by E. R. FALLON
“We come here sometimes, yeah. But everyone does,” the teenage boy said.
“Can I see your driver’s license and registration?” Terry asked him.
The guy handed them to Terry, who looked at them and then returned them.
“Do you ever see anyone else around when you’re out here?” Dino asked the teens.
“Not really,” the girl said. “A couple of homeless dudes, sometimes.”
“Ever see a Cadillac SUV?”
“Like an Escalade?”
“Maybe.”
The boy shook his head. “No, just pieces of crap mostly.”
Dino smiled. “All right, then. You two take off now, do you hear me? Go home, and make sure your date gets home safe,” he told the boy. “I don’t want to see you hanging around here ever again in the middle of the night, do you understand? This isn’t a safe area.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy replied and started the engine.
Dino and Terry watched them drive away.
“Do you think they have something to do with the kid in the box?” Terry said.
“No. Just two kids fooling around, that’s all. Come on, we’ll go congratulate Everhart on her find.”
They took turns driving out for coffee. When it got to five in the morning, and the sun started to rise, they decided to call it quits and return to the station to get some rest before they had to be back on duty again at nine.
* * *
Terry woke up from three hours of sleep in the barracks, and decided that he better call Tulia and find out how Jimmy’s conference had gone.
First, he headed for the men’s locker room, where he took a hot shower. He was grateful for the clean underwear, undershirt, socks and dress shirt that he always kept in his locker at Tulia’s insistence. He loved his wife, although sometimes she didn’t seem to really understand that he loved his job too.
At his desk he dialed Tulia on his cell phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello, baby, it’s me.”
“Oh, hi.”
Tulia didn’t sound that happy to hear him, and he wondered if she had been saving her affection for someone else.
“How’s everything?”
“Fine, except our son is failing algebra.”
“Really?”
“No, I’m making it up?” Tulia snapped.
“It’s just that I’m surprised, that’s all. He always liked math. At least I thought he did.”
“But this is high school, Terry. It’s a lot harder for him. You remember what high school was like, don’t you?”
“I sure do.”
“Good. Then you know how important it is to have a father who is around helping you through it all.”
“I sure do. My father wasn’t—”
“Your father worked a lot, I know. But you need to be around for your son,” Tulia said. “I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. I canceled my meetings this morning. When are you coming home? I thought we could talk about—”
“I can’t,” Terry interrupted.
“What do you mean? I know how important your work is to you. But I thought you said that you’d be out all night, but then you’d come home in the morning.”
“I’m sorry, Tulia. I am. But you know how it is when I have a big case. I’m going to be working around the clock until we solve this thing. How about we have dinner together? I’ll pick up a takeout—”
“Don’t even bother.” She cut him off. “You’ll probably just cancel on me again.”
She slammed the phone down.
“Damn it,” Terry muttered and got up from his desk. “I need some fucking coffee.”
“Coffee?” Dino said from the next desk. “I’ve got the same thing on my mind.”
“We’ll go to Lulu’s.”
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“Not right now,” Terry said.
Dino nodded. “I also want to pick up a copy of the Star-Ledger at the newsstand,” he said. “We can put Everhart on phone duty.”
Terry smiled. “I’m sure she’ll love that,” he said with sarcasm.
Rebecca’s face fell when they informed her of their plan, but then Terry said they’d bring her back a cup.
“And a bagel?” she said.
“You drive a hard bargain, Everhart,” Dino replied. His smile lingered for a little too long. “We’ll bring you a bagel too,” he said, still smiling.
Terry shook his head.
On the way to Lulu’s, they stopped at the newsstand, and picked up a copy each of that morning’s Star-Ledger. Terry tucked the folded paper under his arm to read later. Dino read his copy aloud as they walked.
“He came through.”
“Monahan? What does it say?”
“‘The city will never be the same since Tuesday afternoon when the body of a boy around nine years old was found still in his navy blue pajamas. He was discovered inside of an old Maytag washing machine box . . . Detectives Dino Cooper and Terence Jackson of the Newark police department responded to the call.’ Okay, here’s what I asked for, in the last couple of lines. ‘An enigmatic caller, possibly a woman, made the discovery and called 911 from an Alexander Street payphone, never revealing their true identity. The Newark police department asks this mystery caller to come forward. It is imperative that they speak with Detectives Cooper and Jackson immediately.’”
“Tulia’s going to have a field day with my name being in the paper,” Terry said.
“Isn’t she used to it by now?”
“She’ll never get used to it, not when you have guys like that Richardson fucker showing up at my door threatening to kill me and my family.”
Dino shook his head. “Didn’t they arrest that asshole again?”
“Yeah, last year, and now he’s doing fifty years. Thank God. Tulia and I will be resting in peace and Jimmy will be retired and living in Arizona by the time he gets out.”
At Lulu’s the detectives took the booth in the back that they thought of as theirs. When they returned to the station with a cup of coffee and a bagel for Rebecca, which Terry thought was handed over more gallantly than was necessary, she told them she’d taken the typical crank calls and texts while they were out. It had been the usual loonies who confessed to killing the boy and leaving him in the box. Those types would also go on to claim that they had killed Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater or Bugsy Siegel out in Virginia Hill’s house in Beverly Hills.
Dino told Terry to go home, again. After all, they had been staking out Beech Hills all night, and Terry had a family who missed him. Terry declined, and suggested that maybe Dino would like to give Rebecca a tour of the city on their lunch break while he stayed behind to manage the phone tip line, hoping he’d get something real if he was patient.
* * *
Rebecca didn’t go along with Terry’s idea. They were expecting the DNA results any day now from the crime lab in Trenton, and she also wanted to stick around in case anyone good called into the station with some information
But she agreed to ride with Dino to the medical examiner’s office a little later to view the boy’s body for the first time. Terry had stayed behind with a young officer named Dominic, who had been brought in for the day from narcotics to help with the hotline.
Initially, Rebecca had insisted on driving, but Dino maintained that since she was new to the area, it would be best if he drove this time around, so that she could memorize the route for the next time they needed to go there.
“You drive slow,” she commented along the way.
“But not when I’m chasing a suspect.”
Rebecca shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You have a corny sense of humor.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Are you from around here, Cooper?”
Dino looked ahead at the traffic in front of them and nodded. “Yeah. I grew up in Marks Hill.”
“That’s near where we were last night,” she said.
“Good memory.”
Rebecca glanced over at Dino when he wasn’t looking and smiled slightly. He was a handsome man, and they were both single, although she knew that Dino was divorced. She began steering their conversation in a less personal direction to distract herself from those thoughts. As a rule, she didn’t get involved with men she worked with.
“I read the medical examiner’s report yesterday when I first got in,” she said. “The kid was missing his spleen. That’s pretty twisted stuff.”
“And if you look closely at the examiner’s notes you’ll see that his body was thoroughly cleaned with something like rubbing alcohol,” Dino said. “No dirt underneath his nails. Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s a serial killer,” Rebecca mused aloud.
“Who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised by anything these days. But stuff like that really doesn’t happen around here. Usually, we just get gangbangers knocking off one another.”
“I really want to talk to that 911 caller. I just know they saw something.”
“How many times have you listened to the tape?”
“Twenty,” Rebecca said. “You?”
“About the same.”
“It sounded like a teenage boy to me. They sounded scared out of their mind.”
Dino agreed. “It was traced to a payphone in Marks Hill. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, I saw that.”
On the lower level of the county coroner’s office, Rebecca held the door open for Dino as they went into the cool brick building. They approached the reception desk and the woman behind it gave them a bored look.
“We’re here to see Doctor Colburn,” Dino said. “We’re the detectives from—”
“One second, please,” the woman said, putting her hand up in the air as she answered the ringing phone.
Rebecca waited next to Dino, who cleared his throat when the woman answered another call instead of assisting them.
The woman behind the desk finally hung up the phone. “Who are you here for?”
“Doctor Colburn,” Dino said.
“We’re Detectives Cooper and Everhart,” said Rebecca. “I think she’s expecting us.”
The woman smiled at Dino. “Oh, right, sorry. I’ve got so many things on my mind today.” She giggled.
Dino seemed oblivious to the woman flirting with him. She tapped him on the arm when she took yet another call.
“You owe me lunch.”
He turned to look at her. “I do?”
Rebecca nodded. “The other day, you promised. Remember?”
“That’s right, I did,” Dino said with a smile.
They were interrupted by the appearance of an older woman in a white lab coat. She nodded at Dino and introduced herself to Rebecca as Doctor Colburn, the ME.
A younger woman who arrived shortly after the ME said, “I’m Abigail, Doctor Colburn’s assistant.”
“It’s good to meet you,” Rebecca said.
“I believe we’ve already met,” Dino said. “Detective Everhart was just transferred to our station, and she’s working the Beech Hills case with me and Detective Jackson.”
“I assume you’re here to see the body?” Doctor Colburn asked Rebecca.
“Yes, I am.”
Doctor Colburn gestured for Rebecca and Dino to follow her into an examination room. Abigail hovered in the background, peering into glass jars filled with fluids and typing into a computer. The ME removed the white sheet from the boy’s body and Rebecca took a long look at the child. His taut, pale skin showed his blue veins, and his doe-like eyes appeared to bulge from his delicate face.
Rebecca saw Dino shaking his head as Abigail took something out of her brown-bag lunch. When Abigail unwrapped the aluminum foil, Rebecca could smell tuna fish. Dino looked nauseous as his gaze went from the body to the sandwich, and from the sandwich back to the body.
Rebecca rested her hand on Dino’s arm. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
Dino waved off her concern. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
Rebecca could see him breathing heavily and closing his eyes, as if he was attempting to block out the unsavory smell of the tuna and the sight of the small corpse.
Doctor Colburn circled the table where the exposed body lay and began her monologue before Dino even opened his eyes.
“An incision on the victim’s abdomen led to the discovery that the victim had his spleen removed, roughly two years ago,” the ME said. “The contents of the stomach showed that he had not eaten for twenty-four hours before his death. There were no obvious signs that he had been sexually abused. He died from a bacterial infection—”
“Why would somebody have their spleen removed?” Rebecca asked.
Doctor Colburn faced her. “You’d be surprised, detective. It could have been ruptured during a sports game, or in a playground accident. It is even removed in cases where it becomes severely enlarged due to an illness such as mononucleosis or leukemia — he didn’t have any of those — and threatens the person’s health, so removal is medically necessary.”
“So you think, what, he hurt himself playing?” Rebecca asked.
“Perhaps.”
Rebecca looked at Dino. “We need to talk to the local schools, see if any of their kids were severely injured during a sports game or during another activity within the past few years,” she said.
“Thank you for your time, doctor. We’ll be in touch, I’m sure,” said Dino.
Dino told Rebecca that there were five elementary schools in Newark. Rebecca waited with him in the lobby as he used his cell phone to call Terry and let him know where they were headed next.
The principal at the first school was a heavyset man with a receding hairline. His hands were laid out on the smooth oak surface of his desk. Dino and Rebecca sat opposite him in two chairs that Rebecca figured were usually reserved for the misbehaving student and their parent.
“We’re checking with all of the schools in the area,” Rebecca told the man. “I’m sure you already know about the child we found in Beech Hills.”
The principal nodded solemnly.
“We need to know if any of your students who might have been in kindergarten or the first grade — a little older even — and who were here around two years ago, were involved in any kind of injury at school such as a sports injury, and had to have their spleen removed because it ruptured.”
“Spleen? My goodness,” the man said. “I only arrived here last year, but I can check with the nurse’s office.”
“Please do that,” Dino said.
“Of course. What a horrible thing, that child being left on that road.”
Rebecca and Dino murmured in agreement.
“Do you have any idea who might have done it?”
“We’re working on that sir,” Rebecca said. “We will have it solved as quickly as possible.”
He picked up the phone on his desk and punched in some numbers.
“Margie? I have two detectives here with me right now. Could you check some information for me? Yes, it’s for the detectives. Please check to see if any of our students, past or present — most likely they would’ve been in the kindergarten or first grade — was hospitalized because of an injury received here at school. A severe injury, not just a bump on the head. Thanks, Margie.”
The principal turned to Rebecca and Dino and smiled.
“She’s looking it up on her computer.” He covered the receiver with his hand. “She would know, she’s been here forever, but she’s just double-checking.”
He turned his attention back to Margie at the other end of the line.
“Nothing?” he said. “Okay, thanks.”
The principal sighed as he hung up the phone.
“I’m sorry, but none of our students ever had an injury like that.”
“Thanks for trying,” Rebecca said, rising to leave with Dino.
“Detectives?” the principal called out as they left. “You might try the private schools.”
“Yes, we plan on doing that,” Dino
said.
They spent the rest of the afternoon at the remaining schools, and came up empty.
Rebecca suggested they drive to the county hospital and speak to a couple of the emergency room doctors. Maybe one of them remembers a child coming in with a similar injury.
Grand Memorial was a large hospital. Numerous white buildings stood among the smoggy sky. The emergency room had tall automatic doors leading from a congested parking lot.
“Looks like they’re pretty busy,” Rebecca said.
Dino parked in the lot. “They always are. This place is notoriously overused and understaffed,” he said.
The emergency room smelled like sweat and blood, masked slightly by bleach. Rebecca and Dino showed their badges but stood around for fifteen minutes before the woman at the check-in was able to speak with them. She apologized, but continued to check in patients while Rebecca and Dino leaned over peoples’ shoulders and explained what they wanted.
“I’m sorry but you’re just going to have to take a seat,” the receptionist told them, and indicated the occupied chairs in the corner.
“I hope this doesn’t take too long,” Dino mentioned as they walked toward the chairs. “There’s no place to sit.”
“You’re not used to waiting are you, Cooper?”
“I usually get better service.”
Rebecca laughed.
They stood next to a table with magazines, and Rebecca tried not to gawk at the gory injuries coming into the ER. A young doctor in surgical scrubs appeared from the back to use the vending machine. Rebecca didn’t waste a moment. She walked right up to him, explained that they were detectives, and asked the doctor if he had a moment to talk.
“I’m afraid I only have a second,” said the doctor, who introduced himself as Mike Cohen.
Rebecca told Doctor Cohen what they needed.
“I’d be happy to help. I’ve been working in the ER for five years,” the doctor said.
Rebecca noticed that he was older than he’d first looked.
“We get a lot of cases, as you may have noticed,” Cohen told them.