Suburban Dicks

by Fabian Nicieza

  “Jeff is on his way home now,” said Gary.

  “Can you pick him up, Gary?” said Andrea. “I don’t need the aggravation yet.”

  “I don’t want you two talking without me,” Gary said.

  “I don’t think you want to be involved in this,” she said.

  “It’s your sense of humor I’ve always loved the most,” he said.

  He was too obstinate to argue with. “Just meet us at our house once you get Jeff,” she said, wedging into the front seat of Kenny’s Prius.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  KENNY DROPPED HER off by her van, which was still parked in the pool lot. Andrea called Brianne and checked on the kids, settling them down and assuring them it was all a misunderstanding. She asked Brianne to watch them for another couple of hours while she dealt with Jeff.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Bri,” she said. “They did it because they’re scared.”

  “Andie, them being scared led to someone getting killed,” Brianne said. She was right, but this had become too public and too many people knew about it. No, this was going to play out the way all criminal conspiracies played out. A steady drip of revelations would eventually become a gusher. And to prevent themselves from drowning, the guilty parties would start to confess.

  Andrea made herself tea, offering some to Kenny, who declined. She looked in the freezer to see if they had any bagels left. Two cinnamon raisins, her hopes for chocolate chip scuttled by her bastard brood.

  “Are you going to say anything?” Kenny finally asked.

  “Of the two of us, they went after who they thought was the softer target,” she said, defrosting her bagel in the microwave. She moved it to the toaster oven. “They can’t arrest you because you’re a reporter. It just shows you how desperate Dobeck is.”

  The toaster oven pinged and she put cream cheese on the bagel. She was going to weigh six hundred pounds before this kid decided to come out.

  “I’m getting worried they’re getting too desperate, Andie,” he said.

  “Well, at least that’ll flush out whoever shot Satkunananthan,” she said, relishing the giant bite she took.

  “That’s not funny,” he said.

  “None of this is funny,” came Jeff’s voice from the alcove leading to the laundry room, which connected to the garage. He entered the kitchen, Gary Fenton behind him. He looked agitated. Andrea thought: Why is he always early on the worst days?

  “Where are the kids?” he asked.

  “At Brianne’s,” she said. “They’re fine. I talked to them.”

  “What did they see?”

  “Their mother being removed from the pool in handcuffs,” she answered bluntly. “It upset them a lot. It upset me, too. I’ll talk it through with them. They’ll be fine.”

  “Will they?” he asked, his anger rising. “Just like that? They’ll be fine?”

  “I saw my brother stabbed in front of my eyes,” Andrea said. “Look how well I turned out.”

  “I fell off my bike when I was six and I got really bad scrapes on both my knees,” said Kenny.

  “Shut up!” Jeff and Andrea shouted at the same time.

  Andrea put a hand on Jeff’s arm, calming him. “Jeff, I know this is what you were afraid was going to happen. I thought I was going to be able to do all of this quietly and let numbnuts here be the lightning rod, but I was wrong.”

  “I’m numbnuts in this equation?” Kenny asked Gary, who shrugged.

  “I was wrong and I’m sorry,” she said. “But Dobeck only did what he did today because he was trying to intimidate me.”

  “Well, it worked,” said Jeff.

  “No, it didn’t,” she said sharply. “It might have worked on you, but it only makes me more determined to see this through.”

  “Of course it does,” he said. Looking to his childhood friend, he pleaded, “Gary?”

  “I could never talk her out of anything,” he said. “She’s more stubborn than I am.”

  “But legally, I mean, the police could make our lives difficult,” Jeff said.

  “Legally, they’ll be too busy fighting a fifty-year-old criminal conspiracy and two murders,” Andrea said.

  Gary looked to Kenny. “She’s serious?”

  Kenny smiled his unctuous smile and said, “Even better, race is involved.”

  That excited Gary to no end. “I want details!”

  Luckily for Andrea, she avoided having to retell the entire spiel because her phone vibrated on the kitchen table. It was Ramon. She answered it, “I was arrested this morning. How was your day?”

  “The police know?” asked Ramon.

  “Not everything but enough to drag me out of a public pool,” she replied. “What do you have?”

  “Expedited the DNA,” he said. “Positive match. Your victim was Cleon Singleton.”

  She covered the microphone on her phone and whispered to Kenny, “Confirmation on Cleon.”

  “I can have a subpoena for all township records by tomorrow,” Ramon said.

  “Not yet,” she replied.

  “Not yet what?” asked Jeff. “Put him on speaker.”

  She waved a hand and continued, “They need to get nervous, Ramon, that’s when they’ll make a mistake.”

  “It requires surveillance on too many people,” said Ramon. “This isn’t our case, so I’d have to be pulling favors and I don’t have the manpower.”

  Andrea looked at everyone in the room and thought of her friends and of Detective Rossi. “We’ll be okay,” she said.

  “I don’t agree with this,” said Ramon. “You’re giving them time to destroy or doctor official records, coordinate their stories, not the least of which, you’ve become exposed.”

  “We don’t have all the connections finalized,” she said.

  “You have eyes on the conspirators?” Ramon asked.

  She looked at her husband and Kenny. Then at Gary, who was looking in the open fridge for something to eat. Then she thought of the Cellulitists.

  “I have the makings of a task force,” she said.

  37

  THE next morning, she piled the groggy kids into the car and drove Jeff to the train station—appreciative, for once, of a little routine. She had been unable to convince her husband she had things under control, but she had allayed the kids’ fears. She bribed them with McDonald’s breakfast and then texted the Cellulitists to gather at her house so she could explain everything to all of them at the same time.

  They arrived by eight. They fed the kids and encouraged them to go outside. Andrea gave them bread to feed the geese—which made Crystal apoplectic, but the potential for gossip won out over the lives of her children. With tea and coffee served, the women sat in the sunroom.

  Andrea dove in. “When I was in college, I was a criminal justice major, but before I became pregnant with Ruth, I’d been accepted into a graduate program with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.”

  “You were going to be a profiler?” asked Crystal.

  “I was a profiler,” said Andrea. “I still am,” she added, pointing to her head and heart. “Here and here.”

  And with that, she proceeded to tell them that she needed their help.

  The Cellulitists didn’t say anything for several seconds.

  Brianne finally broke the ice. “This is great!”

  Andrea opened a folder on the coffee table. She pulled out a photo of Bill Mueller and handed it to Crystal. She showed Molly a photo of Hillary Eversham downloaded from the West Windsor Township website. The last picture she pulled out was of Bradley Dobeck; she handed it to Brianne.

  She explained who each of them was and said, “You need to go from here to their homes and workplaces.”

  “And do what?” asked Crystal.

  “Wait,�
�� replied Andrea. “Over the next two or three days, just wait for them to go out, meet someone for lunch, see what they do after work. Take pictures of anyone they meet with. It may end up being nothing.”

  “That doesn’t sound as great as I thought it would,” said Brianne.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  THREE HOURS LATER, with her crackerjack surveillance squad deployed in the field, Andrea followed Chief Bennett Dobeck from the police station to Wegmans supermarket. She ignored the kids’ whining and focused on Dobeck as he picked up a salad. She watched him go to the café sitting area. She asked Ruth and Eli to help the girls pick out their lunches and said she would be right back to pay for them.

  “Can’t we pay for it?” asked Eli. He was at the age where thinking that paying for things himself was cool. She wondered if he’d be an idiot forever. She gave him thirty dollars.

  “Can we keep the change?” Ruth asked. She was at the age where she knew she could scam her younger brother out of any money he had.

  “If there is any change, you can split it,” she said, regretting it because she knew they would probably short-shrift their younger sisters.

  She walked to the entrance of the café, which allowed a clear view of the tables. She’d prefer Dobeck not spot her, but not at the expense of seeing if he was meeting anyone. Andrea had opened her camera app on her phone and was holding it waist high, snapping a continual roll of shots. Dobeck was seated at a table for two by himself.

  After she’d spent a few minutes worrying she had wasted her time—and that her children were ransacking the store—someone walked past her and right to Dobeck’s table. He was tall, early fifties, with trim sandy brown hair, and dressed casually in a polo shirt and khakis. Andrea didn’t recognize him but hoped Kenny would. She took a video of the two men together for a few more minutes. She returned to the food court and found the kids buying pizza and chicken tenders.

  She looked at their orders. “You got the girls only one tender apiece?”

  “They said they weren’t hungry,” Ruth said.

  “I wanted more than one!” shouted Sarah.

  Andrea stuck her hand out and waited until Ruth gave her back the change. “You’d starve your sisters for seven bucks?” she asked.

  Her oldest daughter shrugged.

  “Give Sarah another one of yours,” she said. “We still have to shop for groceries, so c’mon.”

  She pushed the cart through the produce section as the kids trailed behind and ate their food on the move. She loaded on grapes and bananas. Rounding the corner by the peppers, she almost collided with another cart and was surprised to see Sathwika, from soccer camp.

  She had her six-year-old son, Divam, and her three-year-old daughter, Shreya. Introductions were made all around. Sarah, bless her heart, offered Shreya her chicken tender, which was gratefully accepted.

  Andrea had about ten seconds of small talk in her before she said, “I need to talk about some things we discussed in the park. I know it sounds strange, but can we go somewhere to talk while the kids can play? We can go to Chuck E. Cheese, my treat.”

  “Oh, God, I hate Chuck E. Cheese,” Sathwika said.

  “Guaranteed nowhere near as much as I do,” Andrea said. “I’m married to a man who likes their pizza. That just shows you how desperate I am to talk.”

  “We can go to the food court here,” Sathwika said.

  Andrea took a calculated risk about trusting this woman and said, “No, we can’t, and I’ll explain why in fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay,” said Sathwika. “Let’s each finish up and meet there.”

  Twenty minutes later, they sat together at a table situated in a corner of Chuck E. Cheese, struggling to hear each other. A corner of hell would have been quieter.

  Andrea had bought the kids a handful of tickets and they’d gone off to play. She got water bottles for herself and Sathwika, which, at ten bucks a bottle, were in and of themselves evidence of a crime. With little preamble, she blurted, “Listen, this is all going to sound super crazy, but I need your advice and, probably, some help fronting for me in making an odd request.”

  “You’re investigating Satku’s murder, right?” Sathwika said with a sly smile that totally caught Andrea off guard.

  “How did you know?”

  “I was a freshman at NYU when Morana happened,” she said. “I thought it was you when we were at soccer camp, but I wasn’t sure. I looked you up.”

  “Wow,” said Andrea. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “It was the comment I made about the pool permits,” Sathwika said. “When I said it, I noticed the antennae going up from your forehead. Like you were picking up radio waves or something.”

  “What did you study in school?” asked Andrea.

  “Communications and crisis management,” she said. “Worked for Goldman McCormick in Manhattan before Divam came. Went back to work, but . . .”

  “It’s hard to do both,” said Andrea, realizing that until just the past few weeks, she really hadn’t known what it was like because she’d never even tried.

  She told Sathwika everything.

  Sathwika’s response was, “Fucking bastards. What can I do to help?”

  Andrea thought maybe she’d found a new best friend.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  KENNY WRANGLED JIMMY on short notice while Andrea checked in with the Cellulitists. It was three p.m. She called Crystal just to get the most painful report out of the way first. Her hyperkinetic, hyperinvasive, and hyperbolic friend would be the one most likely to complain about the numbingly boring scout work she’d been assigned.

  “This is awful,” were the first words out of Crystal’s mouth. “I’ve been sitting in this parking lot for two hours.”

  “Did he go out to eat lunch?”

  “He drove to Panera by himself and got takeout and brought it back to the office,” Crystal responded. Then, in a panicked rush of insecurity, she said, “Should I have gone inside with him? Should I have found out what he ordered? What if he was meeting someone inside? Dropping them a note or something?”

  “Crystal, it’s fine,” Andrea said. “He got lunch. Don’t worry.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I understand the criminal mind,” Andrea assured her with an eye roll that Crystal couldn’t see, but could undoubtedly hear. “I need you to stay just a little longer, please. Mueller will probably leave work between four thirty and five and I need you to follow him and see if he meets with anyone.”

  “Okay,” said Crystal. “Mal and Brit went to the library because they were bored. I thought this was supposed to be glamorous and exciting.”

  “Just stay on top of him and take pictures if you see anything.”

  She hung up and dialed Molly next.

  In her real life, Molly had been a systems analyst for Wells Fargo. She tried to run her household like it was an entity-relationship model, in which a causal relationship between every action and reaction could be predicted and manipulated. She maintained absolute disciplinary control of her husband and her kids. Andrea both admired and was repulsed by her.

  Molly answered and said, “I parked at the West Windsor municipal parking lot. Hillary Eversham left the building with two other women at twelve fifty-five. They walked along Clarksville Road for approximately half a mile toward the Village Square Mall. They turned around and walked back and returned to their office. I dropped Henry and Brett at That Pottery Place and told Henry to choose projects that would require a minimum of two hours’ effort. I returned to the parking lot. I anticipate the children’s project will be completed by four p.m. I plan to pick them up and return here with the expectation that Eversham will leave the office between four thirty and five.”

  “You are all over this, Molly, thanks,” said Andrea.

  “This
has been more exciting than I expected,” said Molly before hanging up.

  She called Brianne last. Her friend answered from inside the Windrows lobby. Andrea could hear piano music in the background. Brianne explained that there had been no activity outside the building so she had gone in with the triplets.

  “I told the girls to play the piano and it drew the old folks like moths,” she said. “I waited in the lobby until I spotted Dobeck with two other men. They watched the recital for a minute, got bored, went to the elevators. I followed them as far as the elevators before they went up.”

  “Okay, good,” Andrea said. “If the group you saw plans to meet anyone else, it’ll likely be after work hours.”

  “Oh, they’re definitely going to meet someone,” said Brianne.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I recorded their conversation the entire way down the hall,” she said.

  “You did what?”

  “I recorded it on my phone,” said Bri. “Easy peasy.”

  “You are a deceitful bitch and I love you,” said Andrea. “Can you send it to me?”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  FEELING SURPRISED AND proud that the Cellulitists were coming through for her, Andrea watched the video Brianne had sent her. Dobeck, Appelhans, and a third man with a cane argued loudly as they shuffled down the hall. They were worried about people finding out the truth. Appelhans and the other man contradicted themselves within seconds as to whether they would stay unified in their silence or spill the beans.

  Dobeck snapped at them, “Shut up. We’re meeting at the rifle range at eight o’clock tonight, okay? Until then, not a fucking word to anyone.”

  With that, they all piled into the elevator.

  The video ended. She had the conspirators on tape agreeing to meet, but she didn’t know how to surveil them on private property that was set in the woods off a main highway. She needed to get pictures of the people involved in the meeting, even if she couldn’t get audio. Both would be ideal. Neither would be disastrous.