by Walter Marks
“So he has his own darkroom?”
“I guess so. I never go into his place. He won’t let anybody in. It’s kinda creepy.”
She went on. “He’s a regular at the Liar’s. After three beers he becomes an obnoxious loudmouth. And if I refuse to serve him, he gets real belligerent. He has two drinkin’ buddies who work at the airport, Norm Blechner and Bernie Traywick.”
“You know anything about his family?”
“Nah,” she said. “Well, only that his mother died last year, back at the reservation in Hampton Bays. Jessie took it pretty hard. For weeks afterward he’d come in and git soused every night.”
Jericho entered the cabin and took a cursory look around the living room. He headed to the back, where he saw two rooms across from each other. One was a bathroom turned darkroom. He turned on its light and looked around. There was all the standard developing and printing equipment. He thought it unusual, in this digital age, for someone still to be working with analog gear.
He could find no negatives, and there were no prints, even in the trash basket.
Jericho crossed over into Jessie’s bedroom. He was surprised by the collection of framed photographs on the wall. Jessie must’ve shot them from his plane. Voyeurism taken to new heights, he mused.
There was a shot of a woman with vivid white bikini lines across her breasts and groin, emphasizing the dark suntan on the rest of her body. Another was a full-figured lady with thunder thighs and large breasts pillowing out upon her chest. There was a shot of a nude blonde and Jericho wondered if it might be Susannah, but the woman’s hair was short and her body wasn’t that great. Right above Jessie’s bed was a double-header; a photo that looked like a mother and her prepubescent daughter lying out in the sun together. The mother had angular hips and her breasts were flattened out by her supine position. At first she appeared to be wearing a bathing suit bottom, but then Jericho realized it was the woman’s pubic hair, a dark black triangle at her crotch. Lying next to her, the young girl’s body was undeveloped and undefined, except for the hairless delta that specified her gender.
“Por favor ... Por favor.” Jericho heard the words echoing in his mind again. A woman’s words, flowing into a whimper that becomes a never-ending wail. He sees the little girl’s pale white body writhing as her limbs flail about, hands clawing the air. He sees the diaper-covered triangle at the junction of her legs. Above it, where the navel should be, a spike protrudes, its sharp point jutting up through the flesh. Blood is everywhere, enveloping the little girl, covering the detective.
One step too many. One step too many.
All is red now, incarnadine liquid flowing over his vision, sweeping over mind and consciousness, then dissolving rapidly into total darkness ...
“Jericho? You in there?”
Jericho heard Karlin’s voice as if coming from a far distance. “Jericho?”
There was a pounding on the door.
Jericho opened his eyes and realized he was lying on a bed.
“Yeah, yeah, Karlin,” he said hoarsely. “Hold on.”
He sat up and looked around. He saw the women’s pictures on the wall. He knew he’d blacked out.
Jesus. How long have I been unconscious?
He got up and walked unsteadily toward the kitchen. He turned on the cold water, and splashed it on his face.
“Be right there,” he called out to Karlin.
He dried his face with a paper towel, walked to the door and opened it. “Come on in, Teddy,” he said. Then, wanting to find out how long he’d been out, Jericho asked, “How long did you have to wait for the tow truck?”
“I dunno. Twenty minutes.”
Plus fifteen minutes to get here, he figured. That’s over half an hour unaccounted for. Damn.
Karlin entered. He was carrying the latent print spray can, and a CrimeScope, a black device with a light source on it.
“Put on your gloves,” Jericho said. “We’ve got work to do.”
Karlin complied.
“Let’s start with the bedroom,” Jericho said. “Wait’ll you see what this guy does for kicks.”
Jericho gave Karlin his first work assignment — “Sit down and stay outta my way.”
The detective took numerous photos of the scene.
He discovered an address book with a listing for “Mom.” The phone number had the Southampton prefix 283. Since next of kin had to be notified about a missing person, Jericho copied the number so he could call it later.
The bedroom was clean and neat. The nude prints and negatives were filed in a Pendaflex. Even the videotapes and DVDs in the cabinet — all action/adventure and martial arts — were lined up alphabetically.
Jericho booted up the computer. No password, so Jericho had no problem logging on. He checked out Jessie’s browsing history — mostly XXX-rated sites: PornerBros.com, MammaryLane.com, Blowjobs’R’Us.com.
In the bedroom closet was an assortment of cheap clothing. He noticed one He-Man brand denim bib overalls — blue, like the brown one Jericho had found in the Hyundai. Both were size 40 regular. On the bib of the blue one, Jericho saw a few dark spots that looked like blood.
“Teddy,” he called out. “Bring the CrimeScope in here.”
Karlin focused the CrimeScope light on the spots. Blood doesn’t glow in normal light, but when Karlin tuned the machine to blood’s unique color range, it showed up nicely, confirming Jericho’s guess.
“If it’s the missing guy’s blood,” Karlin said, “we should be thinkin’ foul play.”
Jericho rolled his eyes. “So you’re saying somebody stabbed or shot him, pulled off his blue overalls, then took him and his brown overalls to the beach and dumped him?”
Karlin was speechless.
“Who knows?”, Jericho said. “He might have cut himself shaving.” He grabbed the overalls and put them in an evidence bag. “Or — it might not even be his blood. It could be a red herring.”
“Y’know,” Karlin said. “I never really understood what that means.”
“It means it’s a misleading clue. Supposedly, in Jolly Old England, escaping convicts would drag a bloody herring across their trail, to put bloodhounds off the scent.”
“Wow! That’s really interesting!”
“But it’s probably apocryphal.”
“Fer sure.”
“Okay, Teddy,” Jericho said. “We’re done here. Have you got any crime scene tape with you?”
“In the truck.”
“Good. We oughta seal up.”
CHAPTER 28
Susannah sat down at her computer. She’d forgotten to RSVP to her friend Shirley that she’d be unable to attend their high school reunion. She logged on to Gmail and saw Shirley’s message she’d Saved As New. There was another message in her In box. It was from [email protected].
She opened it.
The message was succinct and absolutely terrifying: YOU DID A BAD THING.
In a panic, Susannah went to the Anonymail.com website, hoping to find out who had e-mailed her. The Web page explained how the service worked:
You, the visitor send an e-mail using our Web interface. No trace of your identity is given to Anonymail nor to the e-mail’s intended recipient. Your identity is concealed because all trails lead back to Anonymail, not the sender. Thus, it is truly Anonymous e-mail.
Users often ask — Is there any possible way the recipient of my e-mail can find out my identity? The answer is NO. However (sorry, there is a however), Anonymail cooperates with law enforcement agencies, and in the investigation of a crime we could supply them the name of your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and from that the FBI or the police can dig deeper and probably track you down. So please — don’t use us to do anything illegal.
The last thing Susannah could do was go to the police. And the sender knew that. But who could it be?
Maybe someone else had seen her kill her husband, or witnessed what happened with Jessie Russell.
What was the purpose of
the e-mail? Obviously to scare me. But to what end? Possibly the sender just suspected or was guessing about what I’d done, and the e-mail was meant to unnerve me, cause me to make a slip.
Or...was it a precursor to blackmail?
She tried to think of all the people who could have sent the e-mail.
It sounds like Burt, but he’s dead. It could be Jessie Russell, but he’s dead, too. Detective Jericho? That would make no sense. Quinn Healey? Well, he’s a lawyer so anything is possible. Who else? God, it could be anybody. Who else knows my e-mail address? Doesn’t matter, any one with computer smarts could easily find me.
She was getting nowhere. But whoever did this was clearly trying to mess with her mind. And succeeding.
There wasn’t a damn thing she could do. She could only wait for the sender’s next move — which she knew would come soon.
CHAPTER 29
Back at the precinct house, Jericho called the number for “Mom” listed in Jessie’s address book. A woman answered and said she was Jessie’s sister Margaret. The detective told her that he was notifying her, as next of kin, of her brother’s disappearance.
“We found his car and clothing on a beach.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” she asked.
“I’m afraid it’s a strong possibility.”
“Good,” she said. “He can rot in hell.”
She hung up.
Jericho drove to East Hampton Airport. Norm Blechner, the radio dispatcher, was on duty. He said he’d known Jessie for four years, ever since Jessie started towing banner for the Fly-by-Day Aerial Advertising Company,
“Yeah,” Norm said, “me and Bernie went down the Liar’s about nine-thirty last night. We figured Jessie was home ‘cause his light was on, so we banged on his door and tried to get him to come with us. But he must’ve been in the darkroom or somethin’, ‘cause he didn’t answer the door.”
“Did you see him inside?”
“The shade was down.”
“Did you see his car?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t really know if he was home.”
“No. I guess not.”
“Okay, thanks, Mr. Blechner.”
“Detective?” the dispatcher said.
“Yes?”
“Do you think Jessie drowned?”
“Could be.”
“That’s weird.”
“Why?”
“Well, you say you found his stuff on the beach and it looked like he went for a midnight swim.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Jessie had this thing about sharks,” Norm said. “He was scared shitless of ‘em. Seems he saw Jaws when he was a kid and never got over it. The last thing he’d ever do, I mean, in my opinion, would be go jump in the ocean in the middle of the night.”
Wait a minute, Jericho thought, Blechner says the lights were on in Russell’s cabin the night he and his pal went to the Liar’s Saloon. Were they on or off when I searched his cabin?
They were on. But did I throw the wall switch when I entered the place?
Dammit! That was right before I blacked out — I can’t remember!
Am I losing my edge here?
Maybe that idiot Karlin was right, Jericho thought. The facts do seem to be indicating foul play.
CHAPTER 30
Patrolman Karlin drew search duty the next morning. At 8 a.m. he was driving an open-top Jeep slowly along the water’s edge at Turtle Cove Beach.
He saw two chunky women on a blanket, drinking coffee and reading different sections of the East Hampton Star.
Carpet-munchers, he said under his breath. I can always tell.
A dude carrying a surfboard, dressed in floppy trunks that hung below his knees, gave the cop a two-fingered peace sign as he passed. Karlin wanted to respond with a single digit, but that was against regulations.
Don’t gimme that Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” crap. Get a job.
He heard a crunching sound under his left front tire.
“Fuck was that?”
He stopped the Jeep, backed up a few yards, and got out. On the sand was a spinal column. It had been broken in two; he could see the tire track where the Jeep had run over the vertebrae. At first Karlin thought it was a fish, but once he looked closer he recognized it as human. For one thing, there were neck bones, and he’d cleaned enough fish to know fish didn’t have necks. The spine had bits of ghastly white skin and some other kind of mung hanging from it. He’d goofed by running over it, but nobody had to know that, and besides, there was enough bone and stuff to get the genetics, which was all that mattered. In fact, Chief Manos would surely commend him for his great police work, and apologize for his recent criticism, which was that Karlin was a numb-nuts.
He got back into the Jeep and called the precinct house.
When Susannah woke up, she went immediately to her computer. There was another message from Anonymail. It read: YOU DID A BAD BAD THING.
Her stomach churned with fear.
This was torture. These e-mails were a perfect form of harassment — they were simultaneously an accusation, a threat, and a punishment.
On the beach, Jericho watched as Dr. John Alvarez, the assistant medical examiner from Hauppauge examined the fragments of spinal column. These bones signified a death, and the AME was required to add it to the list of Suffolk County unidentified bodies.
“John Doe No. 27,” Alvarez dictated into a digital recorder. Alvarez was a tall, thin Latino man who looked as cadaverous as his clientele. He was wearing the usual latex gloves.
“John Doe?” Jericho asked. “How do you know it’s from a man?”
Alvarez stopped his recorder and explained patiently. “Vertebral width and disc-facet depth are significantly greater in men.”
Jericho nodded. He noted the subtle sing-song in Alvarez’s accent that indicated a Mexican-American background.
The AME spoke again into his recorder. “Two spinal sections. One comprised of C-3 through T-4. The other, T-5 through L-2. No sacral or coccygeal vertebrae. Some bits of epidermal and lipoid tissue remain.”
“Got any idea of time of death?” Jericho asked.
Alvarez shook his head no. “Sea water’s no friend to forensics. Lab work may tell us something.”
He signaled to the driver of the ME truck, who got out and walked toward them.
“Let me just get a few photos,” Alvarez said to his driver. “Then we’re outta here.” He turned to Jericho. “There’s a suicide waiting for us in Speonk, and later this afternoon I’m scheduled to do a cut-up.”
“We’ve got two possible drownings in Montauk,” Jericho said. “These fragments could belong to either one of them.”
“You have any genetic material from the missing persons?” asked Alvarez.
“I’m working on it.” Since there had been no real evidence of foul play, he hadn't collected anything yet.
“You get anything that might be a DNA match, make sure you run it over to the crime lab yourself. Y’know, chain of evidence.”
“Right.”
“You know what to look for?”
“Yes.”
“Hair is always good. But remember, no hair shafts without follicles.”
I know that, putz, is what Jericho thought, but instead he just nodded. He wanted to stay on Alvarez’s good side. AME’s can get you lab results real quick if they like you.
“I’m kinda new around here,” Jericho said, ingenuously. “Is the crime lab in Hauppauge?”
“Yeah. Same building as the ME office.”
The driver was carrying what looked like a Bloomingdale’s Big Brown Bag. Alvarez picked up the two pieces of spinal column and put them in it. Then the driver sealed the bag with evidence tape. Alvarez signed and dated the tape with a felt pen.
“Well,” Jericho said, “thanks for getting here so fast. And I really appreciate your help. You sure know the drill.” Big smile.
“No problem.” Alvarez said and turned to the driver. “Gin
o, give Detective Jericho a PL9 Form.”
“That would be?” Jericho asked, feigning ignorance.
“Evidence Analysis Request,” Alvarez replied. “If you do find any genetic material, things’ll go a lot faster if you make out the paper work in triplicate before you drive over. Good luck.”
He likes me, thought Jericho. He really likes me.
Jericho was confident the blood spots on the blue overalls in Jessie’s closet would yield DNA. But he couldn’t be sure if it was Jessie’s blood.
They were close to Jessie's place, so he drove over there to look for a comb or brush that might have hair samples. There was a comb in the bathroom but it seemed to have nothing on it. He tagged it and bagged it anyway, just in case. He checked the sink and bathtub drains. They contained some gunk which didn’t look promising, but he scraped a sample into a baggie.
He went back into the living room and saw the Dell computer. Next to it was a wastebasket. Recalling Jessie’s predilection for XXX-rated websites, Jericho kneeled down and looked in the basket. There were a bunch of crumpled Kleenex tissues. Jericho put on his gloves and picked one up.
Snot or semen? My money’s on semen. Either way, they’re bodily fluids, loaded with DNA. With this, and Jessie’s stinky socks, I’ve got what I need.
Susannah was nervous about Jericho coming over. He’d explained only that he needed her help with something.
She took a quick shower, washed her hair, and put on a little makeup, hoping her looks might keep him from noticing how upset she was about the anonymous e-mails.
When Jericho arrived, she served him some fresh-brewed coffee. Sitting across from her at the kitchen counter, he explained why he was there.
“We found fragments of a human spinal column out at Turtle Cove Beach. It’s possible that it’s your husband’s. I need to get a sample of his genetic material to see if it matches the DNA from the spine.”
“Oh, I see.”
“The easiest thing would be a sample of his hair.” Jericho said. “Do you have a comb or a brush he used?”
