by Walter Marks
“What the hell is that?” one of the guys yelled.
Vegessi handed the wheel to his mate and descended from the wheelhouse.
The crew was gathered around the fish bay, staring down at a bulging heavy-duty garbage bag with some kind of bone protruding from a wide rip in the plastic. The captain ordered the men to drag it up onto the deck. It was so heavy it took three of them to do so.
Vegessi took out a fishing knife and cut through one bag and then another to get to its contents. They were grotesque — scattered human skeletal bones with small bits of flesh and skin hanging off them. There was an automobile engine block, clearly there to weigh down the bag.
The men could recognize a spinal column and a rib cage with what looked like a bra tangled up in the shattered ribs. They knew it was a woman.
The captain spotted something deathly white, partially covered with seaweed. He picked it up. It was a skull, green kelp hanging down over the empty eye sockets like bangs. It seemed to be grinning at him.
Jericho and Maria responded to the captain’s 911 call. Accompanied by two patrolmen in a police van, they met the Wet Willie at Montauk’s Star Island dock.
When they climbed aboard, the captain showed them the hideous assortment of flesh and bone. Jericho immediately spotted the gleam of a shiny metal object, half buried in the shattered chest cavity. He slipped on latex gloves, reached down, and pulled up the object.
“Oh, my God. That’s the Guadalupe pendant,” Maria exclaimed. “This must be Teresa Ramírez. Her mother said she always wore it!” She reached for it.
“Gloves,” Jericho said, handing her a pair. She put them on and took the pendant from him.
“I have a photo of Teresa wearing this,” Maria said. She chewed on her lip to repress any display of emotion.
“How did you get this body?” Jericho asked the captain.
“It got scooped up by our trawling net,” he said. “It was weird. It was a double bag and it had a rip in it with a bone stickin’ out.”
“Could it have been a leg bone, with the foot missing?”
“I ain’t much on anatomy,” Vegessi said. “But seein’ as how there’s only one sneaker in the bag, I’d say you’re right. Probably a shark chomped the foot off, then spit it out ’cause he don’t like the taste of Nikes.”
“You’d make a good detective.”
“You get any openings for geezers,” the captain said, “lemme know.”
“Will do.”
“Oh,” Vegessi said. “I forgot — here’s the skull.”
Jericho took the deathly white cranium in his hands and turned it slowly. He spotted a neat round hole in the lower posterior section.
“She was shot,” he said. “Looks like execution style.”
Seeing the eyeless skull of a once beautiful young girl stunned Maria. She couldn’t hold back. “Oh, my God, Teresa,” she whispered. “I can’t believe…”
“I know. It comes with the territory,” Jericho said softly. “In cases like this…it never gets easier.”
“Sixteen years old. That was me…not so long ago.”
Jericho nodded.
“Jericho,” Maria said firmly, “I think I have to be the one to tell her mother.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No. Soledad knows me,” she said. “Maybe I can at least give her a little comfort.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“…It comes with the territory.”
“Okay,” he said. “This is very likely Teresa, but we still have to wait for DNA confirmation. The ME has her hair sample now, so we should get it late tomorrow.”
“That quickly?”
“There’s a new rapid DNA testing technology. They have it at the Hauppauge lab.”
Jericho bent down and continued the grim work of poking through the double bag’s contents. He found what he was looking for — a spent bullet.
He showed it to Maria. “The murder weapon was probably a .45 caliber handgun. I’ll keep this for ballistics.”
Jericho ordered the two patrolmen to transport Teresa’s remains to Hauppauge. “Tell them to alert John Alvarez, the AME.”
Taking out his phone, he e-mailed Alvarez that the body was on its way.
“What about the engine block?” one cop asked. “It must weigh a few hundred pounds.”
“Bring it to the evidence room,” Jericho replied. “Put on your gloves and have some guys help you get it into the van. I’ll check it out later.”
He looked at Maria. She was staring at the silver pendant with the image of the Virgin Mary. “She’s supposed to offer motherly protection,” Maria said bitterly.
“Listen,” Jericho said. “It’s been a long day. And it’s a long drive for you back to Sag Harbor. I live fifteen minutes from here. Why don’t you crash at my place tonight? No funny business, of course.”
“Thanks,” Maria said. “But that’s not necessary…”
“You can have my daughter’s room.”
“Look. I’m not tired, I can easily drive…”
“I could make us dinner. I make a mean pasta fazoo!”
She looked at Jericho. His smile showed kindness and concern.
“Well…I am kinda hungry.”
“Then it’s a done deal?”
Maria spoke after a pause. “Done deal!”
CHAPTER 37
When they entered Jericho’s ramshackle A-frame house in the Montauk woods, Maria noticed the floor was covered with scattered splotches of dried paint.
“The renting agent told me this place once belonged to Jackson Pollock’s mistress,” Jericho explained. “She said Pollock got the idea for his splatter paintings from the mess made here by sloppy housepainters.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No, but my daughter thinks it looks cool, so I left it.”
“It is kinda cool.”
“Would you like some wine?” Jericho asked. “I keep a bottle of Pinot Grigio in the fridge in case I have company. Although I never have company.”
“That would be nice.”
“Come on in the kitchen and you can watch the master chef prepare his famous pasta e fagioli.”
Maria sat in the kitchen sipping her wine, as Jericho, with a flourish, carefully laid out the ingredients — olive oil, onions, canned Italian tomatoes, cannellini beans, Italian spices, celery, a carrot.
Suddenly, after a frantic search through the pantry, he gave Maria a sheepish look.
“It seems I’m missing one ingredient.”
“Which is?”
“…Pasta.”
Maria burst out laughing. Jericho did too. For a while they couldn’t stop. It was a release, a new connection.
“I guess we send out for pizza,” Maria said.
“I’ll call Guido’s,” Jericho said. “Sausage and mushrooms?”
“Molto bene.”
“Large?”
“I’m starved.”
At dinner, they devoured the pizza and ate the free garlic bread that came with it. Maria polished off half the wine.
“Stuffed!” she said afterwards, leaning back in her chair.
Jericho groaned. “Tomorrow, I’m just eating carrot sticks.”
“I’m totally ready for sleep. Where’s your daughter’s bedroom?”
Jericho led her into Katie’s room. The bed was neatly made up.
Maria looked at the wall, which had a group of child’s crayon drawings tacked up on it.
“That’s Katie’s artwork,” Jericho said.
“Nice.”
“Like any great artist,” Jericho said, “she explores the same subject matter over and over again. In this case, it’s ‘A House, a Tree, the Sun, and Me.’”
Maria smiled and flopped down on the bed.
“’Night, Jericho,” she said in a sleepy voice.
“’Night, Maria,” Jericho said. He turned out the light and headed for his own bedroom.
Later that night, Jericho woke to the sound of M
aria screaming. He rushed to her room and saw her thrashing wildly in the bed.
“Ay, Carla! Carla!” she cried out. “Déjela sola, bastardos. Es sóla una chica jovena…Usted no tiene derecho. No tiene derecho…Por favor, yo le mendigo. Por favor. Déjela sola!”
Jericho sat down on the bed and spoke softly. “It’s okay, Maria. Just a bad dream…Just a bad dream. Wake up, darlin’.”
Maria slowly opened her eyes and saw Jericho. He stroked her hair gently.
“I was…dreaming,” she said haltingly. “Bad dream. I guess it came from…from seeing what happened to that poor girl…Teresa. I was fighting with these men. Yelling at them.”
“Yes, I heard you,” Jericho said. “But it’s okay now. Take deep breaths.”
After a while she was calmer. “What was I yelling?”
“It was in Spanish. You were very upset. You said something about Carla.”
“My sister.”
“Yes.”
Jericho understood about bad dreams. For a moment, he flashed back on the nightmares he used to have, caused by the last case he worked on in East Harlem.
Maria closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Why were you calling her name?” Jericho asked.
Maria didn’t respond. Finally she looked at Jericho and sighed. “She’s gone.”
Jericho looked puzzled. “She married an airman and they moved to some NATO base in Bulgaria, right?”
“Yes,” Maria said. “But a few years ago she called and said the marriage wasn’t working out. She was going to leave him. But she didn’t come home. We never heard from her again.”
“Did you report it to the military?”
“Yes. They said her husband stated he’d put her in a taxi to the Sofia airport. She had a plane ticket but never used it. The Air Force said she was no longer their responsibility. We notified the FBI and the State Department. An FBI agent called us and told us Bulgaria is a primary source of sex trafficking, and that they were investigating a number of similar cases — American girls kidnapped in Eastern Europe and forced into prostitution. Apparently American girls fetch a high price. He said he’d put my sister’s name into their system.”
“Oh, no…”
“Which means they’ll never find her,” Maria said grimly. “I called the FBI guy a number of times, but he always told me the same thing — ‘We have a heavy case load and we’re doing our best.’ My sister’s probably a sex slave God-knows-where, or…she’s been killed. She’d have contacted us by now, if she possibly could.”
“Jesus.”
“We don’t talk about it. It’s…it’s just too painful.”
“Of course.”
For a while they both were silent.
“Maybe you should try to sleep,” Jericho said. He sat down beside her and reached out to stroke her hair. Her body immediately tensed up.
“Sorry,” he said. He got up from the bed. “I…I’m just here if you need me.”
“I’ll be all right.” She looked up at him with a determined expression that gradually became a faint smile.
Her body relaxed and her breathing became slow and easy. For a moment their eyes met, then hers fluttered and closed.
Jericho was overwhelmed with warm feelings for this lovely woman, who’d just shared with him the unspoken pain and loss in her life. And he realized he’d wanted to stroke her hair, not only to comfort her, but also to comfort himself.
It had been so long since he’d been with a woman he could find comfort with.
“Sleep well,” he whispered, as he left and went to his own bedroom.
Jericho awoke as the dawn sunlight filtered into the room. For a long time he lay there, thinking about Maria and what she must be going through. And how close he felt to her.
He got up, walked to the front door, and took his ex-girlfriend’s house key off the hook. Looking at it, he saw Susannah’s face in a flash of memory. Then he opened the door and flung the key deep into the woods.
CHAPTER 38
In the morning Maria and Jericho had a quick breakfast, then drove back to Police Headquarters in Wainscott.
Jericho had his morning meeting with the detective squad. Things were quiet in East Hampton Township, normal for this time of year.
Ernie Billings, who called himself a recovering alcoholic and now limited himself to extra-strength cough syrup, was sleeping it off in one of the holding cells.
The list of minor reported criminal activity included a stolen bicycle in Georgica, an SUV with Jersey plates blocking a driveway on Cedar Street, and a noise complaint by a famous songwriter about a neighbor’s backyard power generator, which emitted a constant F-sharp sound, making him unable to compose.
Jericho assigned Fred McCoy to interview the famous songwriter, knowing McCoy was a star-fucker and would be totally thrilled.
He then told Dobrowolski to give out the other assignments, because something in his own investigations was nagging at him, something he couldn’t quite get a handle on.
In his office Jericho closed the door, turned off the lights, and sat at his desk in total darkness.
I’m missing something.
He thought of his former NYPD partner, Mickey “Mouse” Davis. When they were stymied by a case, Mouse used to say — Let’s erase our minds like a blackboard, wipe the slate clean…
He was in the process of trying to do that when his desk phone rang.
It was John Alvarez. “Got news for you,” he said. “I got the report from the New York Anthro Lab. I’ll send you a copy, but it’s got a lot of forensic anthropological language that’ll make your eyes glaze over. See, these new electron microscopes can actually analyze the texture of a bone’s collagen fibers.”
“Okay, cut to the chase.”
“Well, the essence is this,” Alvarez said. “Foot number one showed angulation fracture, with splintering due to twisting and breakage. In other words, it was bitten off by a large fish — probably a shark. Foot number two showed sharp force trauma, indicating that a metal instrument like an axe or hatchet was used. There is a typical chop mark — one side smooth and the other fragmented…”
“Yep, my eyes are glazing over,” Jericho said. “But what you’re saying is — one cut was man-made and the other was fish-made.”
“Exactly.”
“That pretty much knocks out our serial killer theory.”
“Unless you can find an axe-wielding shark with a foot fetish.”
“Thanks, John,” Jericho said. “Thanks for simplifying my life and complicating it at the same time.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Jericho hung up. He sat for a while in the darkness, trying to put together the pieces of this new puzzle.
Heeding Mouse’s advice, he freed up his mind and took a fresh look at everything.
After a long while he went to get Maria.
CHAPTER 39
Chief Krauss was sitting with a sweet-faced matronly woman when Jericho and Maria entered his office.
“Hi, Rosemary,” Jericho said. “This is my partner, Officer Salazar…Maria, this is the Chief’s wife.”
“Nice to meet you,” Maria said.
“Likewise.”
Rosemary looked at her husband. “This morning Sid forgot to take his blood pressure pills, so I brought them over. If he gets worked up without his Lasix…”
“I’m worked up about this,” Krauss said, holding up a copy of the East Hampton Patch. The headline read:
SERIAL KILLER IN EAST HAMPTON?
RUMORS SWIRL — IS THERE A FOOT FETISH FIEND LOOSE?
“I called Lefkowitz and told him he was an irresponsible asshole,” the Chief said. “I said a headline like that would create a panic. And we had no evidence pointing to a serial killer. Then he had the nerve to say if I read the article carefully, I’d see it was basically conjecture. Yellow journalism, is what I call it!
“I scheduled a presser for this afternoon. I’ll announce we found the first victi
m’s body, which will show we’re making progress.”
“We are,” Jericho said. “You can also say evidence indicates these are two separate events, not the work of a serial killer.”
“Really?”
“I just received word from forensics that one foot was bitten off by a fish, and the other was hacked off by a person. That means each manner of death was different. As I’ve said, serial murders always have a pattern. We’ve been trying to find one, but the reason we’ve failed is because there is none.
“Each victim is different in age, ethnicity, and marital status. The first victim, pending DNA confirmation, was Teresa Ramírez — shot and apparently dumped in Block Island Sound. Her foot was found on the North Shore beach. The second foot, which belongs to Ann Richman, was found clear across Long Island on an Atlantic Ocean beach. There’s no pattern. Plus no more homicides have been reported, further evidence we’re not dealing with a serial killer.”
“So…so how does the murder of Aaron Platt’s mother fit into all of this?”
“It doesn’t,” Jericho replied. “Put that aside for a moment.”
“Put that aside?” Krauss said tensely.
“Let me explain, Chief,” Jericho said. “The first victim, Teresa Ramírez, was shot and dumped in the Sound in a garbage bag weighed down with an engine block. Her killer would have to have a boat, and someone to help lift that heavy engine. This pretty much rules out Aaron Platt. I doubt he had the gun, the boat, and the accomplice to do it.”
“What about the second murder?” Krauss said. “Platt could’ve done that.”
“Maybe. But what I’m saying is — these are not serial killings. Even if Platt did the second murder — Ann Richman — he didn’t do the first one, so it’s not a serial killing.”
“Ah-h,” said Krauss knowingly. “But Platt did kill his mother. If he killed Mrs. Richman too, that would make him a classic serial killer — both victims were middle-aged women.”
“Forget Aaron’s mother!” Jericho shouted angrily.