Fishtown: A Jack Regan/Izzy Ichowitz Novel

by Neal Goldstein

  “She told you that?”

  “No, but we have evidence that proves she did these things.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” he said.

  Ichowitz nodded his head, “Yes we know, all of that happened many years ago when you were a child.”

  “Then I don’t understand why you’re questioning me.”

  “Some of the young women, girls really, died and we’re hoping you might remember something that might help us identify who they are so we can let their families know.”

  Kastanski’s right eye began to twitch. Ichowitz took his reaction as an unconscious give away; a sign that Jerry knew or saw something when he was a child that could give them a lead.

  “In 1960 you were eleven years old, is that right?” Regan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We know you had absolutely nothing to do with the deaths of the two young women we believe had been buried in the yard behind the slaughterhouse back then. But did you ever see anyone at the yard doing anything suspicious?”

  “What do you mean, ‘suspicious’?”

  Regan saw Kastanski’s right eye twitch more noticeably. He also saw perspiration on his brow and above his lip, telltale signs that the witness was ready to flip, so Regan decided to take a gamble to find out if his theory of what had happened was correct.

  “Did you see your uncle bury someone or something in the slaughterhouse yard?”

  Kastanski began to shake.

  “Jerry, you can tell us. We know you were just a boy. You weren’t responsible for what happened,” Ichowitz said, keeping his voice calm.

  Kastanski locked his eyes on Ichowitz, “But I promised my Uncle Paul I would never tell anyone what I saw.”

  “What did you see Jerry?”

  “I followed him from the house and watched him put something in a ditch, under the hay they used to clean the yard. When he left, I went to the place he uncovered.”

  “What did you see?”

  He wiped the mucus that was running from his nose with the back of his hand. Ichowitz handed him a tissue.

  “Jerry you can tell us.”

  “There were two bodies in the ditch. They were holding hands,” he whispered.

  “What did you do?”

  “My Uncle came back. I thought he was going to kill me and bury me in the ditch. But he didn’t. He told me I had to promise never to go back there, or tell anyone what I saw. He said if I did my mother would get in trouble.”

  Ichowitz looked at Regan and said, “But something else happened didn’t it?”

  Before Kastanski could answer Dave McElroy knocked on the door, entered the room and said, “Izzy we need to talk.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  McElroy shook his head.

  “Jerry, I’m going to ask one of the officers to get you something to drink. We’ll be right back,” Ichowitz said and both he and Regan followed McElroy out of the room.

  “Did you hear what Kastanski was saying?” Ichowitz asked as soon as he stepped out of the interview room.

  “Enough.”

  “Then, what’s up?”

  “You’ll never guess what we found in Kastanski’s garage.’

  Ichowitz and Regan waited.

  “There were pictures of four girls pinned to the walls. They were old, looked like confirmation pictures. One of them was Kathleen Blutarski.”

  “You think Jerry Kastanski knows more about what his mother was doing on the third floor?”

  “Why don’t we take a break here and try to figure out just what the hell is up with this guy? We can tell him, we see that our questions have upset him and we want to give him some time to get it together before we continue.”

  Chapter 51

  A bus manned with ten sheriff’s deputies sandwiched in between two armored vehicles with a squad from the PPD’s SWAT unit and a Highway Patrol motorcycle escort transported Ben-Ali and his men the 25 miles from the Detention Center to McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington, New Jersey. The hand-off to the federal authorities that had been ordered by the Attorney General was to take place there. The PPD was taking every precaution to assure that there would be no possibility of escape while the prisoners were their responsibility.

  There was no way the Philadelphia Police would repeat the errors the FBI had committed that had resulted in Ari Nooris and Nochem Rabinowitz’ escape three months before, the last time the federal authorities played the national security card and forced the Philadelphia Police to surrender prisoners in their custody.

  The Air Force Police directed the caravan to a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III parked on the tarmac in an isolated area far from any of the base’s other operations. When the prisoners were led out of the bus, four men wearing fatigues with no identifying emblems, carrying M-16’s walked down the ramp of the C-17. Two of the men put plastic ties on the wrists of the prisoners and led them at gun point into the transport plane. The entire process took less than ten minutes to complete. During the entire transaction, not a single word was exchanged between the deputy sheriffs and the men who assumed custody of the prisoners.

  As the Globemaster taxied away, the Captain of the SWAT unit commented to his Sergeant, “That’s an awfully big transport to take six prisoners to Gitmo.”

  Howard Kasdan, received the call that the transfer of the prisoners had been completed without incident and the C-17 was airborne. Everyone was accounted for except for Bashir Amet. Where the fuck was he? The prisoners were not destined for Guantanamo as reported, but were instead en route to one of the Agency’s other facilities for more intensive interrogation. He checked his watch, satisfied that he would make the meeting on time. He’d have to deal with the missing man later.

  Kasdan saw him sitting near the back of the bar at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. “Alon thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” he said as he sat down.

  “Howard, it’s always a pleasure. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering your usual,” he said and waved to the server who brought the bottle of tonic water and a chilled glass with lime to the table.

  “Cheers,” Kasdan said as they clicked glasses.

  “So my friend, as I promised, Nooris and Rabinowitz are no longer an issue. Ben-Ali and his men are at this very moment on a C-17 en route to a destination that can accommodate our mutual needs. So I assume your director will be satisfied that we have cleaned the slate so to speak,” Kasdan stared at his companion and waited for confirmation.

  “And Shona Cohen?”

  “What about her?”

  “Have you removed her from the field as well?”

  Kasdan paused, contemplating his response. “Alon, you can tell your director that we have that situation under control.”

  “You’re not seriously suggesting that she’s working for you.”

  Kasdan gave no response.

  “My friend, have you any idea how dangerous Shona is? The woman kills with absolutely no remorse. No matter what you think, you cannot possibly control her.”

  “I understand.”

  “My director is not going to like this.”

  “She’ll get used to it. Imagine how she would react if the word got out that the Mossad sat on intelligence that could have resulted in al-Zawanhiri’s capture several years earlier. I suggest we have fulfilled our obligation. Please give your director my regards,” he said, “And thanks for the drink.”

  “How did your meeting with the Mossad go?” Kasdan’s adjutant asked.

  “I assume we’ll be hearing from Langley as soon as Alon reports to Tel Aviv. Have you heard from our agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He assured me that he has the situation in hand. The woman believes he’s in love with her. They’re planning to start a new life together.”

  “Does he know what he�
�s dealing with?”

  “He’s been briefed. He told me he needs time to bring her along.”

  “How much time?”

  He shook his head and said, “He didn’t say.”

  Kasdan frowned as he considered the options. “If she’s as talented as the Israelis believe she is, we’ll have to give our man the benefit of the doubt. If he pushes her, he might end up with his throat slashed. Let’s put some eyes on them. Make sure whoever we send is careful. We don’t want either the Cohen woman or our man finding out.” He paused and asked, “Is she really worth all of this effort?”

  “She has a rare combination of skills and talent that can’t be replicated. She’s fluent in Russian, Hebrew and several Arabic languages. Her IQ is off the charts. And of course there are the other skills.”

  Kasdan stared at him and said, “I have an assignment for the woman, I don’t want to sit on this for too long.”

  “OK”

  “Should we let our man know?”

  “Not yet. For now, let’s give him the time he requested. Do we know what happened to Amet?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  Chapter 52

  “So now we have the link that connects the twenty-five years between the burial of the two sets of bodies found at the Fishtown construction site,” Ichowitz said as he stared at the white board on which they had diagramed their investigation.

  “Well we know Jerry Kastanski saw his uncle bury one of the girls who died in 1960 and he was still around when Heilman murdered Lee and Sukarto in 1984,” McElroy pointed out.

  “We also know that Jerry and Heilman interacted with one another. So it’s pretty good bet that Jerry told him where he could bury his victims. Don’t cha think?”

  “I hear you, but stuff like that just doesn’t come up in the normal course of collecting the rent.”

  Regan listened to the detectives banter. It was evident that Kastanski had passed this information to Heilman, but why? “There must have been more to the relationship between these guys than we thought,” he said. “What else do you think they had in common?”

  Ichowitz walked over to the white board and wrote down both of their names and said, “They were both around the same age, 26 or 27.” He wrote ‘same age’ under each man’s name.

  “They both lived in Fishtown from 1981 until Heilman was arrested in 1984,” McElroy added.

  “And both were connected to the property where the women were murdered.”

  Ichowitz made the entries.

  The three men studied the board.

  “So what do two single men in their 20s, who live in the same neighborhood for three years or so, and who have regular contact with one another have in common?” Ichowitz asked.

  “I don’t know about you Izz. But when I was a young man, the only thing I had in mind, other than my job, was getting laid, and getting laid came first,” McElroy replied.

  “We know Heilman had a thing for the girls on the stroll on Frankford Avenue. Ya think maybe young Jerry K might have taken an interest?”

  Ichowitz thought over McElroy’s theory, “I don’t know, Jerry didn’t seem all that interested in members of the opposite sex.”

  “Are you saying he’s homosexual?”

  “Maybe, or maybe just not that interested.”

  McElroy nodded, “So maybe Brother Aron took him under his wing, to show him the ropes, so to speak.”

  “Let’s assume you’re right. How do we go about proving their connection? Heilman’s on death row, he claimed that Kastanski took the girls from the cellar and that he must have killed them so the odds of him telling us anything different are not very good…”

  “So we’ll have to convince Jerry to tell us.” Regan observed.

  “Any word from the 26th District on Kastanski?”

  “He hasn’t left his house since we brought him back from the interview yesterday. I know he would have spilled if we didn’t cut it off when we did.”

  “So counselor, how are we gonna play this?” McElroy asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. We can charge him as an accessory to the murders of Lee and Sukarto.”

  “But they were murdered 25 years ago. Hasn’t the statute on an accessory charge run?” McElroy asked.

  “No, if our theory holds up he aided Heilman by helping him hide the bodies. That crime continued until we discovered their remains,”

  “Seems like a stretch, but I’ll leave the strategy to you and your boss.” Ichowitz continued to stare at the white board, “Do you think we might be missing something?”

  “I think there is something we should consider that might work,” Regan said.

  Jerry Kastanski peeked through the window blinds at the patrol car parked directly across the street from his house. He had already checked the back and saw a uniformed officer standing next door on the porch of the Rectory watching his back door. There was no way he could leave without being followed. He also knew the police had searched his garage and found the pictures of the girls. If the TV shows were anywhere close to what the real police did, they’d know sooner or later that he had been involved in the Lee and Sukarto murders.

  He was trapped and could actually feel the walls closing in on him. He could hang himself from a rafter or go upstairs, fill the tub with water and slit his wrists. That’s how they did it in the movies. But he knew he didn’t have the guts to kill himself. There must be some way out of this hole he had dug for himself. That’s funny, he thought, digging a hole. That’s where all of this started — the shallow grave where his uncle buried the young woman his mother had killed so many years ago.

  Despite his uncle’s warning not to go back, he was drawn to the grave. The sight of two young dead girls holding hands for eternity fascinated him. When he was a teenager, he found out the identities of the young women. He remembered the argument his mother and his uncle had when his uncle brought him home from the slaughterhouse that night. Uncle Paul told his mother she had to stop what she was doing. He told her God would punish her for what she had done; that abortion was a mortal sin. He said he would turn her in to the authorities.

  Jerry was only eleven years old and he didn’t fully understand everything they were arguing about. He heard his uncle mention the names of four girls from the neighborhood, Trixie and Loy, or Lori and Kathleen and Alice, whose souls were lost because of what his mother helped them do.

  It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he figured out who his mother and uncle were fighting about. He became an altar boy at St. Laurentius and had free reign of the church and the rectory. From the gossip in the parish about the missing communion girls and his review of the church records, he figured out that the two girls buried in the slaughterhouse yard were Kathleen Blutarski and Alice Tarwicki.

  According to the neighborhood lore, both girls got knocked up and disappeared within less than three months of one another. The gossips figured Tarwicki told Blutarski where she had gone for the abortion. Jerry was fairly certain that Tarwicki was the other girl in the ditch holding hands with Kathleen Blutarski, and both were victims of his mother’s handiwork. He also figured out who the other two girls who had been buried in the basement of the church were. He knew there must be a way he could use what he knew as a bargaining chip with the police.

  Chapter 53

  Shona immediately noticed there was something off about the homeless man who suddenly started panhandling in front of the Frankford El station across the street from the Perfect Cup. The business district in Fishtown wasn’t the ideal location for low end hustling of that variety. She could tell from the way the man moved that he was not as old as his appearance attempted to portray. Shona had honed the craft of transforming herself to disappear in plain sight to an art form. Whoever the faux panhandler was, he was obviously an amateur.

  “We’re being watched,” she told Le
vy and tuned her back to the window. He casually glanced in the direction of the panhandler.

  “Anyone you know?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you think it’s your friends from Langley?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “But I thought you told me you didn’t tell them where I was?”

  He blushed, “Look I had to give them something to buy us time.”

  She gave him a skeptical look, “So should we change the plan?”

  “No. We’re still good.”

  She turned away, and felt the seed of doubt she carried inside her growing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing I guess.”

  “Hey, we’ll be OK. He won’t see anything that can interfere with our plan. I can’t believe they would put someone so inexperienced on us.”

  “Maybe it isn’t the Agency.”

  He thought over her remark and replied, “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter who it is. We’ll be out of here tomorrow. Duffy’s people are coming tonight. It’s gonna be OK.”

  “If you say so,” she said. But she knew he could not be trusted.

  “I think it’s time,” Kate nudged Jack who jumped out of the bed. She laughed and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time to get to the hospital before the baby comes.”

  They took Liam to the Grape Tavern to stay with O’Malley. Jack promised to call him as soon as Kate gave birth to his brother or sister. The trip from Manayunk to the Pennsylvania Hospital on Spruce Street at that time of day normally took twenty-five minutes. Jack made it in slightly over twelve.

  By the time he had parked the car and got up to the maternity floor, the nurse told him Kate was in the delivery room. He donned the surgical garb and took his place by her side as the doctor, the nurse and anesthesiologist went about their procedures.

  She smiled at him as he took her hand in his.