The Highway (A Benny Steel and Marisa Tulli Novel - Book 1)

by Steven Grosso

  Beth Steele waved over one of the autopsy technicians. “Bring the body into the room,” she said.

  Steel tapped Marisa and jerked a thumb back toward a clear area behind them, motioning with his head to slide over to make some room. Each sidestepped at the same time, elbow against elbow.

  Marisa folded her arms and chewed her bottom lip, waiting for this to unfold. She’d told Steel she had only been present at one other autopsy, and he’d wished that was the case for him. He discreetly ran his sweaty hand across his stomach, pushing air from his nostrils, attempting to block the odor of human flesh. It was as if he was standing in a butcher shop, without an escape, only the raw meat smell in the air ten times worse. The stench of death permeated the air. He felt like someone had reached inside him, scratching his intestines with their fingernails and squeezing as hard as they could, trying to pump vomit out of his system. He tightened his tonsils against the back of his tongue and closed the airway, sucked in his gut, and fought the vomit.

  A door creaked open, and the autopsy technician wheeled in the body of Thomas Hitchy until the wheels stopped screeching. Beth Steele ran a hand over the body bag and found what she was looking for, a tag on the toe. She matched the information with the paperwork in her hand and took note of Hitchy’s characteristics, such as eye color, hair, ethnicity, et cetera. After finishing, she glanced at Steel—standard police procedure—the medical examiner walking a detective through as he or she performed the autopsy. “All right…I’m going to begin.”

  He focused, appeared in control, but that wasn’t the case. His Obsessive Compulsive Disorder began messing with him. He didn’t want to touch anything for fear of contamination, contamination being a classic symptom of his nagging OCD that showed up when he was put in an uncomfortable situation. The OCD thoughts bothered him often, but this time they told him that he’d spread germs to the masses and make people ill if he touched anything in this room and then carried the germs on his clothes to the outside world—and it would be all his fault, it reassured him. Fucking OCD, he thought. I thought I beat you. Leave me alone. That was his best antidote for the OCD: ignore the irrational, intrusive, harmless thoughts, suffer momentary discomfort, and then let his brain realize that the thoughts weren’t important but simply anxiety and move on to something else. He’d realized over the years that the human brain worked subconsciously, constantly thinking, but the more attention he paid to the thoughts or the more the thoughts made him anxious, the more his brain would consider them high priority. OCD thoughts that popped into his brain for no reason were annoying, and he wanted to know why they’d come into his consciousness, but that was where he went wrong. Once he searched for an answer to an anxious thought, his mind analyzed it to the extreme. His brain never stopped obsessing over every scenario that could revolve around it, and then the compulsions like checking doorknobs multiple times would follow to distract his mind from the constant obsessing. But he knew that the thoughts were simply not important or real, just the product of his OCD. He figured that everyone thinks things at times that do not make sense and that the mind is a complicated place in and of itself, a computer that processes so much information and emotions at once until it sorts itself out. OCD had been worse in his teens but significantly reduced as he’d eased into his twenties and thirties.

  He observed Beth and forced hot, acidic vomit, which had lumped up in his throat, back into his stomach by swallowing hard. The OCD stopped, but the vomit almost reached the surface and left a burning, sour taste in the back of his throat, reminding him that he’d eaten eggs for breakfast. He couldn’t show this weakness to his new partner; what about his image? Detective Steel—the hard-nosed, tough guy from Homicide. So he fought through it.

  He couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Hitchy; after all, he’d known him as a kid. Although he didn’t think Hitchy was the greatest person in the world, he believed in second chances, and maybe Hitchy had never gotten a chance to find his. But one thing he never did was take delight in anyone’s suffering, even if he had it coming. He’d gotten angry at times but tried to wish evil on no one. He knew he wasn’t perfect, but he also knew Hitchy played with fire and got burned—just the reality of it.

  An image flashed across Steel’s mind of a young Tom Hitchy, a smile on his face, when Hitchy had been just an innocent kid in middle school who hadn’t known how bad his home life was. There was little room for those memories in the mind of a detective. He was there to solve a case—emotions were supposed to be subdued—but he often failed at that. And how could he not; he was human. He knew, even with the most heinous crimes, with truly innocent victims, detectives had to separate themselves from their emotions and go solely with the intellectual side of their brains—not the emotional. The ones who used their emotional side often were the ones who quit the force or were an unfortunate statistic of the high suicide rates for police officers. But he also understood that if this was a drug war, he was going to put a stop to it.

  Steel watched Beth as she checked Hitchy’s hair and fingernails for evidence. She measured his body and told Steel he was 6’8. He looked on with surprise and thought he might have been an inch or two taller. Hitchy’s body covered most of the autopsy table, and his tattooed chest and arms were exposed, with a white sheet lying just below his belly button. The hardest part for Steel was when Beth cut the body open, starting with an incision in the shoulder and making her way down the arm. He cringed as she pulled out organs and body parts, blood staining her gloves. It was even tougher when she pieced the body back together like the board game Operation, the wretched stench of sour human flesh in the air.

  Beth studied the wound after removing the bullet and preparing it to get sent to the lab and concluded, from the angle of the shot, that it was a homicide, not a suicide. Things could change, but for now, she was 99% sure it was a homicide.

  Beth ended the autopsy and told Steel she’d forward the report over to him, then smiled and told Marisa it was nice meeting her. She cracked an old joke to Steel about his weak stomach, but he played it off so that Marisa wouldn’t notice. He couldn’t wait to leave. He told her he’d talk to her soon, and he and Marisa left the building to do some dissecting of their own.

  10

  Steel inhaled and exhaled warm air, and his throat burned, but he was relieved to get out of the autopsy. “Meet me back at the station,” he said.

  Marisa checked her watch.

  He needed to talk to Hitchy’s girlfriend sooner rather than later. In his experience, family members, witnesses, and suspects had a way of conveniently forgetting, or legitimately forgetting, or making things up the longer a case went on.

  They met at the station and convened at Steel’s cubicle. He chewed the tip of his pen until the plastic split into blue-gray lines, and swung his black shoe heels on top of his desk, with Hitchy’s file flapped open directly in front of his face. Marisa rolled a black computer chair next to him and sat and crossed her legs in one motion. She hunched over and surveyed the reports from the Hitchy file.

  They sped through the paperwork, taking notes of the information supplied by Narcotics, and jotted down the nickname of the dealer Hitchy hadn’t gotten along with. Steel had to read his nickname aloud twice: Knee. First, he’d assumed it was short for his full name, but after further reading, he found out that the guy had busted his knee three or four times before the age of eighteen. The file stated that he’d first busted the knee in a pick-up game of tackle football as a teen. In fact, according to what former informants of Knee’s crew had told Narcotics, if he hadn’t dropped out of high school because of the final injury, he could have gotten a full ride to many colleges and universities. Few in the Philadelphia public school’s football system could’ve touched him in his prime. He had been a top running back. The scouts had compared him to Barry Sanders but with more power. However, Knee hadn’t been able to get away from the streets. Steel had always found it interesting how law enforcement had ways of findin
g out the littlest details about someone they were investigating.

  He flipped through a few more pages and scanned the reports sent over by forensics from the crime scene. They had very little—no DNA, no fingerprints, and, unfortunately, no witnesses. The only fingerprints they had found at the scene were Hitchy’s. Whoever had fired that bullet into Hitchy’s head had covered his or her tracks. Steel also noted that they’d found an uneven, swirled shoe mark, but no evidence had been found on it when tested at the lab. Although they were waiting for the bullet to get tested at the lab, Steel had already known at the autopsy, after watching Beth pull it from Hitchy’s left temple, and from the crime scene, that it was fired from a 9mm—he’d seen that make often and knew that forensics had ways to determine the gun used at a crime scene: gunpowder residue, trajectory of the shot, bullet holes, shell casings, and firing pin impressions. Still, they didn’t have much to go on, just an uneven shoe mark, a rival drug-dealer, and a 9mm. Even Sherlock Holmes would’ve had his work cut out for him. No other physical evidence was found at the scene.

  Lieutenant Detective Williams stepped into the office. He small-talked them about the case, saying he wanted to be briefed daily, and said that it wasn’t just with them but that he was asking the same from all the detectives he supervised. Steel and Williams were co-workers and friends, but demands like that pissed him off. Direct supervision or micromanagement put Steel on the defensive. He knew what had to be done and when it had to be done and worked his ass off to get it done. This case was like any other, and he was a voice for the dead—all of the dead—no matter if they were criminals themselves.

  Although fairly young, thirty-two, Steel had an old-school attitude, honored his badge, was honest, and despised officers who were on the take. Steel wouldn’t let a cashier give him an extra dime at a supermarket; he’d give it back. He viewed constant supervision and micromanagement as suspicious, questioning his integrity. He felt he didn’t need to be watched, and especially not on this specific case. Also, not that it would’ve mattered much, but he didn’t want word to get out that he had once been neighbors with Tom Hitchy. Internal Affairs would be a headache, and the last thing he wanted was those bastards on his ass. IAD would love to bust his balls, but not just him, anyone—it was an ego thing. They never forgot about the botched Miranda rights case. Somehow, Williams had gotten promoted, but Steel still had a giant bull’s-eye on his back. And now Williams stood before him, supervising him, and Steel thought it should’ve been the other way around, but Williams was his friend, colleague—no hard feelings.

  He bit his tongue, let Williams finish talking, figuring that sometimes it was best to keep his mouth shut. Had it been anyone else in front of him he would’ve gotten an earful.

  Steel had stopped home for lunch, and Marisa had followed him in his Jeep, while he’d driven the car supplied by the department. After they’d eaten, they jumped back into the vehicle he’d driven from the station. The department was strict with that, when on duty, for insurance purposes, it wanted a detective in one of its vehicles. Shortly after, they hopped back onto I-95 and then rode back into town.

  They rode through Old City heading for Hitchy’s apartment and circled the neighborhood a few times to find it, but the area was packed, and parking was non-existent. Steel didn’t feel like talking and was in one of his bad moods for no reason. He was pissed that he couldn’t find a spot and pissed that he had nothing on this case, so he did what he did best: thought and observed Old City, thinking of how it had changed throughout the years. The city’s yuppies lived in the houses in Old City, but the city’s hipsters—the young, rebellious, wild and free, artistic types—lived in apartments. Each walked the same cobblestone streets that Benjamin Franklin had; The thought triggered as he drove past Good Ol’ Ben’s burial ground in the heart of Old City as he continued looking for parking. Many of the buildings and houses were old and small, some even built when the Founding Fathers had been roaming the streets and creating America, but nevertheless, the young professionals drove up property values. Steel always loved to walk around there in the summertime and take in some of the historic sites, especially the ones that dated back to the 1700s—the simple and proportional Georgian-style brick homes with shutters and marble steps as well as the oldest charming continuously inhabited tiny residential street in America, Elfreth’s Alley, with its Georgian- and Federal-style houses and cobblestone streets.

  Steel’s thoughts broke. He faced Marisa for a second but turned back to the road. “It’s packed here during the week with all these people with their fancy and trendy bars, cafes, and restaurants and vegan or specialty menus. Who has the time to worry about their diets? Give me a burger, and I’m happy. This generation with their obsession with healthy eating…” He shook his head, angrier than he should have been. Little, irrelevant things always bothered him. “Just wait…” he waved a dismissive hand forward, “…twenty years down the line, when science discovers all this ‘healthy’ food isn’t so healthy after all. Sorry, I just think a lot. And things annoy me. I don’t even know what I’m talking about half the time.”

  Marisa laughed. “Why’re you so mad over this. Relax. You’re in your thirties…this is your generation…you old man.” She seemed to like his rant, though.

  He thought about her statement and that he was most likely angry with himself and the direction his life was going in—unmarried, sometimes broke even though he worked sixty hours a week, lonely as hell most nights. He knew anger was usually directed outwardly but most times stemmed from within.

  He shook his head. “I just hate not being able to park in this city. Fuck!”

  She laughed harder, and her laughter annoyed him for some reason, but he kept quiet.

  He drove into the sun’s direction, blocked it out with hand, but his mind carried on. When he had been a patrol officer, he’d often gotten called into Old City on weekend nights. It was the place to be for partying. Bouncers had their hands full containing the crowds at times, breaking up bar fights and also preventing them. Hammered and buzzed twenty- and thirty-somethings bounced from one bar to another, and that led to inevitable occasional scuffles. Alcohol fueled most of it, and the usual question: did you look at my girl?

  Marisa pointed. “Here, right here. Parking!” she said, then read the address aloud.

  He hunched over his steering column and cut the wheel hard.

  The spot was a block away in a two-hour parking zone, but beggars can’t be choosers. Philadelphia was notorious for its strict parking laws. Parking meters, tow away signs, and kiosk machines lined nearly every block in populated areas. If even one minute late, odds were, a parking enforcement officer was writing a ticket. Steel had gotten many over the years and said a few more curse words after each time he’d gotten one. They parked and headed up the block.

  The apartment was up a quiet street between two major intersections. The block was so tight a large van would have trouble driving up it. It had tan pavements that stopped at each curb and a black street in between, with just enough space for a vehicle to squeeze past parked cars that lined the right side. Steel estimated about twenty row homes on each side of the street. Most of the homes’ fronts looked alike, with either red or brown brick. Some houses had a small tree on their pavements, which were dug into a block of concrete, and a few had plants on their front windowsills.

  They continued walking the length of the street and found the corner apartment on the far end.

  Steel’s eyes sharpened as he pondered, moving them from house to house. “Whatda’ya think a house around here goes for, Tulli?”

  She raised her eyes in thought and shrugged. “What’re you calling me by my last name now? And I don’t know—two or three.”

  “Nah, I think over three…closer to four. People are nuts. I can get the same house in South Philly for $160,000 and still commute to Center City in fifteen minutes.”

  Marisa glanced away. Her eyes read boredom. Yet again, Steel was
way more interested in a conversation than see was.

  Her footsteps slowed. She bit her fingernails. “Here it is.”

  He scanned the brown brick exterior. “Yep…that’s it.”

  They straightened their backs, cleared their throats, adjusted their suit jackets, pulled out their badges, and walked to the front door.

  11

  Steel jabbed a finger at a rubber doorbell for the second floor apartment. He waited a few seconds before pressing again. To his left were three mailboxes; he knew he’d be questioning three groups of people. When no answer came, he rolled his eyes and huffed and puffed, waiting longer than he would have liked. He glanced at Marisa, and she stood with her back straight and eyes focused on the door. Frustrated, he switched his badge from his right hand to his left and again dug a knuckle into the doorbell labeled SECOND FLOOR.

  Another minute passed, then footsteps. The two looked at one another as the door opened about ten inches. A woman leaned out, half her body visible and half behind the door. The only part of her entirely exposed was her head. She appeared in her fifties or sixties, and from the half they could see of her, she was dressed in blue jeans and a gray t-shirt. Her dark brown hair was medium length and lay just below her ears. She opened her hazel eyes. “Hel-lo.”