Black Sand

by William Caunitz

  Edgeworth turned away from the window. He looked tired and drawn. He moved over to his desk and sat down behind it. Picking up his pipe, he lit it with slow deliberation. A swirl of white smoke partly concealed his expression. “Do you have any disciplinary problems in your squad, Teddy?”

  “All my men are solid, Chief.”

  “Well, I hope so. But if you do have any problems, get rid of them. If you don’t, you’ll take the fall with them. Did you hear what happened in the Five-three?”

  “No.”

  “Two detectives are doing a night duty. They lock up a burglar and process him for central booking. But they have a problem. There’s a precinct stag party in a local VFW hall that the two supersleuths want to attend. And they know that if they go to central booking with their prisoner, they’ll be stuck there for at least three hours and will miss most of the festivities. So what do you think the two birdbrains do?”

  Lucas swallowed a smile, forced himself to wear a grim expression. “They brought the burglar to the party.”

  “That’s right! And it gets better,” Edgeworth said, stabbing his pipe at the lieutenant’s face. “They had entertainment at this soiree. The two birdbrains belted down a few balls and decided that they were going to be nice guys. So they chipped in and got their prisoner a blow job.” He was banging his pipe on the desk; a few embers spilled out of the bowl onto the blotter. “We used to beat the shit out of prisoners. Now we’re getting them blow jobs.” He leaped up out of his seat and pointed his finger at Teddy. “That’s the result of all that goddamn human interaction bullshit they teach at the Academy.” He threw his pipe into the glass ashtray.

  Lucas grabbed a folder from the desk and discreetly smothered the embers.

  “Goddamn those men,” Edgeworth shouted, slumping back down into his chair. “At the arraignment the next morning the legal aid lawyer asked the burglar how the cops treated him. ‘Great,’ the burglar said, and then blabbed about the party.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Both detectives are being flopped back into the bag, along with the Whip, who wasn’t even at the party. With authority–”

  “–goes commensurate responsibility,” Lucas chimed in.

  Edgeworth pushed his chair back, bent down, and blew stray ashes off his blotter. “How many men did you say?”

  “Four – Leone, Big Jay, Ulanov, and Gregory.”

  “Your squad working two-handed?”

  “Generally, yes. Occasionally I’ll have a three-man team covering a duty.”

  “Are these four guys partners or are you splitting teams?”

  “Partners.”

  “How long do you think they’ll be off the chart?”

  “A month, maybe longer.”

  Edgeworth opened the top drawer of his desk and slid out the Force Figure Folder, a projected thirty-day analysis of the manpower pool available within the Detective Division. He studied the tear sheets. “With vacations and military leaves we’re always short of bodies in the summer. Let me see now, I’ll fly in one detective from the Staten Island Robbery Squad and another from Queens Robbery.” He flipped pages. “I don’t want to pull any men away from the busy squads, but I don’t want to send you any duds. Okay. Here are the other two, both of them from Manhattan North’s Crimes Against Senior Citizens Squad.”

  “Thanks, Chief. I’ll assign them to work with detectives from my squad until they familiarize themselves with the precinct.”

  “Can those guys of yours keep their traps shut?”

  “I wouldn’t have selected them if they couldn’t.”

  “I hope so. We don’t want the press getting wind of this investigation. Those bastards would turn it into a circus.”

  “I understand.”

  A veiled expression came over the C of D’s face. “I have something that might interest you.” He lifted up the desk blotter and slid out a report. He handed it to the lieutenant. It read:

  From:

  Commanding Officer, Central Park Detective Squad

  To:

  Police Commissioner

  Subject:

  HOMICIDE OF U.S. DIPLOMAT WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THIS COMMAND.

  1.

  On July 15, 1987 at approximately 2300 hours on the east side of Central Park West, thirty feet from the northeast corner of West Sixty-fourth Street, a white male, identified as Trevor Hughes, the political officer of the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece, was the subject of a homicide under the following circumstances …

  Lucas looked up at the C of D with a frown of puzzlement and then read the rest of the report. When he finished, he put the report back on the desk. “Any leads?”

  “The detective who caught the case thinks it was a hit that someone tried to make look like a mugging.”

  “What makes him think that?”

  “The perp employed a mugger’s MO of cutting out the pockets. But only pack muggers do that. Two mutts will grab the victim and a third mutt will cut out the pockets. Hughes was shot. A mutt with a gun don’t cut out pockets. He just shoves his piece into his victim’s face and tells him to fork over his possessions.”

  “What have they turned up on Hughes?”

  “He took a vacation and flew to New York. Checked into the Plaza. That’s it.”

  “Was he married?”

  “He left his wife in Greece.”

  “Any girlfriends?”

  “None that they were able to come up with.”

  “Boyfriends?”

  Edgeworth shrugged.

  “Any alarm bells go off in the State Department when they were notified one of their people had been murdered?”

  “Not a tinkle.”

  “Strange. A diplomat gets whacked and nobody in D.C. raises an eyebrow.”

  Packing tobacco into his pipe, Edgeworth said, “You’d expect a political officer to be a savvy guy who’d know better than to go strolling around Central Park at night. Unless he was looking to get bungholed, or unless he had an appointment.” Putting the stem into his mouth, he added, “We think like cops, don’t we?”

  “That’s what we’re paid to do, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that’s what we’re paid to do.” Edgeworth looked down at his desk and said in a low voice. “I’m gonna give you a little bit of unofficial guidance, Teddy. For your ears only – not a word to anyone else, especially Vassos.”

  The C of D got up and walked over to the window. “I can tell you now that we will be getting somebody to ‘liaise’ with us.” Edgeworth spat out the phrase like he was getting rid of something foul tasting on his tongue. “You don’t need to know anything more than that for the moment. Whatever shithead shows up, I don’t care if his credentials have been signed by God Almighty, you give him nothin’. Don’t trust him. Give him a hand job, blow smoke up his ass, and report back to me on everything he says, everything he does.”

  Lucas stared at the broad back of the C of D. “You make it sound like he isn’t exactly on our side.”

  Edgeworth whirled around. “You said it, Teddy. We got to find out damn fast just ‘what’ side he’s on. So from now on, anybody who comes at you from Washington should be handled like a fucking cobra – because that’s what they’re sending us.”

  Forty-seven minutes later Teddy Lucas gathered his detectives inside his office, Leone, Big Jay, Ulanov, Gregory. The Second Whip stood in the doorway, his shoulder leaning against the jamb, a can of diet soda in his hand.

  The rim of the blackboard was covered by crime scene photographs: Iskur, Burke, Matrazzo, Trevor Hughes; homicides linked to an ancient book. Lucas untacked one of the Voúla crime scene pictures. Sitting on the edge of his desk, he held the grim photograph up and said, “This is the kind of a case you dream of. It surfaced last year in Voúla, Greece. But it really began after the battle of Issus in 333 B.C. …”

  The men listened as Lucas unfolded the complexities of the case. When he had completed the briefing he asked if there were any questions. At first no o
ne spoke. Each detective seemed to be absorbed in his own thoughts. Finally, Big Jay said, “Why was Major Vassos assigned to the case?”

  Lucas held up the photograph of the Voúla crime scene. “The woman and child in the spacecraft were Major Vassos’s wife and son.”

  Lucas watched the faces of his men; he could see they were thinking of their own wives and children. “It’s no secret in the Job that Cormick McGovern and I were close. It’s also no secret that Denny McKay ordered the hit on Cormick. As I just got through explaining, McKay and his people are involved in Voúla. That means we got another turn in the batter’s box.” His angry eyes rested on each detective in turn. “I don’t intend to strike out again.” He removed the case folder from the bottom drawer and slapped it down on the desk. “Familiarize yourselves with the fives.”

  The detectives got up and gathered around the desk.

  “I’ve got news from Greece,” Vassos said, rushing into the office, shrinking back when he saw the detectives collected around the case folder.

  “It’s okay, Andreas,” Lucas said. “From now on, they’re going to be working with us.”

  “That is good,” Vassos said, and went on to tell Lucas about his meeting with Elisabeth Syros. He gave the Whip the list of telephone calls. Lucas read the list. He moved to his desk and copied down several numbers and their subscribers. He passed the new list to Ulanov. “See that Nashin gets this.”

  Ulanov looked over the list of Soviet telephone numbers. “I’ll see to it.”

  Vassos sat in the chair next to Lucas’s desk and announced, “I want to bring in Belmont Widener for questioning.” A flush of anger darkened his complexion.

  Lucas tensed. “Why?”

  Vassos related what his control had told him about Widener. “I never believed his story about how the Aristarchus commentary was stolen.”

  “Pappas got his information about Widener from Interpol?” Lucas asked Vassos.

  “Yes. And despite my experience with Interpol, I would consider the information reliable for once. We should bring Widener in here right away and force him to tell us what his connection is with Iskur and Yiotas.”

  “Now is not the time,” Lucas said gently, hoping to defuse Vassos’s anger.

  “Not the time. Why not! Iskur made telephone calls to Brandt Industries, McKay’s headquarters. We now have a direct link between them. I cannot believe that you do not want to question Widener.”

  Becoming aware of the stares of the detectives, Lucas turned to them and said, “Will you men excuse us? The major and I have something to discuss.”

  They left the room; Grimes closed the door behind him.

  Vassos was standing by the blackboard, clenching his fist.

  “Andreas, I want to talk to Widener as badly as you do. But he’s not the one behind this. He doesn’t have the balls, and McKay doesn’t have the brains.”

  Vassos’s face rankled with discontent. “So we wait. Question more people while you build your endless chain of evidence.”

  “It’s the smart move, Andreas.”

  “If it had been your family, would you say it was the smart move? I think not. You’d drag Widener in here and break his kneecaps if you had to.” Driven by frustration, Vassos whirled and ripped a photograph of Voúla from the blackboard. “Look! That’s my family. And you say to be patient?”

  “Andreas, you told me that getting the people responsible and returning the casket-copy to Greece were the reasons you came to the States. If we rush out and scoop up Widener we’ll blow the case. It’s a different ball game over here, with different rules.”

  “You’re a Greek who is ashamed to be a Greek. You could never understand how I feel.”

  His words stung. “I’m a cop, just like you are. So don’t feed me that bullshit about not feeling Greek. We belong to the same fellowship, don’t you forget that, my Greek friend.”

  Vassos looked at Lucas with cold resolve. He spoke in Greek. “If your way does not work, then we will do it my way?”

  “Nai.”

  13

  “Didn’t Andreas come with you?” Katina asked Lucas as he stepped into her eleventh-floor apartment which overlooked Gracie Square.

  “He was unable to come and asked me to give you his regrets,” he said, walking through the small marble foyer.

  They moved into a tastefully decorated living room filled with American and English antiques and adorned with two large Victorian-era sofas. Teddy thought about the contrast it made with the Salvation Army decor of his own apartment.

  Katina was dressed in white Bermuda shorts, a cotton tank top, and white espadrilles. “May I offer you something to drink?”

  “No thank you,” he said, noticing the sliding glass doors leading out onto the terrace. Moving over to them, he said, “Great view.” He stepped out and looked down at the promenade and the East River.

  “I was lucky,” she said, coming out and standing close to him. “I moved in here six years ago when it was rental. The building went co-op four years later, and I was able to buy it at the insiders’ price. I could never afford to buy it today.”

  The darkened silhouette of the Queensboro Bridge loomed off in the distance; across the river in Long Island City, the Pepsi Cola billboard cast a crimson glow over the lightly wind-ruffled water.

  He felt her presence beside him and turned. He caught her looking at him. He had the urge to reach out and touch her, to bring her into his arms, kiss her wet lips. But instead he led the way back inside to the cluttered coffee table that stood between the two sofas. Long yellow legal pads and pencils were lying on photocopies of articles from academic journals. “I see you’ve been working.”

  “Yes, yes, I have,” she said, summoned back from her own private thoughts. “I’ve made copies of some of Dr. Matrazzo’s academic writings. I also telephoned NYU, where Adele told us he had taught. An old classmate of mine is chairwoman of the fine arts department. She looked up Matrazzo’s employment record for me. It turns out that he only taught there for one semester. He left and that was the last they ever heard of him. On his employment application, he listed his marital status as single and Adele as the person to be notified in case of an emergency.”

  “She told us that he was married with two children.”

  “She sure did.”

  Bending forward, Katina began to gather up papers. As she did her breasts pushed against her tank top. Desire flowed through Lucas’s body, causing him to want to reach out and caress her.

  When she had gathered up the copies and put them on her lap, she leaned back and said, “Dr. Matrazzo was an intelligent man with varied academic interests. Most academics confine their inquiries to a narrow field of research. Matrazzo’s writings show a much broader range – Greek history and literature, a keen interest in the technical aspects of the restoration of ancient materials.” She broke off and smiled apologetically at him. “I’m sorry, Teddy, you must be hungry. I’ve prepared a salad and I’ve got a bottle of wine cooling in the refrigerator. Would you like to eat now or wait until we’re done working?”

  “I’d just as soon wait.”

  “Me too,” she said quickly, a glow lighting up her face. “Back to work.” She pulled out another article. “This is one he wrote on paleography, which is the study of writings on papyrus, wax, parchment, and paper. And this one is on the use of X-ray crystallography and ultraviolet spectrometry in the detection of spurious materials.”

  Lucas leaned forward, studying the glass top of the coffee table. “Do you think that he’d have the ability to unroll ancient scrolls?”

  “I would certainly think so.”

  “In your opinion, would he possess the technical knowledge to forge antiquities?”

  “Yes, I believe he would.”

  Lucas pushed himself up off the sofa and moved over to the sliding doors. “I’m just wondering what the odds are that Matrazzo is alive and well – and involved in this case.”

  Her hands rose and fell onto her l
ap. “I don’t know.”

  He turned and faced her; their eyes held steady. She broke the spell. “Shall we eat inside or out on the terrace?” she asked.

  A flickering candle illuminated their faces as they sat across from each other. Reaching across the table, he poured wine into her glass, then his.

  “To Big Al,” he toasted.

  She tilted her glass at his. “To Alexander.”

  He picked at his salad, wondering how to get her to talk about herself. He wanted to know all there was to know; he felt the need to know. Something was happening between them; he wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

  They continued to eat in silence. Finally, he said, “Andreas and I were suprised when you told us that Pericles Levi was your father.”

  She turned her head and cast brooding eyes across the river. “We’ve been estranged for several years. When he telephoned me from Athens and asked me to help you, I was, well, frankly, I was overjoyed.” She looked back at him. “I saw it as an opportunity for us to reconcile. I love my father.” She hurriedly picked up her wineglass and sipped, watching him over the rim. She put down the glass. “My mother was born in New York. She met my father when he was teaching at Columbia. They fell in love, married, and had me. She died when I was fifteen. I’d lived all my life in the States, except for the summers we spent in Greece. When we lost Mother, my father and I decided that there were too many memories here, so we moved to Greece.” She took a deep breath. “I came back to the States when I was seventeen to attend college.” She sipped her wine, gathering the will to continue. “Papa could never forgive me for marrying a twice-divorced man who was twenty-six years my senior.”

  “I guess many fathers would have a similar problem.”

  “I suppose,” she said, playing with her glass. “I met Kenneth on a dig in Vergina. They were excavating the Macedonian Royal Tombs. I had just finished my doctoral dissertation and had decided to spend that summer in Greece, trying to sort out what it was that I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had dual citizenship so I had to decide where I wanted to live and work.”