New Jersey Noir--Cape May

by William Baer

  “Why not? Stranger things have happened.”

  She laughed.

  “I guess I really am a suspect.”

  “Everyone’s a suspect.

  “Except you.”

  The pretty bobbed-haired wiseass smiled mischievously, but I still needed more answers.

  “What were you doing the night that your sister was sitting here with the other kids?”

  “I was home by then. I’d had an EMT training class, and I came home afterwards, did a bit of homework, and then some reading.”

  “What?”

  “Persuasion.”

  “Great book.”

  It often surprises people that I’ve read a book, any book, but she took it right in stride. In her world, even a Paterson tough guy could get off on Jane Austen.

  “Tell me about the car.”

  “The Mustang?”

  “Yeah, the yellow Mustang.”

  “Daddy bought it for us when we turned sweet sixteen. Back then, ten years ago, we were still on our driver’s permits.”

  “Where was it that night?”

  “It was in the driveway, but it was gone when I got up the next morning. I figured that Nikki and Ronnie had taken it. Ronnie had a real driver’s license.”

  “Was it full of gas?”

  “Always. Since we shared the car, Daddy made us promise to fill it up every time before we brought it home. If it was in the driveway, it was full.”

  Which seemed peculiar to her.

  “Is it important?”

  “Maybe not.”

  She didn’t bother to press it.

  “Would you take me to the jetty?”

  Which meant: would you take me to the place where they pulled your “screaming yellow” Mustang out of the ocean and found your identical twin sister dead inside the trunk?

  “All right.”

  “You sure you’re OK with it?”

  Maybe I was showing too much concern.

  “I’m fine. It was ten years ago.”

  We stood up.

  “One more thing.”

  She waited, staring at the ocean.

  “Who do you think did it?”

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “Probably Izzy.”

  She didn’t seem bitter, and she didn’t seem vindictive. She was very matter of fact.

  “Why?”

  She thought about how she could explain herself.

  “Izzy was always a bit odd, rough around the edges. You know what I mean? And she didn’t have an alibi.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  When I didn’t say anything, she did.

  “I hope so.”

  13

  The Cove

  Thursday, March 26th

  42°

  What’s on your mind?”

  We were sitting, reasonably comfortably, on the blackish rocks of the Cove Beach jetty. Cove Beach was the southernmost end of the Cape May beaches, close to Sunset Pavilion at Second Avenue. The Atlantic, black and impenetrable, was splashing around us, but never actually on us, and not too loud.

  Almost gentle.

  Softly in, softly out.

  Cove Beach, as Rikki explained earlier, was extremely popular in the summer, generally laid back, and the best spot on the Cape for surfing.

  Tonight, it was nothing but lonely, empty, and dark.

  This was where they’d pulled the yellow Mustang from the ocean ten years ago, opened the trunk, and found pretty young Nikki inside, already dead, and, according to the coroner, drowned. With a sizable gash on the back of her head. Probably smashed with a rock. Which probably knocked her out before she was dumped in the trunk.

  But, at the moment, it wasn’t on my mind.

  I’d been out here for at least an hour (or was it two?) with the dead girl’s pretty sister (make that “beautiful”), talking all kinds of stuff and staring at the ocean. Talking about her EMT job, critical care, her twin sister, her failed marriage, her father, and the ocean she loved.

  She told me about growing up with her father and her sister, about how “wonderful” (her word) her father was to the both of them, and how, in spite of everything, she missed having a mother.

  Something I knew something about.

  “No matter how good things are,” she admitted, “a little girl without a mother is always a Little Girl Lost.”

  I get that.

  Besides, I’m a very good listener, which is extremely important in my racket, but it wasn’t just a job thing. I liked to listen; I liked to hear people talk about themselves. I even, I guess I’d have to admit, like people, even though most of them are self-centered morons.

  Not this one.

  Yeah, she was a Jersey girl, but Jersey girl lite. She had the attitude, but not the bitchiness. She was fun-loving, not reckless; outgoing, not loud; funny, not crude; blunt, not mean; confident, not supercilious.

  She was also lovely.

  What did the boss sing in that famous Waits song?

  Cause nothing matters in this whole wide world

  When you’re in love with a Jersey girl.

  Now the Jersey girl wanted to know what was on my mind.

  I wasn’t sure.

  We’d gotten so comfortable with each other that there’d been long, numerous, and contented silences, as we’d stare out at the ocean she loved and think about whatever we wanted to think about.

  When she asked me, I realized that I was thinking about something that had happened many years ago when I was just a boy. Something that had happened at the Jersey Shore. Something that I’d never told anyone about, not even my uncle. Not because it was embarrassing, but because I knew that I could never explain it properly. But, the truth is, you can never really explain anything in life properly.

  So I told her.

  Or tried to.

  Why not?

  I was fourteen. I was down at Seaside Heights, and I went into the water, and I saw this little girl. At that particular time in my life, I had three significant all-consuming interests in life: football, baseball, and murder. Girls, as a general category, wouldn’t have made the top hundred.

  But this one changed things.

  All I could see was her pretty face, soaked with the ocean, with big wet eyes and completely drenched pixie light-brown hair. She was staring at me, so I stared back.

  “What are you looking at?”

  I hadn’t been to charm school yet.

  She wasn’t intimidated in the least.

  “Not much.”

  (Meaning me.)

  But we both knew that something was up. There was a kind of inexplicable mutuality, some kind of affinity, some kind of unanticipated communion—as the ins-and-outs of the ocean waves and the subtle New Jersey currents, moved us, ever so gently back and forth, but never apart.

  Then closer.

  I could see that she was wearing a nothing-much yellow two-piece, with the top part not supporting very much. I moved myself behind her and gently put my arms around her. She didn’t resist. She was still a little girl, thin, perfect, lovely, and I connected my hands in front of her stomach, careful not to touch any of her still maturing private parts.

  I kissed her neck.

  She didn’t resist.

  “Why did you do that?”

  She seemed as baffled as me.

  “I have no idea.”

  That was the best I could do.

  “Maybe I should tell my sister’s boyfriend.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A cop.”

  “Not your father?”

  “Nah, he’s worthless.”

  Which broke my heart, which made me glad that I had her within my arms, prote
cting her.

  “Did you like it?” I asked.

  (Meaning the kiss.)

  “Yes.”

  “Did you like it?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  My uncle had raised me to tell the truth.

  I got too truthful:

  “You’re very beautiful,” I said, realizing, for the first time in my life, that I was some kind of “romantic.” Like all those dorks in the rom-com movies.

  She seemed to like the idea.

  “Do it again.”

  I didn’t know if she wanted me to say it again or kiss her again, so I took my choice.

  I kissed her neck. Then I moved around in front of her and kissed her wet and salty lips.

  You know the “moment,” right? When everything changes. When there’s no turning back.

  I held her for about an hour or so, and we talked and we didn’t, and we asked each other lots of questions. She was a Jersey girl from Cherryville, down the shore with her older sister and her fiancé, a Bridgewater cop. We had no idea what we were doing, of course, but we wanted to meet again that night on the boardwalk if she could sneak away from her sister.

  But she couldn’t.

  I followed her and her sister and her sister’s cop all over the boardwalk that night, frustrated, of course, as we shot each other furtive “meaningful” glances, even though we had no idea what “meaningful” meant.

  Then they left.

  All I had left was an indelible image of her eating that giant whirl of pink cotton candy, and wishing that I could kiss the pink sugar off her oddly reddish lips. She wore yellow short-shorts, a “Giants” navy t-shirt over an unseen bra that had no real function, with a little yellow ribbon in her hair, and cute yellow Keds.

  Why are women so lovely?

  So irresistible?

  “Was that the end of it?” Rikki wondered, wondering if I ever saw her again.

  “The next day, I went back to the same spot where we’d met the day before, hoping that she’d be there, knowing that she’d be there, and she was. So were the guards, the cops, the paramedics, and the yellow tape that cordoned off our section of the beach. Her heart-crushed and debilitated sister was standing in the hot sand, held by her fiancé, both in disbelief. When they carried her sister’s covered body to the ambulance, I watched it like you watch a movie. It wasn’t real. I wasn’t accustomed to death yet.

  But that was the beginning.

  “What happened?”

  “A lifeguard told me she got caught in a riptide.”

  Rikki nodded.

  Beach girls know about riptides.

  “Later that night, I sat on the beach and stared at the ocean. I wasn’t sad, but I was shocked and confused. I was also angry. Very angry. But I was impotent. I wanted to do something, I wanted to hurt someone, I wanted to arrest someone, but I couldn’t arrest the Atlantic Ocean. Or God. Or life. Or anything else. But I could grow up like my uncle and arrest bastards and sons of bitches.”

  “Which you do.”

  “Which I do.”

  There was another one of our lovely silences.

  Eventually, she spoke again:

  “I want you to find my sister’s killer.”

  “I will.”

  I was that simple.

  When I drove her home, there was something I didn’t like in the rear view mirror. When I stopped on Ocean Avenue, she got out and went inside her old man’s house, a big and beautiful Victorian. I drove around the block, parked, and headed back to the front door. As I approached the entrance, an outdoor light came on, and there was a dark figure standing on the front porch. He had a weapon in his right hand, and the front door began to open.

  It was Rikki.

  “Don’t move!” I called out, but he ignored me, so I pulled my Colt.

  As Rikki opened the door, I tried again, as I rushed towards the house.

  “Drop it!”

  He lifted his weapon. Too bad for him.

  I hope it doesn’t sound vain, but I’m a dead shot with a handgun, especially a Python, the most accurate handgun in the world.

  When I pumped a hole through his right thigh, he staggered a bit. Then he turned around to face me and raised his weapon.

  I really don’t like killing people, but when they’re trying to kill me, I’m perfectly willing to make an exception.

  I blew a tunnel through his brain, and he collapsed to the wooden floor of the porch.

  Rikki looked down at the guy she’d married nine months ago.

  “Eric?”

  14

  Benton Avenue

  Thursday, March 26th

  38°

  I was looking downward, into Colt’s swimming pool.

  Fortunately, I don’t need much sleep.

  After the cops arrived, I spent a few hours at the Cape May PD, explaining why I’d killed one of their local citizens. Dawson showed up, and the boys and girls in blue treated me well. If I’d been a cop myself, I would have been buried under days and days of red tape, but as an ordinary citizen, albeit one with a PI’s license and a license to carry, it was pretty routine. Especially since Anderson had a Ruger LC9 in his hand, had been stalking his ex-wife for months, had threatened her on numerous occasions, and still had an outstanding restraining order.

  When the cops were done, I drove over to Colt’s house on Benton Avenue, the scene of the murder. His murder. Dawson had given me the keys so I could look the place over. Just like his office, Colt’s house was pretty Spartan, with very little in the way of decoration. Actually, not much in the way of anything. Dawson was right. The guy was a bit of a ghost.

  Standing at the edge of the swimming pool, I mentally reconstructed the crime. The guy proposes to Rikki, gets the big “no,” comes back home, has a drink, drops his clothes, and pops into his heated swimming pool. Then he swishes around for a while, probably thinking about Rikki (which would be impossible not to think about after spending the evening with her), then gets out of the pool and gets himself shot, pretty much point blank, in the forehead.

  Ballistics says it was likely a Beretta, definitely not Eric Anderson’s Ruger LC9.

  But Edward Colt wasn’t just killed, he was assassinated. There was no hesitation. Maybe even no rage. It was like a hit. Cold and clean.

  Which was nothing like whatever had happened to Nikki O’Brien ten years ago.

  I sat down on one of the pool chairs and read over Nonna’s “Rikki” report. She must have sent it while I was on the beach with the subject of the report, telling her about something I’d never told anyone else before.

  Everything except the girl’s name.

  Which was Sandy.

  Rikki O’Brien (age 26, EMT nurse):

  Rikki and her sister and her father were abandoned by the twins’ mother (Kitty Walsh O’Brien) soon after the birth. The judge seems to have done an excellent job raising his pretty twin daughters, who were, apparently, inseparable, always dressed in cute, matching, classic outfits and dresses. The girls were stunningly attractive. (I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures.) They also, as far as I can tell, had virtually identical personalities.

  They did a bit of modeling when they were little girls, but they were much more interested in grades, friends, and sports. They were very popular “good girl” types, goodie-goodies, known as the “Bobbsey Twins” (even though, as every idiot knows, the two pairs of twins in the Bobbsey Twins books were fraternal boy-girl twins, which I’m sure you know, Mr. Colt), who were copresidents of their sophomore and junior classes. They also played the two forward positions on the girls’ basketball team, edited the yearbook, did charity work, etc., ad nauseam. Not to mention straight A’s. They we’re also, as seems perfectly logical, beach girls and strong swimmers.

  Nothing illegal.

  Apparently no drugs.
/>
  The do-gooder twins naturally wanted to “help people,” so they planned to go to Rutgers together and become nurses, which was why they were doing EMT training in high school.

  After the murder, Rikki seems to have had a rough time, staying at home for a year and finishing high school online. Then she got up off her ass and got her nursing degree at Rutgers, worked the emergency room at Cape Regional Medical Center, and then decided that she preferred working EMT, where she met her ex, Eric Anderson, when he crashed his car. They lasted two months, and she went back home to daddy. When Anderson started bugging her, they got a restraining order.

  I like her, Jack. A lot. Maybe if she’s not a murderer, you should marry her.

  Love, Nonna

  Earlier, when I’d killed her husband, she looked up from the dead corpse on her front porch and looked into my eyes, wondering:

  “Are you all right, Jack?”

  15

  The Killing

  Thursday, March 26th

  36°

  The desperate father is searching for his missing daughter.

  As he talks to his wife on the phone, he drives his truck to Discovery Park where his daughter’s pink sweater has been found. He sees the cops and salvage workers standing near a drenched car that they’ve just hoisted from the lake.

  Behind the car, the senior homicide detective, Sarah Linden, tells the other cops to open the trunk.

  When the father pulls up at the perimeter, he immediately gets out of his truck and goes up to the cops guarding the scene.

  “What’s going on?”

  His voice is fearful, and his terrified wife can hear him over the phone.

  At the rear of the car, Detective Linden sees the dead body of Rosie Larsen, still submerged in the water in the trunk.

  At the perimeter, the cops have to restrain the struggling father, who seems to understand what’s happening.

  He calls out for his child.

  “Rosie!”

  Linden walks up to the father.

  “You can’t be here, Mr. Larsen.”