The James Deans (6 page)

“Yeah, and Robert Johnson mastered the blues. I wonder if it was worth the price.”

Larry looked perplexed, but didn’t ask for an explanation. Good thing, because he wouldn’t have gotten one. At one time Larry, Rico, and I were so close we were called the Three Stooges by our precinct mates. For a long time I considered Rico a second brother. Then, during the hunt for Patrick, Rico crossed a line that could never be uncrossed, erased, or forgotten. He’d tried to play me, to use me to further his own career.

“Whatever that means,” Larry said, waving his hand dismissively. “He’s making a name for himself in Narcotics.”

“Next subject, Larry.”

“Whatever you say, Moe.”

“Were you able to get your hands on the—”

“They’re in my car. We’ll head out in a few minutes.” He took a sip of his scotch, waved at a few of the faces as they came in, and headed out of the place. “I took a look at ‘em, Moe. There’s a lot of paper and not much in it.”

“You don’t mind if I take a—”

“Hey, hey, don’t get touchy with me. I was just making conversation.”

“Sorry. It’s been a long, weird day. So, you looked at the files. You got any ideas?”

“None that the files would back up,” he said. “According to everything in there, your politician’s as pure as the driven fucking snow. The Blessed Virgin’s got nothing on him.”

“In other words, you think Brightman did the girl?”

“Yop.”

“Why?”

He touched his nose. “Because this says so.”

One myth every cop, myself included, buys into is that he can smell a rat. What civilians get wrong is that crap about reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt is for juries, not cops. Cops don’t doubt. Cops make up their minds early. Whenever you hear that nonsense about the cops having no suspects, it’s pure bullshit. Cops always have suspects. It’s getting the evidence to fit that’s the hard part.

“It is a lovely nose, Larry, to be sure,” I complimented. “I didn’t notice Brightman’s picture on the wall. Is it up?”

“Give him some time. Come on, finish your drink and let’s go.”

So many people shook Larry’s hand or slapped his back or grabbed his forearm on the way out, you’d think he was a walking rabbit’s foot. He was definitely working his way up the food chain, and his fellow brass knew it.

We walked around the corner to his car in silence, neither one of us willing to put the jinx on his rising star by talking about it. He popped the trunk and handed me a cardboard box of photocopied documents.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. I owe you, Moe, and we both know it. Just mark this against my account, okay? And listen,” he said gravely, taking hold of my arm, “don’t come back to me on this case. What you got in your arms is all the help you’re gonna get from me this time around.”

“Not an issue,” I said. “Thanks again.”

I didn’t wait for him to drive away. I just turned and headed back to my car. On the way, I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the World Trade Center, but rows of Wall Street office buildings obscured the view. It was strange how on a clear day like today had been, you could see those two ugly shoe boxes from all five boroughs and Jersey, but not from just a few blocks away. Although they’d been up for only a little more than ten years, I couldn’t remember the skyline without them.

WIT ACTUALLY DID me a favor by calling. I was in the Brooklyn store about to take on the task of checking the police files Larry Mac had grudgingly handed over against the Spivack file. It would probably have been a tremendous waste of time, and I’d already gathered a list of people I wanted to speak with. Though I’d been at it for only a few days, the truth was I hadn’t gotten anywhere. The only thing I knew about Moira Heaton today that I hadn’t known twenty-four hours before was that she’d slept with her boss. While that didn’t make her a harlot, it didn’t exactly inspire me either. I had to get a better idea of who she was. Once I got a sense of her, I might get a handle on how to look for her.

“Yeah, Wit, it’s a little too early for drinks at the Yale Club.”

“Do you think?” he asked, followed by a pause. I imagined him checking his Piaget. “I suppose so.” He was unconvinced.

“What is it?”

“A body. Well, more accurately, badly decomposed human female remains.”

“Where?”

“That depends?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Wit?”

“It means I need a lift.”

“Where are you?”

“The Pierre.”

Now it was my turn to check my watch. “Be in front in twenty minutes.”

The first hour of the trip out to Suffolk County was pretty quiet. I think Wit old boy was nursing a hangover. After witnessing him handle his Wild Turkey or, more factually, watching the Wild Turkey handle him, I understood that this was probably a regular event in Y. W. Fenn’s life. I took the time to enjoy the rarity of a nearly traffic-free Long Island Expressway. I would have enjoyed the sights if there had been any sights to see, but the L.I.E. is not renowned for its scenic beauty.

To the rest of New York, Suffolk County was the netherworld of potato and sod farms sandwiched between the Nassau County line and the civilized outposts of Sag Harbor and East Hampton. Only twenty or thirty miles beyond the city line, it might as well have been a penal colony or another planet for all the notice it got. Some places exist to be visited. Others exist to be passed through. Today, at least, Wit and I were going to stop and look.

“Where is this we’re going again?”

He pulled a piece of Pierre stationery out of his jacket pocket, blinking desperately to focus. “Someplace called Lake Ronkonkoma. What is that, an Indian name?”

“No, Wit, it’s Yiddish! Of course it’s an Indian name.”

“You take Exit 59, Ocean Avenue. Turn left onto Ocean, which turns into Rosevale Avenue. We take that to Smithtown Boulevard, turn right, and it’ll be a mile or two farther on. The lake is on the right, but we’re to look left.”

Such was the extent of our conversation.

The lake itself was rather bigger than I had expected, quite pretty, really. The same could not be said of the trailers and shacks bordering one side of the lake. Though it was a hot, lazy day, there didn’t seem to be much activity on the far shore beaches. Again, the same could not be said of the blond-reeded marsh to our left. There were blue-and-white units, an ambulance, a car from the county coroner’s office, and a crime scene van parked along the guardrail. Two bored-looking cops were stationed on either side of the official vehicles, directing traffic and discouraging the curious. I drove past and pulled into the parking lot of some big old German restaurant.

Wit and I walked back to the marsh. I showed one of the cops my badge and license. He began to hem and haw. Wit shook his head at me.

“Captain Millet said you’d let us pass. My name’s Y. W. Fenn. This is—”

“Go right ahead, guys. The captain’s back there. Watch your step. It’s kinda muddy.”

The cop wasn’t lying. Wit’s loafers stuck in the mud three times before we got to the assembled crowd. This was just the kind of place abandoned cars, bald tires, broken bottles, and bodies got dumped in all the time. There were places like it all along the coast in Brooklyn near Plum Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and Jamaica Bay. The reeds formed a curtain blocking roadside views, and the mud and brackish water kept foot traffic to a minimum.

“Where do you know this Captain Millet from?” I asked Wit as he stopped to retrieve his left shoe.

“I did a story on the Chartoff murders a year or two back. You remember them, don’t—”

“I remember.”

“Well, I met Millet when I was doing that story. When this Brightman assignment came up, I gave all my New York police contacts a call and told them what I might be interested in.”

“So why bring me?”

“As I said, I needed a ride.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Wit. There’s a hundred ways you coulda gotten out here that didn’t include me.”

“Let’s call it a show of good faith on my part.”

I left it at that. Captain Millet stepped out of the crowd to greet Wit. He was a tall man, red-faced, with a nose full of gin blossoms. I guess he and Wit got to be such good friends over drinks. Wit introduced us, adding that I’d once been a cop. Millet liked that.

“Some drug addict from the treatment center on the other side of the lake found her,” the captain explained. “He had half a bag on and was hiding until he sobered up. Tripped right over her. She’s been here a long time. Come on, let’s have a look.”

The cops parted like a blue sea as Millet approached. Only the crime scene guys and the coroner’s man didn’t move.

“How long she been there, Klein?” Millet asked the coroner.

“Hard to say. From what I can see she’s skeletal. A year, two, maybe longer. Some of the clothes are still intact. When we have a look at them, it might help us with a time frame.”

“Thanks.”

A grain of sand blew into my eyes and I reflexively turned away. When I could see again, I noticed silent tears streaming down Wit’s cheeks. He noticed me notice and quickly wiped them away. It didn’t mean I no longer thought of him as a pretentious, condescending drunkard, just a more human one.

“Why don’t you boys go have a drink across the way there. Reggie’s has a lunchtime happy hour that can’t be beat,” Millet proffered with great authority. “It’s right next to the German place.”

As Wit and I began the muddy walk back to the road, something struck me.

“Captain Millet,” I said, “where’s the guy who found her?”

“The junkie? He’s … he’s over there with Detective Daniels. Why?”

“Do you mind if I have a word with him, alone?”

Both Millet and Wit raised suspicious eyebrows at that, but the captain nodded his approval. “Daniels,” he called out, “let this fella have a word with … with
him.
Whatever the fuck his name is.”

I told Wit to stay put and I plodded over to where Daniels was hand-holding the junkie. Detective Daniels seemed happy to get a few minutes’ break. What I was about to do could land my ass in jail, so I had to put on the best show I could for the curious eyes that might be watching.

“Hey,” I said, offering my right hand to my new best friend, “I’m Moe.”

He took my hand out of confusion. I squeezed it hard and reeled him in with it, throwing my left arm over his shoulder.

“You’re fuckin’ hurtin’ me, man,” he whined.

“Not anything like I’m gonna hurt you if you don’t tell me where the fuck you dumped it, asshole,” I growled, but quietly.

“What the fuck you talkin’ a—”

“I’m not a cop anymore, shithead, so your crying don’t mean shit to me. So where the fuck did you dump her bag?” I squeezed his shoulder a little tighter. “And don’t even fuckin’ lie to me. If you tell me now, there’s a fifty in it for you and I’ll fix it with the cops not to bust your balls about robbing the corpse. If you don’t … I think we understand each other.”

He swallowed hard, looking over to where the cops were. “A fifty?” he asked. “And no shit about—”

“You heard me.” I turned him around so that we faced the cops directly. “The clock’s running.”

He tilted his head. “Over there, by the road near the gas station.”

“Very good.” I stuffed two twenties and a ten in my friend’s pocket. “If the cops ask, tell them I gave you a few bucks to get some food in you. They won’t bug you about it and they’ll think I’m a fucking saint.”

“What was that all about?” Wit wanted to know when I got back.

“Let’s go get that drink,” I said.

I led Wit in the direction of the bar, but through the marsh. I spotted a mud-caked handbag and a woman’s wallet right about where my buddy said they would be, at the place where the marsh, the road, and the gas station lot began to converge.

“Wit! Gimme a pen.”

He handed me a black Montblanc without missing a beat. I knelt down and flipped the wallet over.

“Fuck! It’s not her,” I said to myself, but loudly enough for Wit to hear.

“But it’s somebody,” he reminded me.

I hated when people did that, when they refused to conform to first impressions.

“Yes, she is. You better get Millet over here.”

HER NAME WAS Susan Leigh Posnar, a graduate student in psychology at the nearby State University of New York at Stony Brook. She’d been missing for nearly fourteen months. That’s what Millet told us. Susan had been having trouble with her boyfriend and was falling behind in her work. “Something about not turning in her Ph.D. data or some shit like that,” as the captain so articulately explained. He was sorry it wasn’t our girl.

“That’s okay,” Wit comforted him. “At least one set of parents can finally start grieving.”

We got that drink, Wit and I. I think I needed it even more than my hungover companion. I had beer. Wit stuck with his usual, but had it in a tall glass with a lot of water. The bartender asked us about all the police activity. And when we told him the cops had found a body, he told us about the curse of Lake Ronkonkoma. An Indian princess had drowned in the lake hundreds of years ago while trying to save her lover, so the story went. Every year, when the warm weather came, her ghost would pull swimmers and boaters down to the depths of the lake in the hope that one might be her lost love.

“Yes, sir,” the barman said, “at least one or two people get pulled to the bottom every year.”

Somehow, seeing the bones of Susan Posner had, for the day at least, taken all the romance out of myth or death. Undoubtedly, however, her death, at her own hand or someone else’s, would be woven into the fabric of local lore. This writer, a regular customer of mine at City on the Vine, said he never let the facts get in the way of a good story. So it would be here. Wit and I moved to a table.

“How did you know?” he asked, finally acting the part of the journalist.

“I was a street cop in Coney Island for ten years before the wine shops. Junkies are junkies, drugs make them a little less human. They see some bum, a stiff, they’re not thinking about CPR or calling 911. They’re wondering if they can steal something they can sell from the bum or if it’s a stiff. You get the picture. I guess maybe I didn’t feel like waiting around all day. And you,” I said, “with tears in your eyes. What, were you thinking about your grandson?”

“Always. I’m always thinking about him.”

For the next half hour, one bloody detail at a time, Wit outlined the events surrounding the kidnapping, torture, and death of his only grandchild. He had identified the body, refusing to let his daughter or his son-in-law suffer any further trauma. I wanted him to stop, to not have to relive this part again, but it seemed as if stopping him would have hurt more. I felt sick. Me, who’d found Marina Conseco left to die alone at the bottom of a filthy water tank. Me, who’d seen what knives and shotguns and maggots could do to the human body. I was sick. My second beer glass remained utterly untouched.

I broke the painful trance. “You know, Wit, Geary and Brightman think they can use you.”

“I know, Mr. Prager. They all think they can use me. It’s a rare talent I have.” He mocked himself. “Somehow they never do manage to use me quite in the manner they expect.”

“And you thought you could use me.”

“We can use each other,” he said, but didn’t explain.

The car ride back into the city began as quietly as the trip out. Again, there was very sparse traffic. I decided I wanted to see something other than blacktop and concrete barriers, and switched over to the Northern State Parkway. Here there were trees, bushes, lush green shoulders, tiger lilies, and pretty stone overpasses.

“So, Thomas Geary tells me you two know each other.”

“We do.”

Okay, the cordiality thing was short-lived. If he was going to give me one- or two-word answers, it wasn’t worth trying. But I figured I’d give it one more shot.

“What’s Brightman’s story?”

“I’m here to write it,” Wit answered smartly. “What do you want to know about him?”

That caught me off guard. “I don’t know…. What part of the city is he from?”

“He isn’t.”

“He isn’t what?”

“From the city. Brightman was born in a very lovely little town in New Jersey.”

“Is there such a thing as a lovely little town in New Jersey?”

“This question asked by a man from Brooklyn … Please!”

“Was he rich?”

“To you, I imagine his family would have seemed quite wealthy, yes,” Wit said without a hint of guile. “To someone like Thomas Geary, he would seem almost poor. The Brightmans were well off, I would say. His father was a senior partner in the biggest real estate law firm in the country, but he did have to earn his keep. The mother came from old money, but there was more old than money by the time it trickled down her way.”

“When’d the Brightmans move into the city?”

“In ‘57, when he turned fourteen.”

I stopped asking questions. This was all very interesting, much like the rest of the case, but it got me no closer to Moira Heaton. I knew more about Susan Leigh Posner, for chrissakes! Wit might’ve been able to detail every aspect of the lives and times of Thomas Geary and Steven Brightman and it probably wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good. I was now more determined than ever to get some insight into Moira Heaton.

I DROPPED WIT back at the Pierre around three. That still left me plenty of time to get over to Brightman’s relocated community affairs office. Not wanting to give anyone time to concoct a story or edit his responses, I didn’t call ahead.