Gravesend

by J. L. Abramo

  “The Del Rio is fine. How about noon?”

  “I’ll be there,” he promises.

  “You’re talking serial killer,” says Rosen.

  They are in Samson’s car heading out to the Addams home at Mayfair Drive in Mill Basin. Rosen has told Samson about their investigation, the syringe, her strong belief that the killer drove the truck. Samson has told Rosen about the Ventura boy.

  “It would be my first,” says Samson. “Something I always wished I would be able to leave off my résumé.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Well, from what I’ve heard, the experts prefer to wait until the tally is three before they make that call. But in this case, they might skip the formalities.”

  “Wow,” she says.

  “That’s one way of putting it. I was hoping you would talk to the father, since you’ve talked with him before. I would like him to come down alone for the ID and leave the mother out of it for the moment. We’re going to have to convince him that it is very important to keep the details quiet. I don’t have to tell you how much easier our jobs will be the longer the media vultures stay away from this.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ask him if he knows of anyone who might have had it in for his son, but leave it at that. I’d rather do the bulk of the questioning in the morning, after he has time to be with his wife. You’re welcome to join me then, also.”

  “How about someone having it in for him,” asks Rosen, “and hurting him through the son?”

  “Go on.”

  “Let’s say these two crimes are connected by a motive, something other than random insanity. I doubt an eight-year-old boy would have that kind of enemy.”

  “Hold that thought, and let me think about it,” says Samson. “Here’s the house.”

  “I was curious about why you stood back at the train station, Dad,” says Lorraine. They are on their way to her apartment in Park Slope.

  “I know that man. I was afraid that I might embarrass him.”

  “Oh?”

  “His name is Frank Sullivan. Frank and his brother used to run a luncheonette at 26th Avenue and 86th, just up from that train station. The place was very successful. They had a very big breakfast crowd, commuters stopping before hopping the train to Manhattan. Lots of coffee takeout. They did a busy lunch—shoppers on 86th. And the place was always packed after Sunday Mass at St. Mary’s Church down the street. Then they built the McDonald’s three years ago—it was nearly next door—and Sully’s place lasted less than a year. I heard that his brother moved out to Jersey and started up a new business—his wife had an inheritance. I never knew what happened to Frank. It’s terrible.”

  “It’s horrible,” says Lorraine, “but what can you do.”

  Maybe I can do something, Sal DiMarco thinks.

  Lou Vota has talked with Batman. Wayne is waiting for Samson to bring in the father for an ID. Then he and Robin Harding will begin the exam. Wayne tells Vota that he is off to a medical examiners’ conference in the morning, but assures the detective that they will have the results ready before he leaves and that Dr. Harding will be available to answer any questions and discuss their findings.

  Vota phones Lorraine, but her answering machine picks up the call.

  Murphy opens the door to his apartment. Ralph is standing on the other side looking like it’s just in the nick of time. They run down the stairs to the street.

  Not long after the ambulance took Kevin Addams’ body from the scene, the crowd of curious onlookers began to quickly disperse. The forensic team had taken all they could from inside the house and would have to wait until daylight for a meaningful search of the back yard and alley. The street barricades were removed. Landis and Mendez were last to leave. Mendez making a comment to his partner about how lucky they had been to avoid reporters.

  Serena walks up to the house from the opposite side of Bay Ridge Avenue. A woman comes out to the porch of the adjacent house, the house another woman had exited earlier before being carried off in the Pontiac. The woman lights a cigarette and gazes out along the street. Serena crosses over and slowly approaches her.

  “What happened here tonight?” Serena asks, casually.

  “It was terrible,” says the woman, dragging deeply on her cigarette, seeming anxious to talk. “My neighbor, Sue, she came home and found a dead boy in her bedroom.”

  “A stranger?” asks Serena.

  “Yes.”

  “How did the boy die?”

  “I don’t know. You’re not a news reporter are you?”

  “No. I live on the next street. I was out walking and saw the police cars. Why do you ask?”

  “They told us not to talk to any reporters.

  “Sounds like good advice,” says Serena. “I’m a teller at the Citibank on 79th. As a matter of fact, I’ve met your neighbor, Susan…oh for God’s sake, I should remember—I’ve seen her at the bank, more than once. I just can’t seem to recall her last name.”

  “Graham, it’s Susan Graham.”

  “That’s it,” says Serena.

  “It’s turned very cold,” the woman says.

  “You said it. I’m freezing. You should get inside.”

  “It’s very frightening. You never expect it to come so close to home,” the woman says. “Maybe I’ll see you at the bank sometime.”

  “I’m sure you will. Goodnight.”

  Serena walks briskly to her car, parked in front of the movie theater.

  She scribbles notes as she walks.

  Brooklyn Chief of Detectives Stanley Trenton receives a call at home from Central Dispatch. The captain of the 68th Bay Ridge has phoned, ranting and raving about being left out of a homicide investigation in his own back yard. He threatened to lodge a complaint to the commissioner’s office in the morning if he didn’t get a good explanation.

  Trenton calls the captain and explains the situation. The captain isn’t satisfied; he wants one of his detectives in the loop. Trenton wants to tell the captain to fuck off, but he understands city politics well enough to know that he should try to placate the man.

  “Absolutely, Captain,” Trenton says. “It was always my intention to bring you in. Who do you recommend from your squad to help us out?”

  “I have a young detective, Andy Chen. He knows the area very well, particularly the Chinese gangs from Eighth Avenue.”

  That should help a lot, thinks Trenton.

  “Good, I’ll have Lieutenant Samson get in touch with Detective Chen and bring him up to speed. Thank you for offering to lend a hand.”

  “Glad to,” says the captain. “Goodnight.”

  “Idiot,” says Trenton, after hanging up the phone.

  Fran DiMarco is at the kitchen table, waiting for her husband. When Sal returns from dropping Lorraine at her apartment, he seems deep in thought.

  “Were there any suits, shirts or slacks in the things you packed up for Goodwill that are still decent enough to wear?” he asks.

  “Most of it is still good,” she says, “and there are shoes. I’m hoping they will be of use to someone. That’s the idea of donating them, isn’t it? What’s this about?”

  “We’ll talk in the morning. Now, I’m very tired.”

  “Well, then, I guess we should get ready for bed,” she says, taking his hand and leading him out of the kitchen.

  George Addams has identified the body discovered at Susan Graham’s house as that of his son, Kevin. Detective Rosen talks with him alone after the ID, explaining the importance of keeping certain details from the public. Addams cannot think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt his son, particularly in such a vicious manner.

  Samson is with Batman, telling him that he can begin the medical exam immediately.

  Samson and Rosen drop Addams back at his home. Samson tries to imagine what it would be like to have to face your wife with this kind of news. It is beyond his imagination.

  As he drives over to Park Slope to drop off Rosen, he thinks about how impres
sed he was by her work tonight.

  “I’d like to talk to your captain about bringing you in on this case, if you’re interested,” Samson says as they pull up in front of her apartment.

  “I would really like that,” she says.

  “I have a feeling that the chief is going to want a special task force on this one. It will sound good in the press when they finally get wind of this.”

  “I’m really surprised that it hasn’t broken already. I didn’t know about the Ventura boy until tonight, and I read the rags pretty thoroughly.”

  “It’s one of the advantages of being in Brooklyn,” Samson says, “if you can call it that. Anyway, I’ll talk to your captain if Chief Trenton decides to go that way.”

  “How about tomorrow morning? Do you want me along when you go back to talk to the parents?”

  “I thought about it. If you wouldn’t mind, you could deal with the mother. It might be easier for a woman to talk to another woman.”

  “Could be. Depends on the women,” Rosen says.

  “I’ll call you,” Samson says as she leaves the car.

  He watches until she is safely inside and heads to the BQE for the ride home to Douglaston.

  He had sat out on his front porch with the bottle of Scotch to keep him warm until the very last police car had driven off. He had watched the activity in awe, finding it difficult to believe that he could be the cause of all of this commotion.

  He had stopped a woman who was hurrying past his house soon after the first squad car arrived.

  “Good evening,” he called from the porch.

  “Hi.”

  “Aren’t you the one I saw talking with a woman outside of the movie theater earlier?” he asked. “I thought I saw a tape recorder.”

  “Yes, that was me. I was doing an interview,” she said, anxious to get to the next block.

  “What happened down there?” he had asked, following her gaze toward 6th Avenue.

  “I’m not sure; I was on my way to find out.”

  “I’ll let you go, then,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to wait and read about it.”

  He watched as she moved off.

  When the last police car leaves he goes back into the house. He wonders what he will use, now that the Pavulon is gone. He wonders when Father Donovan will discover the envelope. Then he remembers that he has more pressing concerns to consider. He needs rest. He needs to be back at the unemployment office early in the morning for another humiliating interview. They will ask him what he has done lately to find work.

  He could tell them he has found work.

  God’s work.

  He walks into his son’s room.

  He chooses the boy’s bed for a change instead of the floor cluttered with abandoned toys.

  He falls quickly into a dreamless sleep.

  TEN

  Monday morning.

  Murphy is down to the Graham house after a very early jog with Ralph along Shore Road. He is in the rear yard with the two-man forensic team, watching them do their job. He is taking notes as one of the investigators fills him in on everything they learned from their work inside the night before.

  Murphy has Landis, Mendez and three other uniforms out on the street doing a house-to-house. They are there early enough to catch residents as they are heading out to begin the workweek.

  The interviews are quick.

  Did you see or hear anything in or around the Graham residence during the very early hours of Sunday morning?

  No.

  Thank you for your help.

  Murphy drives up to 5th Avenue to pick up coffee and bagels for the troops.

  On his return drive to the house, Murphy stops to let a battered gray Oldsmobile back out of a driveway at 69th Street and Vista Place.

  At 8:00 a.m., as Dr. Bruce Wayne is boarding a jet for a conference in Chicago, Robin Harding is rousing herself from a two-hour nap to prepare for her meeting with Lou Vota at nine.

  Detective Vota is sitting at the counter of the Red Hook Coffee Shop, working on sausage and eggs.

  Samson drives directly from Douglaston to Mill Basin for the interview with George Addams and his wife. He had called Rosen and asked her to meet him there, so he could go directly to the 61st Precinct afterwards for his meeting with Murphy and Vota at noon.

  Lorraine DiMarco wakes with a terrible headache, a rude reminder of the MRI two days away. She is very anxious to get into her office. She expects to hear from Ron Hoyle and she has good news about a witness who may be able to clear Bobby.

  Lorraine walks briskly up Washington to catch the bus on Atlantic Avenue that will take her within two blocks of her office on Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights.

  The roar of the bus does nothing to ease the throbbing pain.

  Fran DiMarco finds her husband in the garage, making a total mess of the neat work she and Lorraine had done in packing up clothing for Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

  “Okay, Sal,” she says. “You were tossing and turning all night and I don’t think you slept a wink. Now tell me what this is about.”

  “Do you remember Frank Sullivan, ran the luncheonette near St. Mary’s Church with his brother?” Sal DiMarco asks as he rummages.

  “I do remember Frank Sullivan. I’ve wondered what happened to him and his brother after they lost the shop.”

  “His brother is back in business somewhere in New Jersey from what I’ve heard. I ran into Frank last night. The man is living in the train station at 25th Avenue.”

  “My God, how horrible.”

  “I thought we might be able to help him out with some clothing. It’s the least we can do,” says Sal, with a very noticeable emphasis on the word least.

  “I know that look, Salvatore,” says Fran. “What are you thinking about?”

  He tells his wife about the idea that kept him from sleep most of the night.

  Tony Territo is having a very bad day, and it is not yet nine in the morning.

  It began when Territo discovered that his son had forgotten to roll the two large plastic trash cans down to the foot of the driveway for the Monday morning garbage pickup. Now, he had two very full containers until the next pickup on Thursday. His rant about the irresponsibility of his worthless thirteen-year-old son almost had Anthony Jr. in tears.

  After that, there was a blowout with his sixteen-year-old daughter. Brenda insisted she would not be dragged off to Atlantic City the following weekend. Tony was calling it a “family” outing. Brenda was calling it bullshit.

  “It’s cold as hell down there, the beaches are closed and there is nothing to do,” she said. “Family, my ass. You and Mom will be gambling all weekend and we’ll be stuck in a hotel room watching some shitty movie.”

  “What kind of language is that?” Territo yelled.

  “Descriptive,” Brenda yelled back.

  Brenda had plans whether her parents knew about it or not. Friday was Valentine’s Day, but her new boyfriend had to work. He promised to take her to dinner and a movie on Saturday night. The boy had a brand new driver’s license, and his father had the coolest red Camaro.

  Brenda stormed out of the house to school before the issue was resolved.

  And to make matters worse, after the children were gone, Territo’s wife took Brenda’s side.

  “Let her stay, Tony,” Barbara says. “She’s right, she’ll be bored to tears. Anthony can bring the PlayStation. He can keep himself occupied.”

  “I don’t want her staying here alone all weekend.”

  “She’s nearly seventeen, Tony. She’s been alone before. What’s the big deal?”

  Territo is thinking about Dominic Colletti. He hasn’t mentioned anything to Barbara yet about his little problem.

  And Territo is thinking about having to see Colletti again that afternoon, and about how a bad day is just going to get worse.

  “Tony, wake up, I’m talking to you.”

  “What?”

  “I was asking if you needed a ride to the deale
rship,” says Barbara. “I need my Jeep this morning to get to the health club in Sheepshead Bay.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll have one of the lot boys come to pick me up,” he says. “Christ, will I be fucking glad to be back in my BMW on Wednesday.”

  He woke to find himself in his son’s bed. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. He remembered buying the clock, and using it to teach Derek how to tell time. It was a wind-up alarm clock, two metal bells sitting on top and a brightly colored picture of Spiderman on its large face.

  When his arms point to the twelve and the eight, son, then you will know it is eight o’clock and time for bed.

  Because I’m five?

  Yes.

  When I’m six can I stay up until nine, Dad?

  We’ll see, Derek.

  He noticed that he had overslept. He had planned to be at the unemployment office when they opened the doors at 8:00 a.m. If he hurried, he might still be early enough to beat the crowd, be in and out in less than an hour.

  He quickly shaved and showered and jumped into his car. As he backed out of his driveway, a car coming up 69th Street stopped to let him go ahead. He crossed 6th Avenue where 69th became Bay Ridge Avenue. He glanced briefly at the house as he passed, where all of the activity had been focused the night before. He saw two uniformed police, one on each side of the street, talking with residents at their front doors.

  Before turning onto 7th Avenue, he saw the car behind him stop at the house and a man get out of the car carrying a tray full of coffee in paper cups.

  He switched on the car radio and found the station that played the only music he could listen to: big bands, Frank Sinatra, Broadway tunes. He drove 7th Avenue until it ended at Dyker Park and then on to the parkway entrance at Bay 8th Street for the drive to the unemployment office.