The Highway (A Benny Steel and Marisa Tulli Novel - Book 1)

by Steven Grosso

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, even before I joined the force. When I was a kid, he lived around the corner from me for a while in Northeast Philly. He was a year older than me…always in trouble for something, but he moved from my neighborhood before he was a teenager.”

  Tony nodded, half-paying attention to Steel and half to his work at hand. “Well, let me finish up over here…we’ll be in touch.”

  Steel stretched out his hand for a shake and looked Tony right in the eyes. “Tone, as always, appreciate the help.”

  Tony shook Steel’s hand, accepting his gesture of respect, and then scratched the grayish skin of his cheek. He spun around and finished his note-taking. Steel scanned the area and began taking his own mental notes.

  4

  Steel had stayed at the scene for close to two hours. The murder had taken place just north of Center City, and Steel wasn’t far from the police station. He jumped in his car and pulled away from the highway, eager to get to work.

  He drove his own car because he had been called in on his off day. He’d usually take the vehicle supplied by the department but figured he’d just get reimbursed for gas expenses. He owned a 2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Something about the Cherokee stuck out to him, probably its size as an SUV—not too big, not too small. The exterior was silver and the interior black. He was always in the process of cleaning it, but the project never seemed complete. Old newspapers, soda bottles, empty coffee cups, and fast food bags were scattered across the back. The driver’s seat and passenger seat were the only clear areas.

  He turned left onto Market Street and stopped at a red light on Fifth, in the heart of Independence Mall. With his deep interest in history, driving by this area never got old to him. As the light switched from red to green, he glanced back and forth from the road in front of him and out his side windows at tourists snapping photos and Philadelphians walking through Independence Mall and its park-like design. Grass sparkled and poked and wobbled from the ground, and not one inch of wooden park bench in the whole mall was unoccupied. Steel loved his country deeply and had a profound respect for this section of the city, especially the history attached to it. Just viewing the old buildings made him feel as though he’d traveled back in time. He viewed Independence Hall, the birthplace of America, where the Founding Fathers had adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and also the area nearby where the cracked Liberty Bell was housed. He’d been to each numerous times throughout the years.

  He continued driving and glancing. He wondered how the Founding Fathers had sat day after day, hour after hour, in a hot room in the summertime without air conditioning, and all while they debated the Constitution. He’d been outside at the crime scene for two hours and the sun had cut right through his skin and warmed his bones. At one point, he’d thought he was going to have a heat stroke.

  “The dedication of those guys,” he mumbled to himself.

  Anyone who knew Steel knew he was a patriotic guy. The American flag sticker on his bumper revealed it. He’d served his country in the Marines and now served the city of Philadelphia as a detective. Protecting others was in his blood.

  Independence National Historical Park always made Steel reflect on life, just taking in the sites associated with the American Revolution and the nation’s founding history. There was no particular reason for it. It sparked contemplation of his own personal history and triggered reflection, perhaps the symbolism of change and independence. Whatever it was, he went with it.

  He cranked up the air conditioner as he pulled up to another red light. Observations of childhood memories and the decisions he’d made in life flooded his mind. His ordinary upbringing popped up first—an upbringing typical of most kids he’d known during boyhood. He’d grown up in a neighborhood where everybody was lower-middle-class, where everybody knew one another, and it had been that way for generations, from grandparents to grandchildren. Respect was everything. Most of the residents were either Irish- or Italian-American, although more Irish than Italian. Ninety percent of those people were Catholic. Families kept to themselves for the most part but were friendly to each other. Family vacations were once a year, if you were lucky—mainly to the shore for a week. Young kids played in the streets and got dirty, and the older ones hung on street corners and often got too drunk and too rowdy until the police were called to break them up and send them home. Those corners didn’t have a “fraternity mentality” where guys played pranks or blatantly disrespected one another in public, because if they did, a fistfight was sure to follow. Steel’s siblings and friends growing up had all played Catholic Youth Organization sports together, so infighting wasn’t common, unless a kid was from a different neighborhood, even just a few blocks over, which would’ve been considered a different parish. Churches with pointy edges and steeples that stretched high into the sky separated the neighborhoods into parishes, which were competitive with one another, and set boundaries for different Catholic schools and sports teams.

  Neighborhood conversations covered multiple topics, ranging from the Phillies, 76ers, Eagles, Flyers, “crooked politicians,” parking spaces, the time the mailman had come that day, if the trashman took this or that, or any random gossip that had happened during any given week, such as a neighbor who’d gotten the front of his home remodeled or someone who had a beef with someone else in the neighborhood. Everyone gossiped; it was part of city life.

  Those people had always had dreams and hopes, but most of the time bills and life had gotten in the way of them. Most of his friends’ fathers had worked blue-collar jobs and busted their asses for the man, and many of their mothers had been stay-at-home moms, including his. If one of their mothers had worked, it had typically been to make ends meet and hadn’t gone any further. That was just the way it had been—old school—respect your elders, respect your neighbors, respect one another, and be home by six for dinner, which rotated from homemade meatloaf, fish sticks, pasta, pizza, baked chicken, or leftovers on any given night.

  Steel had watched his father toil and work hard to reach middle management in a food distribution company just to be screwed in the end. He’d grown up wary, always ready and prepared for the worst-case scenario. Money had always been tight. His family had owned a beat-up used vehicle that stalled in the winter months. His clothes had never been new, mostly hand-me-downs from his older brothers. He’d had most of the needs but never the wants, so he’d worked from the age of thirteen in supermarkets, restaurants, wherever he could make a buck, before settling into a career. Most of his friends he’d grown up with had attended the same Catholic middle school and feared their teachers and rules until they’d graduated and moved on to Catholic or public high schools.

  Steel hooked a right and turned off Market Street. The thoughts continued. He glanced at cars in front of him, pressed his brake pedal sporadically, and followed their lead as red taillights blinked in traffic.

  He remembered being an angry and pissed-off kid, but there had never been a cause. His family and home life had been good. He’d had a few close friends, but most of the people he’d known were acquaintances. He’d been shy and an introvert when he was younger—and still was. Those who’d known him best back then would’ve said a bit neurotic, prone to anxiety, or a loner, but he saw it all as just himself, Benny Steel. That’s just who he was.

  Authority had always bothered him, but especially during the Catholic school days when teachers had strict disciplinary rules and struck constant fear of impending punishment if someone had broken them or questioned the norm. And his pet-peeve of authority still followed him to this day.

  After high school, college had been the kids’ choice. The parents had stayed out of their children’s higher education, too busy working and putting food on the table to survive. Besides, few parents in his neighborhood had gone to college, so they hadn’t known much about it. Some of his friends had followed the same cycles as their parents and had gotten blue-collar jobs right a
fter high school, some went to college, and some fell through the cracks. He’d seen many good and smart kids ruin their lives over foolish things, and it still bothered him.

  Steel hadn’t gone any of those routes, although his parents had begged him to go to college instead of join the Marines. A teacher had once told him that he had a great mind but a tortured soul, and she had been right on the money. The catalyst for his decision to join the Marines had happened when he’d beaten the crap out of a kid in high school who had constantly bothered and picked on a good but nerdy friend of his. Steel had never forgotten that moment; it’d single-handedly changed his life. Something as stupid and childish and immature as that had shifted his life goals at the time; he hadn’t been able to grasp that for a while but believed in learning lessons from even the smallest, most irrelevant situations in life. That incident had taught him more about himself than any teacher or book ever had. He’d learned that he was a protector, a fighter for justice, and realized he wanted to pursue a career that would allow him to do just that. He’d always known he was, but that situation had shone a spotlight on it as if fate or God had played a role; although, he didn’t believe much in fate or God. But that adrenaline rush from staring down a punk who’d been bigger than him and protecting a friend, had stayed with him during that time. Within days of that fight, he’d been contacting recruiters about signing up for the U.S. Marines.

  Weeks after his high school graduation, he had enrolled in the Marines and they’d sent him to South Carolina for training as an eighteen-year-old burning with ambition. Throughout his four-year military career, he’d been stationed in North Carolina, Japan, and Hawaii. He’d planned to make a career out of the Marines but left after his four years of service and after a bad breakup with his girlfriend at the time. He’d taken the breakup hard—hard an understatement.

  He shook his head while recalling a painful memory. He tapped his heel against the brake pedal at a stop sign and waited an extra moment until horns honked from behind. He fought with his brain, but the memory forced its way through anyway. He managed to block out the major details of the recollection and contort it down to a blurred outline. Better that way. Why dredge up painful memories for no reason? Can’t go back, can’t change a thing, he reminded himself.

  He breathed hard through his nostrils. The thought was ending but had gotten to him. He couldn’t believe the memory of her still dropped and twisted the pit of his stomach ten years after the breakup. He thought about his current love life. How after she’d broken his heart, he had dated off and on for years but never found a woman who matched her. How he couldn’t allow himself to trust anyone. It was a mental block he tried to overcome but failed miserably.

  Around the time of the breakup, he’d become a Philadelphia police officer. He’d brought that distrust into his job, and it’d served him well throughout his tenure as an officer and even better as a detective.

  The police station caught his eye, and he headed for it.

  As he pulled in front of the building, he realized he was lost in his thoughts, not out of the ordinary, and wondered how he’d just driven through the streets, semi-paying attention, semi-living in his own mind. He chalked it up to muscle memory. He didn’t remember stopping at stop signs or red lights. The subconscious mind was another thing that baffled him. He glided through the parking lot, rolled over a few speed bumps, and searched for a parking space. He was ready to bring that distrust and love of service into a brand new case.

  5

  Steel swung open the front doors of the station, and a wave of cold air smacked his face like he had stepped into a walk-in freezer. An old friend, a patrol officer, Joe, was exiting the same time he was entering. Steel held the door open.

  “What’s up, Steel?”

  “Ah, I’m here, right?”

  Joe snorted a short laugh, letting out a single “ha,” and then said, “I hear ya.”

  The two shook hands and then walked in opposite directions.

  Steel took large strides through the lobby and over to a staircase. He flipped up his ID badge from his belt loop, scanned it against a square electronic device next to the door handle, and jogged up two flights. His nostrils itched from a chemical scent on the stairs, which had a fresh layer of Mr. Clean over them, and he could almost see his reflection in the glossy, off-white surface.

  The third floor was split into two sections. Patrol officers took 3-A, and Steel’s unit, Homicide, took 3-B. As he reached the entrance, he swiped his ID badge again and opened the door with his shoulder. The scanning bothered him, especially when he was carrying a cup of coffee, but security was the goal. He obeyed.

  He entered and glanced at a plastic sign hanging above reception: 3-B HOMICIDE UNIT. The room was unusually quiet. Six cubicles lined the back wall, dug into worn-out, cheap, gray carpeting. All six were empty. Two copy machines were quiet in the middle of the office space, positioned on an old wooden table—the type of tables that folded and were used in a lunchroom of a run-down middle school. An old model Sony television with an antenna sat next to the copy machines. It was shut off until the news at noon.

  Steel strolled over to his cubicle and tossed his notes from the crime scene and car keys onto the desk. He fought each arm out of his black suit jacket, hung it on the back of his computer chair, and plopped down. He yawned for good minute and rubbed his eyes.

  “Steel,” a voice said.

  Lieutenant Detective Daniel Williams straightened his shoulders, accentuating his 6’1 stature. His build was that of a retired wrestler. One could tell his muscles were once solid as a rock, but his fifty-year-old self was just a shadow of his youthful strength. The curves still protruded but sagged and jiggled. His jaw was square, but several extra flaps of ebony skin dangled under his chin. His face never had stubble, not even peach fuzz, and was as smooth as the staircase Steel had climbed moments earlier. The minute he entered a room, the musk of thick cologne filled it. His black hair was short and cropped down to the scalp, stopping where straight lines formed a receding hairline. His round eyes could barely be seen behind thick-rimmed black Versace eyeglasses, which had a tint of burgundy on the glass.

  Williams spoke in his signature baritone voice, “I just read the computer report, Steel. We’ve got another homicide on our hands here, looks like. Maybe a suicide, but the reports lean toward homicide because the gun wasn’t found, I believe, correct? I think there was one shot, if I’m not mistaken?”

  Steel glided his tongue across the back of his upper teeth and nodded.

  Williams nodded. “This Thomas Hitchy is the same guy who has been on Narcotics watch for a while.”

  Steel reclined in his chair and mumbled, “Hmm.” He didn’t give Williams any more information than he needed. He didn’t want him to know that he’d been neighbors with Hitchy at one time. And he certainly didn’t want anything to jeopardize his work on this case—not that it mattered, but why risk losing a case.

  “Steel…I need this solved, hopefully in the first forty-eight, but if not, a week. All we need is a drug war. This is the third murder this week. I’m not having another summer like last one. Half of us won’t have jobs come winter.”

  “A week’s pushing it. Who am I?”

  Williams’ eyes locked with Steel’s, and he held the position for a moment. Steel searched for Williams’ pupils through his burgundy tints. Williams pointed his index finger down toward the ground and raised his voice. “If bodies start dropping like flies, the news will be all over this. You think they’re on us now…wait and see. We need this cleaned up and…” he shook his round head, “…stopped now. This happened in Old City. They pay over two grand a month for rent and’ll explode if this goes on in their neighborhoods. We don’t need a drug war. Those neighborhoods attract news cameras if a bike gets stolen. Imagine what they’ll do if more shots get fired.” He looked around the dimly light office space and sighed. “This crime wave has to be stopped before this city gets out of contro
l.”

  Steel sat silent, let the man vent. He wanted to give another sarcastic response about the unrealistic week request but refrained because of his history with the lieutenant detective. The two of them went way back. Unlike most authority figures, Steel could at least tolerate commands from him, and that was the most anyone got from Steel. He hated rules unless he set them and found it ironic that his job was to enforce the law, but he silently respected Williams. He’d earned his respect throughout the years.

  Williams had been working with Narcotics when Steel had graduated from the Police Academy. During Steel’s first few years as a patrol officer, they’d crossed paths. Steel had eventually gotten transferred to patrol for the Narcotics Division, where Williams was a superstar detective. On one specific assignment, they’d been paired up to take down a ruthless, notorious meth dealer. That guy was tough and smart. He didn’t own a phone or leave his house often. He didn’t even drive. They’d often wondered why he was risking his life for his multi-million dollar a year drug business if he never left home.

  After a year of pursuing him, Narcotics had trapped him when his right-hand man—the one who had operated the business from outside the home—had been busted for domestic abuse. After bringing the right-hand man into the station and questioning him, they’d returned him and made sure they personally dropped him off at their target’s home. Sure enough, when they’d arrived, one of the blinds covering the windows had split, and the man on their radar had gone on to see his right-hand man being led out of a police cruiser. Williams and Steel’s plan had worked because the guy had thought his friend would flip. Within a week, he’d been ready to admit to selling drugs, although a lower number than the department would have liked, and ready to turn into a cooperating witness.

  But there was one problem. Things had gone great when Williams had first brought him in for an interrogation, while the perp had been in custody. He’d gotten an entire rundown of his operations and others involved out of him. But when he’d sung like a choir boy, spilling the beans on the whole operation, connecting his business from Philly and throughout the United States, all the way to L.A., Steel and Williams hadn’t read him his Miranda rights before officially arresting him. Or even before questioning him, and while in custody, that was a no-no. The next day, he’d changed his mind, and the case had gone sour—regardless of what he had already told them. They hadn’t been able to use his information; a prosecutor wouldn’t have been able to use his information in court. Williams and Steel had both botched it, but Steel had taken the fall. Williams had more to lose. The lieutenant had never forgotten that loyalty, and neither had Steel.