Gravesend

by J. L. Abramo

  And after seeing the victim’s hand and face, Samson understands exactly why he was brought in.

  Leaving Mendez at the bedroom door, Samson returns to the front room with Landis at his heels.

  “Who called it in?”

  “Lady who lives here,” says Landis checking his notes. “Susan Graham, twenty-seven years old, ad executive, lives here alone, was gone all weekend.”

  “Does she know the kid in there?”

  “Says no.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Next door.”

  Samson opens the front door and steps out. Two more squad cars pull up, spilling four more uniforms out onto the pavement. Here we go.

  “Keep these guys out here, and I don’t want to see any civilians within fifty yards of this place. You stay here at the door. Only the evidence team, the ambulance guys and the medical examiner get in. Only the M.E. goes into the bedroom,” says Samson over his shoulder. “Find Vota, get him down here. Tell him that I went next door.”

  “Expecting any brass?” asks Landis.

  “I hope not, but if we get any ask them very nicely to keep their hands in their pockets,” says Samson. “And keep the press far away from here, even if you have to fire a warning shot.”

  Vota has just come from parking the car. He joins Lorraine and her parents in the Marlboro Theater lobby.

  As they are about to go into the auditorium to take their seats, his cell phone rings.

  Serena tries to get closer to the house, careful not to be too obvious. She has hidden the tape recorder in her coat; she is not advertising the fact that she is a newspaper reporter. She feels a strange sense of excitement and works at hiding that also.

  Vota drops Lorraine and her parents at the DiMarco house, apologizing all the way for the disrupted movie plans. He speeds off to the address on Bay Ridge Avenue.

  Sal DiMarco has volunteered to drive his daughter home. Fran DiMarco insists that they go in for coffee before Lorraine leaves.

  Susan Graham is sitting at the neighbors’ kitchen table, said neighbors out in the street with the curious. Holding a mug of coffee with both hands, she looks up as he approaches her. Samson is a menacing six-foot-three, two hundred thirty pounds, and as black as the night. But she cannot remember ever seeing anyone so nonthreatening.

  She stands.

  “Please sit,” he says.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  She pours a cup, places it on the table, and sits.

  He sits. They look at each other, eye to eye across the table. He begins doing what he does best. Calming. Caring.

  “Ms. Graham, I’m Lieutenant Samson. I’m afraid that it will be a while before you can return to your home. Do you have somewhere you can go, perhaps spend the night?”

  “I can go to my mother’s.”

  “Good, I can arrange a ride.”

  “Thank you, I called her. She’s on her way to pick me up,” she says, and then adds, “when you are done with me.”

  Very bright lady, thinks Samson. Intuition tells him that she really has no idea how the kid next door landed in her bed.

  But Samson knows that intuition is only part of the equation.

  And that this particular problem will have an ugly solution.

  “Ms. Graham, I appreciate your cooperation in talking with Officer Landis. There may be more questions, but it can wait. You can leave with your mother as soon as she arrives. In fact, I wish you would. It’s quickly becoming a zoo out there. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s okay to return home. I truly regret this disruption in your life. We will try our very best not to make it worse.”

  “Thank you,” she says, and then letting the grip she had so admirably held on her emotions slip just a little she adds, “I feel really sorry for the boy in there.”

  And his big hand quickly and gently covers her rather small, fragile hand. And this instinctive gesture and her silent gratitude succeed in stopping the tears.

  Then a uniformed officer is at the door to tell the lieutenant that Vota has arrived.

  Samson walks slowly back to the Graham house.

  Serena Huang has moved in as close as she can get, a few hundred feet from the ambulance parked in front of a small house. The police have blocked the street at the corner of 6th and Bay Ridge Avenue. The crowd outside is growing; people in nearby houses stand at their doors. A large detective, obviously someone with authority, walks toward the house where all of the activity is centered.

  Serena glances back toward 6th Avenue. A uniformed officer stands at the passenger window of a late-model Pontiac, talking with the woman behind the wheel as he shines a flashlight at some papers in his hand. He moves the barricade and the car continues up the street, pulling up in front of the ambulance.

  Serena jots down the license plate number.

  A minute later, Susan Graham gets into her mother’s Pontiac and the car drives away.

  Vota greets Samson at the door. The house is alive with the business of death. Samson can tell that sometime during his absence someone has made the official determination that homicide is where it’s at. A two-man evidence team is dusting, scraping and scrounging. Cameras clicking and flashing. Ambulance team waiting.

  Landis and Mendez, first to arrive, last to leave, pacing.

  “What do you know, Lou?” asks Samson.

  “Kid’s been dead for a while. No ID. We can safely rule out suicide, accidental death and natural cause. What do you know, Sam?”

  “Lady who lives here is in the clear if the time of death was anything more than an hour ago. M.E. get here yet?”

  “He’s in with the kid now.”

  “Who’d we pull?”

  “Batman.”

  Dr. Bruce Wayne was often difficult to work with, but he was the best, and Samson was glad to hear that Wayne was on this one. He knew that Wayne would take his time with the examination before releasing the body to the morgue. He also knew that Wayne had exiled Vota from the room and that they would not get back in until Wayne was ready to invite them back.

  “Evidence guys come up with anything?”

  “Not much,” says Vota. “There’s a back door connecting the kitchen to a fenced yard. The lock on the back door was forced open and the guard chain broken. The yard borders an alley. They’re checking the yard and alley, but may have to wait until daylight to get a decent look. We haven’t found anyone yet who heard or saw anything, front or back.”

  “Anyone call Murphy?”

  “Yeah, he’s down at the Precinct checking with Missing Persons to see if we can ID the kid in there.”

  “Sergeant Vota.” Lou turns toward the woman’s voice. “Dr. Wayne would like to see you and the lieutenant now.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Harding.” She moves back toward the bedroom.

  “Batman finally get his new assistant?” asks Samson as they start after her.

  “Yup.”

  “At least her name’s not Grayson,” says Samson.

  “No, it’s Harding. Robin Harding,” says Vota as straight-faced as possible.

  “Murphy’s going to have a field day with this one.”

  “I can hardly wait,” says Vota as they enter Susan Graham’s bedroom.

  “Let’s save the Batman and Robin jokes until later because the ambulance guys are getting real antsy and we may as well save it for Murphy who does it better anyway,” says Wayne the moment they walk in. “First, the obvious. Male. Caucasian. Nineteen, maybe twenty years old. Dead fifteen to twenty hours. The kid was a perfect physical specimen, could’ve been an athlete.”

  Wayne paused. Samson and Vota wait for him to move from the obvious to the gruesome. Here was where Wayne was most effective, and Robin Harding was ready to be educated.

  “I’m almost positive that he wasn’t killed in this room, and I doubt he died in this house.”

  “You think he was killed somewhere else and brought here?” asks Vota, even though that is what
Wayne just said.

  “That’s what I think,” says Wayne, even though that is what he just said. “I’ll know more when I get him down to the lab. But I can tell you this. If you have any doubts that this boy was killed by the same person who killed the Ventura boy, put them out of your mind. And if there is nothing else, I’ll let him go.”

  “Any thoughts, Ms. Harding,” asks Lou Vota for some unknown reason.

  “None that I would care to verbalize,” Harding says, and then surprises all of them, including herself, by adding, “There’s a seriously screwed-up person out there.”

  “I’ll send in the stretcher,” says Batman.

  Wayne and Harding leave the room. Samson and Vota remain looking down at the body.

  When the paramedics come in with the stretcher, the two detectives get out of their way.

  “Why did they say person?” asks Samson.

  “Huh?” says Vota, as they move out to the front porch.

  “Wayne and Harding, they both referred to the killer as person. I never considered for a minute that this could have been done by a woman.”

  “Maybe you’re a sexist,” suggests Vota.

  “I’m sure I am to some extent, but what do you think?”

  “I try not to,” Lou Vota says, wishing he were better at it.

  “Let’s go back to the Precinct, see if Tommy got anything on who this poor kid might be,” says Samson.

  Serena manages to get to the front steps of a house two doors from the crime scene by starting up a casual chat with the man standing there. She is within thirty feet of the ambulance. The police officers are occupied, paying more attention to the body being carried out than they are to the people on the street.

  As the paramedics transfer the stretcher to the back of the ambulance, the boy’s arm slips out from under the sheet and hangs down to the ground.

  Serena tries to get closer, to be certain that she is seeing what she thinks she is seeing. A chilling shiver runs through her body that has absolutely nothing to do with the damp, cold wind that has suddenly come up.

  Serena is staring at a dark brown, possibly burnt and definitely bloody stump where the boy’s right ring finger should have been.

  Vota spots the woman as he moves to his car.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “Just a curious neighbor,” she says. “What happened in there?”

  “An accident,” Vota says, “nothing for you to be concerned about. Please move back to your home.”

  Serena says goodnight and walks off toward 6th Avenue. After Vota leaves, she works her way back to the scene.

  NINE

  Lorraine and her father get into his car for the ride to Park Slope. She is carrying her sister’s old coat. As Sal pulls away from the curb, Lorraine turns to him.

  “Could you do me a big favor, Dad?”

  “Of course, anything.”

  “Could you take me over to the 25th Avenue train station before we go over to my apartment?”

  For a moment, Sal thinks about asking why. Instead, he turns right onto Avenue U and heads out to Stillwell Avenue without a question.

  Back at the Precinct, Murphy has found a possible ID through Missing Persons.

  “College student, Kevin Addams, nineteen years old, last seen around three this morning,” Murphy reads from his notes. “Description fits.”

  “Any unusual physical characteristics?” asks Vota.

  “The kid has three scars on his left leg,” Murphy says. “And according to his girlfriend, all of Kevin’s fingers were in good working order as of last night.”

  “You heard about the finger already,” says Samson.

  “Bad news travels fast,” says Murphy.

  “Who’s the lucky guy gets to see the parents about a possible ID?” asks Vota.

  “I’ll do it,” says Samson.

  “You did the Ventura ID,” Murphy reminds him.

  “That’s why I’ll do this one also; I already have the bad taste in my mouth.”

  “Well, you might want to call the 63rd. If this is the kid, he disappeared within their precinct in the middle of a delivery route. They already have an investigation going and I’m sure they’ll want in on this,” says Murphy.

  “I’ll call over there,” says Samson. “Lou, I want you to contact Wayne tonight and make arrangements to go over the medical findings with him first thing tomorrow morning. He should be able to begin his exam as soon as I can get a positive ID. Tommy, I want you over at the scene early to overlook the forensic team. Have them fill you in on all they learned or didn’t learn inside the house. They’ll be out searching the alley and the yard at daylight. Take Landis, Mendez and at least two other uniforms along to do a door-to-door canvas. If this is the Addams boy, I’ll send the parents’ home tonight and I’ll wait until morning to question them, find out what I can about the kid.”

  Samson stops to take a breath and leave an opening for any questions. Vota and Murphy wait.

  “There should be a single underlying consideration in everything we do, everything we see, everyone we speak to. We’re looking for any connection between these victims.”

  “There may not be any connection, Sam,” says Vota.

  “I’ll be surprised if there isn’t,” says Samson, “but we can hope. Let’s meet here at noon and compare notes.”

  “How about the numbers on the wall?” asks Lou.

  “We’ll look at that tomorrow afternoon. I want the two of you to get out of here and get some rest,” says Samson. “It’s going to be hell when the sun comes up.”

  Lorraine and her father walk up the stairs to the elevated platform at the 25th Avenue train station.

  Lorraine carries a coat over her arm; she spots Annie from Bay 38th when they reach the platform. The woman is sitting up on her bench, with a green wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a beat-up paperback in her hands.

  “What are you reading?” Lorraine asks as they walk up to the bench.

  Annie holds up the book, enabling Lorraine to see the tattered cover. Twelfth Night.

  “Do you like Shakespeare?” Lorraine asks.

  “Only the comedies,” Annie says. “That’s Sully over there, he just got back.”

  “I thought you could use this,” says Lorraine, holding the coat out to the woman.

  “That’s very kind,” she says, accepting the offering. “A little young for you, isn’t she, Pop?”

  Sal DiMarco doesn’t quite know how to react.

  “This is my father, Sal, and I’m Lorraine.”

  “I’m joking, Sal. The one thing I haven’t lost is my sense of humor. Take it easy with Sully, dear. I told him that you were looking for him. I didn’t tell him that your friend was a cop. Sully is a little shy when it comes to the police.”

  “Thank you,” says Lorraine.

  Sal starts to follow Lorraine as she crosses over to a nearby bench. The man, Sully, sits with a brown paper bag in his hand. In the shape of a wine bottle.

  “You go on, Lorraine,” says her father. “I’ll wait and watch you from here.”

  Without questioning her father, Lorraine walks over to the man on the bench.

  Sandra Rosen glances at her watch when the telephone rings. Rosen is thinking it is George Addams, making his hourly call. She wonders when she might have good news for the man. She is about to find out that she never will.

  “Detective Rosen, this is Lieutenant Samson of the 61st. Sorry to call you at home. Sergeant Santiago at the 63rd gave me your number.”

  “How can I help you, Lieutenant?”

  “We have a DOA at 6th and Bay Ridge Avenue; we think it may be the Addams boy who went missing last night.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” says Rosen. “Isn’t that in the 68th? I thought you said you were with Gravesend.”

  “I did. It’s a long story. I was about to visit the boy’s parents, get someone down for a possible ID. I thought you might want to ride along.”

  “Sure,
I’ve met the father. They’re in Mill Basin. Why don’t I meet you there?”

  “I would rather pick you up and go over together. I can fill you in on the way, and you can tell me what you know.

  “Sure,” says Rosen. She gives him her address.

  “Give me twenty minutes,” he says.

  “Bobby Hoyle is only twenty-two years old, he’s a good kid and he’s in big trouble,” says Lorraine. “They’re charging him with murder, saying it was a drive-by shooting. Sully, if you saw anything that could convince them otherwise, you would be saving an innocent and very frightened kid.”

  “The police will arrest me for taking the wallet and the gloves,” Sully says.

  “We can get around that. Bobby is locked up at Rikers Island and I’m really worried about him. Please. Help us.”

  “And I won’t be locked up myself?”

  “I promise you won’t.”

  “The boy that was shot, he was about to get into the car. The other boy ran over, they struggled and a gun went off. After the car raced away, I went over to the body. I knew he was dead. I took his wallet.”

  “I’d like to get a written affidavit. I can prepare it and have you sign. We could arrange to meet tomorrow, I can buy you lunch. Are you willing to do that?”

  “Sure. I should have said something to the police that night. I haven’t been thinking straight. It’s the wine. It’s a curse. All I could think about was getting my hands on some money. I’m sorry to hear that I may have caused this boy unnecessary suffering. I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “Thank you. Where can I meet you for lunch?”

  “How about the Del Rio Diner on Kings Highway and West 12th?” he says. “I don’t have the wardrobe for anything more formal.”