Black Sand

by William Caunitz

  “What were they able to tell you?” Lucas asked, bending down to examine the small pile of cigarette butts under the passenger window.

  Leone checked his steno pad. “They drove out onto the pier to have their coffee. They both spotted the DOA at the same time and got out of their car to investigate. Both of them recognized Burke as one of the Purple Gang crew. They secured the area and called us by land line.”

  “Good,” Lucas said, pleased that the cops had used the public telephone at the end of the pier to make the notification, preventing the media from knowing that a homicide had gone down; it gave them time to do their jobs before the arrogant vultures descended on them.

  “… the guard wasn’t in his shack when the RMP drove onto the pier,” Leone said, a cynical grin curling one end of his mustache. “When he finally showed he told the cops that he was taking a dump in the portable toilet.”

  “A dump, huh,” Lucas said, his voice full of scorn. “I think you two are going to have to give him an enema of the mouth.”

  “Be a pleasure, Lou,” Big Jay said.

  The patrol sergeant, a dumpy black woman with a puffy Afro, came up to the barrier accompanied by the two black ambulance attendants. “Lou,” she began, “the stiff hasn’t been pronounced.”

  Lucas glanced around at the body. Thick strands of blood hung down from the face; an exit wound had splattered blood and brain matter over what remained of the window on the driver’s seat.

  Lucas looked at the two attendants. “Pronounce him at the morgue.”

  “Lou, we’re required to pronounce at the scene,” said the smaller of the two, a man of thirty with crooked teeth.

  Lucas stepped back over the tape and slid his arms around the two attendants’ shoulders and waltzed them back over to their ambulance. “Look, guys, this is a mob hit and I have a personal interest in seeing that everything is done right, so you can see why I don’t want anyone inside the car until we’re done doing our thing.”

  “Lou,” Crooked-teeth protested, “we’re supposed to check for vital signs before we pronounce.”

  “M’man, his vital signs bees all over the window,” Lucas said, affecting an inner city drawl.

  The other man was fat and had long dreadlocks. “Lou, we’d like to do the right thing, but suppose we pronounce him without checking his vitals and the man don’t be dead? Shit. They’d have our asses for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  Lucas slid his arms from around their shoulders, turned his back to them, and took out his expense money. He shaved a Grant off the wad and slipped it into Dreadlocks’ shirt pocket. “Lemme buy you guys lunch.”

  Crooked-teeth smiled. He looked back at the crime scene. “That motherfucker sure bees dead to me.” Thus Eddie Burke was pronounced.

  Lucas snapped on plastic gloves and stepped back into the frozen zone. Turning around, he said to the patrol sergeant, “Send your driver to the Hotel Olympian on Eighth Avenue and Thirty-second and pick up a Mr. Andreas Vassos and deliver him here.”

  “Right, Lou,” she said, motioning to her driver.

  Big Jay and Leone snapped on disposable latex gloves and followed the Whip into the frozen zone. Crime Scene Unit detectives waited patiently nearby. Their turn would come soon.

  The Sixteenth Squad detectives moved cautiously around the Sundance, avoiding the pile of cigarettes. Leone had caught the case, so the collection and the preservation of the chain of evidence was his responsibilty. He waved the photographer into the frozen zone. Big Jay maintained the crime scene log, listing the name, rank, and shield number, and the time each person entered the frozen zone.

  Accompanied by Leone, the photographer snapped his pictures of the car’s exterior; the pile of cigarettes was shot at several different angles to show its relationship to the passenger window. The outside of the car was divided into quadrants and searched, starting with the quadrant containing the driver’s door and continuing clockwise until they had searched all quadrants of the car’s exterior.

  Leone crouched down next to the pile of cigarettes. Using a rubber-tipped tweezer, he picked one up, examing it. “Marlboro, with a chewed-up filter.” He took out his pen and wrote his initials, shield number, and the date and time on the cigarette paper. He deposited the butt into a serial-numbered evidence bag. Big Jay noted the bag’s number in the log.

  The car door was open; the photographer snapped pictures of the body. Big Jay and Leone wrestled the corpse out from behind the wheel and laid it out on the ground. Burke’s hands were immediately bagged; photographs were taken of the body.

  Leone searched the body. Big Jay vouchered the contents of the clothes. Leone removed a shield case from Burke’s trousers. Time had molded the contours of a patrolman’s shield into the outside of the worn leather case. He looked down at it and then up into the Whip’s grim face. He passed the case to Lucas. Taking it in his hand, Lucas heard Cormick McGovern’s voice boom across time-worn memories. “Laddie, let me tell you how the Job works.”

  Bile rose in Lucas’s throat. He snapped open the case. A silver patrolman’s shield: NYPD 5593. He looked down at the corpse. “Burn in hell, you bastard.” He slid the case into his pocket.

  Big Jay asked softly, “Want me to record finding it, Lou?”

  “Finding what?”

  The interior of the Sundance was divided into eight search zones, starting with the driver’s compartment floor. All areas under the seats were searched; the seats were removed and their undersides examined. All folds and creases in the upholstery were searched. The contents of the ashtray were photographed, invoiced, and initialed.

  Their tasks completed, Leone motioned to the Crime Scene detectives. “It’s all yours.”

  The fingerprint technician snapped open his valise.

  Lucas, Big Jay, and Leone climbed out of the frozen zone and ambled over to the edge of the pier.

  “Whaddaya think?” Big Jay asked the Whip.

  “Hit up close by someone he trusted,” Lucas said. “He wasn’t carrying, so we have to assume that he didn’t expect trouble.”

  Leone nodded his agreement. “The hitter smoked Marlboros and is in the habit of chewing the filters.”

  “No other brand of cigarette was found in or around the car and none were found on Burke, so we have to assume that the hitter was the smoker,” Big Jay said.

  Lucas said to Leone, “I want you to put a hold on the body. Get impressions of Burke’s teeth and have the saliva extracted from the filters.”

  “I went that route once, Lou,” Big Jay said. “The ME doesn’t have any forensic dentists on staff. Whenever they have occasion to use one, they farm it out to a few that they have on call. But the kicker is that we have to pick up the tab, which means getting the borough commander’s approval for the expenditure of department funds.”

  “I’ll call the C of D at home,” Lucas said. “He’ll approve it for us.” He looked directly at the two detectives. “You two are off the chart. Stay with this one.”

  “Can you tell us if this hit is tied in with what you and the major are working on?” Big Jay asked.

  Lucas watched a beer can bobbing in the river. “No can do, not yet. Trust me, okay?”

  “Ten-four, boss,” Leone said.

  Six minutes later Andreas Vassos leaped out of the front seat of the RMP and rushed over to the detectives. “What is it?” he asked excitedly.

  Lucas led him away from the others and told him what had happened and explained to him the course that the preliminary investigation had taken.

  “You think the casket-copy is involved in this murder?” Vassos asked.

  “I think that someone is scared that we might be getting close and wants to make sure that all we find are dead ends.”

  “The dental impressions are important, then?” Vassos said.

  “They’ll exclude Burke as the smoker, leaving only the killer.” Lucas looked out at the dark river and continued, almost as if he were talking to himself. “When we find the perp w
e’ll get a court order to take his dental impressions. That, with the saliva which will give us blood grouping, will nail him to the crime scene.”

  Somewhere in the distance a ship’s forlorn horn sounded.

  11

  Eddie Burke’s body lay on a gurney surrounded by other cadaver-laden trolleys in the basement of the medical examiner’s office. The steel ice boxes were filled; the dead were crowded in the hallways. Burke had been dead about twelve hours; the preliminary investigation had been completed. Lucas had telephoned C of D Edgeworth earlier. “I need a forensic dentist, now.”

  “Wait at the morgue; one’ll meet you there,” Edgeworth had promised.

  Lucas and Vassos waited in a glass-enclosed office, drinking coffee and watching the double door with the black rubber piping, trying to ignore death’s irritating odor. An attendant wheeled a body into the autopsy room; a radio blared Willie Nelson singing: “Won’t you ride in my little red wagon.”

  A bronze-skinned blond woman pushed her way through the doors. Late thirties, dressed in tailored blue slacks, white blouse, carrying a medical bag. She had a distracted look on her face as she searched for the man she was supposed to meet. Lucas waved. She smiled, waved back, and made her way through the field of gurneys into the office. “Lieutenant Lucas?”

  “Yes, and this is Andreas Vassos.”

  “Hi. I’m Dr. Helen Rodale. I apologize for taking so long. The ME caught me just as I was leaving to take my son to his tutor.” Her eyes roamed over the still forms. “Which one is yours?”

  Lucas pointed out Burke. The body hadn’t been washed. The distorted face was caked with gore.

  They walked out of the office. “I’ll need some water,” the dentist said. Lucas went over to an attendant and asked him for water. Shoving gurneys aside, Dr. Rodale made her way over to her subject. She put her medical bag down on Burke’s knees, opened it, and, reaching inside, looked at Lucas and said, “You understand, Lieutenant, that your department is responsible for my fees?”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that, doctor. What is your fee?”

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  Vassos rolled his eyes.

  She removed a chamois from the bag and spread it across Burke’s chest. She reached back in and took out a paper pad, two tubes that resembled toothpaste, a horseshoe-shaped instrument with a handle, a metal putty spatula, and three plastic cups.

  The attendant came over with a liter of water in a plastic bottle. “Hiyadoin’, Doc?” he asked, working the bottle down between the cadaver’s legs.

  “Fine, thank you, Igor,” she said.

  When the attendant had gone, Lucas whispered, “Igor?”

  “Yes, isn’t that a pity?” She reached back into her bag and came out with a rectangular block of hard rubber. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves and pressed open the dead man’s mouth. “Say ahhhh,” she muttered, inserting the bite block between the back row of teeth, propping open the mouth. She opened one of the tubes and squeezed out a two-inch strip of paste onto the pad. She did the same with the other tube. Using the spatula, she mixed the two strips together.

  The detectives gathered close to watch.

  She explained: “One of the compounds is a rubber-based polyester impression material; the other is a catalyst. We stir them together until we get a homogeneous mix.” She worked the spatula. The paste took on a purple hue. “That should do it,” she said, picking up the horseshoe-shaped instrument. “This is an impression tray,” she said, loading the concoction into the tray’s reservoir.

  She inserted the tray into Burke’s mouth and pressed the paste up into the top row of teeth, holding it firm with the pressure of her thumbs under the bottom of the tray while her fingers fanned out over the clay-cold face. “Do either of you have children?”

  “Yes,” Vassos said, then quickly correcting himself, “No, I don’t.”

  “My older one is sixteen,” she said. “We pay six thousand dollars a year to keep him in a fancy private school, and I still have to run around getting him tutored for the college boards.” She removed her hands from the tray. The instrument remained motionless, cemented to the upper teeth, the handle protruding from the mouth.

  She mixed more paste, troweled it into one of the cups she had taken from her kit, and asked, “Who has the cigarettes?”

  Vassos removed the plastic evidence bag from his briefcase and handed it to her. She removed one of the butts and held it up to the fluorescent light. Using both hands, she carefully straightened the cigarette and implanted the filter into the paste. Turning her attention back to the cadaver, she took hold of the tray’s handle and wiggled it free of the teeth. She removed the cast from the reservoir and put it down on the paper pad. She poured water into the basin and cleaned out the tray. That done, she mixed more paste and repeated the procedure on the bottom row of teeth.

  After she had done that, she reached into Burke’s mouth and removed the bite block, wrapped it in a disinfectant-soaked cloth, put it in a plastic bag, and tossed it back into her medical bag.

  She opened a jar of wax and, picking up one of the molds, began layering wax around the outside of the impression.

  “Why you doing that?” Lucas said.

  “In order to raise the base of the mold,” she said. “This way I’ll create a dam for the dental stone.”

  “Stone?”

  “Dental stone is similar to plaster, only faster drying,” she said. “We mix it with water and pour the solution into the holes that the teeth made in the mold. When it dries we’ll have a replica of Burke’s teeth.”

  Lucas looked down at the butt sticking up out of the cup. “Same procedure for that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How long will it be before you can tell us if Burke smoked those cigarettes?” Lucas asked.

  “I can tell you that now,” she said. “Those impressions were not made by the dead man.”

  Detective Ivan Ulanov was talking into the telephone, attempting to placate the moonbeam lady, a telephone regular who was convinced her landlord was attempting to regain her rent-controlled apartment by trying to kill her with moonbeam. “Yes, Martha, I know that it’s rent-controlled, but I really …” He rolled his eyes at the Whip.

  Frank Gregory was typing the unusual occurrence report on the Burke homicide, a need-to-know report that circulated up the chain of command.

  Lucas asked Gregory, “Where’re Big Jay and Leone?”

  The Slav pointed his cheerless face at the old record room.

  Passing the bulletin board, Lucas focused on the new flyer, one of many that regularly arrived in department mail, written by one of the Job’s many anonymous authors:

  SIX PHASES OF A POLICE DEPARTMENT PROJECT

  1. Enthusiasm

  2. Disillusionment

  3. Panic

  4. Search for the Guilty

  5. Punishment of the Innocent

  6. Praise and Honors for the Nonparticipants

  Someone had written “The Job Sucks” across the bottom.

  Lucas and Vassos entered the old record room, a cramped place that smelled moldy and was lined with green erector-set shelves crammed with department cartons containing the files of long-forgotten cases. Homicides were tucked away on the left side of the room; the victims’ names and the dates of occurrence listed on the sides in bold, black letters.

  A frail alcoholic was slumped in a chair. He looked sixtyish but was probably in his forties; he had a blooming complexion and bloodshot eyes.

  Vassos inched his way along the shelves.

  Lucas watched Big Jay’s face. The black detective remained stoical, save for a subtle lift of his right eyebrow.

  “Now, Eddie,” Leone said wearily, “tell us again why you left the shack.”

  “I hadda take a shit,” the watchman said. “How many fuckin’ times I gotta tell ya?”

  Big Jay’s mock fury unleashed itself on the nearest carton, his fist punching through the side. “You’re a fucking liar. You
left cause you knew a hit was going down.”

  The watchman turned defiant. “Prove it.”

  “Prove it!” Big Jay bellowed. “You miserable little scumbag, I’ll prove it.” He clasped the bottom of the watchman’s chair and lifted it up off the floor, tossing it against the shelf. The tops of several cartons came undone; the guard sprawled onto the floor.

  “Hey! None of that stuff!” Lucas shouted. “Help the man up.”

  “Yes, sir,” Big Jay said meekly.

  Leone motioned to Lucas. “This is Inspector McCann, and this is” – he pointed to Vassos – “Captain Lopez. They’re from the Mendicant Squad.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Vassos said.

  “A pleasure,” Lucas added, turning to Vassos and saying, “Captain, go to the supply locker and get something to relax Mr. Walsh.”

  Vassos nodded and left the room.

  “Mr. Walsh,” Lucas said, “we believe that you left your shack at that particular time because you were told to.”

  The guard waved a protesting hand at Lucas. “Naw, dat ain’t it. I told ya, I hadda take a dump.”

  Vassos slipped back into the room with a bottle of vodka and a stack of pleated paper cups. Lucas motioned Leone and Big Jay out of the room. Vassos handed the guard a cup and passed one to Lucas. Big Jay and Leone left, closing the door behind them.

  Vassos poured the clear liquid into the guard’s cup, making sure to fill it to the brim. Lucas watched the guard toss down the drink and hold up his cup for another. “Edward, that is your name?”

  “I ain’t been called that in years,” the guard said.

  “My father’s name was Edward,” Vassos lied.

  The guard looked squint-eyed at Vassos. “Dat’s a funny accent you got. You from New York?”

  “Puerto Rico,” Vassos said.

  “You know, Edward, you’re not a bad guy, but you got yourself caught up in something that could jam you up,” Lucas said. “We might be forced to hold you as a material witness.”

  The guard held up his empty cup to the fictitious Captain Lopez. Vassos poured more vodka. Walsh gulped down the drink, pulled a sour face. “Ya know, McCann, I never had any real ambition. I just wanted to go through life with enough fuck-you money in my pockets so I didn’t have to take no shit from anyone.” He shrugged philosophically. “But, dat didn’t work out either. I’m a drunk who everyone dumps on.”