“You just can’t drop the drug thing,” I said angrily. “Can you?”
Frank was silent.
“The answer is in the garbage,” I remind him as I abruptly removed my sketch from the wall. “Bob died in a twenty-foot mound of garbage. That’s where our focus should be.”
“CeCe is right,” Frank said.
“I am?”
Frank laughed. “We all appreciate your …” He paused to think.
Lamendola filled in the blank: “Enthusiasm.”
“Good word,” Frank said. “We all appreciate your enthusiasm, but now that you’re working with us you’ll need to get used to something we call ‘contained speculation.’”
Cheski placed a fatherly hand on my arm. “You’re a good thinker, CeCe. Try not to take our criticism personally.” Cheski took the sketch out of my hands and rehung it on the wall. “Most police work is administrative. It’s boring. This”—he nodded to his co-workers—“the part where we theorize, is the fun stuff. Keep an open mind and use the facts.”
“It’s what gets us to the best part,” Lamendola said. “Nailing the bad guy.”
Frank stopped pacing briefly. “And I think I’ve got a way to get us there. Let me tie up a few loose ends and we can meet tomorrow.”
Cheski’s face fell. “Tomorrow is Saturday.”
Frank looked confused, as if weekends were a new invention or a word only recently accepted by Webster’s. “Oh,” he replied. “Is that a problem?”
Cheski shook his head.
twenty-three
saturday, april 26
As expected, the lobby of the local police station at 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning was dead. Except for a down-and-out fisherman who had gotten drunk and drowned in the shallow bay a few years back, suspicious deaths were not a major issue in Cold Spring Harbor. With the high concentration of wealth, the town had its fair share of robberies, but those typically occurred on weekend nights and during major holidays when the wealthy traveled. Inevitably each year, the jet-setting crew returned home to discover their recently purchased cruise wear, neatly folded in their Coach suitcases, was the only clothing they had left.
It wasn’t lost on me that I was connected to two local murders that had broken a kill-free stretch of over a century. Home values, thanks to me, had probably plummeted in the last twelve months, leaving my neighbors’ investments underwater and my name quietly removed from any social register that hadn’t banished me years ago.
I looked around the empty stationhouse. Since I was accounted for, the chance of a crime occurring was next to nothing. There was one man sitting on a bench reading the local paper, and he looked like he might have stopped by for the complimentary coffee.
“Jimmy?” I said as a face appeared over the newspaper. Missing was Jimmy’s one-piece recycling center coverall and hard hat. I realized I had never seen him outside the recycling center, and it irked me that a change of clothing was enough to alter his appearance beyond recognition. I stared at him a little bit too long, causing him to shift awkwardly.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t recognize you in street clothes.”
“People see what they expect to see,” he replied, rising to shake my hand. “Even if Bob had lost a hundred pounds, he still would have been a fat guy, you know?”
In fact, I knew exactly what Jimmy meant. Seeing isn’t a function of the eyes. Our brains tend to interpret or distort information in a way that makes us comfortable. We see what we want to see or what others have told us to expect.
“I’m going to remember that,” I said as I watched Frank approach us. Frank’s gait had purpose, and although he rarely seemed to be in a rush, you could tell he never wasted a minute.
“Thanks for coming in,” he said, leading us down the hall toward his office.
Charlie was already seated at Frank’s round table, and I took his attendance as a good sign. Given Charlie’s technological expertise, it meant Frank’s primary interest was e-waste, not Bob’s supposed drug problem. I came to that conclusion having taken Cheski’s comments to heart—focus on the facts.
“I didn’t want to meet at the recycling center, and I think you’ll soon see why,” Frank said, and turned to Jimmy. “Obviously, I’ve got waste-related questions so I’m going to jump right in. When was the last time the recycling center ran a printed e-waste take-back program?” Frank asked.
“Maybe two years ago,” Jimmy replied.
“So these scavengers you told us about must be pretty hungry,” Frank concluded. “Assuming the scavengers are still in the business of mining free garbage, the recycling center curbside programs were potentially one of their bigger suppliers.”
“Sure,” Jimmy said. “We were easy money for them. We did the advertising, and they received the profits. I imagine they’ve got other sources now, but they probably have to work much harder for it.”
“How long do you think a scavenger holds on to e-waste before it’s sold?”
“Small-time players get in and out fast,” Jimmy said. “It’s strictly quick money. I’m assuming scavengers move the product by the next day, maybe even that night.”
“That’s what I was hoping,” Frank said, and then he proceeded to outline a very clever plan.
“The minute an item is deemed to have value,” Frank explained, “a ski jacket, designer sneakers or an iPod—the door has been opened for crime. Even crimes that don’t involve a tangible object involve the concept of value. The taking of a life, for example, or a person’s dignity, in the case of a rape, is essentially the taking of value. What I’ve learned from the people at this table is that garbage, while useless to most of us, has value to some people.” Frank let us sit on this point, but we didn’t need any encouragement. With two Freegans in the room and the guy that now ran the recycling center, he was preaching to the choir. If anything, Frank was late to this game. We nodded in patient unison.
“Our gap in this investigation is that we haven’t identified all the players who deem garbage valuable.”
“Until it’s not,” Charlie said.
“True,” Frank said. “With value comes risk, as objects can lose value due to external events. With risk comes the potential for loss or great profits. Either outcome is a motivator for crime. To create a list of suspects, we need to identify anyone who thinks garbage has value. We know the local recycling center is a legitimate player. However, we need a way to uncover all the related parties.”
“But at this point, would these players raise their hand to identify themselves, if they knew a murder investigation that involved garbage was underway?” I said.
“That’s what got me thinking,” Frank said. “CeCe, yesterday you hypothesized that Harry paid to unload the warehouse in an attempt to avoid an association with Bob. It’s possible other players in the world of e-waste have tried to lay low.”
I nodded.
“We also discussed the fact that maybe not everyone knows Bob is dead.”
“I’m a little lost,” Jimmy responded. “But I’m guessing you’ve got a plan to bring these parties to the forefront?”
Frank’s mouth curled slyly. “Oh, I’ve got a plan,” he said, as he rose proudly and walked to the white board mounted on his office wall. Using colorful magnets, he tacked up a detailed street map of the town.
“We’re going to bait the players,” Frank said, “with something of value by staging an e-waste sting. Within the week, the recycling center is going to run a traditional curbside take-back program.”
“Damn, this is good,” Charlie said, nodding as his mind raced ahead. “We’re going to fill the streets with recyclables, draw out the scavengers, and follow them. It’s like a drug bust where the police ignore the small-timers but use them to find the kingpin.”
“Yup,” Frank replied with an extra air of confidence. “And, we’re going to lace t
his garbage with whatever you tell me is highly sellable right now,” he said to Charlie.
“I wondered why I was here,” Charlie said as he rubbed his hands together conspiratorially.
Frank wrote a to-do list on the board. “Charlie, those leftover computers in the warehouse. We can use those as plants, right?”
“Can do,” Charlie said. “We can also curb whatever the recycling center hasn’t processed yet.”
“And Jimmy,” Frank continued. “The reason you’re here is that you’ve got to make this look real. The center’s employees can’t suspect this is a setup. We’ll map out a controlled area for pickup—a designated neighborhood where you think homeowners will actively participate. You’ll need to set up a robo-call, but more importantly we’ll need to post print ads. We can even run an ad in the local newspaper. The most important thing is that this needs to look legitimate.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“I’m hoping your dark-haired lady makes an appearance,” Frank said. “And I’m hoping your night vision is working.”
Right, my night vision. My “seeing” ability. This was a real job, and I had to get my head together.
“It’s Saturday. Bob has been dead a week and a day,” Frank said. “Can we pull this off by Thursday?”
Charlie and Jimmy agreed to the deadline.
I raised my hand. “That’s Katrina’s due date.”
Frank’s face registered exasperation. “Babies either come early or late but never on their expected due date. In the meantime”—he glanced at his watch—“you and I have a date.”
“We do?” I said.
twenty-four
Unlike Cold Spring Harbor, the neighboring town of Huntington was actually a township representing five unincorporated areas and housing a population of close to a million residents. Cold Spring Harbor, with only five thousand residents, had a gourmet food store but no supermarkets. Our hamlet had no gas stations or mini-marts or anything that might imply convenience. You could, however, sample Long Island wines at one of three Cold Spring Harbor liquor stores while you waited for your speed boat to be winterized at the docks. The more mundane purchases, like aspirin, occurred somewhere among the suburban sprawl of Huntington. The border of
the two towns was a real estate hot potato. The homes appeared equally as grand on both sides of the town line, but the housing prices dropped a few hundred thousand on the Huntington side. As you inched farther into Huntington, the town took on a more diverse reality. That means everyone didn’t look alike—in a good way.
The Carmen House Apartments, a cluster of three-story brick buildings, were located on the east side of Huntington, as far as you could possibly get from Cold Spring Harbor. It was Huntington’s first attempt, in the 1960s, to stratify housing needs. Set in a leafy, suburban area with single-family neighborhoods on either side, the Carmen apartments seemed revolutionary at the time. Fifty years later, natural wear and tear, as well as a revolving door of residents, showed the cracks. The buildings were, in fact, crumbling. The grassy green, now a dirt courtyard, seemed beyond landscape repair. And of course there were signs that meant nothing when taken individually, but told a story of poverty in cumulative display: a lone child’s sandal, a broken tricycle, an overflowing Dumpster even I wouldn’t approach on an empty stomach.
“Is this where scavengers live?” I asked, opening my sketchbook.
“Not quite,” Frank said, as he parked the Gremlin under a shady oak tree. “This is where Lizzy James lives.”
“Frank!” I yelled. “How could you not tell me where we were going?”
“How could you not tell me about this woman?” Frank’s hands gripped the steering wheel, probably to prevent himself from hitting me. “You’ve done nothing but beg me to help you, yet you went off to play detective with Dr. Grovit instead of me. You realize I’m a detective, right? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“How did you find out?”
“It wasn’t rocket science,” he said. “Grovit called Harbor House and I picked up.”
If someone were watching us, they would have seen two very angry people in a heated argument. My arms flailed and my mouth jabbered. The only problem was the accompanying audio. I hadn’t actually said anything of merit, because I had zero comeback to Frank’s accusations. He was dead-on. In my misguided zeal, I had gone on my wild goose chase without him.
Frank grabbed my circling hands and slapped them together in a prayer position. “Why are we doing this to each other?” he said, and then released me. “From day one, we’ve been challenging each other.”
I started to speak, but again, I had nothing worthy to say.
“If this is going to work, we need to be honest,” Frank said. “We’ve probably got some unresolved issues holding us back. I know I do.”
I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t considered Frank’s take on our relationship, as I had only seen him reacting to my histrionics. “Oh,” I said softly. “I guess I haven’t been listening too well, have I? Is something bugging you?”
Without much coaxing on my part, Frank admitted what was really on his mind. “Is something still going on between you and Charlie?”
Holy cow. Is that what he’d been thinking this whole time? Me and Charlie? Ridiculous, I thought, and then I looked at Frank. It wasn’t ridiculous to him.
“No, but if I’m being honest, I could see why it would bother you,” I replied. “My friendship with Charlie has crossed the line in the past, but it hasn’t recently, and it won’t going forward.”
“Good,” he nodded. “Your turn.”
Hmm. Why did I challenge Frank all the time? Could it be I was frustrated that our physical relationship had stalled? It seemed like a shallow reason for all this angst, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. I distracted myself by watching people come and go across Carmen House’s courtyard, and I realized that any one of these people could be Lizzy James. Suspicion crept up my spine as I eyed a group of chatty women and immediately branded them guilty of something. The feeling of culpability was all too familiar. Of course, I thought. I’d felt it the day I met Detective Frank DeRosa, nearly a year ago.
“The night you first came to Harbor House,” I said as I tilted my side-view mirror at an angle that allowed me to catch Frank’s reaction. “Did you think I was involved in Teddy’s death?” It had always bothered me that Frank might have been suspicious of me in the beginning of the investigation.
“Yes,” Frank replied, his face remaining placid.
I was blatantly offended. “Why?”
“Because everyone I spoke to prior to meeting you described you as, well …” Frank slowed down as he tried to sanitize his recollections.
“Forget it,” I murmured.
“No, that’s the point. We need to clear the air,” Frank replied and then continued. “You were described as the black sheep, the trouble-maker, a disappointment, and well, a bit eccentric. And then there was your attic. The piles of sketches, face after face after face. The whole setting was bizarre. And Harbor House, with the junky furniture and the broken down car …”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted, “I get it. I come across as a modern-day Miss Havisham.”
“A younger, cuter version,” Frank amended as he opened the car window. “And there it goes, right out the window.”
“What?”
Frank pretended to brush something imaginary through the car window. “The tension. It’s gone.”
I smiled. Frank wasn’t naturally funny, but when necessary, he could see the humor in a situation. He also had a habit of being right most of the time. We did have unresolved issues, but at his insistence, we had just remedied two. Charlie and I hadn’t slept together recently, which I’m sure brightened Frank’s day. I wasn’t thrilled that Frank had initially considered me a suspect in Teddy’s death due to an unfavorable first impre
ssion. I guessed, however, that by this point, we’d moved successfully past our preconceptions.
I smiled and asked, “What’s Lizzy’s apartment number?”
twenty-five
I had an exceptionally high tolerance for dirt, but I could not accept filth. Dirt was merely wrapping paper, an exterior coating easily removed to reveal a treasure. Filth implied continuous neglect, a ground-in lack of care or concern. I think people would be surprised to discover that recycling centers are clean, well-maintained facilities. Garbage isn’t left to rot but rather processed and moved along quickly for further uses.
The hallway leading to Lizzy James’s apartment, conversely, was filthy. The carpet was stained in colors I’d only associated with bodily functions, and the torn wallpaper revealed splotches of lung-threatening mold on the exposed plaster. My toes curled in disgust, and I practiced breathing through my mouth and out my nose. Thank God I didn’t have asthma. If my kid had breathing problems in this environment, it wasn’t from my gene pool.
“Gross,” I coughed.
“I’ve seen worse,” Frank replied as he stopped halfway down
the hall.
“What’s your plan?”
“She’s got three kids, but they’re twelve and under.” Frank looked over his shoulder. “Your child needs to be older.”
“Correction. My child and your niece or nephew needs to be older. That’s one of our issues: your inability to accept that you’re related to this child.”
“Okay, you win,” he conceded. “I’m wondering if Ms. James has been lying about the oldest one’s age. That’s why I want to get into the apartment,” he said as he knocked on the door. “Or she’s got a child she’s never reported.”
A hidden child? What if my undocumented child were sitting in this apartment watching television and drinking a Slurpee? I wasn’t sure I could do this, but Frank had already knocked on the front door.
No response.
He knocked again. “Follow my lead.”
Drawing Blood Page 11