“I could arrest you under New Jersey statute 2C:29-1,” he said.
She stopped at the garage door and turned to face him. “Accusing me of ‘obstructing administration of law or other governmental function’ is a bit of a stretch. How could I be obstructing the performance of your duties if you’re not performing them?”
* * *
■ ■ ■
AFTER ANDREA HAD called to tell Kenny of her encounter with Dobeck, he drove to Buffalo Wild Wings, then hit Bahama Breeze and TGI Fridays at the MarketFair mall, then Ruby Tuesday, and finally Salt Creek Grille, where he found Benjamin Dobeck sitting alone at the faux ski lodge bar. He looked about four beers in already. Not nearly as lubricated as Kenny wanted him to be, but it was a start. Kenny sat down at an open stool next to him. Holding his bottle in two hands, Benjamin nodded at him and emitted a grunt. That’s when Kenny noticed three empty shot glasses on the bar to his friend’s right. He amended the blood-alcohol estimate.
When the bartender came over, Kenny asked her for a Knob Creek. Double. The budget be damned.
“I’m sorry if I caused any trouble for you,” Kenny said, surprising himself by actually meaning it.
Benjamin pulled at his beer. “My father thinks I’m your source.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kenny said. “You can barely form a cohesive sentence, much less provide me accurate information about the dirty shit going on in your department.”
“There’s no dirty—”
Kenny held up his hand to interrupt him. “Don’t, Benjy. I’m not sure how much you know and I don’t know how much you know that I know, so I have to walk on eggshells around you.”
“My father said you don’t know shit,” muttered Benjamin.
“I know enough,” Kenny said. “I don’t want you to get caught up in it, if you’re not. As pathetic as it is for both of us, we’re close to the only friends each of us have. We both have our skeletons, Benjy. Neither one of us are happy.”
“I’m—”
“You’re a closeted alcoholic afraid of his father and grandfather,” snapped Kenny. “And hey, I’m not judging. I’m an emotionally disconnected narcissist hated by everyone including—especially—his own mother and only forty dollars—” The bartender placed the bourbon in front of him. “—twenty-six dollars to his name.”
Benjamin didn’t say anything for several seconds. He took a quick swig from his bottle, and then a longer tug, finishing it. Through slowly glazing eyes, he said, “I can’t talk to you, Ken.”
“How about if I don’t let you get drunk and we don’t have to talk about any of this?” Kenny asked. “Let’s go to a movie or something. Anything. Go into Princeton and get some ice cream at Bent Spoon.”
Benjamin shrugged him off. “Jus’ leave me alone,” he said. He gestured to the bartender and said, “Another beer and a shot.”
She looked at Kenny, concerned this might not be a wise choice on any of their parts. Kenny said, “You can cut him off. He’s had enough. I’ll drive him home.”
“No,” Benjamin shouted, pushing Kenny away. It knocked him off balance and he fell off his stool to the floor. The stool landed with a clatter and Kenny’s glass shattered on the floor.
“Everything all right?” Kenny craned his neck to see Plainsboro patrol officer Luke Olsen, the cop who had shooed him out of the municipal building when he had started shouting. In civvies, he looked appreciably less Aryan.
“Little disagreement about how much liquor Mr. Dobeck can handle, Officer Olsen,” said Kenny, rolling over and lifting himself up.
“We seem to be making a habit of meeting like this, Mr. Lee,” said Olsen. Then to Dobeck, “You okay, Ben?”
“He’s harassing me,” said Benjamin.
Easily imagining two off-duty cops dragging his ass outside and beating the shit out of him by a dumpster, Kenny pointed to the bartender and said, “I just suggested to her that maybe he should be cut off and I’d drive him home.”
She nodded. “He did.” Olsen slackened. The bartender had just prevented his testicles from taking an unwanted trip to his sternum.
Olsen held Benjamin’s shoulders and looked him hard in the eyes. He turned to the bartender and said, “No more for him.”
The young cop turned to Kenny and said, “You’re done, too.”
“I still need to ask him some questions,” Kenny said.
“You. Are. Done,” Olsen said more firmly.
Kenny smiled. “I got two dead bodies that say I’m just starting.”
36
AS she floated around the community pool, Andrea felt an enormous disconnect. With their case being out in the open—and possibly ready to blow up their town—taking the kids to the pool for another gathering of the Cellulitists seemed absurd. Especially since she had told Jeff about Chief Dobeck’s visit. She’d had little choice, since it was all Eli could talk about.
To his credit, Jeff had handled it better than she’d expected. Their previous nastiness had settled into a resigned acceptance on his part. He knew she would pursue this to the bitter end. He brought up calling their lawyer again, but she said no. She had rattled Dobeck, but she expected he’d avoid any overt confrontation.
As the clock wound down on their secret, Andrea had determined that Kenny’s “go on the offense to confuse their defense” approach was their best bet. Making the conspirators nervous increased the likelihood of them making a mistake, especially considering the advanced ages of some of the participants.
So, as incongruous as it felt, the Yellow Submarine sat uncomfortably in a floating chair as the Cellulitists floated alongside her. Bri and Crystal wore modest one-piece suits, allowing them both to complain about the flabby thighs that neither had. Always watchful of protecting her “sensitive Irish skin,” Molly wore a gray Baleaf zippered long-sleeve shirt. Always whining about the shape they were in, all three of them could fit into one of her, Andrea thought.
Crystal was going on about back-to-school shopping. As usual, while she rambled, Brianne fidgeted nervously and Molly’s attention wandered. Andrea caught Molly glancing at the shaggy-haired lifeguard as he hopped from the stand and removed his shirt to cool off in the pool.
What finally stopped Crystal’s monologue was the sight of two police cars pulling in front of the entrance to the pool complex. Andrea saw Officers Wu and Patel emerge from one car, Dobeck and Lt. Wilson from the second.
Andrea smiled. Dobeck had decided to be stupid after all.
The police officers, following Dobeck’s lead, came right toward the Cellulitists.
“They’re here for me,” Andrea said.
“What?” said Crystal.
Dobeck stepped to the ledge of the pool and looked down on Andrea, who remained nestled in her pool chair. Pointing at her, he said to Wu and Patel, “Do you identify this woman as the person who entered your crime scene?”
Wu and Patel nodded.
“It’s better if you say it out loud,” Andrea said.
Wu and Patel nervously said, “Yes.”
Dobeck said, “Mrs. Stern, I’d like you to step out of the pool.”
Through a tremendous amount of effort and some awkward help from her friends, Andrea managed to get out of the pool chair. She slowly made her way up the steps at the shallow end. Dobeck took cuffs from his belt.
While placing the cuffs on one of Andrea’s wrists and pulling it behind her back, he said, “Andrea Stern, you are under arrest for leaving the scene of an accident, obstructing administration of law or other governmental function, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and tampering with witnesses and informants.”
“Leaving the scene of an accident seems like a bit of overkill to me,” she said, mustering every ounce of Queens she still had left when she was really as scared as she was angry.
“What is going on here?” demanded Cry
stal. “This is ridiculous!”
Lt. Wilson stepped between Crystal and Dobeck. “Ma’am, this is none of your business.”
“She’s our friend and she’s seven months pregnant, so it is my business!” she exclaimed. Crystal had been a public relations director for a television station in Chicago for five years before marrying Wendell and having kids. She was used to yelling and bossing people around, and that had carried right through to her duties with the PTA, Girl Scouts, and anyone else who happened to be within earshot.
Dobeck turned to her, hard-edged, hoping to intimidate. “Your friend is under arrest for obstructing a murder investigation.”
“That’s absurd!” she shouted.
“It’s not,” said Brianne, silencing Crystal with abrupt certainty.
“It’s not,” agreed Andrea. “But it is. I’m not obstructing, I’m running a parallel investigation that is uncovering things Chief Dobeck doesn’t want uncovered.”
She said that with her eyes directly on Wilson, Wu, and Patel. She wanted to see their reactions to what she said, and she got what she had been looking for: surprise.
Andrea’s moment of mischievous delight ended with a shriek as she heard Ruth yell from behind them, “Mom?”
Ruth was with Sadie and Sarah. Eli must have still been in the pool and not seen what was going on. No matter how many little skirmishes Andrea could win with her smart mouth, by the kids seeing this, Dobeck would win the battle.
“Ruth, watch your brother and sisters,” Andrea said. “Mrs. Singer will watch you. This will only be a few hours.”
Crystal walked alongside Andrea. “What can we do?”
“Call Jeff, tell him what happened,” she said.
“What about a lawyer?” asked Molly. “I could call Derek, someone from his firm could probably—”
“I won’t need a lawyer, Molly,” said Andrea as she was led away from them. “This is bullshit and they know it.”
Ruth ran after them; Sadie and Sarah trailed, crying out, “Mommy!” The Cellulitists each intercepted a child, grabbing them in sun-warmed embraces. Andrea tried to remain calm and collected, but the sight of her crying girls nearly broke her heart.
Was justice for Cleon and Satku worth this?
She looked at Dobeck, who ignored anything and everything going on around him. He clutched her left arm tightly enough to leave marks and grimly led her forward without a trace of emotion on his face.
Yeah, she thought, it was worth it.
Dobeck could win this battle, but she would win the war.
* * *
■ ■ ■
ONE TACTICAL MISTAKE Chief Dobeck had made was to arrest her in an attempt to intimidate her. Another had been putting her in an interrogation room with Detectives Rossi and Garmin. If they weren’t a part of the conspiracy—Kenny had expressed confidence they weren’t—she’d just been given carte blanche to chisel the crack within the department into a chasm. Those not involved would come to a point when they realized the only way to survive the inevitable collapse of an elaborate lie was to side with the truth.
Based on Kenny’s notes, Garmin was an unknown quantity, but Rossi was the hand she needed to play. Garmin nursed his morning bagel and large coffee. Rossi poured Andrea water in a paper cup. “You look like you’re ready to deliver right here.”
“I hope one of you played catcher in Little League,” she said.
Garmin laughed.
“Do you know why you were arrested, Mrs. Stern?” asked Rossi.
“Oh, I do, Detective,” she replied. “Do you?”
Rossi looked at the paperwork in front of him. “You obstructed and hindered our investigation.”
“How much I have to say in response to that, Detective, and how much I have to say at all before the word lawyer comes out of my mouth, is wholly dependent on who is listening on the other side of that glass and my estimation of just how interested you are in solving the murder of Satkunananthan Sasmal.”
Garmin laughed again, greasy and disrespectful, casting a glance at his partner, who knew better. Rossi said, “We know your . . . history . . . Mrs. Stern. I respect what you were—or what you did. I just want to get to the truth.”
“Even if that runs counter to the interests of whoever is on the other side of that glass, Detective?” she asked.
Garmin again looked at Rossi uneasily.
“You have evidence to back up what you say, no matter who it implicates, I’m behind you every step of the way,” Rossi said.
Andrea smiled. “Using a pregnant woman as a shield? How chivalrous, Detective.”
He smiled in return. His eyes crinkled. He liked the size of this woman’s balls and he knew, guided by his gut, that whatever she had to say was going to be the truth.
“Can I ask you some basic questions?”
“You can ask,” she said.
“Why did you interfere with the crime scene?” asked Rossi.
“I didn’t knowingly do that,” she said. “I pulled into a gas station because one of my kids needed to go to the bathroom. I was distracted by the commotion in my car—if your file doesn’t mention it, I am an employee of a breeding factory—and I didn’t even notice the patrol car, which was parked on the Southfield Road side of the station. I entered from the 571 side.”
“And the . . . urination . . . ?” asked Rossi.
“That didn’t contaminate the scene any more than your officers already had,” she said. “But I know that’s a false equivalence. My daughter definitely did pee on the scene. Perhaps she should be the one sitting here answering your questions?”
“You noted to a reporter that the cash register drawer was closed,” said Garmin.
“Casting doubt on your initial claim of robbery,” she said.
“But that’s not what got you interested in this investigation?” asked Rossi.
“No, some things I heard people saying piqued my interest,” she said.
“Piqued?”
“I’m from Queens, Detective Garmin,” she said. “We talk like that.”
Rossi burst out laughing.
“What were people saying?” asked Garmin.
“Since the victim was Indian, it wasn’t likely the department would work too hard to solve the murder,” she said.
“Are you saying we don’t care?” asked Garmin, dropping bits of bagel and cream cheese on the table.
“That isn’t what I said at all,” Andrea replied calmly. “I said that other people suspected that, and that suspicion piqued my curiosity.”
“Settle down, Charlie,” Rossi said. “Mrs. Stern, let’s cut to the chase. What do you know that we don’t?”
Andrea smiled. “I know a lot that you don’t know, Detective. The question you really should be asking is what do I know that Chief Dobeck doesn’t want you to know?”
“All right, enough with this,” snapped Garmin. “You want to accuse the chief or any of us of something, why aren’t you just doing it?”
“I would prefer I leave here with all of you confused, concerned, and looking at each other with doubt,” she said. “Because that helps my investigation.”
“Your investigation?” snorted Garmin. “Lady, you’re nuts.”
“You’re investigating a single murder, Detective,” she said, expecting her next words to put an abrupt end to the interrogation. “I’m investigating two.”
And with that, the door to the interrogation room burst open. Andrea fully expected to see Dobeck and was shocked to see her family friend Gary Fenton. The burly lawyer had been her husband’s summer camp roommate every year growing up and was now a partner in a Philadelphia firm. He was generally a kind and jovial man, but he was a force of nature when working.
Hurricane Gary said, “This interview is concluded.”
“I thought you didn’t call for a la
wyer,” Rossi said to her.
She shrugged.
Dobeck and Wilson stood in the open doorframe, both clearly having weathered whatever storm Gary had unleashed on them.
Gary whispered in her ear, “Jeff called me. I was already in Princeton for work.”
“I really didn’t need a lawyer,” she said.
“Everyone needs a lawyer,” Gary chortled. “Detectives, your chief will tell you he agrees with me that though the charges aren’t going to be dropped at this time, there is no need to detain my client until a formal arraignment.”
“We can hold her for twenty-four hours, Mr.—”
“Gary Fenton, partner at Ashford, Burke, Grossman, and Levy,” Gary said. “And yes, you could hold my client, but I have a pool full of witnesses who would love to talk to Philadelphia’s Channel 6 Action News about the pregnant woman who was arrested in front of her screaming children. Did I mention Jim Gardner is a personal friend? I also have a reporter waiting outside who is prepared to ask pointed questions about some kind of criminal conspiracy? I don’t know the details, I just heard about it, and for a lawyer, that’s like dropping chum in the water, right?”
Kenny was outside, Andrea thought. Who had told him? Certainly not Jeff.
Garmin and Rossi looked for some kind of guidance. Dobeck glared at Andrea and said, “Cut her loose.”
Since the chair lacked an armrest for support, Rossi moved to help Andrea up. That’s when she knew she had him on her side.
“Thanks for putting up with me, Detectives,” she said. Then to Garmin, “Though next time you have a pregnant woman in front of you, Detective Garmin, you should offer to share your bagel.”
“I’d already eaten most of it,” he said, shrugging.
Gary escorted Andrea out to the parking lot. Kenny was waiting.
“What the hell?” Kenny said.
“Not here, not now,” she said. “They have cameras and if they had a clue, they’d have access to lip readers. Drive me to my car.”
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