by Walter Marks
“Endangered?” she asked the detective.
“What?”
“Character of case.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine.”
She read the list of Race Codes: 1-White, 2-Black,
3-Amer.Indian/Alaskan Native, 4-Asian/Pacific Islander,
5-Hispanic White, 6-Hispanic Black, 7-Other. She checked No. 1 and moved on. For Build she was asked to choose between Thin, Muscular, Medium and Heavy/Stocky. Burt would have preferred muscular or medium, but she chose Heavy/Stocky. Scars, Marks, Tattoos? None. Deformities? She thought of listing Burt’s genitals, but checked None. Blood type? No idea. Circumcision? On and on it went.
When she finished, she handed the form to Jericho.
“This phone number,” the detective said. “Area code ‘917’ means it’s your cell, right?”
“Yes, I have a line land but it’s best to reach me on my cell.”
Jericho nodded and turned the form over. “You’ve gotta sign the certification on the back,” he said. “The green sheet.”
She turned the report over. She reminded herself that she was the very upset wife of a beloved missing husband.
Tears. Tears would be appropriate here. She recalled the exercises she’d been taught in her college acting class. Sense memory. Think of something in your past that will evoke the emotion you wish to convey.
Drinks with Takiko. “Sorry, Susannah. You’re just not strong enough to make the company.”
The tears came welling up, then flowed down her cheeks. She signed the form, pulled herself together, and looked up at Jericho.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cascadden,” he said. “Look, here’s my card. You can call me if you need me for any reason.”
“What happens now?”
“Well, we’ll continue the investigation. But basically all you can do is wait.”
“Wait?”
“Yes,” the detective said. “In cases like this, sometimes a body will turn up. Other times— ” He broke off and shrugged.
She put on a brave face and sniffled.
CHAPTER 14
Jessie Russell lived in a dilapidated bungalow, on the grounds of the Montauk Sportsman’s Dock Marina. He rented it from the Grogan family, who also owned the Liar’s Saloon, a fishermen’s hangout next door overlooking the marina.
Jessie had converted his bathroom into a makeshift darkroom. He’d covered the windows, rigged up a safe light, and built a counter and shelves over the tub. When he took a shower, which wasn’t that often, he used the one in the marina. The toilet he kept as a toilet.
He did his developing and printing after dark, because in the daytime there was always some light leakage from outside. He had no interest in that newfangled digital photography. Part of the thrill of doing your own darkroom work was seeing that image materialize like magic out of a pan of developer.
The day before, Jessie had put his Plan B into action. Afterwards he’d needed to work in his darkroom but he was out of stop bath. He was pissed, but there was nothing he could do.
He waited till the next morning, then picked some up at the East Hampton Camera Shop.
After work he drove home from the airport, and went straight to his darkroom.
He filled the developing tank. In the eerie red light he loaded his film onto the plastic reel, then placed the reel in the tank. He screwed on the lid and started the timer.
He agitated the tank at regular intervals, rapping it sharply against the edge of the bathtub, and shaking it up and down in smooth, gentle motions.
When the timer went off, he drained the developer and filled the tank with his fresh-bought stop bath. After shaking it for thirty seconds, he poured out the stop bath and added the fixer. He agitated it some more.
Five minutes later, he opened the tank and set it under the tub’s faucet and let the running water wash through it. This was the aggravating part, because he was dying to see his negatives but he had to wait another thirty minutes to make sure there was no trace of fixer on the film. Otherwise the film was liable to deteriorate rapidly.
Jessie went out in front of his bungalow, lit a Camel, and sat down on a rickety lawn chair. It was a balmy night, and he amused himself by blowing cigarette smoke at fireflies. The fireflies were clearly not amused.
From where Jessie sat, he could see the bow of a sleek-looking sport fishing yacht, christened “Tuna Helper”. Sweet, he said to himself. A fifty-foot Chris Craft 500 Constellation. Oh, yeah, that would do me just fine.
He thought about the film and felt the excitement building in him, like when he was a kid on Christmas morning—waiting in bed till his mom’s alarm clock went off so he could go to the living room and open his presents.
Finally he heard the timer ring and he rushed back to his darkroom. He removed the film from the wash water and wiped it off carefully with a damp photo chamois.
He held the strip of negatives up to the light and congratulated himself. His Plan B had worked.
Having failed to get a shot of Blondie at night, the next morning Jessie called in sick, went back to her house around noon and hid in the dunes with his camera. He figured that if she sunbathed it would be around midday.
What he got was much more than a muff shot, and he didn’t need to print out a contact sheet to be sure of what he’d captured with his telephoto lens. There, in the blacks and grays of the negatives, were the images, clear as day: Blondie and Rich Fuck having lunch on the deck; Blondie slugging him with the wine bottle; the husband collapsing into the hammock; the wife tying him up, dragging him down to the beach, pulling him into the surf, and—drowning the crap out of him.
Smile pretty for the camera, Blondie!
CHAPTER 15
In the morning, Jericho went to the Police Chief’s office to brief him on the Cascadden disappearance.
Jericho and Chief Manos had a good relationship. When Manos was a detective lieutenant, they’d spent a lot of time together. The older man had a gray crew cut and a touch of rosacea around the nose. He reminded Jericho of his father: cold nature, warm heart.
Manos was an experienced and dedicated cop, and functioned well on the local level. But, in Jericho’s view, as Chief of Police he was living proof of the Peter Principle—he had risen exactly to the level of his incompetence. Manos loved to bust Jericho’s chops from time to time, but Jericho didn’t mind. He knew it was the Chief’s way of overcompensating for being underqualified.
“So we’re looking at an accidental drowning?” Manos said.
“Yes. But there is another possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, first thing this morning I called the New York City Real Estate Board,” Jericho said. “They said the word around town is Cascadden was in deep financial shit. All his money was in one project in Brooklyn, and it was falling apart. So it’s possible he committed suicide. Or—he faked his death and disappeared to duck his creditors.”
Manos nodded.
“Or,” Jericho said, “there could have been illegalities. Maybe the whole project was a scam, and he split to avoid prosecution.”
“Any forensic info?” the Chief asked.
“Only one set of prints on his stuff. Gotta assume they’re his.”
“Blood?”
“No blood.”
“How’s the wife taking it?”
“She seems shocked and upset,” Jericho replied.
“Nothing suspicious?”
“Listen, as a detective, I tend to be suspicious of everybody.” Jericho stood up. “Well, I better get back to work.”
“There is another possible scenario,” Manos said.
“What’s that?”
“Cascadden faked his death because he was having a midlife crisis. He decided ‘Fuck it’, jumped on a plane and left the country—maybe flew off to Bora Bora with his bimbo secretary.”
“Could be,” Jericho said.
“But wait,” Manos said. “If he did that he’d have to go through US Customs at the a
irport. We should check with them...”
“If he wanted to disappear, he’d probably hire a private jet.”
“That’s expensive. I thought you said he had financial problems.”
“Yes,” Jericho said. “But guys like that always have tons of cash stashed away.”
Manos sighed. “So — what’s your best guess on this case?”
“Well,” Jericho said thoughtfully, “My guess is what we’ve got here is a 3-D.”
“Huh?”
“Oh. That’s what we called a dead body when I worked in East Harlem.”
“But why 3-D?
“Definitely Done Dancing.”
CHAPTER 16
That afternoon Susannah was riding the Hampton Jitney bound for the city. She’d made an appointment with Burt’s lawyer to discuss the legal ramifications of Burt’s disappearance.
She felt very jumpy. She had to play a role with Detective Jericho. Now she had to do it again. How convincing could she be with a slick attorney like Quinn Healey?
Remembering Jericho, she thought it might seem suspicious if she’d left Montauk without letting him know. She took out his card, called him, and got his voice-mail. “This is Susannah Cascadden,” she said. “I’m going into the city to see our family lawyer. I dunno, maybe he can help. If you have any news, please call me. Thanks.”
The bus bumped along the elevated section of the Long Island Expressway, approaching the Midtown Tunnel. Off to her right Susannah could see the vast acreage of Mt. Zion and New Calvary cemeteries.
She looked at the countless gravestones, row upon row, each signifying the existence of one life, lived with its unique combination of pleasure, pain, fulfillment, and disappointment; then buried and forgotten.
She remembered her last lunch with Burt — how he’d savored the taste of the wine she served him, the Meursault, which had become the very instrument of his death.
How ironic, she thought, that he’d told me about the novel The Stranger and its central character, also named Meursault — a man who believed that human life has no meaning in the total spectrum of the universe. If Meursault was right, I’m just a minuscule speck of dust in an infinite cosmos, whose troubles don’t really matter. So why sweat it?
But that was philosophy, not reality. Her reality was coping with Burt’s death and her own life — which was a matter of life and death.
The bus shifted gears and rode downhill toward the East River, its air brakes emitting flatulent hisses as it approached the EZ-Pass tollbooth. The vehicle stopped, then when the orange steel arm swung up, it eased forward into the gloomy Queens Midtown Tunnel.
Susannah got off at Forty-second and Lex, and walked to Quinn Healey’s office at Forty-fourth off Madison. She had the disoriented feeling she always got coming in from the laid-back beach town of Montauk. Although she considered New York her home, she felt as if she was in a foreign city, walking by unfamiliar buildings and street signs, passing strange people who avoided eye contact as if it would be fatal.
The law office of H. Quinn Healey, Esq. PC, was in a building just down the block from Brooks Brothers. Healey’s office appeared to be an extension of that store; leather club chairs, leather stuffed elephants, plaid couches, forest-green walls, duck decoys, and lithographs of sailing vessels.
Healey himself seemed part of the décor: silver hair, WASPy face, lockjawed speech. His fawn-colored, natural shoulder three-piece suit seemed color-coordinated with the tan law books that lined the wall behind his desk.
“Good to see you, Susannah.”
She smiled.
“Any news?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you think it’s possible Burt just ran off somewhere?”
“Don’t know why he would.”
“Neither do I,” the lawyer said. “Do they hold out any hope that he’s alive?”
“The detective said there was always a chance, but I shouldn’t count on it. I’m afraid— ” She broke off.
Healey pursed his lips and opened a legal folder. He glanced at it, then looked up grimly.
“We’ve got a problematic situation,” he said. He detailed Burt’s involvement in the complex and costly BridgeView deal. Burt’s disappearance had generated a series of events which would lead to default. Within a week Healey was going to be forced to file for Chapter 11.
“Is that personal bankruptcy, or is it Burt’s company?”
“It’s the company,” Healey said. “But unfortunately Burt put up his own personal holdings as collateral. You’ll be losing the town house, the Indian art collection, plus the securities at Morgan Stanley. ”
“How am I supposed to live?”
“Well, you’ve got a Visa card with a $20,000 line of credit, which should hold you for a while. The good news is Burt didn’t put up the beach house. It carries a mortgage, but it’s got to be worth eight million, so you should clear at least, oh, three, four million, depending on market conditions. Problem is—you’ll have to petition the court to get permission to sell, because it’s not yours till Burt’s declared legally deceased. That could take as long as seven years if... if there’s no evidence of his demise.”
“This is all too much for me,” Susannah said. It was part acting and part real.
Healey reached across his desk and patted her hand.
“Don’t worry, Sweetie. I know it’s a lot to handle. But we’ll deal with it, one step at a time.”
Sweetie? she thought. Burt’s pet name for me. What does that mean?
“Am I — I mean, in his will, am I the sole beneficiary?”
“I believe so.”
“Could I see a copy of his will?”
“Of course,” he answered. “But not today, I’m afraid. The will is stored in a bunch of file boxes we recently moved to a document warehouse in Jersey City. We just plain ran out of storage space here. It’ll take a couple of days to access it, but I’ll put my girl on it right away.”
His girl! Susannah had never liked Healey—he was sexist, and way too smooth. Now she didn’t trust him either.
Susannah stood up, shook his hand, and told him she’d stay in touch. Why doesn’t he know the details of the will? He seems to know everything else about Burt’s affairs. And now he claims the will is in Jersey City? Sweetie? Something’s not right here.
As she rode down in the elevator, Susannah thought: I better get my own lawyer.
As she sat on the bus, riding up Madison Avenue to the town house, money was on Susannah’s mind.
Thank God I’ve got the sixty thousand. With that and my credit card I can get by for a while. I’d hoped Burt’s body would never be found; now I wish it would wash up on shore—and soon. Otherwise I’m in for a long wait and legal wrangling till the will’s probated. Well, at least I can send the four thousand a month for Dad’s care. It would be nice if the doctor’s are right and he lasts through Christmas. Mom would like it if we could have one last family holiday. But then again, if he dies by Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t have to—My God, I’m getting awfully casual about death. Is that because I’ve taken a life?
Susannah got off the bus at Sixty-eighth Street and walked east. The town house was a narrow limestone building on a tree-lined street between Madison and Park Avenues. It was a four story Victorian Italianate structure traversed by two ornamental stringcourses, with round-headed windows and a wide stoop leading up to an entrance flanked by flat pilasters.
The interior design was totally inappropriate. Burt had gotten the brainstorm of “going industrial”; he’d stripped the walls down to the bare bricks, exposing iron gas and water pipes, then installed stamped metal stairways suspended by steel cables, and room dividers of sandblasted glass. The modern office furnishings were anachronistically accented by Indian sculpture mainly from the Kushan and Gupta periods.
The entire house had been Feng Shui’d two years ago by a Chinese master who assured Burt that harmonizing his environment would eliminate all hostility and aggression from his li
fe. But when Susannah moved in she felt something was still out of whack—why else would the guppies in the obligatory Feng Shui fish tank keep going belly up?
The building’s central air-conditioning was off, and the house was hot and musty. Susannah punched the main A/C control button in the entrance hall. She’d thought about staying overnight, but as she climbed the stairs to the second floor she realized it was an awful idea. There were too many upsetting reminders of Burt. And she had an odd sense that his spirit was lurking in the house, maybe in Burt’s Hindu shrine up in the attic. A night alone in that house would be too creepy.
She went to her bedroom and took a rolling travel duffle out of the closet. She packed her jewelry box — with her earrings, bracelets, and diamond necklace. She added some favorite shoes and clothes, her dance books, and a small, smiling Khmer head she’d bought with her own money at Sotheby’s. These were the few things she either needed or cared about; if the house was later foreclosed and padlocked, at least she’d have them.
Susannah went into Burt’s office and looked for a copy of his will. She went through his desk and file cabinet but found nothing.
She booted up Burt’s computer and found files containing business letters, tax returns and contracts, medical reports, a list of “Favorite Diets of the Stars” downloaded from a website —but no will.
She noticed Burt’s address book on the desk. It was open to the “B” page.
Her eye caught a peculiar entry: Ubaf Sing. In the address section below it: A-be-deghi. There was no phone number.
She was puzzled. Why is it on the “B” page and the listing starts with “U”? This makes no sense. Is it Arabic, or maybe Hindi? Sanskrit? What’s this gibberish doing in an address book? Could it be some kind of code?
