked. “Bernie?”

  “Bernie and Deirdre,” the judge said. “My stepfather treated them so cruelly. When our mother died, I took custody of the two little ones. I moved heaven and earth to make sure their father could never hurt them again.”

  “May that black dog rot in hell,” muttered Jake.

  The judge leaned in close. “My stepfather beat my mother. He taught Bernie you could treat women like nothing.”

  “He stopped beating them once I paid him a visit,” Jake said. “Didn’t like it so much when he had someone who could hit back.”

  “I tried to teach Bernie to respect women when I took the children in, but . . . it was too late for Bernie.”

  A dozen people crowded in, the men in pressed khakis and the women in sweater sets. State workers if I had to guess. Brian, delivering fries and wings to the train employees, called out to the second group, “You all getting your regular?” When he was concentrating on work, his limp almost disappeared.

  I dropped my voice. “Did Bernie abuse Luisa?”

  “No,” Jake said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Nothing physical.” The judge added, “But my brother, he kept her a prisoner in that house. Bernie liked to control women.”

  “Including Vera?” Hale asked.

  “Including Vera,” the judge said. “Him hiring her? It was not charity. Back in high school she would not give him the time of day. He liked making her beg for her job every time she came crawling back.”

  For a politician, the judge didn’t talk about himself much, but he had no problem trashing his brother.

  “When was the last time you saw Vera?” I asked.

  Jake flicked his eyes to his brother, snakelike. The judge ignored him.

  “We think,” the judge said carefully, “it was the night she disappeared.”

  “There was a poker game at the bar, but they were all amateurs”—Jake shook his head in disgust—“and I cleaned them out quickly. They all wanted beers on credit, so I decided to take them to where there was plenty of free booze: Bernie’s. Vera was there.” Jake shook his head. “Following Dan Jaleda around. He brought her along to Bernie’s even though everyone knew it was a bad idea.”

  “She liked male attention,” Judge Medved said. “A room full of men, having a few drinks? She was in heaven.”

  That matched up with what we knew. “Who did she leave with that night?”

  “She didn’t,” Jake said. “She was still at Bernie’s. She’d taken some Quaaludes. Vera was out cold.”

  “You talking about my mother?” Lucas stood behind me. We had been speaking softly, so I hoped he hadn’t heard any details. He rested his hand on the back of my chair. “Hi, June. Dave here?” He noticed Hale. “Hi. You’re Hale, right?”

  Jake and Judge Medved both stood and moved to embrace Lucas.

  “Young man, good to see you,” Jake said, clapping him on the shoulder. “What can we get you?”

  “A beer would be good,” Lucas said to Brian as Brian passed on his way to deliver five vodka tonics.

  Brian never paused, the drinks on his tray perfectly balanced despite his hitching gait. “You know where it is,” he called over his shoulder. “Serve yourself.”

  The place was packed. Despite the crowd, no one got within three tables of us on any side, keeping their distance from Jake and the judge. Between Lucas and the crowds, this interview was over, and we stood to go. The men ignored us, focused on Lucas.

  “We want to be here for you in your time of need,” Jake said.

  “You know you can count on us,” the judge said. “We owe Natalya our lives.”

  Lucas reached out, embracing both men.

 
; “You,” he slurred. “You’re family to me.”

  CHAPTER 8

  WHEN WE ARRIVED AT HIS OFFICE, DAN JALEDA’S ADMINISTRATIVE assistant was on the phone, giving detailed instructions on how to defrost stuffed peppers.

  “Not the microwave,” she said. “The bread crumbs get all sticky.” She noticed us standing in the door, mouthed “one second,” and dismissed her caller.

  “Gotta go,” she said. “The cops are here.”

  She didn’t wait for introductions, rapidly typing into the computer. “Which of the guys are you looking for this time? Bail skipper or outstanding warrant?”

  “Neither,” I said. “We’re here to see Dan Jaleda.”

  The woman took her hands off her keyboard. “Dan?”

  “I think you and I spoke this morning.” I held out my hand. “I’m Officer June Lyons with the Hopewell Falls police department, and this is Hale Bascom, with the FBI. You mentioned he’d be in this afternoon.”

  “I’m Ashley,” she said. “And this morning? Not me. I was running some paperwork to the notary.” She paused. “We’re not supposed to give out Dan’s schedule.”

  I had the sense I was getting someone fired. “We explained we were the police and it was important.”

  Her eyes traveled up Hale’s body, eventually reaching his face. “FBI-level important?”

  “Agent Bascom is on loan to us for this investigation.”

  “Let me try to track Dan down.” She motioned to fabric-covered folding chairs in the corner. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

  I heard her leave a message for her boss, and then she dialed a work site, using her pencil so as not to damage her long burgundy-tipped nails. She called two more numbers and put down the phone.

  “All three sites say he’s ‘just left.’” She sighed, her inability to find him a personal failing. “He’s been the boss for twenty years now, but he spends half his time at sites.”

  “Keeps things running smoothly,” Hale said. “Good thing in a boss. We’ll sit here entertaining ourselves. Don’t let us disturb you.”

  She went back to typing, but slowly, keeping half an eye on us. I didn’t mind waiting. Catching him off guard might be our only chance of interviewing him without his wife, Deirdre Lawler. Deirdre was both Bernie’s sister and his lawyer, and she could make my life difficult in any number of ways, cutting off this interview, or worse, keeping me from seeing Bernie. I didn’t want her here, but I also didn’t want to conduct this interview with her in the room.

  I slipped out to the hallway and called the hospital about our burn victim: no change. When I returned, I found Hale tapping away on his BlackBerry, so I spent my time reading through my notes. A few guys came in and out requesting paychecks and paperwork, and with them Ashley was easygoing, calling them “hon” and quizzing them on their plans for the weekend. Having finished reading my notes, I cast around for something to do. A table in front of us displayed a magazine from four and five years back, when Gwyneth Paltrow was still with her husband and Lindsay Lohan was in trouble with the law, which could be any time in the last decade. The rest of the office was designed to look low rent, but I sensed it was intentional. The industry awards lining the walls—almost twenty by my count—undid the “aw shucks” atmosphere.

  Dan Jaleda entered talking. “Yeah. I get it. But the bond issue won’t carry us over, and they have severely underestimated the cost per square foot on that HVAC system.” He stood in front of the desk. He wore the men’s business-casual uniform—khakis and a blue button-down shirt, and his gray hair had a crease where he had been wearing a hard hat. He picked up the mail and began to flip through as he spoke, giving us a brief nod even as he reamed out the person on the other end of the phone.

  “I’ve laid this out for you. Multiple times. This was not included in your bid instructions, and we can’t be held to those cost estimates.” He never raised his voice, but his sharp clipped tones made clear that the other person’s opinion was invalid. “You send out an RFP asking for a hot dog, and then get mad when a steak isn’t delivered. Join us in reality anytime you’d like.” He listened. “Get back to me by six or this deal is off.”

  He hung up without saying good-bye and pulled the earpiece out of his ear, put out his hand, and to my amazement, smiled. “C’mon in, officers. I was expecting you.”

  Like his nephew Brian Medved, Dan limped, his foot dragging behind him, although if I had to guess I’d bet his injury came from a construction accident instead of battle. Dan wore heavy work boots, steel toed and ungraceful. He went around the side of the desk, gathered up a stack of rolled-up architectural plans, sliding them into a wire rack. His office was utilitarian, one wall covered in whiteboard and the other three posted with architectural plans.

  “My wife is going to kill me when she hears I was talking to the police without her present.” He sat down. “She’s a lawyer and doesn’t think you should pay a parking ticket without counsel present, but I don’t always like her knowing the details of my deals. It makes her nervous when she sees how much money’s involved, like if it doesn’t work out she’ll have to go back to waitressing at Jake’s bar.”

  I wasn’t sure what kind of deal he was referring to, but I played along.

  “Informational interview only,” I said. “I promise.”

  “That’s what cops always say.” He pulled out a folder full of papers. “Here’s the info on the proposed sale, including the plans and all correspondence between me and Elda Harris. It includes the deed search, showing how she took ownership of the property once Bernie went to jail.” He flipped forward a few pages. “And here’s the contract for sale, signed by one party, me, and a letter in which Elda explains that as a memorial to her dead daughter and grandson, and to punish Luisa’s killer, she wanted the land to remain forever empty.”

  I pulled the documents to my side of the desk, and Hale leaned in close—we read together. It seemed that Dan Jaleda had spent several years trying to coax Elda Harris into selling him Sleep-Tite and the land it sat on. His proposal consisted of an offer for the property, with plans to knock it down and build a combination retail/housing space.

  “So despite the rumors you may have heard”—I had heard none, but I nodded, acting as if I had—“Elda turned down my very lucrative offer. Like a dog with a bone, Elda is.” He shook his head. “So any ideas you might have had that I hired that woman that got burned up to torch that factory need to be put to rest.”

  I closed the folder and slid it under my notebook. “That’s very helpful, thank you. I have a few more items on my list—”

  “About the wall.” It wasn’t a question.

  “About the wall,” I said.

  “Well, let me start by saying I had no idea chemicals were in those barrels.”

  I could understand his desire to establish deniability, particularly with the EPA cranking up their investigation. “Our investigation is focused on Vera.”

  “Right. So Bernie hired me to do some cleaning and ‘light construction’ at the Sleep-Tite factory. Annual maintenance, he said. We get there, and Jake gives us a bunch of sheetrock and some bricks and tells us we’re going to build a wall. Didn’t talk about the barrels behind the wall, and we didn’t ask.”

  “You were able to build a brick wall in a week?”

  “We got it up in two days. No permit means no inspection means who cares how crappy the work is.” He pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer and began sketching. He drew the dimensions of the basement, and squares at the end to represent the barrels, his lines straight and angles perfect. He then drew a dotted line in front of the barrels. “It was like a veneer, looked substantial, but flimsy underneath. We put up a sheetrock wall, floor to ceiling, and then plastered sawed-off bricks to the sheetrock.” He dropped his pencil and sat back. “They wanted it to match, not hold up a building.”

  I slid the paper close, studying it before handing it to Hale.

  “May we keep this?” I asked, and he waved it
away. I picked up my notebook. “Do you have the names of the people you worked with?”

  He listed several names, including Lucas Batko. “Bunch of dopes we were. High school dropouts hustling to get into the trades, and Jake promised we’d all get a shot at construction work if we did right on this job.”

  “So Jake hired you?”

  “Officially, yes, it was him, but Bernie was paying us, and Maxim dangled the better jobs in front of us. Jake was there to do the dirty work, playing to his strengths, you know?”

  We needed some sort of direct proof. “Did Bernie write you a check for this project?”

  “Jake slid an envelope of cash across the bar. That was payment.”

  Hale leaned forward. “And did Bernie ever comment on the work you did?”

  “Not before it was built or after.” He reached for his mechanical pencil, punching forward two leads before speaking. “The only time I saw Bernie during that week . . . I think it was the night Vera was killed.”

  “Which night was that?” I asked.

  “The Friday before we sealed the barrels in the basement,” he said. “At Bernie’s.”

  So far this matched up with the statement of the Medved brothers. “Tell me about it.”

  “Vera . . . she was always up for a party, you know?” I did know, it being the sole thing people remembered. “Jake’s had been pretty dead, with most people getting away, celebrating the last week of summer. Jake announced we were taking the party to Bernie’s. He invited me along. I didn’t like him much, but I was trying to get in with the brothers, so of course I said yes.”

  I thought of Lucas building the wall to get a better job. “Were you trying to get work?”

  He paused, a half smile on his lips. “No. I was trying to get in with Deirdre. Back then she was whip smart and had the nicest green eyes I’d ever seen, and I was trying real hard to impress her, so I was playing nice with the Medveds.” He smiled to himself. “Found out later that spending time with her brothers hurt my chances, but back then, I had no idea.”