Don't Look Twice

by Andrew Gross

  “Do you have anyone that we can call? Give you some help in getting someone here?”

  Numbly, she shook her head. “My sister lives in New Hampshire. I don’t know how she’s going to take this news…You never know how this feels, do you, until it happens to you.”

  “No.” Hauck shrugged. “I’m going to leave an officer outside for the time being. You just let him know if there’s anything he can do.”

  Wendy nodded vacantly. “Thanks.”

  Hauck stood up. “We’re gonna find the people who did this, Ms. Sanger. I give you my word. I’ll let you know as soon as we know something.”

  “Thank you again, Lieutenant.” Her daughter’s face was pressed to her lap.

  Outside, Hauck paused on the steps. A carved jack-o’-lantern was already sitting on the slate landing.

  You never know how this feels until it happens to you…

  Yes, I do.

  All over again, he saw the window rolling down, the man wearing the red bandana extending the gun—his face light-skinned, chiseled, a thin mustache. David Sanger, in his down vest, stepping up behind them. You guys, go ahead… He smiled.

  Was it me…?

  Was it him they were aiming at? Was it because of something he had done, some stray act of vengeance, that this family’s life had to be upended too?

  They had been packing up for a weekend in Vermont. The guy had just gone to gas up the car. Only an hour before he’d had a life like Hauck’s, a daughter not much older than Jessie.

  I know what you’re going through, man…

  A fist dug in Hauck’s gut. If someone somehow wanted him dead, they could have gotten him any day of the week. At home in Stamford. On a jog. With no one around, and not in the middle of the day. In front of the whole fucking world!

  No, it would be suicide to go at it this way.

  His cell phone rang. Munoz. “Yeah, Freddy?” He snapped it open, heading toward his car.

  “Looks like that angel of yours is still on duty, Lieutenant.”

  “What angel are we talking about, Freddy?”

  “We found the truck!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The vehicle’s a file one, LT.” Munoz took Hauck around the red truck’s side. “Stolen. From a Ford dealership up in Wallingford yesterday afternoon. The plates are registered to a Monica Kassel out of Waterbury.”

  ADJ-977, the number Hauck had been unable to make out at the station.

  “Dollar to a dime they’ve been stolen too.”

  The vehicle had been abandoned on the curb of a hilly street just off the Post Road, a little over a mile from where the shooting had occurred. A roving patrol car, alerted to the APB, had spotted it. There was a nail salon and a framing store on the corner, a row of modest middle-class homes rising up the block where the street wound up the hill past St. Roch’s church, where Hauck’s family had belonged as a boy. From there, they could have easily blended into traffic along Railroad Ave. and hooked onto the thruway.

  It was definitely the same vehicle. Hauck ran his hand along the dented rear fender. The same spanking-new rims he had seen from the station’s floor. Scratch marks on the rear driver’s-side panel where it had careened off the stanchion. Scrape marks on the rear chrome.

  “They clearly had another vehicle waiting. Any chance they left anything inside?”

  Munoz shook his head. “They left it pretty clean, Lieutenant.”

  Wearing plastic gloves, Freddy opened the front passenger door, careful not to disturb anything. It looked like the damned thing had been driven fresh off the lot.

  Hauck looked up the hill. “You check those homes up there? Someone might’ve noticed the second car while it was waiting, or when they switched it. This mother would’ve barreled in here pretty fast.”

  “Val and Tim are up there now,” Munoz said, referring to two of Hauck’s detectives who were supposed to be off duty today but were called in, both of them helping out.

  “What about the dealership? Maybe there’s a security camera there? Or any of those businesses up on Church Street?”

  Munoz looked at him. “I called you as soon as we got here, LT.”

  The stress of all he had been through was starting to show. “It’s just that this has to be buttoned up, Freddy—tight! There’s gonna be a lot of eyes all over this.”

  “I know.” Munoz nodded. He tapped Hauck on the arm. “We all know, Lieutenant. How’s Jess?”

  Hauck had checked in with the ER on the ride down and was planning to head up there after this. “I think she’s doing fine, Freddy. Thanks.”

  What wasn’t fine was that they now had no idea in the world what kind of car they were looking for or what the shooter had yelled out as he sped away. And that someone had been shot dead right in his own town—right in the goddamn light of day—and that the victim was guaranteed to bring the nightly news right down their throats, not to mention the FBI.

  Other than that, it was just like Freddy said: angels.

  As Hauck nodded for Freddy to shut the truck’s door, something caught his eye.

  A piece of paper wedged under the driver’s seat. Maybe a dealership sticker.

  “What’s that there?”

  It was barely visible, caught in the seat adjuster track.

  “You do the honors,” Hauck said.

  Munoz bent down and carefully pulled it free by the edges.

  It was a page from a newspaper. Folded in half. Torn slightly.

  Munoz held it up and chuckled. “What do we have here?”

  It was from the Bridgeport Sun. Hauck noticed the date, July 11. Almost three months before. On the top of the page was an article about some well-known Connecticut businessman, Richard Scaynes, caught up in an Iraq War corruption scandal. PROSECUTION SETS A DATE FOR SCAYNES’S CORRUPTION TRIAL.

  But it was the headline below the fold that got their attention.

  TEEN GIRL DIES IN POOL ACCIDENT.

  Hauck raised his eyes toward Freddy. “Live and learn.”

  The detective read out loud, “Bridgeport’s East End is mourning the tragic loss tonight of a promising high school sophomore who drowned Saturday in a suspicious pool accident…”

  Then he stopped. It seemed as if Hauck’s and Freddy’s eyes hit on the same thing all at once.

  The victim’s name.

  Suddenly it became clear just what the shooter had been shouting.

  Her name made a lot of things clear.

  It was Josephina. Josephina Ruiz.

  CHAPTER TEN

  You have any connection to this case, Lieutenant?” Freddy looked toward Hauck, trying to connect the dots.

  Hauck shook his head. “No.” In a strange way that made him feel relieved.

  They read through the rest of the article, which recounted how the victim, a high school honors student, and a group of her friends had sneaked into the fenced-in community pool at night. They’d been drinking a little, which led to them horsing around in the pool. Apparently, the victim’s bathing suit got entangled on an underwater filter duct that had been left open and she couldn’t tear it free. The rest of the kids scattered, panicked. The body ended up being found by a night security guard. Then one by one, the next day, they started to come forward, identified by the school and local police.

  No charges were ever filed.

  Por Josephina. Hauck was sure now that this was what the shooter had been shouting. That was what this thing was about.

  Revenge. The East End was a tough section of Bridgeport. Lots of local gang turf up there. But why here? In Greenwich. At an Exxon station, in the middle of the day?

  But it didn’t have to do with him, Hauck realized now, re-calling the window rolling down and the barrel pointed in his eyes.

  Nor did it connect to David Sanger. That now seemed clear. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The poor guy had no idea what was behind the attack that killed him.

  But one person might.

  Hauck folded the paper by the edges
and dropped it in a plastic evidence bag. “Let’s find out from Sunil if he does.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Greenwich Hospital was on the way back to the station. Hauck gave his name to the attendant at the ER desk and she took him down the hall to a small, curtained-off room where Jessie was being treated.

  “She’s doing fine,” the attendant said to him. “Just a bit unnerved. We gave her a little Valium through her IV to take the edge off, so she’s resting. Your wife’s there with her now.”

  “Thanks,” Hauck said, choosing not to correct her, following her through the ward.

  “Hey…!” He brightened as he drew open the curtain to the room.

  Jess was on a gurney in a light blue hospital gown. Beth was sitting next to her, gently stroking his daughter’s hair.

  “Hey, Daddy.” Jessie perked up a bit, blinking, and lifted her hand.

  “Beth, thanks,” Hauck said to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. He bent down and gave his daughter a kiss and squeezed her hand, taking care not to jostle the IV. “How’re you feeling, honey?”

  “She’s doing okay,” Beth said. “Just a little woozy. They gave her something. They’re just waiting an hour or so before releasing her.”

  Jessie tried to push herself up on her elbows. “How are you doing, Dad?”

  “Just a flesh wound.” He grinned, recalling the skit from Monty Python’s Spamalot, which they had seen last Christmas.

  “Are you okay, Ty?” Beth asked. She was in a rust-colored velour outfit; her brown hair was back in a short ponytail. Hauck saw the concern in her eyes.

  Hauck nodded and put his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “That’s about how much, Beth,” he said, indicating how close they both had come. He and Beth had already lost one child together. Blame was something that had knifed back and forth between them for a long while.

  It had cost them everything. His ability to face his job. Their marriage. Years of their lives.

  Beth nodded, seeming to understand. “She’s been asking for you, Ty. She was wondering where you were.” He detected the edge in her voice.

  “I know, Beth, I know. I had to go. Someone died.”

  “Did you see his family?” Jessie asked groggily.

  “Yes, I did see them, sweetie. I had to.” He stroked his daughter’s hair. “He had a daughter, not much older than you. And a son. They took it pretty hard…”

  “God.” Jessie closed her eyes and shook her head. “It was so awful, Daddy.”

  Beth said, “Ty…”

  “I know, baby, I know.” He squeezed her again. “But it’s gonna be okay now. I promise…”

  “Ty.” Beth placed her hand on his arm. “Can I talk to you outside…?”

  “Sure. I’ll be back in a minute, hon…”

  They stepped down the hall. Beth’s face had lines of worry in it. She asked him again, “You alright?”

  “I suppose.” He let out a long breath, finally shaking his head. “No. When I saw her lying there, all that blood, and at first she wasn’t moving…”

  She nodded. “I know. I guess that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  Hauck leaned against the hospital wall. “What?”

  “Maybe it’s not such a good idea if she comes up here again so soon. I know you were expecting Thanksgiving—”

  “Beth…”

  “She saw someone killed, Ty. She’s seen that before. She came within an inch of it being her.”

  “This could have happened anywhere, Beth. This wasn’t because of me.”

  “No, it couldn’t have happened anywhere, Ty…” Her eyes shone, both sympathetic and judging. “It just couldn’t.”

  Hauck pressed his back into the ER ward’s wall. He lifted his cap and ran a hand through his short, sweaty hair. “I want her to be with Karen and her family, Beth. I need a family. This doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  Beth looked up at him. “She doesn’t want to, Ty. She doesn’t want to hurt you, but…”

  A doctor and a nurse went by. Jessie was the one thing in his life he could cling to.

  Beth placed her hand on his arm. “You’re a good dad, Ty. You really are. I know that I’ve made you feel otherwise at times…But please, hear what I’m saying. Just for a while…”

  Hauck swallowed back a final rebuttal and blew the air out of his cheeks. He nodded.

  “Thank you. The doctors have given the okay. We’re going to be heading back to Brooklyn soon. I’m going to go check her out.”

  “Right.”

  The intensity of what had happened started to rise in him again. The sting in the back of his eyes, of seeing Jessie there like that…The feeling it was happening all over again and that he could do nothing about it.

  “Listen, Beth…”

  “Ty, maybe you ought to call someone.” She squeezed his arm. “Angela…Or Warren?”

  His sister lived outside of Boston. She had two young kids, worked full-time, and had a husband she was divorcing. His brother, Warren—two years older—had a law office up near New Haven and was tight with a lot of the politicos up there. He was doing pretty well. They hadn’t been so close since high school. Basically, they just checked in with each other once or twice a year. This didn’t seem to fit the occasion.

  Hauck nodded. “I’ll just go in and say good-bye.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Hauck got back to the station, Sunil and Munoz were sitting in interview room one.

  “I think Sunil’s got something to tell you, Lieutenant.”

  The manager of the Exxon station nodded sheepishly as Hauck stepped in. “Lieutenant…” He drew in a fitful breath, his dark, round face showing barely more life than when he’d come up from behind the counter a couple of hours ago.

  “I didn’t have any idea that this was what this was about, Lieutenant. I thought this was all over…”

  Hauck sat on the edge of the table. “Thought what was over, Sunil?”

  The Pakistani swallowed.

  Munoz leaned against the wall. “Tell him, Sunil.”

  “Okay…” Sunil ran a hand through his dark, thinning hair. “I’ve been here thirty years, Lieutenant. I operate this business. I’ve never been in trouble with the law…”

  “I know that, Sunil.”

  He nodded. “This young girl, the one who died. The one in the newspaper you found. This Josephina… My son, Azzi, he knew her. He was in school with her.”

  Hauck suddenly realized where the man was heading. “He was there with her that night? At the pool?”

  Sunil slowly nodded. “Look, he’s a good boy, Lieutenant. He’s no trouble, you understand? He does well in school. He’s already taken his SATs. They were just kids. Messing around.”

  “What do you mean by ‘messing around,’ Sunil?”

  “I mean, it’s not like he was doing drugs or tried to hurt someone. There was a whole group of them who were there. Six. When he came home that night I could see in his face that something was terribly wrong. During the night he came into my room. He told me what had happened. How everyone had run. We called the police. We told him he had to take responsibility. We told him he could not hide behind his friends. Azzi was the only one who came forward. He didn’t mean to run away that night. He was just scared. It was a boy’s reaction. You understand this, Lieutenant. Sometimes boys do stupid things…”

  “No one’s judging what he did, Sunil.”

  “Yes, I know that, Lieutenant. You’re fair. You’ve always been fair. But not everyone is. Where we live, we are the outsiders. He was afraid. Not just for him. For me. Afraid it would hurt me. What I’d worked for. We said we would help make restitution. Did anyone else? We never consulted a lawyer.” Sunil’s face was caught between remorse and anger. “He was all the way on the other side of the pool, Lieutenant. That poor girl, they were just horsing around.” He shook his head. “Why would they do this to us? Why…?”

  Hauck felt the pieces starting to fit. Sunil’s face
was like a sheet of wax. He took a sip of water.

  “Was anyone threatening you over this, Sunil?”

  “Threatening?” His eyes were round and startlingly white against the dark color of his skin. “Where we live, it’s not the most settled neighborhood, Lieutenant. There are clashes. They have gangs. There were accusations. Many of them. The girl’s family, they were upset. Who can blame them? She was by all accounts a good person too. Her brother, he might have said some things…”

  Hauck leaned forward. “Name those kinds of things, Sunil.”

  The Pakistani looked up, a little scared. “I don’t want any more trouble, Lieutenant. Enough is enough. I just didn’t think…” The manager was still in the blue Exxon work uniform, his name emblazoned on his chest. “When I saw your daughter lying there, I was so scared. Then that poor man…” He ran two hands over his hair and sank back in his chair. “Yes, there were threats. They called us names. Pakis…Pakis, Lieutenant! I’ve been living in this country for thirty years! The girl’s brother…people told us he was in some kind of gang. They are commonplace up there now. My son stood up, Lieutenant. He came forward. We offered to make restitution. The others…” Sunil shook his head. “Why would they want to take this horrible thing out on us?”

  “I’ll talk to someone on the force up there, Sunil. I’ll make sure they station someone outside your house.”

  “It was an accident.” The manager somberly shook his head. His eyes were round and sad. “Now look what it’s done.”

  Outside, Munoz asked Hauck, “You still want us to take a look into Sanger’s case files?”

  “Not any longer.” Hauck shook his head. “But grab your jacket; we’re going to take a ride.”