Suburban Dicks

by Fabian Nicieza

  He followed her inside.

  The upstairs lights were off, but the sound and glow of a TV came from the family room adjacent to the kitchen. “Everything is in the basement,” said Andrea as she opened the door leading downstairs.

  Jeff sat in a sofa recliner watching the Mets game.

  “Hey,” Kenny said to the unresponsive husband.

  Jeff cast a Cro-Magnon glance over his shoulder. Only the grunt was missing. Kenny could tell Jeff had considered not acknowledging him at all, and struggled with the act of getting up to introduce himself. Reluctantly, he did, extending his hand. “I’m Jeff.”

  “I know, good to meet you,” said Kenny. “Hey, listen, I’m sorry for coming over so late tonight, but between what I learned and what Andie and I—”

  “Yeah, just don’t wake up the kids, okay?” he muttered. He turned back to the embrace of the sofa and the inevitably bitter end to the Mets game.

  Kenny cast an uncertain glance at Andrea, who dismissed her husband’s attitude with a wave. “C’mon,” she said. “My map is downstairs.”

  He followed her, biting down his natural impatience as she navigated the stairs at a glacial pace. Come to think of it, with climate change, glaciers now moved faster than she did. She led him to her rug map and he unrolled it.

  He pulled a manila folder out of his backpack that had a thick stack of pages in it. “Forty-four potential unsolved missing-persons cases over a thirty-year period from nineteen forty-five to nineteen seventy-five. I kept it to males only, so if those bones turn out to be female, I’m going to be mighty pissed.”

  Andrea lifted the edge of a Hefty bag, revealing the hand she had uncovered earlier. It rested in a bed of dirt that lay atop a flattened cardboard box that rested on another garbage bag.

  She held her hand above the body part to show how much smaller hers was.

  “It was a man,” she said.

  “Did you reassemble that or did you get it out of the ground like that?” he asked.

  “It was a pain in the ass and it took all three of us, but Simpei is a gardener. She knew what she was doing,” said Andrea.

  She took the folder from him and flipped through the photocopies. To each entry, he had paper-clipped an index card that had the name of the missing person in bold print and bullet points underneath the name. Clean and prepared. He was a lot of things, but his instincts as an investigator were innate.

  “Twelve Caucasian, twenty-two African American, six Hispanic, and four Asian,” he said as she flipped through the pages. “My gut tells me it was an African American.”

  “Mine, too,” she said. “If Ramon can pull DNA, we’ll find out.”

  Kenny took a step away from the rug. He looked at her sticky notes on the pieced-together map. She had identified the houses where bones had been found by original farm and body part. The sticky notes read:

  Ferris Farm / LEFT LEG

  Sasmal Weinlock Farm / TORSO

  Simpei Pimlico Farms / LEFT HAND

  They were scattered across a wide swath of West Windsor–Plainsboro, from southeast to northwest. She had also placed identifying sticky notes over currently existing homes, retail complexes, and preserved land that had once been farmland. These included:

  Appelhans Farm

  Bear Brook Farm

  Collazo Farm

  Creamland Dairies

  Erenreich Dairy

  Manning Farm

  Ottermann Farm

  Paulenty Dairy

  Schultz Farm

  Shenken Farm

  Tendall Farm and Dairy

  Windsor Farm

  Based on the bones they had found so far, Andrea had extrapolated that the body had been dismembered into eight separate parts, so the remaining sections had been listed on the right of the map awaiting identification:

  LEFT ARM

  RIGHT HAND

  RIGHT ARM

  RIGHT LEG

  SKULL

  “Five missing body parts and twelve farms unaccounted for,” he said.

  “Actually, those are pretty good odds,” she said. “We just need an opportunity to sweep the properties where the farms once operated.”

  “Should I call Jimmy?”

  “Not yet,” she replied. “Let’s see what we get from Ramon first. You need to target that farm list. Talk to surviving family members, dig up family secrets, black sheep, all that dirt they would have kept mum about for years.”

  “Okay,” he replied. “I’m also going to keep rattling the hornet’s nest.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “Leave the police alone for a bit.”

  “I understand, except I don’t work for you and I want to rattle,” he said.

  “You already did, and it was effective,” she said. “Let them stew for a bit.”

  Kenny didn’t like it, but he relented.

  “Time to call it a night,” she said.

  He rolled up the rug for her. She put a rubber band around the manila folder to secure the paperwork she would bring to Ramon tomorrow.

  “Can you help me carry the bone fragments up to the car?” she asked. “I wanted it away from the kids and Jeff, so Brianne helped me bring it down, but I won’t be able to carry it back up by myself.”

  “Sure,” he said, grabbing one end of the flattened cardboard and making sure his fingers had the plastic bag tucked beneath it as well. They carried it slowly up the steps and emerged from the basement.

  Jeff was in the kitchen getting ice cream. The television was off. He saw them carrying the display and asked, “What’s that?”

  “Camp project,” said Andrea at the exact same time as Kenny said, “Body part.”

  They exchanged surprised glances and then both looked at Jeff.

  “Camp project,” Kenny said quickly. “Soil samples of central New Jersey.”

  Jeff stared at them for several seconds, then he calmly put the ice cream back in the freezer, grabbed his bowl and spoon, and walked past them and out of the kitchen to head upstairs.

  They took it to the garage in silence. She opened the garage door so she could open the van hatchback. They carefully laid the assembly in the Odyssey.

  “What’s your schedule?” he asked as they closed the trunk.

  “I’m seeing Ramon late in the afternoon. The kids have a bunch of stuff in the morning,” she replied, realizing that somehow, all of this had become part of her family’s daily schedule.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Andrea navigated the turnpike like she was Vin Diesel in any of the twenty-seven Fast and Furious movies. Tiring of these drives, the kids argued incessantly. She was twenty minutes late by the time she pulled up to the Newark FBI offices on Centre Place. She couldn’t find parking on the street within a block of the building and couldn’t access the building parking lot without a pass. She grabbed her phone to text Ramon, when Eli started harping on her for texting and driving at the same time.

  If you only knew what I was doing when I was your age, she thought.

  “I’m voice texting,” she defended herself. “Circling block. Can’t park.”

  Seconds later, her phone pinged. His response: Calling gate now. Meet you in lot.

  She pulled around the block again and entered the gated lot. She stopped at the guardhouse and rolled down her window. Showing her ID, she said, “Andrea Stern. I’m here to see Ramon Mercado.”

  “Uh-huh,” muttered the guard as he waved her through.

  She pulled into the lot and saw Ramon emerging from a side door. He was carrying a folder. She hoped the preliminary reports on the torso had been completed. She drove over to the curb and parked the van. She got out as Ramon came around. They greeted each other with a stuttered half hug.
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  “You have something for me?” she asked.

  “Preliminary reports,” he said. “Not the final run.”

  She led him to the hatchback and opened it. “Trade you,” she said.

  “More remains?” he asked, handing her the report. She flipped open the file as he lifted the plastic sheet protecting the display. “We’ll see if it matches the torso. I expect it will.”

  “Victim was African American, male, aged twenty to thirty years old,” she said, reading the prelim report.

  “And he’s been in the ground for at least fifty years,” he said.

  “This is a huge help already, Ramon,” she said. “We had a list of forty-four potentials and this winnows it down by half.”

  “You didn’t have to keep it intact to the way you found it,” he said as he pulled at the edges of the plastic lining the cardboard bottom of the display. He brought all four corners together to create a small knapsack of dirt and bones.

  She smiled. “You have no idea how much work the kids and I put into that project,” she said.

  “Can I meet them?” he asked, surprising her.

  “The kids?”

  “Yeah. They’re all in the car, right?”

  “Um, sure, I guess.” She hesitated before opening the driver’s-side sliding door.

  The kids stared like they’d all been caught with porn. It was the quietest they had been in an hour. Ramon waved to them. “Hey, kids,” he said. “I’m Ramon.”

  Eli broke the ice, blurting, “Are you an FBI agent?”

  “Yes,” said Ramon.

  “Can I see your gun?” he added.

  Ramon smiled. “I don’t carry it when I’m in the office. What’s your name?”

  “Elijah,” he replied.

  “I’m Sadie!” shouted Sadie.

  “I’m Sarah!” shouted Sarah.

  Ruth said nothing, but her look said it all, and it made Andrea cringe inside.

  “You want to see my badge?” Ramon asked Eli.

  Eli nodded like a bobblehead in a hurricane. Ramon showed it to the boy.

  “Why does my mom need to keep seeing you?” asked Eli.

  He cast an uncertain glance at Andrea. She gestured with a wave of her hand as if to say, Go ahead.

  “Your mom and I worked together years ago,” said Ramon. “She asked me for some help on something she’s looking into now.”

  Ruth looked past Ramon’s shoulder at her mother. “We have to pick Dad up at the train station soon. We’re going to be late.”

  Ramon took the hint and waved to the kids. “Nice meeting all of you.” He stepped away from the open door, which Andrea closed.

  She tapped the folder. “Thanks for expediting this.”

  “Other than identifying a vic who was killed half a century ago, what are your next steps?” he asked.

  “Exerting pressure on the police department and the town administration,” she said. “Not coming right out and telling them what we have, but letting them know something is happening.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding.

  “Try to find the remaining body parts based on the farms that used to be in operation,” she continued. “Identifying those families connects the conspiracy to generations of elected or appointed town officials.”

  “I’m prepared now to reach out in an official capacity,” he said.

  “I appreciate it, but not yet.”

  “Old police trying to cover up an old crime is a combustible mix.”

  “I can outrun them,” she replied.

  He smiled.

  She smiled.

  From inside the car, Ruth shouted, “Mom! Let’s go!”

  They giggled like high school kids caught making out. She tapped the folder to his chest. “Thanks again.”

  He raised his Hefty bag, smiling, “And thank you for this.”

  An accident at exit 9 backed up traffic on the turnpike for half a mile. Jeff had texted that he was on a 4:41 train that would get him to the Princeton Junction station by five thirty. Of all days for him to leave early. She wasn’t going to make it to the train station in time. The kids were fighting. Cars were honking. The noise was maddening. She was trapped.

  She pictured Jeff sitting at the station, fuming. She wondered if she should text him now to warn him. Since she couldn’t trust Ruth to keep quiet, she couldn’t lie to him about where she had been. She texted him, saying she would be running late.

  He responded immediately asking why.

  She sighed and texted: Tell you later. Let you know ETA soon.

  She pulled into the train station and saw Jeff sitting on the concrete plant bed by the stair tunnel canopy. He got up slowly, exaggerated exhaustion in his movements, exaggerated anger in his eyes. She hit traffic. Shit happens. So what if he had to wait for twenty-five minutes to get his ride?

  Fuck him, she thought, but what she said as Jeff got into the car was, “Sorry.”

  The kids all cheered that Daddy was in the car. Jeff turned in his seat to give Elijah a fist bump.

  “What happened?” Jeff asked, but he looked at Ruth for an answer. Trapped between narcing on her mother again and lying to her father, she smartly said nothing.

  “I had to run up to Newark,” said Andrea. “There was an accident at exit nine on the way home and it really slowed us down. I’m sorry.”

  “Run up to Newark?” he asked, confused. “Who the hell runs up to—” And he stopped, understanding what that meant. “Oh.”

  Yeah, Andrea thought. Oh.

  “Do I want to know?” Jeff asked. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Can it wait until we get home?” she asked.

  “Sure, yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of the kids the way I’m being embarrassed in front of them.”

  “Embarrassed?” she snapped. Her anger, when it did flare up, escalated from zero to seven hundred in two seconds flat. “Because you had to wait for your chauffeur to arrive? So sorry I wasn’t perfectly punctual and you lost twenty-five minutes of your unbelievably fucking valuable life! I know what a horrific day you must have had finding a way to cheat someone out of their money.”

  Ruth and Eli squirmed in their seats, and Sadie and Sarah started to cry.

  The van pulled onto Abbington Lane. Jeff stared ice at Andrea, but said nothing.

  She showed eerie calm and the garage door opened on the first try. Ruth and Eli helped Sarah and Sadie out. The kids went inside without saying a word. Jeff and Andrea stayed in the car. They sat in silence for several minutes.

  Finally, he said, “I don’t want you exposing our children to this.”

  “It’s not about the kids,” she said softly. “It’s about you. It’s all about you. It’s always been all about you.”

  “I’m not the one digging up people’s backyards in front of our kids and bringing home pieces of someone’s body into my house!”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And what?” he asked, confused.

  “And you don’t want me seeing Ramon?” she asked.

  “Andrea, please, don’t give yourself too much credit, okay?”

  The hormones kicked in. Tears welled in her eyes, as much from sheer fury as utter despair. She opened the car door and tumbled her way out of the van. She waddled to the garage steps. Her left hip flared in pain. She stopped before mounting the first step and turned to look at Jeff as he got out of the car.

  “That’s been the problem for years now,” she said. “I haven’t given myself enough credit.” She wondered if she should continue, then couldn’t help herself. “I prevented myself from being who I should have been—who I needed to be—because of your insecurity. Your inability to let me be smarter.”

  “Smarter?”

  “So much smarter!” she exclaimed. �
�So much fucking smarter!”

  He didn’t know what to say, and she had little else to say. Except she realized that she had a hell of a lot more to say. But to say it might irrevocably end their already damaged marriage.

  “I’m not going to stop, Jeff. I’m going to find who killed Satkunananthan Sasmal and who murdered a nameless victim fifty years ago and then covered up the crime. Deal with it or don’t, that’s on you, but I have no choice in doing this. Do you understand? I. Have. No. Choice.”

  She walked up the steps at a pace that surprised her, and that gave her the energy to slam the laundry room access door in his face.

  31

  KENNY entered the Plainsboro municipal building administrative offices and greeted Rosemary Gavin, an African American in her fifties. He dropped a short stack of papers at the window counter in front of her. He knew to come prepared when dealing with local administrative banality.

  “Good morning, Ms. Gavin,” he said, smiling.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lee,” she replied. She flipped through his application. “Your paperwork is always in order.”

  “Unlike my life or my condo,” he said.

  “Pool permits?” she asked, curious.

  “Rejected pool permits,” said Kenny. “For these specific properties.”

  He had extrapolated the current property listings based on the area of land in Plainsboro where the original farmers could have buried body parts. There weren’t as many as in West Windsor, but Kenny wanted to rattle, and if Andrea wouldn’t let him rattle the police, he knew poking a bit in Plainsboro would certainly get back to anyone involved in West Windsor. Frankly, they had few other options to locate the remaining body parts than to go through formal channels.

  “May I ask why you would want something so odd?”

  “You may ask,” he said with a smile. “But it will remain top secret.” He winked.

  “This will take a few days,” she said. “And I have to run it through Code Enforcement to pull their old records. A lot of them aren’t digital.”

  “I appreciate it,” Kenny said, knowing something Andrea didn’t: the head of the Code Enforcement Department in Plainsboro was Billy Mueller, and Billy’s grandfather had owned Manning Farm in West Windsor. If his request was going to be red-flagged, it wouldn’t take long.