Hose Monkey (16 page)

Healy couldn’t believe it. It was as if someone had thrown a switch in the kid’s head. Not only had his demeanor and his language changed, but he had gotten louder, angrier. This was more of what Healy had expected. Something the cop had said must have set him off. Maybe not, maybe it was the cop himself. It was both, Healy decided. Officer Martinez had commented about getting under the covers with someone to keep you warm.

A woman! What else? Now it started to make some sense. Healy couldn’t afford to let young Strohmeyer regain his equilibrium.

“Yeah,” Bob agreed. “I’m happy that my daughter’s grown up and moved off the island. I don’t think I could have stomached her bringing Hector over for Thanksgiving dinner. If my Mary wasn’t dead already, that would’ve killed her for sure.”

Pete Jr. didn’t answer immediately. His silence had nothing to do with careful contemplation of his response. No, his fingers got so tight on the steering wheel that all the blood went out of them. It was easy to see where the blood in the kid’s fingers had gone as his face turned an angry shade of red. He started driving a little faster, his steering became more erratic. Still, he said nothing. Healy turned up the heat.

“When Colleen, that’s my daughter, was a freshman at C.W. Post, she had a roommate, nice girl named Ava. Ava was from the Midwest somewheres, Ohio maybe. Anyway, Collie used to bring her over to the house for holidays when she couldn’t afford to go back home. Ava began dating this really good guy, Brad. Athletic, smart, respectful; a man not unlike you, a man with a plan. We had him over to the house, too. Frankly, I wished he was dating
my
daughter.

“Then in sophomore year, things changed. Collie was home for spring break. She and her boyfriend were going on a double date with Ava. Mary and me just assumed it was gonna be Ava and Brad. We got some surprise when the car pulled up in front of the house. It was like one of those weird old Chevies with a sparkly green paint job that sat like six inches off the ground. What do they call those things?”

“Out west we call them lowriders,” Strohmeyer said through clenched teeth.

“That’s it. That’s right. So, Ava and this little guy come bouncing out of the car. He doesn’t shake my hand, asks for a beer, and screams at my daughter to hurry up.”

“Did you throw the little cocksucker out of your house?”

“Didn’t have to. One look at this guy and Colleen’s boyfriend says they’re running late and that they’ll meet them at the restaurant.”

“What happened to your daughter’s friend?”

“The guy knocked her up and abandoned her. After that, we kind of lost track of Ava. I can’t help but wonder about her sometimes.”

Peter Strohmeyer Jr. slammed his good hand against the dashboard. “Fuck, that’s what I told Cathy was going to happen to her, but she won’t listen to me, Bob. She won’t even talk to me anymore.”

“You wanna tell me about it?”

“I can’t. My father says a man deals with his troubles by himself.”

“Hey, Pete, no disrespect to your father, but I’m a dad, too. I’ve made a lot of bad decisions and given my kids some awful advice. Fathers don’t know as much as you think. And besides, you’re your own man now. Don’t you think there are some things you can make your own decisions about?”

He hesitated. “I guess you’re right.”

“I’m listening.”

And listen he did.

It wasn’t a very remarkable story. Pete Jr. had met Cathy at a bar in Selden. She was pretty, bright, and worldly, more worldly than the girls he knew back in Arizona. She had grown up in Manhattan and was in her first year at Touro Law School. To keep her expenses at a minimum, she was living with an aunt in Ronkonkoma and working as a bartender on the weekends. To hear Peter tell it, Cathy was the one. The feeling wasn’t exactly mutual. She liked him well enough. The sex had been unbelievable—though he admitted to not having had a whole lot of previous experience. Healy recalled the first time he had mistaken sex for love and how deeply it had hurt. But sympathy was something he couldn’t afford to offer at the moment.

“So what happened?”

“She told me she didn’t want to date me anymore, that it was okay for us to hang out sometimes, even for us to fuck once in a while if we both felt like it.”

“What did you say?”

“What could I say? I didn’t want to lose her. And I guess I understood where she was coming from. I think she wanted—”

“Okay, Pete, she’s the best thing since Paris Hilton, but it sounds to me like you’re gonna start making excuses for her.”

“Sorry.”

“No apologies necessary, but something else musta happened.”

“I followed her. You get pretty good at it, doing this patrolling and all. And my father taught me how to be a good hunter.”

Strohmeyer Jr. explained that he spent days following her around and that he was pretty convinced their breakup wasn’t about another man. Then, on Valentine’s Day, he decided he’d try a grand gesture. He waited in the bar parking lot for the end of her shift, two dozen boxed red roses on the seat next to him, and an engagement ring in his jacket pocket. But when Cathy came out of the bar she was holding hands with this bar back, Garcia. They went to her car. He watched them makeout, watched her go down on him.

Healy thought the kid would explode. Apparently, that’s exactly what he had done. Strohmeyer yanked Garcia, his pants still unzipped, out of the car and proceeded to knock him around the parking lot. A crowd started forming and Cathy barely stopped him from killing the guy. Healy asked if that was how he had really hurt his hand.

“No. I went to her aunt’s house in Ronkonkoma few nights later to try and explain, to apologize.”

Healy felt he was almost there. Just another little push …

“Apologize! What did you have to apologize for?”

“I still love her.”

“Yeah, you still love her and some Mexican’s dicking her up the ass.”

Strohmeyer jerked the steering wheel hard right, the car bouncing off the curb. When it came to rest, he stuffed the transmission into park.

“You must have been pretty furious when she told you to get out, that she never wanted to see you again,” Healy kept at him. “I wanted to kill her.”

“But you didn’t kill her. You were out of your mind when you got back into your car. What did you do then Pete? You went hunting, didn’t you? Hunting for the first wetback you could find.”

“Get out, Bob!”

“What did you do when you found him, Pete?”

“Get out now!”

“You beat him up bad, but you couldn’t stop yourself.”

“Get the fuck out!” Strohmeyer screamed, grabbing Healy by the throat. His grip was solid steel.

Healy, always blessed with arms too long for his body, chopped his left fist down into Pete’s groin. That took the wind out of Pete’s sails, enough so that Healy could free himself of the kid’s grip. Healy pushed his back against the passenger door, but didn’t get out nor did he go for his. 38.

“Sorry, kid,” Healy apologized. “I just think you should get it off your chest.”

“I can’t,” he said, some of the color draining back into his face. “I just can’t.”

Experience had taught Healy when to push and when to stop pushing. He decided he wasn’t going to get anymore out of Strohmeyer Jr. tonight.

He extended his right hand. “Okay, I understand. Maybe you will have to deal with it yourself. Let’s forget about it and finish up the shift. Tomorrow night, we won’t even discuss it. But if you ever do want to talk about it, I’m up for it.”

Pete took Bob’s hand. “I’m sorry too. It’s just that when I think about Cathy, I get a little.”

“Trust me, kid. We’ve all been there.”

They spent the next two hours together in near silence. Officer Martinez was right, it was a night for staying home and getting under the covers with someone warm. There’s nothing like dark, empty streets to remind a man of his loneliness.

Wednesday
March 3rd, 2004

 

JUST THE FALLEN

 

T
here are phrases we hear all the time that we accept without bothering to consider. How many times, Joe Serpe wondered as he opened his eyes to a new day of excruciating pain, had he heard it said that someone was kept in the hospital overnight for observation? He had an image in his mind of having woken in the middle of the night.

Nurse, what are you doing? Observing you, of course.

Joe might even have laughed had the clamp crushing his skull loosened just a notch. Still, as bad as the pain was, his thoughts were a lot clearer today than … Christ, how long had he been in the hospital? He pressed the call button.

A bored looking nurse dressed in scrubs came into the room.

“How’s the headache, Mr. Serpe?” she asked, neglecting to pronounce the ‘e’ at the end of Serpe.

“Serp-ee,” Joe corrected. “And the headache feels like a curse.”

“Well, you’re more coherent than you were last night. That’s good. I’ll get you something for the headache.” She checked her watch. “The doctor should be making his rounds within the hour. Would you like me to get your sister? She’s sleeping out in the lounge.”

He wasn’t quite as coherent as the nurse thought, because the last time Joe checked he didn’t have a sister. Maybe concussions are like bad Star Trek episodes, only with more pain and fewer commercials.

“Mr. Serpe. Your sister?”

“Sure, send her in.”

Marla looked awful and wonderful. He sat up in bed. It wasn’t quite as dizzying and painful as he expected, but it wasn’t a joy either. Marla sat down next to him, running her hands over his head, silent tears streaming down her checks. She kissed him in a most unfamilial manner.

“Here, Mr. Serpe, take one of these and—” the nurse stopped mid-sentence. At least she no longer looked so bored.

He took the capsule and swallowed without water. The nurse left, shaking her head.

Joe held Marla close. “Sis, if I’d only known you were such a good kisser …”

“They weren’t going to let me stay or give me any information, so I told them I was your sister. How’s your head?”

“Hurts. How long have I been in here?”

“Bob Healy brought you in last night. You weren’t making much sense.”

“What happened to me?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I know I went to visit Frank at the Suffolk County Jail. It was snowing and I think I remember getting on the L.I.E., but things are sort of a jumble after that.”

“You had a car accident just off exit 70. That’s where Bob found you.”

“My brother’s car, shit! What—”

“Bob took care of it. It’s at his friend’s body shop. He called before to see how you were doing. He wants you to call him if you’re up to it.”

“Good, yeah, I have to tell him that Frank’s—”

“—protecting someone. Joe, you told him. He knows.”

“God, I musta been in bad shape yesterday, huh?”

“You scared the shit out of me.”

“I wasn’t trying.”

“Do you remember leaving me a phone message?” He just smiled. Marla rested her head on his shoulder.

“Are you nuts?” George Healy shouted at his brother. “First you got me sticking my nose in every case since Judge Crater’s disappearance and now you want me to ask the cops to search all their records for yesterday’s accident reports and abandoned cars. It snowed yesterday, if you hadn’t noticed. You have any idea how many accident reports there are going to be?”

“Just the L.I.E.”

“Just the L.I.E. what?”

“Between exits 72 and the Suffolk/Nassau border. So it would probably be a Highway Patrol report.”

“Do me a favor, Bob. Go to the dictionary and look up the meaning of the word ‘retirement.’”

As Joe had asked, Marla went back to his apartment to feed Mulligan and to pick out some clothing for him that didn’t smell of vomit or number two home heating oil. She understood that much of his request. She was far less certain about why Joe wanted the big picture of him and Frank standing under the Mayday Fuel Oil, Inc. sign. Removing the picture from the dresser, Marla noticed another picture. In it, Joe, his hair all black, face clean-shaven, held a young boy in his lap. The boy had Joe’s face, a Yankees cap on his head, and an oversized first baseman’s mitt on his right hand. She replaced the picture and, as instructed, reached into the rear of his sock drawer.

She felt the edges of a small box and got it out. Curious as she was, Marla didn’t open it. She packed all of this stuff neatly into Joe’s gym bag, rubbed Mulligan’s cheek and locked the door behind her. When she pulled out of the driveway, Marla was too lost in her own thoughts to see the black Navigator trailing her down the block.

The three of them sat in the booth of the Venus Diner. Joe, his head finally feeling a little better, sat next to Marla. Healy, just having finished detailing his first night on patrol with Pete Jr., sat across from them.

“So, you think he did Reyes?” Joe asked, sipping his coffee.

“The Strohmeyer kid did something to somebody. That I’m sure of. Was it Reyes? I don’t know, but the time line fits. I’ll push him a little harder tonight.”

Joe didn’t seem terribly pleased. “Even if he did Reyes, that leaves us with no connection to Cain.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” was as close to encouraging as Healy would get.

“And if this kid killed Reyes, there’s nothing to tie it to Toussant’s murder.”

Healy countered. “Not for nothing, Joe, but who says there has to be a connection?”

“I say. I feel it in my gut.”

“I said that to my brother and he told me it was gas.” Marla laughed. “Can I steal that line?”

“Be my guest,” Healy said. “So, you guys going back to your apartment?”

“Not what I had in mind. There’s stuff that needs to be done this afternoon.”

“Like what?”

“Marla’s going home to get some sleep,” Joe said. “She didn’t get much last night.”

“You’re the one that needs to rest,” Marla argued, a yawn betraying her.

“I’ll rest tonight when Bob’s out with this Strohmeyer kid. In the meantime, him and me, we’ve got somewhere to go.”

“Where’s that?” Healy asked. “A motel.”

“A motel, huh?” Healy puzzled.

“Maybe more than one.”

Even Marla was curious. “Why motels?”

“I may not remember much about yesterday, but I know Frank. He’s scared. There’s a reason he’s taking the fall for somebody here.”

“Blackmail. You think he’s being blackmailed!” Healy said. “I do. What’s the best way you know to blackmail a married man?”

“Sex,” Marla chimed in.

“Exactly. And when I spoke to his wife, she was weird about their marriage.”

Healy was skeptical. “It’s a stretch.”

“Let’s go find out.”

Located on the south service road of Sunrise Highway in Bayshore, the Blue Fountain Motor Inn was a monument to three hour rentals and questionable taste. Not that it showed much of itself to the outside world. It was the kind of place that you’d drive by without noticing unless you knew where it was or were specifically looking for it. Even so, you might miss the place. It had a small, poorly lit sign and narrow driveway. Pull into that driveway and you were greeted by a too-large, cast concrete fountain painted in sun-bleached royal blue. From the looks of the fountain, it hadn’t pumped a drop of water since Reagan’s last term. In the summer, the rain water that collected in its five basins was probably the breeding ground for half the mosquito population on Long Island.

The Blue Fountain was the fourteenth such venue Joe Serpe and Bob Healy had visited since leaving Marla at the diner and making a brief stop to make copies at the local Staples. Joe’s headache, which had come and gone in waves, was cresting again and Healy was getting discouraged.

“Your idea makes some sense, Joe, but you might be wrong.”

“I know Frank,” he said, dry-swallowing another pain pill.

“Okay, but this is the last stop today. It’s getting late and I’ve got to meet Strohmeyer in a few hours.”

“Last stop. Whose turn?”

“Yours.”

They got out of the car and strode into the office. The name of the motel didn’t matter. Whether it was the Blue Fountain or the Spinnaker or the Lighthouse, these places were all pretty much the same—long rows of low slung concrete boxes with beds, bathrooms, and porno channels. The offices were interchangeable as well. The one at the Blue Fountain was no exception. It featured more bulletproof glass than a small bank. There were signs posted all over the place explaining everything from acceptable means of payment to how to use the hot tubs. It kind of reminded Joe of the Suffolk County Jail, only less inviting.

“Hey!” Joe rapped on the glass, holding up the replica of his old detective’s shield that Marla had retrieved from his dresser.

The sloe-eyed, middle-aged man at the desk was so intimidated he nearly fell asleep. He did put his magazine down as a small concession to Joe and Bob’s presence.

“Can I chelp you, officers,” the desk clerk asked in a vaguely Russian accent.

“Detectives!” Serpe corrected.

“Vatever. You are long vay from chome, no? You are New York City police.”

“A long way from home,” Serpe mocked. “Look who’s talking. Where you from, Moscow?”

“Kazakstan.”

“Thanks for the geography lesson. You ever see this guy here?” Serpe asked, sliding a copy of Frank’s picture through a slot in the partition.

He didn’t bother looking. “No.”

“Look at the picture, comrade!” Healy barked.

He looked this time. Healy thought he saw a faint, fleeting glimmer of recognition in the clerk’s eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. It was just a flash.

“No.” He slid the picture back out.

“You’re sure?” Joe said.

“Many people come to motel. Ve look at their money not their faces. They return key, don’t steal towels, is all ve care.”

“How many other people work the desk?”

The clerk had enough talking for the time being and held up two fingers.

“Okay, I’m gonna leave this picture with you to show the other clerks,” Joe said, jotting down his cell phone number on the back of Frank’s photo. He slid it back through the partition. “Anyone remembers anything, have them give me a call. You mind if we look around, talk to the housekeepers?”

“Go, but don’t bother the guests.”

“Thanks.”

They walked down the four rows of rooms. Only ten had cars out front. They found the housekeeper, a fat, sixty year old woman from Guatemala eating in one of the vacant rooms. She was no help, spoke more Russian than English, and she didn’t recognize Frank from Frank Sinatra.

As they walked back to Healy’s car, Joe hesitated in front of one the rooms. Healy was worried Serpe might be getting sick again.

“What’s up? You okay?”

“Yeah, my head’s feeling a little better, but that’s not it. Forget it. I thought I had something, but it’s gone. I guess my head’s gonna take some time to unscramble.”

They continued on, leaving behind the black SUV parked in front of room 217.

Back in Healy’s car and heading to Serpe’s apartment, they got down to discussing their favorite desk clerk from Kazakstan.

“So?”

“I think he’s full a shit,” Healy said. “I thought he recognized Frank.”

“Me too.”

“So, okay, let’s see what we got. Frank’s cheating on his wife. Maybe he’s getting blackmailed, maybe he’s not. Toussant’s murdered, if not by Frank, then by his gun. He’s willing to take a murder rap to protect someone, but you don’t think it’s his wife.”

“You sound skeptical,” Joe said.

“Sorry, Joe, but it doesn’t hang together. It seems like there’s two, maybe three completely separate things going on here and I don’t see how you can tie them up in any way that makes sense.”

“I know.”

“You may not wanna hear what I have to say next,” Healy warned.

“Never stopped you before.”

“Bottom line?”

“Bottom line.”

“You don’t need any wild theories, magic bullets, or anything else to make sense of it.”

“Then what do I need?” Joe asked. “To believe Frank did it.”

Joe crashed: too tired to think, almost too tired to breathe. There is a dimension of the womb in the surrender to exhaustion. He surrendered, falling into bed and letting the warmth and comfort of his weariness wash over him, pull him under and consume him. But only one sleep lasts forever and tonight was not the occasion for his. No, tonight he would be spit out, returned to finish what he had started.

When he opened his eyes he noticed the answering machine light flashing, flashing. He checked the clock. It was 9:27. His headache, though not completely gone, was now of human proportion. He almost smiled. He’d had sinus headaches worse than this. He had lived through those.

He pressed play.

You have two messages. First message:

It was a woman. Marla? Not Marla, Tina. She was crying, but not just crying. It was worse than crying. She was choking. Fighting herself, forcing herself to speak, to try to speak. He could make out her saying Joe. She didn’t seem to be able to get beyond his name.
Click.

Second message:

Same as the first, but Tina was winning the battle. If not winning, then fighting herself to a standstill. “Joe,” she said more clearly now. “Frank tried to …” That was as far as she got for ten seconds or so, choking up again. “He tried to hang himself. In jail, he tried to hang himself. They airlifted him to Stony Brook.”
Click.

Joe grabbed his keys and ran out to the driveway. Twenty seconds later, he was back inside dialing a car service.

Pete Jr.’s demeanor was more like the night they first met at Jerry’s Joint. Healy remembered a department shrink once using the term “flat affect.” Well, that seemed to pretty much sum up the face Strohmeyer Jr. was showing the world this evening. It was more than just his expression, or lack thereof. He barely spoke to Bob. And for two hours they drove the streets of Farmingville and Ronkonkoma in the kind of silence long-married couples grow accustomed to.

“I’m sorry about last night, kid,” Healy said in hopes of getting the ball rolling.