by Walter Marks
He climbed the porch steps, opened the door, and entered an entrance hall lit by a spiral fluorescent bulb. To his left was a dark sitting room. To his right was a door with a cylindrical lock. Beside it was a director’s chair, presumably once occupied by a guard. From Rosario’s description, Jericho guessed this was the door to the girls’ sleeping quarters.
He tried Oleg’s keys until one of them opened the door. Inside was a large room lit by overhead bare bulbs. He saw mattresses on the floor, strewn with blankets and pillows. At the far end of the room, a group of pajama-clad girls huddled together. Having heard the gunfire, they were clearly terrified, some clinging together, others hugging themselves in self-protection. When they saw Jericho in the doorway, AK-47 in hand, they all backed up against the far wall, as if the distance could make them safer.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jericho said calmly. He took out his gold shield and showed it. “I’m a police officer. East Hampton Town Police Department.”
As he walked toward them, the girls’ expressions turned from fear, to skepticism, to incredulous relief. One girl approached Jericho and asked to look at his badge. She scrutinized it, then said to the others, “He’s really a cop.”
They all moved toward him as a group. He heard soft murmurs of “God bless you,” “Thank you,” and “Gracias a Dios.”
“Where’s Oleg?” one girl asked.
“He’s dead,” Jericho replied. “All his men are dead, except for Yevgeny. He’s in custody.”
“O’s really dead?” another asked.
“Yep.”
There was an outbreak of applause and cries of joy. Some of the girls started hugging Jericho. He extricated himself from the grateful group.
“You guys get dressed,” he said. “I’m gonna call for some help.”
He went out into the hallway and phoned Krauss. “Chief,” he said, “Officer Salazar and I just busted a Russian sex trafficking ring. We’ve freed ten girls. The boss and all his men except one are dead.”
“Christ, Jericho,” Krauss said. “You didn’t tell me you were doing this.”
“It just sorta came up,” the detective said. “We’re in Springs — the only house on a dirt road at the end of Fanyon Way.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll need body wagons, a PTV, transport for the girls. And get some Social Services people up here.”
“Got it.”
“Oh, and Chief,” Jericho said quietly, “I’m sorry to say…we lost Maria…Officer Salazar.”
“She’s dead?” There was a long silence. “How did it happen?”
“I’ll fill you in later,” Jericho said. “I can’t…I can’t get into it right now.” He hung up without saying goodbye.
Jericho realized he had to conceal the fact that this was an undercover operation. It was unauthorized. It didn’t go as planned. And it put the rookie Maria’s life at risk. This was all Jericho’s responsibility and he accepted that. But the main thing was — he had to protect Maria. She had killed Oleg and he had to avoid a posthumous charge of homicide.
Her death from a lethal injection of propofol would be hard to explain. As would the bullet fired into Oleg’s testicles from behind. To Jericho, and to Maria herself, her action was justifiable — she had slain the monster. But under the law it would be murder. Above all, he had to make sure Maria was seen as a hero. She’d saved his life and given up her own.
He would have to develop a different scenario to report to Chief Krauss.
Then Jericho remembered the GPS tracker on the limo. The car would be impounded and he could never explain why the GPS was under the bumper.
He walked back to the garage and used the remote on Oleg’s key ring to open the slide-up door. He reached under the rear of the limo and removed the magnetic transponder.
Jericho walked up the stairs to the garage apartment, where the driver was still cuffed to the Bowflex. Yevgeny was the only eyewitness to what had happened there.
Jericho reached in the driver’s pants pocket and pulled out his wallet. He looked at his driver’s license.
“You’re Yevgeny Asimov?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, Yevgeny,” Jericho said. “I’ve got your wallet and your fingerprints are all over this Bowflex. You’re a key figure in Oleg’s gang, so you’re looking at twenty years to life in the slammer. But I’m gonna give you a break. I’ll uncuff you and you can get the hell outta here. I’ll say you slipped your cuffs and escaped. But you can never show your face again, ever! And you can never, ever tell what happened tonight. You fuck up and I’ve got the evidence to put you in the joint for years. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Pal,” Jericho said, removing the cuffs, “this is your lucky day. Now beat it!”
“I beating! But…how I get back to town?”
“Walk.”
Jericho felt awful about letting the man go — a man who was part of a gang that inflicted such evil on women. But the driver was the only witness to his and Maria’s rogue operation. Jericho couldn’t allow Yevgeny to be around and contradict whatever new scenario he’d come up with.
When Krauss and the backup crew arrived, Jericho showed them around the entire compound. Then he told the Chief he was exhausted and would give him a complete report in the morning. Krauss agreed, saying, “Get some rest, Jericho. You deserve it.”
“Listen, Sid,” he said. “I need to be the one to notify Maria’s parents about…about their daughter. I’ll do it tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”
“No problem.”
CHAPTER 72
When he got home, Jericho was emotionally drained. He threw himself on the bed and closed his eyes. Instantly the image of Maria, with the syringe poking from her neck, appeared before him.
He sat up and took Oleg’s iPhone out of his pocket. He pressed the Voice Memo icon, hit Newest Recording, and listened:
Freeze, asshole!
Doris, what the hell are you doing?
I’m a police officer.
You’re fucking kidding me.
I’m fucking not. Put your hands on your head and walk over to that wall, real slow.
I’m bleeding.
Like Mick Jagger said, “Let it bleed.” Move it.…Now, I’m gonna ask you some questions. And if you don’t answer truthfully, I’ll shoot.
Jericho listened to the game of chicken they played with each other, until Maria threatened to shoot Oleg in his balls. His first answer confirmed what Jericho guessed happened to Teresa Ramírez. The second asserted what he already knew — Oleg had sold Rosario Santiago to Sanford Richman.
And the third answer made it clear Oleg had nothing to do with Ann Richman’s death.
I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but whacking people for money is not one of them.
That’s real ethical of you.
We only kill our enemies. Not people we don’t know!
You only kill your enemies. But you have no problem killing these girls who work for you?
That’s business.
You’re okay with taking their lives, destroying their dignity, forcing them into sexual slavery just so you can make obscene profits?
Lemme tell you something. These girls are illegals with no employment skills and no futures. I’m giving them a chance to earn money with the only assets these bitches got — their pussies!
There was the muffled gunshot and the agonized scream from Oleg. Jericho shut off the recording.
Oleg must’ve been telling the truth, he thought. Why would he lie — especially under the threat of being shot in the nuts — when he’d already admitted to killing Teresa?
Could Richman have hired another hit man? Possible. But maybe my first instinct was right — Richman himself murdered his wife. But if so, how?
The detective had no answer. But he knew somehow he’d have to dig deeper. Maybe he’d missed something.
He closed his eyes again and cupped his hands over them. In the blackness he imagined Maria,
her face fierce with anger, as she shot Oleg, destroying his masculinity.
Jericho knew he’d have to get rid of the iPhone. That recording was something nobody could ever, ever hear.
He went to his computer and began to type out his report to Chief Krauss. He knew he had to spin it so that no suspicion would fall on Maria — or on him — if he could help it.
CHAPTER 73
In the morning Jericho went to the Chief’s office. He laid his Glock down on Krauss’s desk, knowing a cop’s gun must be turned in after a police shooting, pending review by Internal Affairs.
Krauss sat at his desk, reading Detective Jericho’s report:
I received an anonymous phone tip telling me the address of the house where the Russian sex ring operated. The voice on the phone was a male Latino; probably a member of the Mexican mafia, blowing the whistle on the Russians, who’d taken over their territory.
That night Officer Salazar and I drove out to the address. We figured we’d stake out the place and watch the comings and goings to determine if our anonymous tip was true. If it was, we would meet later with Chief Krauss to decide on a plan to bust the operation.
The house was on a dirt road. An alarmed fence blocked us from entering by car, so we had to walk. After twenty minutes on the dirt road, we approached the house. At that point, we were surprised and captured by armed guards. They took us to their boss, Oleg, who lived in an apartment above the garage. After I was tied to a chair, his guards left. Oleg then attempted to rape Maria, while also taunting me for being powerless to help her. She fought him so hard he decided to tranquilize her with a low dose injection of the sedative propofol. When she became groggy, he attacked her again. I’d managed to free myself from my bonds, and saw Oleg’s pistol on his dresser. I grabbed it and ordered Oleg to stop. He picked up the empty hypodermic needle and held it over Maria’s eye, saying he’d put her eye out if I didn’t give him the gun. I walked over to him as if to comply, then yanked his arm away. We struggled and during the fight the gun went off and shot him in the genitals. I took a pillow from the bed and stuck it between his legs, trying to stanch the bleeding.
The sound of my gunshot alerted Oleg’s gang and I heard them approaching the apartment. I gave Oleg’s gun to Maria and told her to stay out of the way while I tried to hold off the men. Firing my Glock from behind a crack in the door, I killed the first man on the outdoor garage steps. I was able to grab his AK, which allowed me to shoot at the other men as they climbed the stairway.
Unfortunately I ran out of bullets and the last man standing rushed me and pointed his automatic rifle at my head. A shot rang out and the man fell dead. Maria had saved my life.
When I turned on the lights I saw that Oleg had somehow managed to inject Maria with a massive shot of propofol. I attempted CPR but it was hopeless. Maria was dead.
And Oleg had bled out.
I went down to the main house and was able to free the ten women who were being held there and trafficked as sex workers.
I called for backup. When they arrived, I was physically and mentally exhausted. After showing the backup crew around the Russian mob’s compound, I received permission from Chief Krauss to return home and submit my report in the morning.
Note: I have been as detailed as possible in this document, knowing that deaths occurring during a police operation are thoroughly investigated. I wish to go on record with this sequence of events, so there is no misunderstanding or misinterpreting of the facts.
— Detective Neil Jericho EHTPD
After reading the report, Krauss smiled. “Well, you know you were way out of order on this operation. But given its success, I’ve gotta hand it to ya. And it sure speaks well of the department that we were able to take down a major sex trafficking gang.”
“That’s true, Sid,” Jericho said. “But remember, these Russians aren’t gonna give up this lucrative operation. It’s only a matter of time before they’re back in business.”
“But still this is a big step forward.”
“Yes, it is,” Jericho said. “And we’ve set a lot of girls free from these monsters.”
“Good line,” Krauss said. “Mind if I use it in my speech to the press?”
Jericho shrugged and turned to go without dignifying Krauss’s request with an answer.
“One question,” the Chief said. “How come Maria had her hair dyed red?”
“She did it on a whim,” Jericho replied. “She said it was time for a change. You know how women are.”
Krauss nodded knowingly. “Tell me about it!”
Jericho sat in his own office, trying to figure out who killed Ann Richman. If Oleg didn’t do it, there were three possibilities: One — Richman killed his wife himself. Two — Richman hired another hit man. Three — An unknown person killed his wife for an unknown reason. He decided to eliminate the last two for the time being, because he had nothing to go on.
He went back to the idea of Richman as the murderer. Crossing to his file cabinet he pulled out the folder marked “Ann Richman Homicide.” Though Jericho had most of his data on computer, he was still “old school” when he needed to sort through a complex case.
He opened the folder and began looking for any evidence that would point to Sanford Richman.
There was the photo of Ann Richman’s bloated body, dressed in her Ralph Lauren running suit. Well, he did have the corpus delicti.
He read John Alvarez’s autopsy report: Manner of death — apparent homicide. Cause of death: Blunt force head trauma with skull fractures, cerebral contusions, subarachnoid and subdural hemorrhage. Murder weapon: unknown blunt instrument or object. Anatomical aberrations: right foot broken off at ankle by sharp instrument.
Making his wife’s murder look like the work of a serial killer — that was a scheme characteristic of Richman’s devious mind.
And the fact that the body was buried at an abandoned Indian cemetery also smacked of Richman’s cunning.
He asked himself again — was Richman a man who could bash his wife’s head in, saw off her foot, plant it on the sand, and bury her body in a long forgotten graveyard? It was a grotesque scenario, but since Richman was capable of keeping a sixteen-year-old girl as a sexual slave in his basement, the answer was — definitely yes.
Forensic evidence? — It was a good bet the Malaysian hair found on Ann’s foot would match Richman’s hairpiece.
Motive? Richman did have one — his wife could’ve threatened to tell the cops about Rosario.
Jericho reread the statement of Ann’s hairdresser:
I tell truth now. Last appointment Mrs. Richman have big bruise on face. She say her husband hit. She say she afraid of him. Maybe he kill. I tell her no make big thing from this. She say no, I scared he kill.
Then there was Richman’s over-the-top behavior — exaggerating his grief, his bombastic outrage at the police not doing their job. Plus there was his detailed alibi, conforming exactly to the surveillance video. It was just too neat.
And finally, there was Jericho’s gut feeling — that Richman was the killer.
But still, there was that damn surveillance video. It showed a time period, almost an hour, when Richman could’ve killed his wife. But how could he have gotten out and back into the house without being recorded by the CCTV?
Is it possible, Jericho thought, that I was wrong about the video being digitally altered? To check he’d have to send it to the National Center for Audio & Visual Forensics, a private investigatory firm sometimes used by the NYPD.
Before doing that, he decided to view the video again. It was time-consuming, but he needed to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
The DVD was still in Jericho’s laptop. He took out Richman’s deposition regarding the events on the recording. Next to it he put Richman’s witness report describing his actions the morning his wife went missing.
As he started the recording he looked at the deposition. It read: This time-coded recording will confirm the following: 7:45am — Mrs
. Richman emerges to go for her run. She has her dog on a leash…
He looked at the screen. In one panel, coded 7:45am, he saw Ann Richman come out with her dog. She was wearing sunglasses, a baseball cap, and a blue running suit.
Determined to check even the smallest detail, the detective paused the DVD. Richman had said his wife was wearing a Yale baseball cap. On the low-resolution video Jericho couldn’t be sure there was a “Y” logo on the cap. The computer had no zoom-in function, so he went to his desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass. Feeling like Sherlock Holmes, he peered at the screen through it. There was indeed a “Y” on the baseball cap. He slid the magnifier down the screen until it was focused on the running suit’s Ralph Lauren logo — the polo player on the pony.
“Oh, my God!” he shouted.
He moved the magnifying glass further down till it showed two feet barely sticking out from the running pants, which were clearly too long for her.
“Holy shit!”
Jericho went to the Chief’s office and dragged him back to see what was on the computer screen.
“Yeah,” Krauss said, looking through the magnifying glass. “That’s the Ralph Lauren logo. Exactly what Richman told us.”
Jericho showed him the photo of Ann’s corpse. “See anything different?”
“Um…no.”
“Chief,” the detective said, “the logo on Ann’s body is the Big Pony. The logo in the surveillance video is the Small Pony.”
“But how can that be?”
“The woman with the dog coming out of Richman’s house is not Ann Richman.”
“Then who is it?”
“It has to be Rosario,” Jericho said. “Rosario Santiago, the girl Richman imprisoned in his basement.”
“But…Ann Richman was a blond. Rosario’s got dark hair, right?”
“Yes,” Jericho said. “But Mrs. Richman wore her hair with a tight bun on top. It wouldn’t have been visible under a baseball cap.”
