Suburban Dicks

by Fabian Nicieza

  “Did things go okay this morning?”

  “Yeah,” she lied. “Dobeck surrendered pretty quietly.” She hesitated. “Mostly.”

  “So, why do I have to come home early?”

  “I’m expected to be at a press conference with the mayor at four,” she replied.

  There was silence on the phone for a few seconds.

  “Is this something you really want to do?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But if I’m not there, people will wonder why.”

  “I don’t know if I like this,” he said.

  No kidding. She didn’t want the attention, but not for the reasons Jeff didn’t. He was just insecure. But for her, it was about privacy and process. And also, because she looked like a hippo with a black Chia Pet on top of its head. Her process was internal and negligently intuitive. She didn’t like talking about it, not the least of which was because it was hard to explain and harder to understand. And she wasn’t comfortable speaking in public. And she hated the usual stupidity of reporters’ questions. And she didn’t like being used as a political prop. But most of all, it was because she looked like a hippo with a black Chia Pet on top of its head.

  “Would you rather I do one press conference or have reporters calling us at home? Or worse, a TV news van parked in front of the house?” she finally asked.

  Reluctantly, he agreed. “Okay, I’ll let you know what train I’m on.”

  Andrea hung up. She wanted an hour to just think in peace and quiet. Then she realized she’d omitted the most important part of this entire process. She called Detective Rossi.

  He answered.

  “Have you told the Sasmals yet about the arrest?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, realizing that probably wasn’t the right answer. “Shit. We haven’t.”

  “Maybe having them find out by reading the paper tomorrow, or worse, getting a call after your press conference, might not be the best idea?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “I can call them.”

  “I can go,” she said. “I mean, I started this with them. You should have representation from the department, and I have an idea about that.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  AFTER PICKING UP Sadie from preschool, Andrea waited in front of the Sasmals’ house as Officers Wu and Patel pulled onto Dickens Drive in their patrol car. They looked nervous and quite ready to blame her for this awkward impediment to their normally boring day.

  “Sadie,” she said, “pause your iPad.”

  Sadie had made it plainly clear that she had really, really wanted to go home after school. A bribe of unlimited iPad use for the day quelled that. Andrea frowned at the number of stains Sadie had accumulated from dipping and dripping her chicken nuggets. All of her children, even Ruth, took after Jeff, who couldn’t get through a meal without looking like a Jackson Pollock canvas.

  Wu and Patel approached her. Andrea accepted their sideways glances at Sadie’s art project. She didn’t give a shit about their judgment, since neither one of them could secure a crime scene to save their lives.

  “You asked for us specifically?” said Wu.

  “Seemed appropriate to end this the way we began it,” she said with a smile.

  Andrea felt a strong shift from the baby and grimaced it away.

  Sharda answered the door, wary but hopeful at the sight of them.

  “Mrs. Sasmal, I’m Patrol Officer Wu, this is Patrol Officer Patel,” Michelle said. “You know Mrs. Stern. We have some news for your family.”

  “You should sit down, Sharda,” Andrea said, and then embraced her warmly.

  “I have to call Tharani,” she said.

  “I wish he were home now,” Andrea said, “but we have news and we need to tell you before it becomes public knowledge.”

  Sharda sat down.

  “You found him? The man who killed Satku?”

  “We did,” said Andrea. “His name is Benjamin Dobeck. He is a patrolman for West Windsor and is the son of the former police chief, Bennett Dobeck.”

  Sharda leaned back against her chair. She closed her eyes. Her lip quivered out of relief and repulsion. She opened her eyes and couldn’t help but cast accusatory glances at the two police officers. They had little choice but to accept that anger.

  “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sasmal,” said Wu. “But please be aware that the actions of Patrol Officer Dobeck and former chief Dobeck were independent of anyone else in the department.”

  Andrea quickly stepped in to add, “The Dobeck family spent generations hiding their secrets, Sharda, you know that. Bradley Dobeck planned to kill Satku in order to scare your family into abandoning the pool permit issue. He coerced his grandson to commit the crime. It was senseless and your family deserved none of it, but the people responsible will spend decades in prison, Sharda. Many of them will die in prison. Your nephew will have justice.”

  Sharda nodded. “I should call Tharani. He’s at work.”

  Andrea stood up. The patrol officers followed her lead.

  “The police will notify you with more information as it can be revealed,” said Patrol Officer Wu. “A press conference is scheduled for this afternoon to announce the arrest. You are welcome to participate, but either way, we wanted you to be aware so your family could prepare for any calls you receive seeking comment.”

  “Comment?” Sharda snorted, and for the first time, her general veneer of compliant detachment cracked. The anger, the passion, and yes, the buried hatred for what her life had become in this country bled through. “Yes, Officer, we will do the right thing by you and your people, you can rest assured. As always, we will have nothing to say.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  AS THEY WALKED out of the Sasmals’ home, Kenny’s Prius made its way down Dickens Drive. “Oh, shit,” Andrea muttered.

  “Quarter in the curse jar,” Sadie absently chimed in from somewhere behind her right hip. She couldn’t see her daughter over the rolls of fat that cradled her stomach.

  “Is he allowed to be here?” asked Patel.

  “Of course he is,” Andrea replied. “But having the right doesn’t make it right. I’ll talk to him. You guys go. Thank you for coming.”

  Wu and Patel looked at each other, confused at first, which reminded Andrea of how they had looked when they’d first met. As they opened their patrol car doors, Kenny drove by and waved at them with a smile. Before they got in and got away, Andrea called out, “And be prepared, both of you.”

  That confused them further. “For what?” asked Wu.

  Andrea shielded her eyes from the midday sun with her hand. “You were first at the scene of a crime that was committed by a coworker. Your original report was inaccurate. You are going to be questioned about it.”

  “We didn’t know,” said Patel.

  “Going with incompetence is your best bet,” said Andrea. “The press prefers honesty.”

  Not certain whether they’d just taken elbow shots to the head, but suspecting they probably had, Wu and Patel got into their car and drove away.

  “Uncle Kenny!” Sadie squealed as he got out of his car. She ran over to him before Andrea could stop her. She hugged his leg tightly enough to block his femoral artery. He hesitantly reached down and patted her head with all the warmth of a Disney animatronic.

  “Hey, Sadie. What’s up, peanut?” he said.

  “Mommy just told the Indian lady that a cop killed her nephew,” said Sadie. “It was really cool.”

  “I’m sure it was,” he replied.

  “Leave her alone,” said Andrea.

  “She came running to me!”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “I have to get a quote,” he replied.

  “You can wait until after the press conference,” she said. “Sharda is t
he only one home right now—and she just found out a minute ago.”

  “And that’s the best time to get an honest reaction,” he said. “You did your job and I have to do mine. I know you don’t think much of my job and I know you don’t think much of how I do it, but it is what it is.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  He detached Sadie from his leg and patted her head again. Then he brushed past Andrea and walked to the Sasmals’ front door.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  JEFF MIRACULOUSLY ARRIVED at Princeton Junction on time at 3:21. He came up the station steps looking less than thrilled. For once, she couldn’t blame him.

  “Thank you,” she said as he got in the car. He nodded. “Sarah and Eli will be home by the time we get there. I have to drop you off and come back to the municipal building. Unless you want to come?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “And I don’t think the kids should be there, either.”

  “I understand,” she said. A small part of her wished at least Ruth could have been there. “The press conference was not my idea.”

  “But you’re going anyway?”

  “You’re in a mood,” she snapped.

  He breathed deeply. She honked the horn to get some idiot blocking the pickup line to move. Even at three in the afternoon.

  “Yes, I’m in a mood,” he said.

  “You thought I’d never find him and that I’d just let it go?”

  “No,” he said. He looked out the window to avoid her penetrating eyes. “I just got used to the fact it had died down over the last few weeks.”

  “Well, it’ll die down a lot more after today,” she said.

  “I doubt it,” he mumbled.

  “Why?”

  “Because there will be another one,” he said. “Here, or in Princeton or in Trenton or anywhere that will catch your interest. And now the police or your FBI friend will call you for help. And you’ll do it.”

  “Because it’s who I am,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “I thought . . .”

  I thought you’d grow up and get over it?

  I thought you’d change for me?

  I thought a mother would put her kids first?

  Andrea knew any one or all of the above were going through her husband’s mind. They drove the rest of the way home in silence. He helped Sadie get out of the car. She fought the garage door opener until Sadie shouted, “Push it slowly and hold it down!” Now she was getting it from a kid still in Pull-Ups.

  As Jeff held his daughter’s hand and led her into the garage, Andrea left, feeling a headache coming on, feeling very tired, and feeling the baby dancing a hell of a lot more than she would have preferred at that moment.

  She thought about her life, about the opportunities she’d missed out on. From the day they had met, Jeff had wanted her to be someone other than the person she was. And she had let it happen.

  The past few months had been the first time in ten years she had felt like who she wanted to be. All it had taken was accepting that she hated her husband’s guts and didn’t want to be responsible for the lives of her four children.

  Mother of the fucking year.

  She reached the municipal building. Andrea shifted her hips as she slid out of her seat and clung to the seat belt strap for a brief, suspended moment of time until her toes touched the ground. She rubbed her belly. Sathwika was waiting for her as she said she would be. Andrea smiled, thankful for the sense of calm her new friend instilled in her.

  “I scoped out the briefing room,” Sathwika said.

  “Is there a lot of press?” Andrea asked.

  “One or a hundred, but it doesn’t change a thing,” Sathwika replied. “Just like we discussed. Speak slowly. Don’t get mired in detail. Mention your kids and family at least once. Don’t speak too smartly. People don’t like intelligence anymore.”

  “I hate this.”

  The two pregnant women trudged their way into the municipal building. Andrea struggled on the steps, needing to brace herself on the rail. If the baby decided to come in the next three minutes, it would get her out of the press conference. Allison Chen, an assistant to the mayor, was there to greet her. Sathwika wished Andrea luck and gave her a big hug, their pregnant bellies bouncing off each other. Chen escorted Andrea to a waiting room to join the mayor and Acting Chief Rossi before the press conference. Rossi was drinking coffee. The mayor sipped from a teacup.

  “Thank you for attending, Mrs. Stern,” said the mayor. “How would you like to be introduced? Mrs.? Ms.?”

  “I’d like to know why I need to be introduced at all,” she said.

  The mayor laughed, almost snorting out her tea.

  “Andrea—can I call you that?—are you joking?” Wu said. “This goes beyond politics, but of course, politics are involved. I have an African American and an Indian murdered fifty years apart, with two Caucasian former police chiefs guilty of concealing the first murder and a blood relative responsible for the second murder. I have Indian and Chinese first officers on the scene who failed to do their jobs properly, and oh, yes, the part I do so love, one of those officers is the mayor’s daughter. How proud I must be. Oh, and yes—because what else could make this even better?—I have a Jewish pregnant housewife”—Andrea winced; the mayor continued—“who solved both murders. Of course you’re getting on that stage with us. You will smile, say justice has been served, and everything is peaches and cream in West Windsor.”

  To Andrea, it all actually sounded surprisingly less threatening through Wu’s heavy accent.

  “Peaches and cream?” she asked, eyebrow arched in a way that turned her huge, doe-like eyes into black holes of cynicism.

  “A multicolored, multigendered, cis, trans, nonbinary, religious rainbow basket of peaches and cream,” Wu said. “That’s us.”

  Andrea nodded.

  Wu turned to Rossi. “You ready?”

  Rossi did not look ready.

  “What’s the number one rule?” the mayor asked.

  “Don’t call on Kenneth Lee,” Rossi replied.

  Wu nodded as Allison opened the door leading to the auditorium. “Let’s go.”

  Andrea entered the room, which was filled with reporters, several television cameras, West Windsor Township employees, police officers, many members of the Indian community, including the Sasmal family, Sathwika in the third row, and, in one corner toward the back, Jeff and the kids. Her heart skipped, from both gratitude and elevated expectations. She relaxed when the kids waved giddily. Ruth smiled.

  A dozen phones flashed as they took the small stage. She felt a push from the baby and she needed Rossi to assist her up the last step. She felt ridiculously exposed and she hated it. A thin layer of sweat began to form on her forehead under the thick mat of curls she tried to hide behind.

  Kenny sat in the front row. How he had finagled his way there alongside reporters from the major papers and TV stations from both Philly and New York was beyond her. He looked bemused by her discomfort.

  Mayor Wu stepped up to the podium, adjusting the microphone. She acknowledged the challenges the township had faced over the past few months. She admitted Satku’s murder had exposed a deep and painful wound in the community and said she hoped their announcement would put an exclamation point on the healing process that had begun with the conspirators’ arrests.

  Andrea listened with fractured attention. Her mind churned, cycling between her family watching this and whether this was the right place for her to be.

  She thought about Cleon Singleton, younger than she had been when she got pregnant with Ruth, falling in love with a girl he knew he shouldn’t be falling in love with. She thought about how scared he must have been when those farmers had surrounded him. She hoped the blow had killed him instantly and that he hadn’t been aware of the travesty that was c
ommitted on his body.

  She thought of Dolores West, living her life without the brother she loved. She thought of Tharani and Sharda Sasmal, who had honored a family obligation and brought a relative into their home. They had offered him a better life, only to have him die because they wanted to build a pool in their backyard.

  She thought about Satkunananthan, confused and scared as a gun was pointed at him, wondering why anyone, much less a policeman, would want to kill him.

  And she thought about the Dobecks, a dysfunctional, angry, conflicted family that had drowned in their own testosterone for decades. A bitter patriarch. An emotionally frigid son criminalized by the secrets of his father. And a closeted grandson, desperate to find a way out. Driven by their hatred of others, fear of change, and so much insecurity, they had crushed the life not only from their own family but from innocent families as well.

  And what would come out of Andrea’s zealous desire for justice that had led her to solve a crime the police would likely have never solved on their own?

  If Benjamin had remained free, the old white townies with their rifle ranges and simmering frustrations would have considered it a robbery gone bad, just as they had thought all along. Everyone knew about those kids in Trenton and what they did. The Indian community, so accustomed to the stinging slap of prejudice, would have done what they always did, out of both fear and courage, and that was to turn the other cheek in steely anticipation that they would soon be slapped again.

  Rossi stepped in front of Andrea to the microphone. Through her musings, she hadn’t even realized the mayor had finished. She hoped Rossi would put everyone to sleep before she was asked to speak.

  Andrea thought of Kenny, looking like a panther ready to pounce. She respected his tenacity and his utter disregard for what people thought of him. She thought of how sad and lonely he was, and how she had likely contributed to that by the way she had treated him when they were younger. Would this be a real opportunity for him to get his life back on track or just another excuse for him to fuck things up all over again?

  She looked at Jeff, who was staring down at his phone, probably checking on the market closing. How could he do something as validating to her as bringing the kids to this press conference after saying he wouldn’t, only to be distracted and indifferent moments before she was expected to speak? Would he always be such a contradicting tangle of positive and negative? Andrea would have filed for divorce right then and there if she had a lawyer standing next to her. Instead, she felt another incredibly sharp jab in her stomach from the baby, which only served as a painful reminder that she was trapped forever.