18 Seconds

by George D. Shuman

  O’Shaughnessy nodded, knowing full well that “we” meant her.

  “And leave Dillon to me,” Loudon concluded.

  O’Shaughnessy entered the Public Works complex just after four and was directed to Ben Johnson’s office. The room was tiny and he’d had to move a chair into the hall to get the door closed so they could talk privately. Miss February was hanging on the back of the door wearing nothing but a ski cap.

  “Nice tan” was all O’Shaughnessy could think of to say.

  Johnson smiled and climbed behind his desk.

  “Mr. Johnson, first of all, I want you to know that I am arranging a psychiatric evaluation for Mr. Smyles. It’s voluntary and I hope it will resolve whether he is even capable of committing a crime.”

  “You’re not going to charge him then?”

  She shook her head. “Right now he’s a material witness. Because of the ring he had in his possession. But that’s it. Nothing more. Personally I don’t think he’s capable, but don’t go quoting me. That’s an opinion that is subject to change.”

  “Did he tell you where he got the ring?”

  She nodded. “He says he found it under the boardwalk when he was picking up trash. He said you specifically gave him permission to keep whatever he finds, which leads me to my first question.” She leaned forward. “That doesn’t sound like any bureaucratic policy I’ve ever heard of. Is it?”

  “It isn’t.” He put a foot on the edge of his desk and pushed his chair back. “But you’d have to know Smyles to understand why I treat him differently.”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “Give Smyles an assignment, any assignment, and you can expect it’s going to be followed to the letter. He doesn’t have the faculty of discretion. He can’t differentiate between what I say and what I mean. If I told him to pick up trash until the beach was clean, he’d never go home again. He’d always be chasing one more piece of paper. When I first hired him and told him to turn in any personal property he found, I got bags full of plastic rings and watches. There’s more junk jewelry up there than anywhere else on the planet. I can’t teach him what’s valuable and what’s not; to him everything is valuable, so frankly, I got to the point where I didn’t care anymore. If he keeps a decent watch now and then, so what. He’s the hardest-working employee I have and he makes nothing for it.”

  O’Shaughnessy looked at him and nodded. “So you would testify that the jewelry in his box, that he claims to have found under the boardwalk, was his to keep by your permission?”

  Johnson’s jaw set, but he turned it into a tight smile. “Lieutenant, this little department of mine rides on a highly unstable seven-million-dollar budget. I have half the fleet I need to get the job done and it’s been that way for a quarter of a century. Do you think I care about what some broad-assed selectmen might say over a found-property policy? If they think they can come down here and do better, they will find my retirement papers on their desks so fast it will make their heads spin. Then they can have all the buckets of plastic rings their little hearts desire.”

  She smiled. Loudon was right. No one was going to be making much of a fuss over Smyles’s little treasure box.

  “Mr. Johnson, Jeremy isn’t the real reason I came here today.”

  He looked at her, puzzled.

  “I have reason to believe that there was an orange-colored vehicle in the parking lot the night Anne Carlino was abducted.”

  Johnson studied her face, trying to comprehend. One minute they were talking about Jeremy Smyles and now an orange vehicle. “Jeremy doesn’t drive,” he said, confused.

  “I know that,” she said.

  “So now you think it was somebody else that works here? Maybe me?” The jaw tightened again. “Is this Pick on Sanitation Month or what?”

  She looked at him, eyes steady. “The description we have is of an older model General Motors vehicle, early ’90s series. We understand there are several trucks like that in your fleet. I just need to know who has access to them.”

  She took the inventory list from her jacket and unfolded it, pushing it across the desk. “Chief Loudon told me you might be able to help me out.”

  There. She let it out. The chief had sent her.

  Johnson’s eyes narrowed as he pulled the paper toward him. He picked up his glasses and a pencil and started tapping the paper.

  “This is a pretty specific list,” he said. “You mind telling me how you got it?”

  “I can’t right now,” she said. “But I promise you’ll be the first to know when I can. Right now I’m just trying to determine the credibility of the lead.”

  He looked her over carefully.

  “Look,” she said. “I’m sorry for what happened to Mr. Smyles the other night. Jason Carlino is a grieving father. I’m sure it’s easy to put yourself in his shoes.”

  Johnson didn’t need to be coddled. “You’re looking for criminal histories on my drivers?”

  She nodded. “You said yourself you had a couple of potential kidnappers.”

  “I said that?” He smiled, then snorted out a laugh, shaking his head at the memory.

  “Something like that,” she replied, smiling back lightly.

  Ben Johnson’s list was waiting on the fax machine when she returned to her office. It had eleven names on it; two of them were parolees who he’d been asked to find work for through a contact in the Justice Department. She ran them all through NCIC—the National Crime Information Center—and called Tim while she was waiting for a response, leaving the message that she would be sure to get the girls to his mother’s so he could make his commitment. Then she called Clarke and told him she would love to take a drive up the coast.

  Nothing looked interesting about the names at first. There was a man named Earl Oberlein Sykes who had done time in the Midwest for murder. NCIC had coded his homicide conviction with a vehicle reference, which meant he’d been charged with vehicular homicide; that was commonly a reference for reckless driving resulting in death. He got a lot of time, but there may have been a juvenile history of drunken driving. Sykes had no other history of violent crime, so she set it aside.

  Some of the other sanitation drivers had traffic citations—one had received a DUI and one had left the scene of an accident. Then she ran Sandy Lyons, and the computer didn’t stop spitting paper for a full three minutes.

  Lyons had been paroled for rape and assault with intent to kill. He lived in Rio, not a dozen miles from the coast. White male, thirty-seven years, born in Elizabeth, New Jersey; four years in Lorton, Virginia, for rape, released August 1999. Two years in Alderson for rape in 1991, two years in Alderson for sodomy in 1986 when he was seventeen but charged as an adult. O’Shaughnessy had no doubt as to what his juvenile record was going to show.

  There was a knock on the door. It was McGuire. She looked up with a question on her face.

  “Guess who called for you?”

  She took a deep breath. “Ed McMahon?”

  He laughed. “Newsy.”

  She folded her hands.

  “He said to tell you there’s a rumor Billy Weeks was with the Yoland girl the night she disappeared.”

  “No way.”

  “Way,” he said.

  She put a foot on her desk and looked up at the crime scene photos. “No shit,” she whispered. Everyone on the force knew that Billy Weeks sold cocaine on the boardwalk. Could all this have been about cocaine? She thought about that for a long minute. “He’s not the type, Mac. He doesn’t have what it would take.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking.”

  “You going to bring him in?”

  “Tomorrow at noon. I want to take him off the street when he’s dealing. Might give us some more leverage if he’s got a pocket full of dope.”

  “Good idea.” She swiveled the computer screen toward him. “Look at this, Mac.”

  He read it and whistled. “Where’d you find him?”

  “Drives a truck for Public Works. An orange truck.” />
  “Jesus.”

  She nodded. “Keep it under your hat. I’m going to get a paint sample from his truck and we’ll see what comes up.”

  “God, that looks good,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Go on,” she told him. “Get out of here for tonight.”

  She popped a Nicorette as he was clearing the door, and picked up the phone, dialing a number at the Public Works office. A woman answered.

  “Is Ben Johnson still there?” she asked.

  “Hang on.”

  Five minutes later a voice came on the line. “Johnson,” he said, slightly out of breath.

  “Sorry to bother you, Ben. It’s Kelly again.”

  “Caught me in the parking lot. What can I do for you?”

  “How can I get a look at the truck assigned to Sandy Lyons?”

  “Hang on, Lieutenant,” he said. “I need to get out of everyone’s way here.”

  He came back on the line a moment later. “Sorry about that. Too many ears around. Lyons drives the meat wagon on the midnight-to-eight shift.”

  “Meat wagon?”

  “The dead animal truck.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. She’d called for it dozens of times when she was in uniform.

  “Fleet number is thirty-three, but you can’t miss it. It’s a light dump truck with a hydraulic tail lift. Parks in the wash bay all the way at the end of the garage.”

  “Doors locked at night?”

  “They’re supposed to be,” he said, “but never are. We keep everything that’s valuable in the admin offices anyhow. Use the door on the west side of the building. The one closest to the parking lot.”

  “What does he do with the animals he picks up?”

  “Takes them to the incinerator at the county landfill and burns them; last thing they do before they bring the truck in for cleaning.”

  “Cleaning?”

  “Scrub down the bed with disinfectant. I think we use bleach.”

  “What happens on his night off? Does somebody else take the truck?”

  “Not after the budget they gave me in September. Three men, three shifts. When one of them has a day off, the truck sits.”

  “Who are the other drivers?”

  “Danny Ellerbee and Earl Sykes, but Ellerbee’s been out for a hernia operation.”

  “When’s Lyons’s first day off this week?”

  “Thursday,” he said, “day after tomorrow. You’ll have to wait for the evening shift to get in and out, though. They start coming in around ten, clean the place down, and everyone’s gone by eleven-thirty.”

  “Thanks.” She hung up the phone. “Yes!” She thumped the desk with her fist. The incinerator was the perfect place to dispose of a body.

  Clarke looked quite handsome when he picked up O’Shaughnessy at her house. He was wearing olive dress slacks and a blue oxford shirt, loafers, no socks.

  Normally she would have been nervous about a man picking her up, just as she’d been nervous about meeting a man in a public bar, but for some reason tonight she just didn’t care.

  She could tell that Clarke liked her outfit, too. The skirt was the shortest in her closet, but the mood struck her and it was over her hips before she could change her mind.

  It was such a nice night, too. The stars were brilliant, the air was warm, the drive down to Cape May was invigorating. He had the top down and the wind made too much noise to be able to carry on a normal conversation, but they both seemed content to take it all in.

  They crossed the bridge and wound along a string of lighted condominiums. Twenty minutes later they were parked near the soft-colored Victorians in Cape May—a gas-lamp community of fine dining and boutique bed-and-breakfasts.

  She took his arm as he led her to a restaurant and a table reserved by a window. She was pleased when he ordered the wine and two-pound lobsters without asking.

  The meal was fabulous and fun and there was nothing stuffy about Clarke. Here again he had put her at ease, just a regular guy with a mountain of money.

  The drive home was heady, or maybe it was the bottle of Chardonnay and the moon, but she was definitely thinking thoughts she didn’t normally think.

  “Need to get right home?” he asked.

  “Show me yours?” She almost giggled. “Your home,” she repeated. Her hair was flying all around her face and she thought about Tim’s commitment, wondering what he was doing at that moment.

  Clarke’s house was big—no, Clarke’s house was enormous. It sat on a knoll overlooking the sea. They entered into a great room with massive marble columns and pale Oriental rugs on a red mahogany floor that reflected its shine like still, dark water.

  Wooden spiral stairs ascended to a living room with a black baby grand and a staggering view of the sea. The dining room table was set for twenty, and a library overlooking the bay was stuffed with old books and heavy leather chairs.

  She admired the art on the walls—rich, vibrant oils and wonderfully framed photographs and prints. An island the size of her entire kitchen sat in the middle of the kitchen and a stainless-steel refrigerator that could hold a cow took up a good amount of space along the wall.

  “Come see the upstairs,” he said excitedly, grabbing her hand and pulling her up the steps. The room was an octagon turret, forty feet in diameter, all of it carpeted in white and cooled by air-conditioning ducts all around the baseboard. There was a circular fireplace in its center, open on all sides and vented overhead. The walls of the octagon were glass.

  The furniture was composed of two C-shaped sofas on either side of the circle and two overstuffed chairs, all of beige leather. There were four brown and tangerine pillows the size of bobsleds tossed around on the carpet. A brass telescope on a tripod was directed out to sea.

  Clarke picked up a remote and clicked a button; then a fire appeared magically in the circle of stone, music started from the ceiling, and the air-conditioning hissed on, compensating for the heat.

  She focused the telescopic lenses on a light offshore, watched it for a moment, bobbing up and down on its crawl up the coast. Then she let go of the instrument and turned, taking it all in.

  “Chardonnay?” he asked.

  “Perfect.” She dropped to the rug and curled her legs beside a pillow.

  He opened a door in the wall and removed a bottle, poured, and brought the glasses to where she sat. They touched crystal and he kicked off his shoes and sat with her. “Let’s rough it,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she said softly, looking around the room. “Let’s rough it.”

  They ended up on their stomachs facing the ocean, talking, laughing, watching ships’ lights bobbing at sea. She was conscious of his arm against hers, but there was never a hint of urgency with Clarke. When their hands met, they encircled and then squeezed, and he rolled on his back, pulling her on top of him.

  And this time when they kissed, she opened her mouth.

  19

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1

  WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY

  The phone buzzed. “It’s a detective from Philadelphia.”

  O’Shaughnessy nodded and picked it up. “O’Shaughnessy.”

  “Hey, Lieu, John Payne, Philadelphia.”

  “Detective Payne.” She smiled. “Been a while. How’s your case going?”

  “Nowhere until this morning. I used the Scaglia underboss angle on the FBI and got my ballistics report back in record time. Guess what they found? My murder weapon was used in Cape May County in 1974. Open-case shooting at Atlantic and Cresse.”

  “Get out.”

  “Case name is Lisa Penn, Caucasian female, eighteen years, born in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Bullet was recovered from a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle registered to her, but that’s all it says. Hoping you could tell me more.”

  “Man, this case is growing tentacles.”

  “Yeah, and they’re all reaching toward you.”

  “Give me a couple hours.”

  It was in the basement in an olive-drab file cabinet, scr
atched and dented and covered with peace signs and “Go Navy” bumper stickers.

  Lisa Penn was supposed to have been attending classes at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall of 1974. Her roommate called campus security after the girl hadn’t come back to the dorm for several days and it was learned she’d been missing classes. Her parents were notified and Pittsburgh police were called to take a missing persons report. Fourteen days later a Wildwood, New Jersey, policeman running tag checks on overdue vehicles in public parking lots discovered her 1969 blue VW Beetle. The car was parked near Cresse and Boardwalk with a half-dozen traffic tickets stacked under the wipers, the first of them written well over a month before.

  The police couldn’t locate her. The girl’s parents came to Wildwood, taking a hotel room and walking the streets day and night with her photograph. They talked with foot patrolmen, business owners, and hippies for weeks following their daughter’s disappearance. When they finally gave up and left, they refused to take possession of their daughter’s car and asked the city to donate any profits from its sale to a runaway shelter. They wanted no more memories of what had happened to her.

  Wildwood kept the car another two months and slated it for auction. A mechanic getting it ready for inspection found an expended bullet on the driver’s-side floorboard that the seizing officers had missed. A state police mobile crime unit determined that a bullet had been fired into the driver’s seat. Presumptive swabs found human blood in the torn fibers on the seat cover and in the matting underneath.

  O’Shaughnessy flipped the page.

  Fingerprints on the driver’s-side door and palm smudges on the steering wheel are not usable exhibits: items collected in the immediate vicinity of vehicle are as follows: nonfiltered cigarette, WTA stub (Wildwood Transit Authority), disposable cigarette lighter, partial plastic tail lens from American-made vehicle.

  O’Shaughnessy knew that the seventies were a chaotic period for police officers everywhere. Though a child herself at the time, she had hazy recollections of the tent towns outside the city, could only imagine the minor disruptions popping up everywhere—common accidents, injuries, and illnesses, plenty of overdoses. Half of the hippies had used false or partial names, and if someone went missing it was assumed they’d only moved on to different digs.