Suburban Dicks

by Fabian Nicieza

  All the cubicle drones had eyes on them as they passed by. Actually, all eyes were on Ramon, who commanded the room. It was all the detectives could do to keep pace with him and all Andrea could do to waddle several steps behind.

  Mayor Wu stood in the doorway to her office and greeted them.

  “Let me say I am glad to finally meet you, Ms. Stern,” she said to Andrea. “And I want to thank you for everything you’ve done to solve the Sasmal murder.”

  “I still haven’t done that, Mayor, but thank you,” she replied.

  “Madame mayor,” said Ramon, “this morning, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be executing a search warrant for township records pertaining to rejected pool permits over the last fifty years and falsified environmental studies on those properties.” He handed her a copy of the warrant.

  She scanned it with the experienced eye of someone used to flipping through a lot of paperwork. She looked at Andrea. “Is this why the Sasmal boy was killed?”

  “I believe so,” Andrea replied.

  “But you don’t know?”

  “We have motive, but we don’t have the shooter.”

  Ramon continued, “We recommend that, at least temporarily, you suspend Chief Dobeck and Lt. Wilson from active duty and prevent them from conducting any activity in the department building or with any officers of the department. Based on what we know and what we suspect, a temporary chief of police should be named. Detectives Rossi and Garmin have assisted us so far in the investigation and we have determined neither is involved in the conspiracy.”

  Wu pursed her lips. It could have been interpreted as appreciation for what Ramon had said about Rossi and Garmin, or cynical mistrust of anyone in her police department. Or both. The mayor removed a folder from the out-box on her desk. With a quick signature, she said, “I’ve had transition-of-authority forms waiting for the last week. Effective immediately, Detective Rossi is acting chief of police in West Windsor. Chief Dobeck has been called and should be here at ten forty-five to be informed of the transfer of power.”

  The mayor handed the folder to Rossi, but looked at Ramon. “We’re not expecting this to result in a shootout, are we?”

  “No, we’re not,” said Ramon, but then he turned to Andrea for confirmation.

  “We don’t believe it’s in his profile, no,” she agreed.

  Wu gestured to Rossi and said, “Detective, you need to sign where it’s flagged. Detective Garmin, you will be acting deputy chief of police until such time as we know where Lt. Wilson stands. Sign on the last page where the green sticky is.”

  As Rossi flipped through the document, Garmin asked, “Does it come with a pay raise?”

  “No,” said Wu, “but it does include a psych evaluation.”

  “To make sure we’re fit for the job?”

  “To explain why you’d be crazy enough to take it,” the mayor replied with exquisite-enough timing that Andrea decided Wu had earned her vote for life.

  The detectives signed the forms as if each letter in their names was adding to the weight of the world on their shoulders. They handed the documents back to the mayor. She put them in her out-box and turned to Ramon. “What now?”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  AS THE AGENTS wheeled handcarts into the office, Kenny recorded as much as he could on his cell phone. His barrage of useless questions went unanswered. He knew that if the audio made him sound like an idiot, at least the visual would stand on its own. Netflix could always drop in dramatic music to cover his mewling.

  He followed them into the lobby and kept the video rolling. He caught Hillary Eversham, ashen-faced. As he tried to get a tighter shot of the guilt shadowing her eyes, an FBI agent put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Far as you go,” he said.

  “I have a right to be here,” said Kenny.

  “And here is right where you are,” replied the agent.

  The agent then handed a separate execution to Hillary Eversham. He explained she was being served as a material participant in a conspiracy to conceal a murder and subvert public records accounting.

  She stammered, “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not at this time, ma’am,” replied the agent. “But you have to comply with our request to remove your office records.” She nodded and stood back as they went to her desk and started filling banker’s boxes. It took every ounce of willpower for Kenny not to tell Eversham, “I told you so.”

  Through the glass partition, he saw them all emerge from the mayor’s rear corner office. He tried to take video by raising his hand high enough to capture them over the standing cubicle drones. He wished he’d brought his selfie stick. What kind of millennial reporter worth their salt didn’t have their selfie stick handy 24-7?

  The agents proceeded to fill three boxes with documents taken from Eversham’s desk and her archive files. They also took the records of Thomas Robertson, the manager of environmental health services.

  As the two agents were tightening the straps to keep the boxes steady on the handcarts, they heard a commotion in the lobby. “Shit,” muttered Andrea. Kenny was stutter-stepping to block Chief Dobeck and Lt. Wilson from entering the offices.

  “Chief Dobeck, can you comment about the FBI seizure?

  “Chief Dobeck, can you comment on the rumors you will be placed on temporary administrative leave?

  “Chief Dobeck, have you been a part of a criminal conspiracy to conceal the murder of Cleon Singleton in nineteen sixty-five?

  “Chief Dobeck, is the conspiracy to conceal the murder of Cleon Singleton the reason that Satkunananthan Sasmal was killed?

  “Chief Dobeck, will this situation call into question the decades of police work done by your department?”

  Andrea knew Kenny was playing to the camera, or in this case his cell phone, but she had to give him credit for rattling off the series of questions in a way that made the case for his Netflix documentary without requiring Dobeck to answer. He was a dick, but he was good at it.

  Dobeck aggressively pushed past Kenny, giving him the footage he wanted. Wilson slipped by and they brushed past the check-in gate. They strode toward Ramon and Mayor Wu. Dobeck cast a quick glance of disdain in Andrea’s direction.

  “I’d like to see the warrants,” he said.

  “You don’t need to, Bennett,” said the mayor.

  He looked around. There was no upside in this confrontation for him. He could only look bad in the exchange, and he might need many of these people on his side to keep himself out of jail, not to mention keep his job. He looked to Hillary Eversham, who was doing everything she could to avoid eye contact with him. Her guilt couldn’t have been any more pronounced.

  It was in that moment Andrea saw Dobeck’s veneer of machismo and invincibility slip. The awareness that he wasn’t going to be able to bully or manipulate his way out of this one began to set in. It was the moment when guilty people realize they’ve been found out. And as with most people made of steel and arrogance, that moment faded as Dobeck rebooted his controlled façade.

  The police chief stiffened. He blew past them, saying, “In your office, then.”

  “You want me to go with you?” Ramon asked the mayor.

  “No, this pleasure is all mine,” she said. “Just have your people finish up.”

  Ramon nodded and twirled a finger in the air, indicating to his agents that it was time to move out. Andrea followed Ramon. They both had to walk past Eversham to leave.

  She looked at them nervously and said, “What now?”

  Andrea almost felt sympathy for the woman, who likely had been haunted by her role for years but had lacked the strength to come clean. How far do we go to protect family and coworkers, she wondered. Just because something had been expected of you didn’t mean you had to expect it of yourself. Every single member of the conspiracy, especia
lly those who’d inherited their roles, had to have known how wrong they had been.

  But they did it anyway.

  “We’ll go through the evidence, Ms. Eversham,” said Ramon. “And we’ll make arrests as dictated by that evidence.”

  “But I would recommend getting a lawyer,” added Andrea as they left.

  The four moved past Kenny, who recorded them. As they walked by, he returned his focus—and his cell phone camera—to the mayor’s office. He could see Dobeck arguing. Mayor Wu stood up to him, several inches shorter but absurdly calmer, with a bemused half smile on her face. It made her look ten times taller than the chief. She handed him a document and he stormed out of the office with Lt. Wilson in tow.

  Everyone averted their eyes as the two strode through the cubicle aisles. Kenny could see the fury in Dobeck’s eyes and, for a moment, thought better of his plan to rub the chief’s nose in the dirt. But as the gate-counter door swung open, Kenny put his cell phone camera in Dobeck’s face and asked, “How does it feel to be placed on administrative leave?”

  Dobeck pushed past him.

  “Do you have any comment on your suspension, Chief Dobeck?”

  Dobeck said nothing and opened the front doors with a ferocious shove. As he descended the steps two at a time, Kenny said, “Chief, how do you respond to rumors that your father was responsible for the murder of Cleon Singleton?”

  Dobeck whirled and remounted the steps to reach Kenny before Wilson had a chance to intervene. He grabbed Kenny by the shirt and threw him down hard on the cement platform in front of the building entrance. Kenny’s phone clattered across the concrete. Dobeck didn’t release his grip and continued to shake Kenny like a rag doll.

  Wilson pulled at Dobeck’s arm. He still didn’t let go, but snarled, “You little prick! You’re enjoying this? You have any idea what you’re doing to so many good people?”

  Ramon mounted the stairs three at a time and tackled Dobeck. The two men fell to the ground. Ramon was up in an instant, his fellow agents quickly joining him. “This isn’t the right choice, Chief,” he said. “He is a pain in the ass, I realize, but he’s doing his job. We’re doing ours. Go back to the station, hand your badge and gun to Detective Rossi, and go fishing or go running or go to a movie. Just. Chill. Out.”

  Dobeck sucked air through his nose, angered like a bull seeing nothing but people waving muletas in front of him. He kept it roiling in his lungs, then hissed it out of his mouth slowly. It calmed him down. He put both hands up in supplication and stood up. He straightened his shirt. He looked at Wilson, then the others. He looked at Kenny and it was all he could do to stop himself from spitting on the prone reporter.

  Dobeck went down the steps, Lt. Wilson close behind. They walked across the parking lot toward the police station a hundred yards away.

  Andrea asked Kenny, “Are you okay?”

  He scampered to check on his phone. The recording had stopped when it had fallen to the ground. He rewound the video and smiled. He had captured Dobeck’s charge right to the point where he’d been tackled.

  With a shit-eating grin, he said, “Yeah, I’m totally good.”

  Ramon gently nudged Andrea’s arm. “We have to go to Plainsboro to coordinate with the second unit.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m coming, too,” said Kenny.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  THE PRIUS FOLLOWED the FBI SUVs as they wound through local traffic like a caffeinated remora. Kenny’s right elbow stung and he noted he’d suffered a nasty scrape in the fall. He felt very masculine regarding the violent turn of events, even though it had really hurt a lot.

  As they all pulled into the Plainsboro municipal complex, Kenny saw that the FBI team assigned to the site had already wheeled out several banker’s boxes on a handcart. The Plainsboro chief of police, Susan Ambrose, was talking with the FBI agents. Officer Olsen was with them, towing Bill Mueller in handcuffs by his side.

  “Ramon Mercado,” he offered, shaking Chief Ambrose’s hand. “What happened?”

  “Material documents contained in the warrant were not in his office,” she replied. “Internal systems flow indicate he took possession of the documents before they were to be properly delivered for an external request. They were in his office when last seen and are not there now. Mr. Mueller refused to divulge the whereabouts of the folder.”

  “That was my request!” Kenny exclaimed from outside the gathered group. “Those were the permit rejections I requested. I saw them in his office and he refused to let me have them.”

  “We are holding Mr. Mueller at your discretion, Agent Mercado,” said Ambrose.

  “Let him sweat the twenty-four,” said Ramon. “We’ll see where we decide to go with him by this time tomorrow.” Then, looking at Mueller, “Or you’ll make the smart choice, Mr. Mueller. Up to you.”

  Ignoring any and all of the dozen questions Kenny asked, the group broke up. Ambrose and Olsen walked Mueller to the police station, which was adjacent on a lower level to the administrative offices.

  As the other units had already begun the return journey to Newark, Ramon offered Andrea a ride back to the hotel to get her car. Hoping for the chance to get some behind-the-scenes coverage of the morning’s events, Kenny said, “I can take her.”

  Andrea shrugged in reluctant acceptance. Ramon nodded. “I’ll call you later with the schedule for tomorrow. I hope you can attend.”

  He got into his SUV, and the FBI cars stuffed with banker’s boxes left the parking lot. Kenny waited uncomfortably, not really knowing where he currently stood with Andrea, but also knowing exactly where he stood with her.

  “I have a four p.m. deadline to make tomorrow’s paper,” he said. “Feel like being an unnamed source and letting me know what went on in Wu’s office?”

  “No and no,” she said, then added, “Let’s take a detour. I think there’s some people you should talk to before you write your story.”

  With renewed enthusiasm, he asked, “Who?”

  45

  KENNY drove to the Sasmals’ house, unsure of why Andrea wanted him along for this visit. He’d been excised from any of the decision making on the investigation, and he was useless when it came to matters of empathy, sympathy, or the feigning of normal human interactions.

  He met Andrea outside the home. She had called the family the previous night to prepare them for today’s events and on the way had asked Sathwika Duvvuri to join them. Andrea made an introduction and in response to the question Kenny hadn’t asked, she said, “Sathwika is our crisis management buffer. Her job is to prevent an Indian protest brush fire from turning into a four-alarm inferno.”

  Sharda and Tharani let them in. Andrea apologized that she didn’t have definitive news about Satku’s murder. She patiently explained the events that had led to the morning raids. She said that because there was no weapon to trace and no eyewitnesses, their best opportunity to identify Satku’s killer would be to pressure the criminal conspiracy into revealing who was responsible for the murder.

  “It will only take one of them to break,” Andrea said. “And someone always breaks.”

  “You think Satku’s killer is one of these people?” asked Tharani.

  “I have my suspicions, but it would be unfair to state them aloud because I don’t have the evidence,” she replied.

  “That didn’t stop you from digging up our backyard, Andrea,” said Sharda.

  “That was different,” she said. “I was confident we’d find something—a body, or a part of a body, as it turned out. I was confident that Satku was killed because of the original conspiracy. And I feel it is one of two people, but I can’t be sure.”

  Tharani nodded. “You have done much for us, Mrs. Stern. It has been very difficult for us, but even more so for our community. My concern is that none of these men will admit to the crime.”

&nb
sp; “That is a very distinct possibility,” she answered honestly. “These conspirators have covered up a horrible crime for fifty years.”

  Sathwika stepped in. “Mr. and Mrs. Sasmal, we don’t know each other but we travel in the same circles. We both know the community is going to be very upset by this news. It brings you no closure and only exacerbates our distrust of this town’s institutions. You will be asked by some to be firebrands, to rally for the cause. I’m asking you to resist that. For now, at least.”

  Tharani said, “Many have said we have been too quiet for too long.”

  Sathwika said, “I don’t think it would benefit the community or you to speak out at this point.”

  “And why is that?” asked Sharda.

  “Because you were pressured by someone about your pursuit of the pool permits before Satku was killed, Mrs. Sasmal,” said Andrea. “You didn’t report it to the police, or anyone else in the township, and you didn’t tell us when we first met. If you had done the former, perhaps Satku wouldn’t have been killed. If you had done the latter, perhaps we could have used that information to flush out the killer sooner.”

  The Sasmals exchanged uncomfortable glances. Tharani finally said, “We were scared.”

  “And that’s understandable,” Sathwika answered. “But you can’t shout to the community now to be aggressive when it can be turned on you for not having been aggressive to begin with.”

  “Who pressured you?” asked Kenny.

  “The township administrator,” said Sharda. “Thomas Robertson. He threatened something bad might happen to us if we didn’t stop. But we never thought they meant killing one of us!”

  “I don’t think Robertson meant that, either,” said Andrea. “Still, we can use that information to apply even more pressure on him.”

  Outside, Kenny said, “You need evidence or a confession. All I need is insinuation.”

  “You’ll frame it that Robertson followed through on his threats and killed Satku?” asked Andrea. “It’s not true, but feel free to insinuate away. Maybe if he gets defensive, he’ll reveal the real killer, though I suspect he doesn’t know.”