by Walter Marks
“’Sup, Mouse,” Jericho said.
“Hey, hey, hotshot,” Mouse said. “Nice goin’, smokin’ that Most Wanted dude on the beach. What’s his name again?”
“Mort.”
“Yeah, Mort. I read about it in the Post. Headline said ‘Hero Cop Kills — ‘“
“Hero-schmeero,” Jericho said. “It was pretty routine.”
“Battle, you’re full of crap, as usual.”
Jericho smiled. It had been a long time since he’d heard his cop nickname, derived from the way he introduced himself: “Jericho — like in the Battle.”
Mouse sat down and the waitress immediately took their orders. Jericho had his customary sweet roll and coffee. Mouse asked for tuna salad — no mayo.
“No more Chessburgs?” Jericho asked.
Mouse yanked up his colorful Guayabera shirt, showing off a narrow pale scar bisecting his pectorals.
“I had a little blockage in my coronary artery,” he explained. “They call it ‘the bypass zipper’. Doctors say I’m only allowed fat-free food. I’m on the NoMo diet.”
“NoMo?”
“No Mo’ burgers, No Mo’ fries, No Mo’ soul food,” he explained. “Last night Keisha made me chitlins ‘n’ black-eyed peas cooked without lard. Man, you know what that taste like — without lard?”
“Not really.”
“Taste like goat pellets.”
“Taste like that anyway.”
Neither man laughed. To them, kidding around was a game with one unspoken rule: first guy who laughs loses.
They had re-bonded instantly. For a while they chatted, catching up on each other’s lives. Mouse’s two boys were now at Brooklyn College; Jericho described his work in East Hampton, talked about Katie, her upcoming move to the Coast.
Mouse nodded compassionately. “In life, ain’t but one thing certain,” he said. “Change.”
“So,” Jericho said, “how’s the desk duty working out?”
“Sucks,” Mouse stated succinctly. “My wife, of course, is thrilled. She says — better to have one of your leg veins in your heart than a bullet.
“Can’t argue with that.”
Mouse did allow that the stress from working the streets all these years had caught up with him.
“You the smart one,” he said, “movin’ to the Hamptons, where there’s nothin’ but rich folks with zoning violations and tax problems.”
“Plenty of regular people live out there too,” Jericho said. “There’s working-class communities like Sag Harbor, Springs, Montauk.”
“I went to Montauk once. Nice place. When I was in high school my Daddy drove out with me and my brother, and we went on a party boat to catch fluke. Didn’t catch nothin’ though — except for one blowfish. Damn thing inflated and looked like a balloon with a fish face on one end.”
The waitress brought their order. Neither man was hungry — they both picked at their food.
“Man,” Jericho said, “seems like only yesterday we were sitting here eating this crap.”
“Tempus fuggit,” Mouse said.
“True dat.”
“So, Battle,” Mouse said. “You said you had something you wanted to discuss. Something important?”
Jericho stared down at his sweet roll, thinking — I don’t want to do this. “I’ve got a situation,” he finally said.
“Yeah?”
“Well, after I shot that hitman, I was required to go see a shrink. You know the drill.”
“Sure.”
“I can’t go back on the street till the doc clears me.”
“So what’s the problem?” Mouse asked. “You s’posed to be all shook up about icin’ a hired killer?”
“Thing is,” Jericho said, “she knows about the whole deal with, y’know, what happened on 118th Street.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“That’s what I said.”
“What was her answer?”
“Well, the shrink’s a rape crisis counselor, so I guess she tends to think about everything in terms of post-traumatic stress. She seems to feel I could be traumatized about, y’know, what happened. That it might affect my work. So she ordered me to go back to where it all went down. Said I should talk to you about it, take a little trip down memory lane.”
Mouse looked grim. “That’s not a fun trip.”
“No.”
“What does she think you’re gonna find out?”
“Who the hell knows?” Jericho growled. “She said I might have ‘a component of guilt over the incident.’”
“Guilt?” Mouse said. “What have you got to feel guilty about?”
“You kiddin’ me?”
“Well, shit, it was me who spooked the guy.”
“No,” Jericho said. “I took a couple of steps toward him, and he backed up and toppled out the window.”
“Is that what you been thinkin’ all this time?”
“Yeah.”
“Jericho, I went for my gun.”
“What?”
“Remember, he made us put our guns on the floor?”
“Of course I remember.”
“The way he was holdin’ the little girl,” Mouse explained, “I saw I had a clean shot at him — I thought I could take him down. He was looking at you, ‘cause you were talking to him, and I figured I could grab my weapon without him seeing. But as I grabbed my gun, he noticed me and yelled, ‘Don’t do that.’ Then he backed away from me and they fell out the window.”
Jericho looked at him incredulously. “It wasn’t because I stepped toward him?”
“No,” Mouse said. “I thought you knew that. I never talked about it, because it hurt too much.”
“My God.” Jericho said in amazement. Then his breath wooshed out in a sigh of relief.
“Lemme tell you somethin’,” his partner said. “I saw the department shrink for a year after the incident. And I still have nightmares about it. Truth is, that child’s death was probably the main cause of my heart problems. It’s something you really never get over.”
“Jesus, Mouse. That’s terrible,” Jericho said quietly. “But look, man, you weren’t responsible. You were trying to save her — you did your best. And what if we’d let that drug freak get away with little Rosario? What would he have done to her?”
“What if?” Mouse said, his gray-green eyes getting moist, ”That’s the question I keep asking myself. And I always get the same answer: Who knows?”
CHAPTER 51
At sundown Jericho was heading home on the Long Island Expressway. He felt good — partly because he’d reconnected with his partner, but mostly because he knew he hadn’t caused Rosario Colón’s death. A heavy burden lifted. At last, he hoped, the flashbacks, nightmares, and blackouts would stop.
He hated to admit it, but Dr. Patel was right. Revisiting the scene of the tragedy was definitely for his own good.
But when his thoughts turned to Mouse, his mood changed. His friend had tried to save Rosario and was rewarded with lifelong guilt that had seized his soul and attacked his heart.
I’m okay but my partner’s screwed, he thought. A policeman’s lot is not a happy one — it sucks.
A mile past the Douglaston Interchange. Jericho found himself stuck in a massive traffic jam. The entire eastbound lane was blocked for repairs, and the cars had been diverted to the westbound side of the highway, which was itself down to one lane due to a fender bender.
The traffic heading west, toward the city, was now re-routed onto the westbound service road.
The driver in front of Jericho kept riding his brakes, the tail lights flashing off and on like a pinball machine gone berserk. Asshole.
After a five minute complete stop, the traffic started to move again, albeit at a snail’s pace. Jericho looked over at the cars coming toward him on the westbound service road. Now they were all stopped, stuck in some fresh gridlock hell. The damn LIE. It’ll getcha comin’ and goin’.
The imagery of two-way traffic t
hrew a switch in Jericho’s mind. A memory surfaced, along with a doubt that had nagged him since this whole Cascadden case began.
The track in the sand.
I asked Susannah about it that first day, he remembered, saying it looked like something had been dragged from her house into the water. She explained it was from her swim-raft, that she’d hauled it down to the ocean to go swimming. But when she climbed on it, she said, she got caught in the rip tide. She claimed she rode the raft parallel to the shore until she was out of the rip. Then she paddled back to the beach. That meant Susannah would’ve waded ashore far down the beach. Dragging the raft back to the house would have left another track.
Two-way traffic — comin’ and goin’.
So there should have been two tracks in the sand.
But there was only one.
A couple of hours later Jericho was driving past the pond on the East Hampton town commons, watching two gracefully gliding white swans who, illuminated by the pink toned street lamps, looked almost like flamingos. His cell phone rang. It was Chief Manos.
“Jericho, where are you?”
“Just hitting town.”
“Good. Get your ass in here. There’s something I want you to see.”
“What?”
“You’ll see when you get here.”
Five minutes later Jericho walked into the Chief’s office. John Alvarez, the medical examiner, was laying out some 2”x3” photographs on Dominick’s desk. He turned to greet Jericho.
“I’m glad you’re here, Detective,” Alvarez said. “I brought these over myself — I thought you and the Chief would want to see them right away.”
“Let’s take a look,” said Manos.
He and Jericho had to lean over and squint to see the photos.
“The light was bad.” Alvarez said, “so they’re a little hard to see, but anyway...”
The photos were all of a nude dead man. The front views showed him sprawled out on some kind of plastic sheeting. A surgeon’s scalpel lay beside him. The rear views revealed a nasty gash in the victim’s lower spine, and a bloody head wound.
“Where was he found?” Jericho asked.
“Park ranger spotted him this afternoon, at Camp Hero,” Manos replied. “I responded to the call. The body was in a quicksand bog.”
“Quicksand? Wouldn’t a body be permanently sunk?...”
Alvarez interrupted him. “Remember it rained very heavily the other night. See, quicksand is just a specific mixture of sand and underground saltwater, in which the friction between the sand particles and the water is reduced, creating a mushy mixture that can’t support any weight. The heavy rain diluted the quicksand, and the body floated up, just as it would in seawater. Clearly somebody dumped this man here expecting he’d never be found.”
“Any ID?”
“No,” Alvarez said. “But I’d say he’s Mexican. Besides his Latino features, he’s wearing a silver crucifix pendant marked TC-92 on the back. That’s the current marking system for Mexican silver. The T stands for Taxco. My dad wears one very much like it.”
“Guy could be one of those illegals,” Manos said. “If he is, we might never solve this murder. Those people are so afraid of cops they usually don’t even report crimes.”
“But I’m sure you’re gonna try!” Alvarez said assertively.
“Of course.”
Jericho picked up a rear-view photo and looked at it closely.
“From this head wound, it looks like he’s been scalped,” he said.
“That’s correct,” the ME responded.
“Strange. And... his lower spine has been cut out.”
“Yes,” Alvarez said. “Can you guess what section of his spine is missing?”
It took just a moment before it sunk in. “Jesus!” Jericho said. “C-3 to L-2?”
“Yep. The exact vertebrae we found on Turtle Beach.”
“That means those bones didn’t belong to Burt Cascadden.”
Alvarez nodded in agreement.
Jericho pursed his lips, trying to figure this out. “Have you got the DNA results from the hair on Cascadden’s hairbrush?”
“Not yet,” Alvarez answered. ”But I know that hair didn’t belong to Cascadden either. You sent me his hair dye — Black ‘Just for Men’ Gel.”
“Yes.”
“Well, we did a lab analysis of the hair sample and it wasn’t dyed.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. There was no ethanolamine, no erythorbic acid, nothing you’d find in hair coloring.”
“So, Dr. Alvarez,” Manos said, “you think that hair belongs to the Mexican guy?”
“Since the victim had his scalp removed, I’d say that’s a pretty good bet.”
“Okay...here’s how it could’ve gone down,” Manos said, thoughtfully. “This Mexican was in Cascadden’s house — maybe robbing it — and he brushed his hair with Cascadden’s hairbrush. Burglars do strange things — defecate, masturbate...”
He paused, trying to follow his own logic.
“But what about his murder?” Alvarez said. “And the excision of his spine and hair.”
“Um, that could’ve been a separate incident”, Manos replied. “Maybe some weird ritualistic killing.”
“By whom?”
“I dunno. The Shinnecocks.”
“Indians?”
“He was scalped.”
Alvarez and Jericho were speechless.
“The Shinnecocks hate the Mexicans,” Manos explained, “for stealing all the construction jobs they used to get.”
“Interesting theory,” Jericho said, trying not to look disdainful. “But my guess is — someone killed the Mexican man, scalped him to get his hair, placed his spine bones on the beach where he knew we’d find them, then sneaked into Cascadden’s house and planted his hair in Cascadden’s hairbrush.”
“But why?”
“To make us think Cascadden was dead — that he went swimming and drowned.”
Manos was working hard to follow all this. “You mean,” he said, “the DNA on the spine and in the hair follicles would match, so we’d figure they belonged to Cascadden?”
“Right. The only mistake was — whoever did this forgot to dye the Mexican’s hair.”
“Man, that is some devious shit,” Manos said. “But...how would someone know we’d need hair shafts with follicles, to get a DNA match?”
“You can probably thank television for that,” said Alvarez. “Ever since the OJ trial, the airways have been flooded with shows about forensic pathology. Just look at CSI, Forensic Files, Bones, Body of Evidence... now everybody’s an expert.”
“You think this man was killed at Camp Hero?” Jericho asked the medical examiner. “Or was he killed somewhere else and moved there?
“Probably he was killed where we found him. It was dark when I arrived, but the Crimescope picked up some blood spatter on a nearby tree.”
“Got a cause of death?” Jericho asked.
“Not officially, till I cut him up. But it’s clear he was shot – execution style,” Alvarez replied. “One bullet to the back of the head. Judging from the size of the hole, I’d say it was a big bullet, maybe 50 caliber.”
“Glock?”
“Have to check ballistics, but that’s a good guess.”
“Mort!” Jericho said.
Alvarez and Manos looked at him questioningly.
“Mort used a Glock 50,” Jericho explained. He thought for a moment, then went on. “Let’s see, if the shooter was Mort... my guess is Cascadden came up with this whole scheme. He wanted us to think he was dead, so he hired Mort to do the killing. Mort delivered the spine and the scalp to Cascadden, who then planted the spine on the beach, and sneaked into his own house to put the hairs on his brush.”
“But why would he want us to think he was dead?” Manos asked.
“Well, I know Cascadden was in serious financial trouble. It makes sense that he’d fake his own death, bail on the situation, and maybe get a
new identity somewhere else, probably out of the country. His wife indicated he had major offshore money stashed somewhere.”
“But doing that whole number so he could plant some fake DNA,” Manos said. “He’s gotta be intensely warped,”
“And fucking brilliant,” Jericho added. “Except for messing up with the hair dye.”
“Which was lucky for us,” Alvarez said.
“I look at every crime assuming, or at least hoping, that the perpetrator has made a mistake,” Jericho said. “That’s what you’ve got to look for.”
Alvarez got up. “Well, I’ve gotta get back up-island. Detective Jericho, I must say I’m very impressed with your analytical skills.”
“Likewise,” Jericho said. “But a lot of this is still conjecture.”
“That’s true,” Alvarez said. “I mean, you’ve got two men who supposedly drowned, after leaving their clothes on the beach? And no body found in either case. They’re awfully similar.”
“So maybe they’re related,” Manos said.
“Could be,” Alvarez said, stopping at the door. “And my biggest question would be this — why did Mort try to kill Cascadden’s wife?”
After Alvarez left, Manos said, “Yeah, why?”
Jericho hesitated before he spoke. He didn’t know the answer. And he was torn between investigating Susannah and protecting her.
“I...I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Jericho said.
He got up to leave. “I’ve had a long day, Dominick. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 52
At around eleven Susannah prepared herself for the night ahead. She’d cancelled the dinner with Gretchen and Arnold, and set the home alarm system to “activate”. She checked twice to see that the green “on” button was lit.
When she got into bed, she tried to relax, but her nerves were still on edge. Although she knew her house was secure, it didn’t stop her from imagining the worst. She kept going over and over the list of people who might be out to get her.