by Walter Marks
Mort parked on Camp Hero Road. The park was now closed for the season, so it was unguarded and easy to access.
He took out a State Park map. It had a trail delineated on it by a yellow Magic Marker, which his client had instructed him to follow.
Jesús, now carrying Mort’s backpack, followed him along Battery 112 Trail, through dense woods, crossing over streams with busted wooden bridges and torn-down, rusty chicken-wire fences. After a twenty-minute hike, they came to two old gun embankments, which housed immense cannons, now blocked with concrete. Looming before them was the iconic radar dish tower, which can be seen from miles out in the coastal waters.
They followed a trail further into the woods. Jesús stopped when he saw a posted sign reading “Danger”, and a word he did not understand
“Peligro!” he exclaimed.
“Si, ten cuidado,” Mort said calmly. “Se dice hay arenas movedizas aqui. Quédese en el camino.”
Jesús nodded. He had no intention of venturing off the path and sinking into quicksand.
Suddenly Mort grabbed his binoculars and peered up at the trees.
“Look. A Cooper’s hawk!”
“Como?”
Mort pointed upwards. “Un halcón muy raro!”
He handed the binoculars to Jesús who excitedly scanned the trees above him.
Jesús heard a muffled explosion, but his brain was dead before it could process the information. One moment he was alive, the next moment he simply was not.
Mort had blasted a hole in the base of his skull with a silencer-equipped 50 caliber Glock. The bullet pierced the cerebellum and lodged in the medulla oblongata, causing what medical examiners call “severe brain insult.” Jesús fell face down in the dirt.
Mort ripped the backpack off his victim and pulled out a plastic tarp. He rolled Jesús onto the tarp and then took out a cloth napkin and unwrapped a surgeon’s scalpel. This wasn’t his usual modus operandi, but the client had requested it and paid handsomely.
He took out a painter’s smock and put it on.
Mort tested the scalpel’s sharpness with his fingertip, then snapped on pair of latex gloves and bent down to start his gruesome task.
When he was done, he wrapped the remains and the knife in the tarp and dragged it off the trail to the nearby quicksand bog. He rolled the bundle of corpse, napkin, and cutlery into the mud and watched it sink slowly into the slimy depths.
As Jesús disappeared, Mort made the sign of the cross and quietly crooned Johann Sebastian Bach’s poignant cantata: “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.”
CHAPTER 20
Out on the sundeck Susannah was pushing her bikini-clad body through Martha Graham’s classic floor exercises.
On her Ipod she’d downloaded four slow sections of Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”. She was playing the music on her wireless speakers, working unhurriedly, experiencing her whole body while breathing slowly and deeply. This workout had always been Susannah’s way of relieving stress and enhancing self-awareness.
She was almost finished, kneeling on the mat, eyes closed. The music was in the finale section, marked “Moderato (like a prayer)”. Exhaling, she performed the contraction, her pelvis back and her spine curving in. Then she inhaled into the release, her pelvis thrusting forward and her spine lengthening skyward.
The strings played in the low register, signaling the end of the piece. The music was mournful yet peaceful, as if portraying death as a natural occurrence, more to be reverenced than feared.
Susannah allowed her body to sink back on the mat as she extended her legs, face up to the afternoon sun. She felt the warmth soothing her skin, and through her closed eyelids she saw the intense orange glow of sunlight. Shapeless floaters swam in her field of vision as the last notes of a silvery flute faded away.
Suddenly the bright orange was eclipsed and she heard the sound of handclaps. Susannah opened her eyes to see a male figure looming above her. She sat up, instinctively grabbing a towel to cover herself.
“Damn good show, Blondie,” Jessie said laughing. Susannah saw his dark face, his hooked nose, and his brown overalls. She jumped to her feet, clutching the towel to her.
“What do you want?”
“Hey, honey. Don’t panic. I ain’t here to hurt ya.”
“I’m warning you. Get off my deck or I’ll call the police.”
“I told you,” the man said. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya. I’m a member of the Native American Charity Committee — Shinnecock Tribe. I’m just here askin’ for a small contribution.”
“I don’t have any cash in the house. Give me an address and I’ll send you a check.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get that all the time. Y’know, you people oughta take responsibility. After all, not so long ago all this here land belonged to the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Now ya got us jammed up in a crummy reservation in Southampton, while you’re livin’ high on the hog. I’m just lookin’ for a little justice.”
“I’m asking you nicely to leave,” Susannah said as calmly as she could. “My husband will be home soon and— ”
“I don’t believe that,” he said, laughing. “Y’know, I get the feelin’ you’re afraid of me. Are you afraid of me, huh? Look at me. Do I look scary?”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go inside, see what I’ve got in my purse. You wait out here.”
“Oh, no,” Jessie said. “I know what you’re gonna do. You’ll go inside and lock the door. Then you’ll call 911 and tell ‘em there’s an Indian outside harassing you.
No. No. I’ll end up in the slammer just for tryin’ to help my people.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going inside with you.”
“Honey, if I wanted to hurt you I could just as easily do it out here. There’s nobody around. Guess you bought this house for the privacy, and you sure as hell got it.”
Jessie watched the fear twisting Susannah’s face. She backed away from him.
“Hold up, lady,” he said, adopting a more genial tone. “We seem to’ve got off on the wrong foot here. Just lemme show you some pictures. You take a look at ‘em and if they don’t make you want to make a contribution, I’ll be on my way. Deal?”
“Okay. Fine.”
Jessie unsnapped the bib pocket of his overalls and took out a piece of glossy photographic paper. He looked at it for a moment, shaking his head sadly.
“These pictures are gonna break your heart,” he said as he handed her the photos.
She looked at the contact sheet, twenty-four photographs showing, frame by frame, Susannah’s killing of Burt. For a moment she stared at the pictures in shock. Then a wave of dizziness swept over her. She reeled backward, till she felt the bronze Krishna statue and grabbed onto it for support.
“Where—where did you get these?”
“Took ‘em myself,” Jessie said proudly. “It’s my hobby—art photography. Developed and printed ‘em in my home darkroom. Pretty good resolution and depth of field, don’t ya think?”
“What do you want?”
“Like I told ya. A contribution.”
Susannah studied him, her mind working. How can I deal with this man? Is there a way out?
“How much do you want?”
“Well, Blondie, I figure the rich fuck you married was worth millions, but I ain’t greedy, so I’ll settle for two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“I can’t get my hands on that kind of money.”
“Then the police get their hands on these pictures.”
Immediately Susannah saw the trap. There’d never be an end to it. Even if she bought the negatives, the blackmailer could always save other prints.
God, what can I do? Time. That’s it. Gotta stall him till I can figure something out.
“Everything’s in my husband’s name,” she said. “I won’t have access to his money until his will is probated.”
“Not my problem. I’m sure you can raise it, borrow it, whatever.”
Susannah thought of the $60,000
in Burt’s desk. She could pay him something now and promise more to come. But she was afraid to go into the house with him there. What if he followed, forced his way in? It was too dangerous.
“All right, listen,” she said, looking at her watch. “I’ve got $10,000 in a bank safe deposit box. I’ll go get it now, before the bank closes. Why don’t you come back at four and I’ll give you the cash.”
“I want quarter of a million.”
“Okay. But that’ll take some time. This’ll be a down payment.”
Jessie thought it over. Ten grand was a nice taste to start with. He had himself a cash cow—he’d be milkin’ her for years. No sense pushing it. Besides, he didn’t want her to get too pissed off, because the truth was—he liked her.
“Okay, honey,” he said in a reasonable tone. “I accept your offer.”
“Good. See you at four then. Meanwhile, I’ll start figuring how I can get more. And we’ll work out a payment schedule.”
“All right,” he said smiling. Then his expression darkened. “Listen, you’re not gonna try any funny business, are you?”
“You’ve got the pictures. What can I do?”
“That’s right. And the negatives are in a place where the cops’ll find ‘em if you try to pull somethin’.”
He grinned, turned, and walked a few steps toward the stairs to the beach. Then he stopped and came back.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you give me a little on account?”
“On account?”
He took a step toward her. “On accounta right now I’m real horny.”
He reached out a hand and touched Susannah’s cheek. Reflexively her right arm shot up and swatted his hand away. He smiled and reached out again. Once more her arm swung out, rejecting him.
Jessie’s other hand rocked her with a backhanded slap. Pain flared into her eye socket and along her jawbone. She backed away, rage boiling inside her.
He was on her, with his foul tobacco breath, his mouth on her tightly closed lips, his tongue flicking in and out like a lizard’s, trying to force entry,
Susannah struggled to push him away but he held her vise-like, pinning her arms to her sides. He backed her up against the concrete wall of the house. She felt the coarse fabric of his overalls on her bare thighs, the bib buttons scraping her chest, the bulge of his arrogant hard-on grinding into her.
His fingers hooked her bikini top and tugged. She felt the horror of forced nakedness as the lizard-like tongue lapped at her bare breasts; then the mouth took a nipple, suctioning with cruel force.
Susannah wrenched her hands free and raked her nails down her attacker’s cheeks. He yanked his face away, yowling in pain. Then he drove a fist hard into her belly. He stepped back as she doubled over, clutching her gut.
He got behind Susannah and seized her under the armpits.
Susannah could feel herself being dragged along the teak deck, then the padded thickness of the mat sliding under her back. She looked up and saw the rapist fumbling with the metal buttons on his fly.
“Wait a minute,” she said, trying to catch her breath.
He stopped and looked at her.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t want to fight you any more. There’s an old saying: ‘If rape is inevitable, you might as well enjoy it.’”
She gave him a seductive, inviting smile. “So if we’re gonna do it, at least let’s do it right. Take off your overalls so I don’t have those damn buttons digging into me.”
“Okay, Blondie,” he said, kicking off his shoes. “Any way you want it.”
He unhooked the straps on the bib, then started on the side buttons at his waist.
He dropped his overalls, stepped out of them, then took off his white undershirt. Grinning, he slid down his jockey briefs and she saw his jutting erection spring up, swaying slightly as he moved.
“Some folks call us the Skinnycocks,” he said, “but you can see ain’t no truth to it.”
She faked a smile. With his black socks on, he looked like an actor in an old time porn flick.
“Why doncha slip off them panties, darlin’?” he said. “Show me the gateway to heaven.”
“Why doncha slip ‘em off for me?”
He straddled Susannah and bent over to grab her bikini bottom. With lightning suddenness she brought her knees to her chest, then kicked forward with her powerful dancer’s legs.
Jessie lurched backward, and in the same moment Susannah jumped up and ran to the sliding glass door of the deck. She heard a loud clanging sound as she entered the house. She slid the door closed and locked the latch.
She peered back through the glass door. Her assailant looked very odd, — naked and upright in a contorted position, leaning back in the arms of the bronze Krishna statue. His head was tilted at a freakish angle. Blood streamed down his cheeks from where she’d scratched him.
Susannah expected him to push off the statue, rush at her, and yank at the door handle. But he didn’t move. His penis had shrunk and was now cringing within its nest of black groin hair. He wouldn’t be using it any more. The rapist had cracked his skull on Lord Krishna. He was dead.
My God, I’ve just killed another man, Susannah thought. What have I become?
She felt tears coming, but stifled them with an effort of will.
Don’t lose it, girl, she told herself. This is no time for panic or self-pity. There’s too much at stake.
There’s no sense calling the police—not if that pig had left incriminating negatives where the cops could find them.
She had to get rid of the body.
She’d do what she did with Burt drag him down to the ocean and let the riptide take him.
Jesus, she thought, shaking her head. I’m getting to be an old hand at this.
Susannah picked up her attacker’s overalls and looked through the pockets. There was a wallet containing a driver’s license, a pilot’s license, and an East Hampton Airport ID card: Jessie Russell, Grogan’s Cabins, Unit 3, 631 West Lake Drive, Montauk, L.I. There was a key ring with car keys and what looked like house keys. Also half a pack of Camels, a matchbook with “Liar’s Saloon” printed on its cover, and twelve bucks.
As she lowered the corpse to the deck, she saw the deep, bloody gash in his skull where it had smashed into the statue. Jessie’s fresh, red blood had dripped down, staining the bronze avatar and the teakwood beneath him.
She would have to remember to hose down the deck and the statue thoroughly. Do not, she told herself sternly, forget like you did with the track in the sand.
There were scratch marks on his cheeks, which might look suspicious if his body were found, but they could easily be attributed to rocks, crabs, or whatever.
On his wrist was a Timex. It was waterproof, so she didn’t remove it — if he went swimming he would probably keep it on.
She realized she’d have to put the man’s underpants back on. If later the body washed up on shore, it would have to look like an accidental drowning; skinny-dipping was not common in these parts. Besides, she didn’t want to look at his thing.
She laid him out on his back and picked up his briefs. They were inside out and there was a brown stain in the crotch.
“Shit,” she said, aware of the double meaning. Then, averting her eyes, she pulled the underwear up around his waist. She removed his socks and put them next to his shoes.
After making sure the beach was empty, she dragged the body down the stairs to the dunes. His head slammed violently into each step as she descended, giving her a strange sense of satisfaction, as if it were additional punishment for that vicious bastard. She started pulling him toward the ocean. As she did, she noticed she was again leaving a tell tail track in the sand. And in that track were spatters of his blood.
She started out dragging Jessie by his feet, her back to the sea. But that forced her to look at him, so she turned around to face the ocean, and pulled him behind her.
Jessie was heavy. His dead weight was lighter than Burt’s, but she’d been p
unched hard in the abdomen and the pain sapped her strength.
Often she had to stop and rest. And each time she looked up and down the beach, praying no beach walker would come strolling by.
Finally she got Jessie’s body into the surf, which was relatively calm this afternoon. She waded into the water till she could feel the tug of the undertow. She let go of the body and it was soon caught in the rip current and sucked away.
Susannah walked back onto the beach, peeling slithery gray-green kelp off her hands and arms. She kicked sand over the blood-spotted track made by the dead body as she returned to the house. There she turned on the deck hose and sprayed it forcefully on the statue of Lord Krishna.
She watched as the water diluted the blood on the bronze avatar and drained onto the deck. For a moment Krishna’s eyes seemed to be dripping tears, though his lips still showed his classic benign smile. Suddenly, Susannah could no longer hold back her own tears, and she just let go. She sat down, hands covering her face, and wept uncontrollably. She cried until there were no tears left.
Crying solved nothing, but it was cathartic enough so that she could face with clarity what she had to do next.
CHAPTER 21
Jericho was at his desk, typing up his notes on the Cascadden case.
Toward the end of his NYPD days he’d become remiss at doing his paper work during investigations. He’d been written up several times for not having adequate documentation. The result was that some of his arrests ended in non-convictions. He was deeply ashamed about that.
Now he was diligent about writing everything down. And the process actually helped clarify his thinking.
He was at a section captioned “Cascadden Disappearance — Possibilities”:
Cascadden was surf-fishing, ventured too far out in the ocean, got caught in the rip current and drowned. Accidental death.
Cascadden faked his death to avoid exposure of shady business dealings, or debts he didn’t wish to pay. Or he ran off with another woman.
