by Walter Marks
THE
BATTLE
OF JERICHO
A Detective Jericho Novel
WALTER MARKS
Copyright © 2015 by Walter Marks
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Author.
Printed in the United States of America.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Top Tier Lit
New York, NY
For Marsha Brooks, Esq., who makes everything possible.
Also By Walter Marks
Dangerous Behavior
Death Hampton
Taking one consideration with another,
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
— W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance
PROLOGUE
It was a foot — somebody’s foot, bobbing up and down in the gentle, rolling surf. It was wearing a pink Nike running shoe, the Swoosh starting to peel off from the action of the seawater. There was a sock and part of an ankle. Nothing more.
An incoming wave caught the foot and for a moment it seemed to be surfing. As the wave crashed on the damp sand and receded, the foot was left on its side, a piece of slimy kelp tangled in its shoelaces.
It would’ve been a ghastly sight to any beach walker passing by. But to Barney the golden retriever, it was just something to retrieve and carry back to his owner, where he could display it proudly and drop it at his master’s feet.
Stunned, Barney’s owner stared down at the foot. He considered picking it up and examining it, but the idea made him queasy. Besides, he might be tampering with evidence. He took out his cell and called 911.
CHAPTER 1
Detective Sergeant Neil Jericho peered at the eyes staring back at him in the bathroom mirror. They were early-morning eyes; squinty, bleary, bloodshot. Were these the eyes of a brilliant detective? Eyes that could recognize minute blood spatter without luminol, spot clues hidden in plain sight, pick up the tells of a lying suspect?
He’d read recently that first thing upon arising, Paul Newman would plunge his whole head in a bucket of ice water. Impulsively, Jericho turned on the cold tap, filled the basin, and ducked his head into it. After a few seconds he came up dripping, but definitely wide awake and refreshed. Okay, he was no Paul Newman. Still…
As he finished shaving, his phone rang. It was Police Chief Sid Krauss. “Jericho, I’m here with what looks like a drowning victim.”
“Where?”
“Montauk. Gin Beach.”
“Are you with the body?”
“There’s no body. Just a foot.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. Get your ass out here.”
“I’m on my way.”
As he took his keys from the hook near the door, Jericho saw his ex’s house key hanging there. He just couldn’t put it away.
For a year they’d tried to make it work, but they were essentially a mismatch. Jericho had investigated Susannah for murdering her husband, but in the end she was cleared. Still, the fact that she’d inherited millions created a gap between them. Maybe it was financial (Jericho earned only a D3 base salary), maybe it was emotional (Susannah felt uncomfortable profiting from her husband’s violent death). But these issues were hard to talk about and remained unresolved.
Their main conflict, however, was that Susannah was a dancer and wanted to form her own dance company in Manhattan. Jericho, a former NYPD detective, knew the city wasn’t for him. Eventually she left him to pursue her dream.
Jericho understood, but the breakup still hurt.
Now it was time to go to work. He ate his emergency breakfast — a mug of instant coffee dissolved in hot tap water, and a handful of raisins.
He grabbed his phone and his battered canvas shoulder bag and drove out to Gin Beach.
CHAPTER 2
It was an unusually warm November morning as Jericho walked on the sand. There was no wind, the waters of Block Island Sound calm and shimmering under a cloudless sky.
Jericho stepped over the crime scene tape set up around the foot. He saw the new, recently appointed Police Chief, Sidney Krauss, talking to a man holding his leashed golden retriever. Krauss was a thick-necked stocky man with gray, thinning hair and a dark unibrow which made him look like he was deep in thought, which he never was.
A patrolman was shooing away two onlookers, men carrying surfcasting rods. They would back off, then return to gawk as soon as the police officer wasn’t looking.
One of them sneaked a cell phone photo of the foot.
“Jericho,” Chief Krauss said, “this is William Mumfrey. He found it.”
“Did you touch it or move it?” the detective asked.
“No.”
Jericho used his pocketknife to poke at the running shoe, turning the foot on its other side. On the exposed ankle was the bottom section of what appeared to be a purple tattoo — two curving lines coming to a point.
He could see part of a word — the letters R-A-Z-Ó-N.
“Corazón,” he said. “Spanish for heart.”
He stood up. “Hispanic. Right foot. Small size, pink color suggests female. Any missing persons reported?”
“Not so far,” Krauss said. “How long you figure it’s been in the water?”
“Well, looks like the foot’s been bitten off by a shark or some other big fish. The sneaker floats because it’s got foam in it, but eventually the smell of flesh would attract other, smaller fish, and they’d tear it apart.”
“So it hasn’t been in the water long.”
“That’s my guess,” Jericho said. “Which means it likely didn’t float here from somewhere else. Maybe forensics can give us a clearer picture.”
“And you think she’s Hispanic?”
“From the tat I’d say so.”
“Well, hopefully somebody’ll report a missing person.”
“Yeah, hopefully,” Jericho said. “But if she happens to be a Latino immigrant worker, we may hear nothing. You know how that community is. They’re just plain scared of cops.”
“They shouldn’t be,” Krauss said, “unless they got something to hide.”
Jericho knew there was a lot of history between the immigrant community and the local police. So he decided to stay quiet.
“Let me get some shots,” Jericho said. With his cell he photographed the foot from various angles.
Then he took a large plastic police evidence bag from his shoulder bag and handed it to the Chief.
“Hold this open, Sid,” he said. Krauss complied and Jericho lifted the foot with his pocketknife and dropped it into the evidence bag. He carefully fastened the waterproof, leak-proof, tamper-proof adhesive closure.
“I’ll stay here and get the witness’s statement,” Krauss said.
“…Okay.”
“Make sure you deliver the foot to the medical examiner’s office this morning. The traffic between here and Hauppauge gets bad in the afternoon.”
“I know.”
“Better stop off at Mickey’s Deli for some ice. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to tag and label the evidence.”
Jericho concealed his annoyance. Dominick Manos, the former chief who’d awarded Jericho his gold shield, had retired. His replacement, Sidney Krauss, was appointed by the town board, which was headed by his uncle. (Nephewtism, Jericho called it.) Krauss had been promoted from First Line Supervisory Manager — basically a desk job. Now, as Chief of Police, he was under-qualified. So, to prove he knew what he was doing, he’d often give orders to people who already knew what they were doing.
But his
most annoying flaw was his desire to play detective.
As detective sergeant, Jericho was in charge of investigations, but Krauss was always sticking his nose into cases. It didn’t matter much in crimes like burglary, stolen cars, shoplifting. They were handled mostly by the four other detectives on the force, and Krauss couldn’t mess them up too much. But in a case like this, a missing person with the possibility of foul play, Krauss could really get in the way.
Now Krauss was about to interview a witness, a task normally assigned to a detective. Jericho thought about calling one of his men to do it, but it wasn’t worth getting into a hassle with the Chief. Anyway, Jericho could always follow up with Mumfrey if he needed to.
At Mickey’s Deli Jericho bought ice and two boxes of plastic bags. Outside, he sat at one of the concrete dining tables and filled out the chain-of-custody/evidence label printed on the front of the evidence bag — type of case, case ID number, date, location of collection, item description, collector’s name and identification information, and where the item was being routed for analysis.
He placed the evidence bag inside a large baggie then put them both in a garbage bag filled with ice.
He got in his car and headed for the ME’s office in Hauppauge.
As Krauss was talking to the witness, a man with a digital recorder climbed over the police line. The Chief recognized Jim Hennessey, a reporter from The East Hampton Star.
“We got a phone call from a concerned citizen,” Hennessey said. “What’s the deal with this foot?”
Krauss gave him the standard “it’s an ongoing investigation.”
“C’mon, Chief,” Hennessey said. “We go to press this afternoon, and this’ll be our headline. Don’t you want to give us some facts in the case? Any clues so far?”
“Not at this time.”
“Then I hope you won’t mind if we write — ‘the Chief of Police is clueless!’”
Krauss signaled to a patrolman and the reporter was courteously but forcefully escorted off the beach.
CHAPTER 3
The Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner is a sprawling two-story tan brick building, clearly designed to satisfy utilitarian rather than artistic demands. The crime laboratory, where Assistant Medical Examiner John Alvarez worked, is equipped to test Serology/DNA, trace evidence, toxicology. And some nine hundred autopsies are performed there each year.
The county morgue is also contained in the facility.
As Jericho entered the AME’s office, Alvarez greeted him warmly. He was a thin, dark Latino man who seemed to get skinnier every time Jericho saw him.
“Hey, John,” Jericho said. “You’re gettin’ to look as cadaverous as the bodies you work on!”
“Makes them feel more comfortable around me.”
Jericho was fond of Alvarez. They had worked together before and Jericho liked John because he was thorough, imaginative, and had a penchant for gallows humor. There was a sign on his desk that read “I SEE DEAD PEOPLE.”
Jericho showed him the bag-encased foot. “This is a severed foot, found on Gin Beach Montauk this morning.”
“Jane Doe?”
“Yes. Latino, I believe.”
“I can’t get to it today,” Alvarez said. “But I’ll put it in the fridge and do a work-up tomorrow.”
“You can’t do it sooner?”
“Yesterday a Mexican Mafia hangout in West Babylon was shot up by a Russian gang. Six dead.”
“Public Service homicides,” Jericho said.
Alvarez nodded. “I got a lot of slicin’ and dicin’ to do.”
“Okay,” Jericho said. “Call me when you get to Jane Doe.”
“Will do.”
The next day The East Hampton Star’s front page read:
FOOT FOUND WASHED UP ON MONTAUK BEACH
Victim unknown
NO CLUES — POLICE BAFFLED
Chief Krauss ducks questions
The Chief waved the headline in front of Jericho’s face. “Do you believe that shit?”
“Well, so far we don’t know too much,” Jericho said calmly. “I delivered the foot to the ME yesterday, but he said he couldn’t get to it till today.”
“We don’t need the public thinking we’re inept.”
“This article could prove useful,” Jericho said. “Maybe somebody’ll see it and report someone missing.”
“And look,” Krauss said. “They printed a picture of the foot. Some bystander must’ve shot it on the sly and sold it to the paper.”
“Phone cameras have changed the world,” Jericho said. “Everybody’s a paparazzo.”
CHAPTER 4
When Aaron Platt rode his bike home from school, he saw The Star rolled up in plastic wrap and tossed on the lawn. He picked up the paper and saw part of the headline through the plastic — FOOT FOUND WASHED. Sitting down on the porch, he tore off the wrapping, read the article, and saw the photo of the foot. He smiled and said, “Kewl!”
Aaron hadn’t gone full-on Goth. He knew his Mother The Bitch would hassle him and he’d be grounded if he wore dark eye makeup or any kind of piercings. Especially after last year, when the cops busted him and his Goth buddy, Richie Chang, for spray-painting swastikas on the front door of the high school. They were charged with criminal mischief, which the dickhead judge said was a class A misdemeanor. But His Honor bumped it up to a felony because the swastika was a Nazi symbol, making it a hate crime. In Aaron’s view, the only Nazi in this case was the fascist judge. Sieg Heil, mein Führer!
Luckily Richie’s dad was a criminal lawyer and he got the boys off with fines and a warning. But they also had to pay $300 for the cleanup, which took the school janitor all of fifteen minutes with a rag and a spray can of Motsenbocker’s Graffiti Lift Off.
Aaron’s father had been killed in Iraq and his Mother The Bitch lived on his death benefits plus her income as a real estate agent. Sure, she had enough money for a BMW, trendy clothes, and a cleaning lady twice a week, but that didn’t stop her from yelling, “Aaron, you’re a useless loser who’s costing me a fortune!”
Now he contented himself with longish hair and dressing in an ambiguous Goth outfit — black jeans and black T-shirt — and attaching a Celtic snake sword dagger charm to his key ring. For the time being he had to make nice with his MTB.
But in two years he’d be eighteen, then fuck her.
Later, Aaron was in his bedroom listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees on his iPod speakers. On his lap was the newspaper, open to the picture of the severed foot. He kept staring at it, the image burning into his brain.
He turned the music down and phoned Richie.
“Dude, what’s the name of that website you told me about — the one with the crazy fonts on it?”
“Weirdmaker,” Richie said.
“Got it.”
“What’re you gonna use it for?”
“Tell ya later, dude.”
“Aaron — don’t do anything stupid. We agreed not to…”
“Bye.”
He booted up his laptop, went to Weirdmaker.com, and typed in some words. They appeared in a field in an odd font, which he copied and pasted into a Word document. After printing it out, Aaron went into the kitchen and slipped on some dishwashing gloves. He picked up the sheet from the printer, then went to the living room and took a stamped envelope from his mother’s desk. Addressing the envelope was awkward with the gloves on, but it worked in his favor to disguise his handwriting. He also wrote left-handed, making the words crooked and wobbly, but still legible:
CHIEF OF POLICE
EAST HAMPTON POLICE DEPT.
EAST HAMPTON, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK 11937
Still wearing the gloves, he jumped on his bike and rode the half-mile to the mailbox at the railroad station. As he dropped the envelope into the slot, it occurred to him that aside from a few Christmas cards, this was the first hardcopy letter he’d sent since he’d gotten his e-mail — [email protected].
But, he thought gleeful
ly, it won’t be my last.
CHAPTER 5
Another day passed without anyone reporting a missing person. And Jericho still hadn’t heard from the medical examiner.
Jericho sat at his desk, looking longingly at the framed photo of his daughter, Katie, smiling and clutching a teddy bear he’d given her for her fifth birthday. It was on days like this, when there was no activity on a case to distract him, that he missed Katie the most.
Jericho got a call from John Alvarez.
“Sorry I’m late,” John said. “I got backed up. But I did a prelim on your foot.”
Alvarez was of Mexican descent. He said he’d examined the foot, and in addition to the Corazón tattoo, the victim’s toenails had orange, silver-flecked polish, exactly like OPO Fabuloso, which he said his mother frequently wore. OPO was manufactured in Mexico City and was only sold in Latino community drugstores. It was highly unlikely that anyone in the US who wasn’t a Mexican immigrant would know about it or want to wear it. He would lab test the ingredients and compare them with OPO, but he’d bet the victim was Mexican.
“We need to check for drugs,” Jericho said. “When you gonna autopsy the foot?”
“Mañana.”
US postal worker Curtis Jones drove his mail truck into the parking lot of Police Headquarters. Curtis missed the old precinct house in East Hampton town, a friendly-looking red brick building surrounded by a manicured lawn and neatly sculpted bushes. But the real estate it occupied had simply become too valuable, so Police Headquarters was relocated to the hamlet of Wainscott. This new structure was a long, featureless building in a clearing bordered by dense, scruffy woods. It looked more like a penitentiary with its corrugated gray steel siding and a chain-link fence surrounding it. The only nod to architectural style was a rectangular portico flanked by pillars, which looked vaguely like Doric columns.