Bodies in Winter hc-1 Read online

  The sad part was that I still hadn’t dredged up the courage to put a move on her, though there were times when I sensed that she was ready. I told myself that I was waiting until she and her husband finally split up, but I think it was more likely that I feared the consequences if my overtures were rejected. Adele’s tongue was rough enough to grind glass.

  There was a second reason for my timidity as well, a compelling reason that played in my head with the intensity of a police siren. Without ever intending to, I’d made a career of short-term relationships, enduring a string of failures so long I’d managed to convince myself that short-term was the best I could do. Adele, on the other hand, was all about commitment.

  David Lodge was right where we’d left him, on his back, staring up at the wide blue sky. The Crime Scene Unit was through with him, the morgue wagon still waiting. I walked through the open gate, squatted down and went through his pockets, gathering his personal effects. They didn’t amount to much: a watch, a comb, a wallet and thirty-eight cents in miscellaneous coins.

  Adele was standing alongside me, her hands on her hips. ‘A contact wound, Corbin. You see the pattern?’

  The skin around the entrance wound on Lodge’s right temple was split into lines that radiated outward from the wound. This star-shaped pattern could only have resulted from the barrel of the gun being in contact with Lodge’s temple when the fatal shot was fired. The chain of events was simple and easily recognized. When the trigger was pulled, heated gases had poured from the barrel. These gases had bounced off the bony plates of Lodge’s skull, then ricocheted back to split his flesh from the inside.

  ‘So what?’ I asked.

  Adele’s hand swept over the street behind us. ‘All that brass, it’s too extravagant. You close your eyes, you see a pair of coked-up kids pulling the trigger with their eyes closed. You see gang kids. But from in here, it looks like a professional hit. It looks like the perps were cool, calm and collected.’

  ‘That mean you think the TEC-9s were overkill?’

  She nodded twice, then squatted down beside me. ‘Like the Toyota double-parked beneath the El, the weapon left behind, Lodge’s nice clean room and the car being stolen a week in advance.’ She paused briefly before adding, ‘And the widow’s tale.’

  Like I’ve already said, Adele was nothing if not meticulous.

  In quick succession, we released the body and conferred with Officer Aveda and Sgt Gutierrez. Aveda’s diligent efforts had turned up two additional witnesses. Each of them, attracted by the gunfire, had seen the red car as the shooters made their escape. But no identifications were forthcoming. The men in the car were still wearing their ski masks.

  We found Gutierrez inside the CSU van, along with his assistants. They were chomping on slices of pizza.

  ‘Same old same old,’ Gutierrez told me. ‘We’ll put the evidence in the pipe, see what shakes out.’

  ‘That mean you didn’t find the perps’ wallets while we were gone?’

  ‘’Fraid not, but we collected enough blood to keep the lab rats busy for the next two months.’

  Gutierrez was referring to the very faint hope that some of the blood evidence had been contributed by one or both of the perps.

  ‘I’m not holdin’ my breath,’ I told him, ‘any more than I’m expecting fingerprints to show up when you dust that Toyota. But I do appreciate the effort.’

  To my left, the morgue attendants were hoisting David Lodge onto an unzipped body bag. Protected by the cold from the onset of rigor mortis, his limbs were surprisingly supple. Lodge was a big man, well over six feet, and at first I was sure the attendants were going to drop him. But they finally made an effort that brought his sagging butt off the ground far enough to clear the edges of the body bag.

  Both men sighed audibly when they let the body down. The three minutes of work they’d done for their three hours of pay had exhausted them. Nevertheless, their timing was exquisite. The first reporters arrived as they zipped up the body bag. The reporters were met by Aveda and his partner, Jake Pearlman, who kept them at bay long enough for David Lodge to be loaded into the morgue wagon. And long enough for me and my partner to get away without so much as a ‘No comment.’

  There were chores to be done. The first of these was accomplished by Adele who examined the contents of Lodge’s wallet on the ride back to the house. She found twenty-two dollars in bills, a photo ID issued by the Department of Correctional Services, an appointment card for a one o’clock meeting with Parole Officer Paris Blake. She also found a photo of Ellen Lodge taken at least fifteen years before. Ellen was posed on a strip of sand, her back to a roiling ocean, an attractive young woman with a sassy smile.

  Our basic plan was to complete as much paperwork as possible before we returned in the evening to re-canvas the neighborhood. A numbered complaint, called a UF-61, would have to be generated first, then each of the interviews written up on supplementary complaint forms, called DD-5s. The complaint number on the UF-61 would forever identify the case file. This was important because it had become clear that Adele and I were going to need the case file for the homicide Lodge committed almost seven years before. Though the file had long ago been swept from the Eight-Three to an archive maintained by the Property Clerk Division in Long Island City, it wouldn’t be difficult to retrieve once we had the file number in hand. Adele was about that task, calling up Lodge’s rap sheet on a squad computer, when Lieutenant Sarney walked into the room.

  ‘My office,’ he said to me without so much as nodding to Joe Mangone, who was pecking away at a keyboard three feet to Adele’s left, or to Lemuel Henderson who was at his desk, taking a victim’s statement from an elderly woman who’d lost her pocket book to an opportunistic mope. ‘You too, Adele. I want a full update.’

  Adele began with a precise summary of our activities, both at the crime scene and on Broadway, in Bushwick. Sarney listened, nodding from time to time, until Adele began to explain why the blocks around Palmetto Street had to be re-canvassed.

  ‘If the car wasn’t within sight of Ellen Lodge’s house,’ he interrupted, ‘then where was it?’

  ‘On Fresh Pond Road or Myrtle Avenue where there’s more traffic. Or maybe they just kept moving.’ Adele played with the buttons of her red blazer for a moment, then looked up at Sarney. ‘The important question here is how they knew Lodge was going to leave the house when he did.’

  Sarney looked at me, but when I remained silent, he quickly assumed the role of devil’s advocate. ‘Maybe,’ he noted, ‘the shooters made a few passes and got lucky. Maybe they kept circling the block until he came out.’

  Adele settled herself against the seat. ‘You want me to believe that two ghetto gangsters, out to avenge the death of their boss seven years ago, roamed through a white neighborhood like Ridgewood until they just happened on their target? Gimme a break.’ She rushed on before Sarney could respond. ‘But even if they did, it only brings up another question. How did they know he was staying with his wife? Was that also a lucky guess?’

  Sarney was a smart boss, smart enough to endure the foibles of his children. That Adele Bentibi was fabulously opinionated was something he just had to live with. He grinned and raised his hands, palms out. ‘No mas, no mas.’

  As for me, I was already bored with the debate. The widow had presented us with a motive and we would have to check it out. Though the re-canvas was obviously important, it was unlikely to turn up a suspect. Even if a dozen people recalled seeing two black men sitting in a car, it would be just another piece of the puzzle.

  ‘Whatta ya say we go over this again,’ Sarney continued. ‘In case I have to do a press conference.’

  This time Sarney took notes. I watched him carefully, looking for signs of my own fate. Under ordinary circumstances, nothing draws the bosses to a microphone like a celebrity homicide. But Lodge’s celebrity was another matter. The official pronouncement at the time of his sentencing was that he’d dishonored the job and was punished appropriately, a ju
dgment clearly designed to put an end to the matter.

  I let my eyes close for a moment, envisioning David Lodge jumping that fence. He must have known his fate because the little yard dead-ended against a brick wall. But he hadn’t accepted it. Even at the very end, he’d turned his head away from the bullet. Was that last bit of resistance an act of defiance? Fuck you, I’ll never surrender? Or no more than animal instinct, a worm wriggling at the end of a hook?

  ‘Yo, Harry, you with us?’

  I looked up at Sarney. ‘Right here, lou.’

  Sarney smiled. I, too, had my foibles, and daydreaming was one of them. ‘Your partner and I were discussing where you want to go next. We thought it’d be nice to hear your opinion.’

  ‘Well,’ I told him, ‘as soon as I get back to work, I’m going to call up the Legal Bureau, have them draw up a subpoena for Ellen Lodge’s phone records. She says her husband got a phone call just before he walked out the door. Be nice to know where it came from.’

  ‘That’s admirable, Harry, but could you try to think a little more long-term?’

  ‘How ’bout tomorrow?’

  ‘That’d be fine.’

  ‘David Lodge spent the last six and a half years in prison, right? So if we want to know what was on his mind yesterday, when they opened the gates, we have to go up to Attica, talk to the staff, talk to his old buddy from the Eight-Three, Peter Jarazelsky.’

  ‘Attica,’ Sarney reminded, ‘is north of Buffalo. That’s an eight-hour drive. Each way.’

  ‘That’s how come we have to fly. But don’t fret, boss, we’ll pick up Lodge’s old case file and study it on the flight. We’d have to do that anyway.’

  Sarney thought about it for a minute. He was going to have to get approval for the expense, an annoyance to be sure, but the trip couldn’t be avoided.

  ‘You really think Jarazelsky will talk to you?’ Sarney finally asked.

  ‘Lieutenant, I’d bet my life savings against a quarter that once you call up to Attica and make the request, Pete Jarazelsky’s gonna welcome us with open arms.’

  SIX

  It was after ten by the time we finished up the last of the paperwork. The re-canvas had gone better — and slower — than we expected. Altogether, we’d spoken to nineteen honest citizens, each of whom had walked along Palmetto between eight-thirty and nine. None recalled seeing two or more individuals, black or otherwise, sitting inside a red Toyota.

  By now, Sarney had obtained authorization for a trip to Attica. That was the good news. The bad news was that I was flying off to Buffalo alone. David Lodge’s autopsy was scheduled for nine o’clock the following morning and Sarney wanted Adele to be there. Myself, I was more than pleased with my end of the deal, but it was strictly Bill Sarney’s call. He’d nominated Adele to witness the autopsy, then arranged for her to interview a sergeant named Merkovich who worked out of the Gang Unit at OCCB. Spott’s crew, it seemed, was still in action, led by his brother, DuWayne.

  I didn’t quibble with Sarney’s decision. By this time, David Lodge was the talk of the town and Sarney wasn’t the type to leave himself uncovered. But the scheduling of the autopsy did catch my attention. Typically, homicides were autopsied several days after the event. Somebody down at One Police Plaza had given the ME’s office a nudge. The question was why, if the big dogs were in such a hurry, they hadn’t offered any help to the lowly squad detectives who’d caught the case — or taken the case away altogether.

  The phone began to ring as I was buttoning my coat. I watched Adele answer, then signal me to pick up the extension.

  ‘Would you repeat that, Sergeant Schniederman?’ she asked.

  ‘I said, “You’re not gonna believe this, but we’re temporarily unable to locate your file.”’

  ‘The Lodge file?’

  ‘Yeah, that one.’

  ‘Could it still be at the Eight-Three?’

  ‘Nope, we swept out the Precinct’s closed files two years ago.’

  ‘How many files would that be?’

  ‘I didn’t count ’em, detective.’

  Adele took a deep breath. ‘What I’m trying to get at, sarge, is whether the Lodge file was the only file missing.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, detective, missing was not a word I used. Unable to locate was what I actually said.’

  ‘Then are you unable to locate all of the Eighty-Third Precinct’s files?’

  ‘Not at this time.’

  That was as far as we got. Efforts were being made to recover the requested file, but results could not be guaranteed. So sorry, and good night.

  ‘Do you know how files get swept out?’ I asked Adele once she’d hung up. ‘You ever watch the process?’ When she shook her head, I continued. ‘Four guys arrive in a van during the late tour. They empty the filing cabinets into boxes, then transport the boxes to the archives.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nobody checks to be sure that every file is actually there. When the files are removed, the Property Clerk gets a list of the case files that are supposed to be in the drawers, a list compiled as each case is closed, not when the files are transported.’ I shrugged into my coat, already cold. At the time, I was driving an eight-year-old Nissan with a pronounced intolerance for temperatures below ten degrees. The Sentra would take forever to warm up, assuming it started in the first place.

  ‘How do you know this?’ Adele asked.

  ‘My second year on the job, I sprained my back so bad I had trouble sitting in a patrol car for more than an hour. The lieutenant was a merciful type. He let me work in the house for a couple of months, which was how I came to supervise one of these transfers. But the point is that Lodge’s file could have been yanked while it was still at the Eight-Three.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see how that’s a problem.’

  I buttoned my coat, taking my time about it. ‘It’s not gonna be a problem, not for us, anyway. It’s gonna be a problem for Sarney when we inform him tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Don’t be so hasty, Corbin.’ Adele was still seated behind her desk. ‘The prosecutors are also holding a copy of the case file. They would have gotten it when the case was being prepared for the grand jury. I have a friend in the DA’s office, somebody I know from my group. What I’ll do is call her tomorrow and ask her to speak to her supervisor. Maybe we can drop in, get a quick look-see off the record.’

  ‘You wanna do this before you speak to Sarney?’

  Adele rose from her chair and stretched before winding a silk scarf around her neck. The flaming-red scarf matched the red of her blazer almost exactly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Sarney’s worried, Adele. I can hear it in his voice.’ I pulled on my gloves. ‘That’s why he asked us not to play any games.’

  Adele folded her arms across her chest, her eyes narrowing as she gauged my resolve. For good detectives, bending the rules is a matter of instinct, and Adele’s suggestion was no big deal — certainly, we had every right to the file. But procedure required that we make a formal request through the NYPD’s Legal Bureau, then wait for the DA to comply, which might take days, or even weeks.

  ‘Look, partner,’ I finally said, ‘the simple truth is that Bill Sarney’s holding my marker. I owe the man.’

  ‘For a promotion to detective, second grade, that has yet to come through?’

  I shook my head, taking care to keep my language simple. ‘I’ve been a guest in Sarney’s home. I attended the wedding of his daughter and the christening of his son. That’s why I can’t think of him as just another boss. And that’s why I’m going to honor my pledge to keep him informed.’

  Adele didn’t respond right away, probably because my position caught her by surprise. ‘Alright,’ she finally said as she slid into her coat, ‘we’ll do it your way, Corbin. But time isn’t on our side here. If we don’t move quickly, the case is going to get away from us. Ellen Lodge has an agenda, and we both know it.’

  I took that thought with me to the Sparkle Inn. Sparkle’s was more t
han the place where everybody knew my name. It was the place where everybody had, at one time or another, looked into that heart of darkness at the epicenter of a cop’s life. Fraternity and brotherhood are the words traditionally used to describe the herding instinct of cops. But it was a new age and several female detectives greeted me when I came through the door. They included, among their number, Nydia Santiago. Nydia had once described my partner as ‘Martha Stewart with a badge.’

  The Sparkle’s owner, Michael Blair, had a Dewar’s and water awaiting me by the time I reached the bar. Blair was in his early fifties, a former detective from the Eight-Three who’d mortgaged his pension to buy the joint. He had pale blue eyes that darted suddenly to yours, as if he was trying to catch you in an unguarded moment. He hit me with one of those looks now.

  ‘I heard,’ he said as I found a stool, ‘you stumbled into the Lodge case.’

  Before replying, I raised the traditional toast to Sparkle, who stood behind the bar. Sparkle was a life-size manikin constructed from papier mache. Long ago, before Blair purchased the bar, somebody had painted Sparkle’s face and hair so that she slightly resembled Marilyn Monroe, then dressed her in a sequinned gown. Lit by a spotlight mounted just ahead of her toes, Sparkle did, indeed, sparkle.

  ‘Bad news travels fast,’ I finally said. ‘Just as well.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because I came here looking for a heads-up.’

  This was an avenue closed to my partner. As I said, she’d never visited Sparkle’s, or any other cop bar, which was probably for the best. That indifference to the opinions of her peers, which I admired, would have gotten a cold reception at the Sparkle Inn.