Death and Disappearance (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 5) Read online

  “So give me more particulars while I finish dressing.”

  “Nothing much. In summary, guy found stabbed to death in a clump of trees near the dog run in Brooklyn Bridge Park.”

  She was repeating herself.

  “And before you ask, we don’t know what he was doing there, but I can only imagine he was up to no good.”

  “Waiting for a fix, I suppose. Or a payoff.”

  “One more thing, that talky teen friend of yours—Brandy? She was the one who found the body. Claims she works for you part time.”

  “Who, me?”

  “Don’t act so surprised. I’d expect a call from the Labor Department if I were you.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Has Brandy called you yet?”

  I put Jane on hold and riffled through my messages. Sure enough, the teen had left one for me. Not too cryptic, and forget about spelling, just a you’ll-never-guess-so-call text. What was she doing out so early and at least a mile from her neighborhood?

  After arranging with Jane to meet her later in her office, I hung up.

  Trisha Liam

  On my way to check out the crime scene, I called Trisha Liam, Brandy’s mother, and told her about my call from Jane.

  “You don’t mind your daughter snooping?”

  “If I told her to stop, she’d double down. Someday soon, you’ll find out.”

  I pulled over and parked. All this talk of motherhood was wearing me out.

  “At least she tells me what she’s doing, which is more than most parents can expect.”

  “She might leave out a word or two. Jane said your daughter’s the one who found the body.”

  “She didn’t tell me that!”

  I said nothing, imagining Trisha’s straw-like hair standing on end.

  After a charged silence, she continued. “I try to cut her some slack, but ever since that horrible time three years ago, she’s got this saving-humanity mental set. Acts as if without her, the world wouldn’t spin and all innocent people would perish.”

  “But she’s so fond of you. I mean, for being her mother and all.”

  I could feel the ether lighten. I wasn’t trying to flatter; I was telling the truth. When I’d first met Trisha Liam, all she could think of was her law practice. To put it gently, she was having trouble relating to her daughter—not that I’m a better practitioner in the emotional-wavelength department. But lately Trisha Liam came across as a warm, loving mom, one who listened to her teenage daughter, and that must have taken some practice: Brandy was nonstop energy, especially in the mouth department. And I could see the respect for her mother in Brandy’s eyes whenever I mentioned the lawyer.

  “Nancy Drew, they call her at school. One of her friends designed badges and they wear them on their hoodies. She’s got an army of helpers. At first I tried to stop it, but you know Brandy. Before school they patrol the streets, two or three of them together, prowling the neighborhood and beyond, going all the way over to Cadman Plaza, even down to that new park at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. I told her that’s the limit; no subway, no Manhattan. They’re on the lookout, three and four of them together, surveilling block by block, waving at the squad cars.”

  Some cover. “She left me a message. Mind if I call her?”

  “She’ll be in school now, but be my guest. Leave her a text. Involve her and her friends, as long as they’re not in danger, but keep me informed. Of course, you know the child labor laws.”

  Of course. It was just what I needed, a band of teens to help me in the tailing department now that Cookie’s free time had dwindled, what with her second child on the way. Besides that, Lorraine was out of town and my father was drying out, not for the first time. In the past Brandy had given me important leads, but it would be a few years before I could enlist her for real, although Denny frowned each time I mentioned it. Big frickin’ deal, I told him: I worked when I was young, why shouldn’t they?

  Brandy

  “You shouldn’t be answering your phone in school.”

  “I suppose you’re calling about the body.”

  Brandy and I had a special rapport ever since I found her gagged and bound in a New Jersey farmhouse. But one thing about her, she had a motormouth. Cookie said she talked in paragraphs, but I said she spewed forth enough words in a minute to fill a ream of paper.

  “First time I’ve seen a dead body. You should’ve seen Johnny’s face. He couldn’t believe it. All of a sudden we’re walking along, looking from right to left, nonchalant like, minding our own biz, you know how you taught me. And close to this clump of trees by the bridge—you know, where half the Heights walks their dogs?—Johnny totally goes, ‘What’s that?’ and I swear the blood drains from his face and I picture that time the creep grabbed me. My heart was in my ears. It was so surreal I, like, died.”

  Fat chance. “Did you get sick?”

  Silence for a tick. “So I go, ‘That’s a hand and it’s dead, and there’s blood all over the place.’ I had to hold on to Johnny, but Billy thought it was cool. Billy’s more like me, but we’re just friends, but only because he’s all crazy about Kat. You should see his eyes.”

  “Hot. I get it. Where were you when you saw the hand?”

  “The dead hand. Like I said, by the bridge.”

  “More specific.”

  “In the dog run, like I just explained. Are you awake?”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Our usual beat.”

  “You have a dog?”

  “Soon. I carry a leash just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “Can you ask better questions? I have to get back to class.”

  “Describe the dead man.”

  “Johnny wouldn’t look.”

  I held my tongue, hoping for more.

  “But Billy and I crept closer even though Johnny was panicking. He said it was because he ate grapefruit for breakfast.”

  “Getting to the description of the dead man one of these years.”

  “Black hair, cut like almost a crew, the way lots of guys wear it these days. Almost but not really. Short, if you get me. But different. Like not done by a barber. Blue and yellow face. Beard.”

  “Full beard?”

  “Not really. Like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days.”

  “You mean stubble?”

  “Whatever.”

  I asked her what the deceased was wearing, and she described a black hoodie, dark green pants, and boots.

  “Not a suit?”

  “Are you paying attention? Dad always told me to check out the hands. Dirt underneath his fingernails. Blood all over.”

  “Did you see anything else?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. Tattoo of a heart on his right hand and, below it, one word.” She stopped talking. Brandy had a canny sense of the decisive moment.

  “The word?”

  “Lake. Weird, no?”

  “So you did what?”

  “Took a pic and called Jane. She relies on me.” She paused for effect. “But I can switch loyalties in a flash if you’re going to hire us as interns—I’m sixteen, don’t forget.”

  “You, maybe.”

  “And my friends? We’re a package; hire me, hire my friends. Johnny’s the oldest, seventeen; everyone else is my age. How about it? You’re needy, I hear it in your voice.”

  Even though they’d be on the books as interns, I knew Jane was going to be on my back if she found out about my agency using minors, so I’d studied New York State’s child labor laws for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. Brandy and her friends could work four hours on days preceding school days, eight hours on weekends.

  “You’re hired. I’ll be in touch.”

  The Crime Scene

  In contrast to the pastel hues of a still morning, the crime scene in a remote corner of Brooklyn Bridge Park was a grizzly hive of activity. Squads and vans lined the drive. A uniform guarding the entrance to the dog run informed me I’d
gotten there just in time. “MLIs are on the way.” He pointed to a clump of trees around which crime scene techs swarmed. I walked in that direction, and wafted by the spring zephyrs blowing my way, I caught the unmistakable coppery smell of blood.

  I flashed my ID at another uniform standing by the yellow tape, who told me Jane had warned them about me. Figured.

  I stared at the form beneath my feet and bile rose in my throat. No one should die like that. I shot the policeman a look and he nodded, so I lifted the tape and walked closer to the body.

  Blood pounded in my temples: I recognized him. It was Stephen Cojok, all right, although he bore only a faint resemblance to the man I’d last seen some six or seven years ago. Images from another era flooded my brain as I recalled Lake’s wedding, where I’d seen a fit and younger version of the corpse so alive then and full of love for his bride, his arm around her, dancing at the reception. Now he was already starting to bloat, his face blue, the blood from his body spilling into the surrounding earth. As I gazed at him, some of his story came back to me, a college dropout with no job but, according to him, boundless prospects. And it hit me, he was my age, way too young to die. Born to be a loser, we thought at the time, even in high school. How Lake fell in love with the guy was beyond me. A loner with no mother and a father always on his back.

  He’d been stabbed in the chest, that was certain by the amount of blood on the front of his hoodie. I looked away, and despite my being hardened by the business of violent death for several years, I felt my stomach roll. I thought of his mother, hoping she’d predeceased him. How she’d suffer if she could see her son now.

  A few yards away, techs in bunny suits were pouring cement into what looked like grooves in the earth.

  “You found tracks?” I asked, walking up to them.

  They made no reply but continued with their work, so I showed them my ID.

  “Denny’s wife?” one asked.

  I nodded. “Detective Templeton asked me to check some things out.”

  “Fresh tire tracks,” one of the techs said by way of explanation. “We don’t think they were made by the victim’s vehicle.” He pointed a few feet away to a rusting white van.

  I started walking toward it.

  “Don’t touch it. Flatbed’s arriving any minute to haul it away.”

  I paid no attention but continued walking toward the van, pulling on a pair of gloves before opening the driver’s door. I smelled mustard and onions and something else—stale body odor, perhaps. For a few seconds I checked out the cab. Neat except for a cardboard food container on the driver’s seat and a crumpled napkin. Loathe to spread my DNA all over, I walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and tried the glove compartment. Just my luck, it was locked. I’d pry it open only with the help of Jane Templeton.

  I heard the crunch of tires and saw the morgue van pulling up, so I waited a few minutes and watched a pair of MLIs approach the victim.

  I waited several minutes while they bent over the victim, lifting his hoodie for a closer look.

  “Time of death?” I asked.

  No reply, so I showed them my ID and told them I was investigating the murder. They didn’t even look at me.

  “Was he murdered here?”

  One of the MLIs turned and nodded. “But you didn’t hear it from us or Templeton will have our hides.”

  “Forget her,” I said. “I’m asking you.”

  “Can’t tell for sure until the autopsy, but this dude’s been dead a while. Rigor’s set in. I’d say he was stabbed around three or four this morning. Perp approached him from behind.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “A prick on his left shoulder to get his attention. He swirled around. That’s when he got it in the heart. One perfect thrust of the blade. Perp knew what he was doing, but I’ll bet it took the vic a few agonizing minutes to die.”

  “You think so?” someone behind me asked. I whirled around and saw the Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s finest sludge reporter and Denny’s erstwhile slag—sorry, I have to tell it like it is—Zizi Carmalucci leaning against a tree, smiling at the scene, her arms folded below her considerable endowments.

  “What a surprise,” I said. “You must be trained to sniff out stiffs.”

  She took out her phone and snapped pictures. “How do you think I get all the exclusives? Someone farts in Bay Ridge—”

  “That’s enough.” And besides, I knew full well how she got her information: a blonde detective I know put the buzz in Zizi’s ear.

  She begged for information about the victim, and I told her what little I knew, next to nothing, except for the victim’s name and the fact that I was investigating. I added that when she found out whatever, as no doubt she would, she needed to come to me.

  “You got that wrong side out. You owe me, remember? Besides, you don’t know what I’ve seen.”

  Her usual ploy. I pretended not to hear, pushing my way past her.

  After leaving Zizi at the scene with her mouth open, I swung by the precinct, asked to speak with someone on Jane’s team, and had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes while I steamed and a clueless assistant cracked gum, her eyes riveted on my protruding stomach.

  To cut Jane some slack, I’d read in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that crime was on the rise, and I could only imagine her pressure. Was I getting soft in my old age, or was this morning sickness? I was about to leave when Jane herself showed up, brushing a few crumbs from the corners of her mouth. She led me to her office, told me to sit, and produced a battered billfold from the middle desk drawer.

  “We found it beside the victim.”

  “Not in one of his pockets?”

  She shook her head.

  So someone, either the killer or an accomplice, must have sanitized it. I snapped on some gloves and opened the wallet to a headshot of a young woman taken in happier times. It was my friend Lake, laughing and crying and clothed in her bridal gown. I stared at her picture a second, a lump in my throat, before I found the victim’s Class C driver’s license. The address on it matched the one in Cobble Hill Jane had given me. I stared at the likeness of the dead guy I’d seen on the ground. Lake had been dating him when we were seniors. Stephen Cojok. At the time, I hadn’t liked him; now I felt such sorrow for the guy. I copied the license number, counted several dollar bills in the back slot, and thumbed through a wad of credit and other cards before my fingers found a smudged and balled-up piece of paper stuck in the corner. It had a phone number with an area code I thought was for someplace in Upstate New York.

  I held it up. “It’s a start.”

  “Like I said, keep me informed,” Jane murmured, her eyes never leaving her computer screen. I was dismissed, but I wasn’t finished.

  “I saw the victim’s van.”

  Her eyes did a half roll. “And?”

  “The glove compartment was locked. I’d like to know what was in it. Call me when you know?”

  She shrugged.

  “And the tattoo?”

  Jane looked at me, her concentration disturbed.

  “The picture Brandy sent you of the tattoo on the victim’s right hand? You weren’t going to tell me about that?”

  She held up her palms.

  “It would have been a good piece of information, don’t you think?”

  Lake Cojok

  After answering the bell to her fifth-floor apartment and hanging onto me while she sobbed for at least five minutes, Lake Cojok scrunched herself into a ball in the corner of a worn sofa in the middle of a living room stuffed with what looked like hand-me-down furniture. Despite the jumble, there was a sense of design—Lake was an artist, after all. Chairs, tables, and lamps were arranged just so around a fireplace on one side of the room; a rickety desk touched the back of a love seat, the pair marking off the middle of the room. More chairs were grouped together on the far side. No TV, no books, but a riotous painting hung on the mantel.

  “I keep thinking he’ll walk through the door and this nig
htmare will be over.”

  She was thinner than when I’d last seen her, put together, you’d say, but barely. Her hair, in strings, was definitely a darker shade of blonde than I recalled and much longer. Almost dreads. She wore jeans and slippers, no socks, a white T-shirt underneath a painter’s smock. Staring at all the different-colored smudges on her apron, I remembered she painted in oil. Last I’d heard from Cookie, she was represented by a gallery in Greenpoint, but it wasn’t the right time to talk about her work.

  “Can I get you anything?” It was my feeble attempt to give her comfort. “I’m not good in the kitchen, but I can boil water if you’d like tea. Or maybe you’d like a glass of water?”

  She shook her head and offered me a wan smile before sniffing and wiping her nose into a wad of Kleenex. “You remembered I was a tea drinker.” She was silent for a few long seconds. “The police told me he was killed near the bridge.”

  I nodded.

  “How?”

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  Staring straight ahead, she wound a strand of hair around her forefinger. “They told me they’d know more after the autopsy.”

  I gave her the truth, that he’d been knifed in the heart, and gritted my teeth. Anticipating the inevitable next question, I said, “He didn’t feel a thing.” And at that moment, with the lie strangling my innards, I felt an overwhelming need to give what little comfort I could to Lake. I wrapped my arms around her and let her weep. She felt cold.

  They say one’s primary grief comes back fresh and raw whenever we experience the pain of others; and as I held Lake, I remembered seeing the body of my mother on the cement walk in front of our brownstone that horrible day years ago. So cold. So other. For an instant, I struggled for breath.

  When my friend had staunched most of her tears, I walked over to the bay window on the other side of the room and looked down on a peaceful, tree-lined street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Down the block, a few pedestrians hurried past, perhaps on their way to lunch. I hadn’t eaten breakfast and I could have used a bite. My stomach grumbled.