Suburban Dicks

by Fabian Nicieza

  “Which would be the first officers on the scene.”

  “Especially if one is the mayor’s daughter, because of the fear of political fallout,” said Andrea. “And the Indian patrolman will be worried about cultural fallout if he’s implicated in covering up the murder.”

  Kenny whistled. “You are a stone-cold, calculating bitch.”

  “You have no idea,” she replied absently.

  “When I was putting my board together, I asked why the police lie,” he said. “And two of the reasons apply here, I think. To cover up a mistake they made, or to cover up a mistake someone more powerful made.”

  She nodded and stared across Grover’s Mill Pond. The late afternoon sun was lowering to the west. It cast a sparkling sheen across the water. She watched a cormorant leave its perch and fly off.

  “And because it’s what’s expected of them,” she replied. “Because it’s what they’ve been doing for a very long time.”

  15

  THE next morning, unable to find anyone to watch the kids on short notice, Andrea carted them to the West Windsor municipal building. They entered the lobby and the kids immediately went in different directions. Andrea tried to figure out which office she needed to visit.

  Seeing that the municipal clerk’s counter was to her left, she snapped at the kids, “This way.” They rematerialized and gathered around her, and together they stepped to the counter.

  A woman in her late fifties soon approached. Andrea did the math. If the clerk had started working in the township office in her early twenties, that would put her first year at about 1980. Andrea suspected their problem preceded that by a decade at a minimum. It dawned on her how hard this was going to be.

  “Hi, my name is Andrea Abelman. I’m an author working on a book about suburban sprawl in New Jersey’s wealthiest towns over the last several decades.” Any trace of Queens normally in her voice was suddenly gone, so much so that Ruth and Eli noticed its absence. They looked at each other, suppressing a giggle as Andrea swiped at them gently with her hand to shut them up. “I’ve already researched Colts Neck, Deal, and Rumson, and would love to perform a study of West Windsor next.”

  Andrea figured tossing West Windsor into a pitch with Colts Neck, Deal, and Rumson would flatter any townie civil servant.

  “Oh, that’s interesting,” said the clerk. “How can we help?”

  “I need to see township construction zoning maps since nineteen sixty,” she said matter-of-factly, knowing she was asking a lot but pretending it was no less than she had already been given by other towns.

  “Oh, many of those are in the archives,” the clerk said. “You’d need to make a formal request in writing and then we’d need a week or so, at least, to pull them for you.”

  “How far back can you go now?” she asked.

  “To about nineteen eighty-eight, I think.”

  “Well, that’s a great start,” said Andrea. “Thank you so much.”

  “Mommy is talking funny,” said Sadie, and Andrea nudged her hard enough with her leg that she knocked her youngest over. The other kids started laughing, which kept Sadie from crying.

  “You can sit in the conference room to the right of the auditorium with your children and I’ll bring them out to you in a moment,” said the clerk.

  “Thank you so much,” said Andrea. “Children, follow me!”

  They reached the conference room and Ruth closed the door behind them. “Why did you talk funny, Mommy?” asked Sarah.

  “I didn’t,” said Andrea. “The way I normally talk is funny; today I decided to try speaking in a normal voice.”

  “And you lied in a normal voice, too,” muttered Ruth.

  “My maiden name was Abelman,” Andrea answered, “so technically it’s not fibbing.”

  “And this book you’re writing?” asked Eli.

  “Well, I couldn’t tell them the real reason I needed the maps,” said Andrea.

  “Are you looking for buried treasure?” asked Sarah.

  “Not treasure,” muttered Andrea. “Listen, don’t worry about any of that. When the nice lady brings in the maps, I’m going to need all of you to help me unroll them and place them on this big table.”

  “Then what?” asked Eli.

  “Then we’re going to see how the town changed over the last thirty years, including the house we live in today,” she said, hoping it sounded like an adventure to them.

  “Oh, joy,” muttered Ruth. Sarah started mimicking her and Sadie chimed in. The room echoed with high-pitched squeals of “Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy.”

  Not even the headache Andrea felt coming on could diminish her enthusiasm as the clerk brought in a leather satchel containing several large rolled-up blueline maps. The clerk hefted the bag onto the table and opened it. A pyramid of rolled maps came undone and tumbled across the surface.

  “The dates are on the sticker here on the back side,” said the clerk. “Also, on the legend of each map on the lower right-hand corner. They’re divided by zoning districts and are also labeled by the year on the outside sticker.”

  Andrea scanned the maps, looking for the earliest year. She saw the sticker that read “1988.” Leaving, the clerk said, “There’s a meeting scheduled for this room at two, which gives you plenty of time. Call if you need anything and please keep the kids from wandering out.”

  As the door to the room closed, Andrea unrolled the first map. “Ruth, Eli, grab an end and stretch it out on the table.” Realizing she needed something to keep the map from buckling, she said, “Sadie, Sarah, I need your shoes.”

  “Why?” protested Sadie.

  “To keep the maps down, honey,” she replied. “Just give me your shoes, girls!”

  They did. Ruth and Eli held the first map down at each end as Andrea put the shoes on them. She handed her phone to Ruth and asked her to take pictures of the map in four quarters. As Ruth did that, Eli asked what he could do. Andrea almost smiled—having them engaged meant she didn’t have to fight them. She said, “You can find the map for nineteen eighty-nine, then every year after that—nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety-one . . . keep them in order and be ready to open them one at a time.”

  “How come?” asked Eli even as he searched.

  “I want to see the changes year to year,” she replied. “To see what developments went up in our town little by little.”

  She took a moment to absorb the details of the map. She didn’t have a photographic memory so much as panoramic immersion. Andrea had always been able to see the big picture and the little picture at the same time. She could focus intently on one single detail and see that as part of the whole.

  The 1988 map showed a town that was just beginning to flourish. She scanned it quickly enough to note that the developments where she’d marked pool-permit denials on the rug at home had not yet been built. Ruth had finished taking pictures. Andrea asked Elijah for the next map.

  They unrolled 1989 and Ruth took pictures.

  Then 1990.

  They continued through the most recent zoning map of 2018. Sadie started acting up around 2002 and Sarah joined her around 2005, so Andrea had to speed things up. The majority of the township’s explosive residential construction had occurred in the nineties. In the aughts, the municipalities of West Windsor and Plainsboro had both passed farmland preservation bonds, which served to protect most of the remaining open space for ninety-nine years.

  Ruth handed Andrea the phone. She scrolled through the dozens of pictures her daughter had taken. They were good enough for her to create a PowerPoint montage that would enable her to see where the undeveloped lands were incrementally eaten away by development.

  They rolled and tied the maps as neatly as they could, which was not very neatly at all. She let Eli carry the satchel back to the clerk. Andrea thanked the clerk and asked how she should apply for access to the archived
zoning maps.

  The clerk said, “I realized after we talked that most of those were transferred to microfiche in the eighties, so you should be able to find them at the library.”

  Andrea thanked her and said, “C’mon, kids, let’s go get lunch.”

  As they rumbled out the door, Andrea turned back to the clerk and said, “I’m also curious about pool permits.”

  The clerk seemed confused. “I’m sorry? Are you applying for one?”

  “No, I’m interested to see the township’s rejected pool permits.”

  “For which property?” asked the clerk.

  “All of them,” said Andrea. “Any of them.”

  The clerk seemed to weigh the request, balancing confusion and suspicion. “I don’t understand what that could possibly—”

  “How long have you been working for the township?” Andrea interrupted.

  “Since nineteen eighty-two,” said the woman.

  “Wow, that’s wonderful,” Andrea said. “You’ve seen so many things change here. That’s all I’m interested in seeing. The changes over time.”

  “But I don’t understand what pool permits would have to do with—”

  Andrea interrupted again, “Oh, that’s a quirk of mine when I’m doing these studies.”

  The clerk said, “I guess you could make a formal request for that information, but we’d have to get that approved by the supervisor, and then we’d have to allot the time to track down the records and photocopy them. It would be a lot of work.”

  “Of course, I understand,” said Andrea. “Listen, you’ve been a huge help and I really want to thank you. My kids—I know they can be a handful.”

  The clerk’s face softened. “Oh, they were adorable.”

  “And your name is?” asked Andrea.

  “Hillary. Eversham,” said the clerk.

  “Thank you so much, Mrs. Eversham,” said Andrea.

  She left the office to find the kids running around by the 9/11 monument at the side of the building. “Subway or Jimmy John’s?” she asked.

  The girls said Subway; Eli said Jimmy John’s. Ruth yelled at Eli for wanting Jimmy John’s because the owner, who she called “Mr. Johns,” hunted animals for fun. After Andrea was done hating puberty Ruth, she had a feeling she was going to like adult Ruth.

  Andrea thought about Hillary Eversham. Thirty-eight years working for the township. Whether willful or benign, she had spent that time as part of a concerted, coordinated effort to prevent digging in certain parts of the township. As a civil servant, that meant she had taken orders from someone to perpetuate that effort. And that meant it was more than a cover-up.

  It was a conspiracy.

  16

  KENNY performed a stakeout of the Bagel Hole. He’d sat nursing a large cup of black coffee for two hours in hopes that Detectives Rossi and Garmin would arrive for the latter’s daily bagel fix. At five minutes to nine, they walked through the door.

  Garmin waved to the Hispanic couple and the Asian woman who owned the shop. The young Hispanic man brought him his bagel while the woman poured his coffee. Pumpernickel with cream cheese. Did Garmin actually eat them every single day? How do you not swallow your gun?

  Kenny stood up from his table by the window and moved to block their path to the exit door. “Detectives Rossi and Garmin, how are you? Kenneth Lee, Princeton Post.”

  “We know who you are,” said Rossi.

  “Fucking numbnuts,” mumbled Garmin through his first nibble.

  “I know,” Kenny said. “I just have to ID myself the way you guys do so you know everything you say is officially on the record, starting . . . now.”

  “You want to do this in here?” asked Garmin, noticing the stares from the few customers and the shop employees. Kenny opened the door with an “after you” gesture. He regretted it immediately, since the door swung outward and it made for limited egress as the detectives shimmied past him.

  They walked along the sidewalk that fronted the stores of the strip mall. Kenny waited longer than he needed to before he began. “They released the autopsy report.”

  “The preliminary autopsy report,” corrected Rossi.

  “What about the trajectory report?” asked Kenny.

  Garmin replied, “A trajectory report wasn’t performed.”

  “Really?” asked Kenny, surprised. “Why?”

  Rossi and Garmin exchanged a glance. “It was felt that the nature of the crime didn’t call for it,” Rossi said.

  “The nature of the crime being murder by gunfire?” asked Kenny. “Multiple shots fired but only one striking?”

  “You’ve been watching too much TV,” said Garmin as a dab of cream cheese leaked out of his sputtering lips. “You think some banger spraying his semi has a clue how to fire that gun accurately?”

  “So, you’re saying that the shooter used a semiautomatic weapon?” asked Kenny.

  “That’s not what he’s saying,” interrupted Rossi before his partner could say anything else. “We won’t have ballistics until next week.”

  And that led Kenny to the trap he’d wanted to spring. “But you are confirming it was a gang-related robbery?”

  “No, again, that was an example the detective was trying to make,” said Rossi.

  “But Lt. Wilson said the department suspected a gang-related drug robbery,” pushed Kenny.

  They had reached the end of the sidewalk in front of the strip mall. Kenny heard the clang of an arriving train at the station. PJ’s Pancake House was emptying of its light weekday morning breakfast traffic. Two guys wearing business casual walked in front of them on their way to their cars. Rossi eyed their passing and waited until they had walked out of earshot. “Okay, yeah, we think it was a robbery or a botched drug deal.”

  “I find that an interesting approach for the department to be taking, considering my source said there were no drugs in plain sight and the cash register was closed.”

  It hit the detectives like a bat to the back of the head.

  “What source?” asked Garmin. “You talked to someone who witnessed the shooting?”

  Rossi held a hand up to calm his partner down. “What do you have, Kenny?”

  “Well, Vince,” said Kenny, happy they were all on a first-name basis now, “I have a police source who told me the Sasmal family was being investigated for selling and/or using drugs. I have an eyewitness who appeared at the gas station before the police had completed securing the crime scene who said they saw no exposed drugs or drug paraphernalia in the booth and that the cash register was closed. And I have about fifty people on record saying they have no knowledge of Satkunananthan or the Sasmal family ever having had a history of using or selling drugs.”

  “There is nothing in the police report about a witness on the scene,” said Rossi.

  “I’m sure there’s not,” Kenny replied. “I recommend you either ask Chief Dobeck or the first officers at the scene.”

  He smiled and walked away from the men toward his car. When he was several yards away, he stopped and turned. “Although, honestly, you might get a different answer depending on which one of them you ask.”

  Kenny got into his car. He checked the rearview mirror to see how they were reacting. Neither looked too happy. Good, he thought. Everyone in the department respected and feared Dobeck, but none of them would jump on a grenade for their boss. He wasn’t the type of leader who generated that kind of loyalty from his troops.

  If the detectives thought the firsts on the scene were holding information back that would make them look bad, they would pressure the young cops to admit they’d screwed up. If the detectives found out the firsts had omitted the information because Dobeck had told them to, they wouldn’t let their boss taint the department. Rossi and Garmin were a few years younger than Dobeck, but had reached twenty-in. They wouldn’t put their pensions a
t risk.

  He waited in his car until Rossi and Garmin got into theirs and drove off to the police station. He followed a fair distance behind, in no rush, since he planned to stake out the station for at least an hour.

  Kenny parked and fiddled with the radio stations. Since he’d stopped his satellite service to cut down on expenses, listening to the radio had become torturous. He waited two hours until Niket Patel emerged from the police station.

  Walking with a gait that reminded Kenny of a fourteen-year-old fighting a growth spurt, Niket got into his Subaru and drove off. Kenny followed. Niket pulled onto Bear Brook Road and into the Estates at Princeton Junction, a mixed-use development with townhomes, single-family homes, and, not surprisingly, no estates at all.

  Niket parked his car in the driveway. Kenny parked along the curb and honked his horn. Niket looked up, confused.

  Kenny emerged from his car holding up his press ID. “Officer Patel, my name is Ken Lee; I’m with the Princeton Post.”

  “The weekly paper?” Niket asked. The emphasis on “weekly” made Kenny wish he’d taken proper Asian katana lessons so he could eviscerate the kid.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the Sasmal murder.”

  “Um . . . you would?” Patel stammered. “I’m a rookie officer. I have nothing to do with that, really. You want to be speaking to Chief Dobeck or—”

  “Your report failed to indicate the presence of a civilian at the crime scene,” Kenny interrupted.

  “What?” he asked, confused. “There were no civilians at the scene.”

  “The civilian who was at the scene would contest that,” Kenny said. “My source was there before the detectives or medical examiners arrived.”

  “What? No,” Patel said. “I mean, someone was there, but for, like, three minutes.”

  “Three minutes is a long time if that person happens to be observant,” said Kenny.

  “I guess, but—”