Triple Threat Page 7

  Carmel continued, "When he left he said, 'Say hi to your family for me, Carmel. Say hi to Daniel. You know, your husband, he's a good carpenter. And say hi to Rosa. She's a pretty girl. Pretty like her mother.' " Carmel was shivering now, tears were flowing.

  Sarah turned from the piano and touched the maid on the shoulder. "It's all right, dear. You did the right thing to tell me."

  The tears slowed and finally stopped. A Kleenex made its way around her face.

  After a long moment Sarah said, "When Mark and I were in Malaysia--you know he was head of a trade delegation there?"

  "Yes, Mrs. Sarah."

  "When we were there for that, we went to this preserve."

  "Like a nature preserve?"

  "That's right. A nature preserve. And there was this moth he showed us. It's called an Atlas moth. Now, they're very big--their wings are six or eight inches across."

  "That's big, si."

  "But they're still moths. The guide pointed at it. 'How can it defend itself? What does it have? Teeth? No. Venom? No. Claws? No.' But then the guide pointed out the markings on this moth's wings. And it looked just like a snake's head! It was exactly like a cobra. Same color, everything."

  "Really, Mrs. Sarah?"

  "Really. So that the predators aren't sure whether it would be safe to eat the moth or not. So they usually move on to something else and leave the moth alone."

  Carmel was nodding, not at all sure where this was going.

  "I'm going to do that with the Westerfields."

  "How, Mrs. Sarah?"

  "I'll show them the snake head. I'm going to make them think it's too dangerous to stay here and they should move out."

  "Good! How are you going to do that?"

  "Did I show you my birthday present?"

  "The flowers?"

  "No, this." Sarah took an iPhone from her purse. She fiddled with the functions, many of which she had yet to figure out. "My nephew in Virginia gave it to me. Freddy. He's a good man. Now, this phone has a recorder in it."

  "You're going to record them, doing that? Threatening you?"

  "Exactly. I'll email a copy to my lawyer and several other people. The Westerfields'll have to leave me alone."

  "But it might not be safe, Mrs. Sarah."

  "I'm sure it won't be. But it doesn't look like I have much choice, do I?"

  Then Sarah noticed that Carmel was frowning, looking away.

  The older woman said, "I know what you're thinking. They'll just go find somebody else to torture and do the same thing to them."

  "Yes, that's what I was thinking."

  Sarah said softly, "But in the jungle, you know, it's not the moth's job to protect the whole world, dear. It's the moth's job to stay alive."

  Present Day

  "You want me to find somebody?" the man asked the solemn woman sitting across from him. "Missing person?"

  The Latina woman corrected solemnly, "Body. Not somebody. A body."

  "Excuse me?"

  "A body. I want to know where a body is. Where it's buried."

  "Oh." Eddie Caruso remained thoughtfully attentive but now that he realized the woman might be a crackpot he wanted mostly to get back to his iPad, on which he'd been watching a football--well, soccer--match currently underway in Nigeria. Eddie loved sports. He'd played softball in his middle school days, Little League and football, well, gridiron, in high school and then, being a skinny guy, he'd opted for billiards pool in college (to raise tuition while, for the most part, avoiding bodily harm). But the present sport of his heart was soccer.

  Okay, football.

  But he was also a businessman and crackpots could be paying clients, too. He kept his attention on the substantial woman across his desk, which was bisected by a slash of summer light, reflected off a nearby Times Square high-rise.

  "Okay. Keep going, Mrs. Rodriguez."

  "Carmel."

  "Carmel?"

  "Carmel."

  "A body, you were saying."

  "A murdered woman, a friend."

  He leaned forward, now intrigued. Crackpot clients could not only pay well. They also often meant Game--a term coined by sportsman Eddie Caruso; it was hard to define. It meant basically the interesting, the weird, the captivating. Game was that indefinable aspect of love and business and everything else, not just sports, that kept you engaged, that got the juices flowing, that kept you off balance.

  People had Game or they didn't. And if not, break up.

  Jobs had Game or they didn't. And if not, quit.

  Another thing about Game. You couldn't fake it.

  Eddie Caruso had a feeling this woman, and this case, had Game.

  She said, "A year ago, I lost someone I was close to."

  "I'm sorry."

  The iPad went into sleep mode. When last viewed, a winger for Senegal had been moving up through the markers, to try to score. But Caruso let the sleeping device lie. The woman was clearly distraught about her loss. Besides, Senegal wasn't going to score.

  "Here." Carmel opened a large purse and took out what must've been fifty sheets of paper, rumpled, gray, torn. Actual newspaper clippings, too, which you didn't see much, as opposed to computer printouts, though there were some of those, too. She set them on his desk and rearranged them carefully. Pushed the stack forward.

  "What's this?"

  "News stories about her, Sarah Lieberman. She was the one murdered."

  Something familiar, Caruso believed. New York is a surprisingly small town when it comes to crime. News of horrific violence spreads fast, like a dot of oil on water, and the hard details seat themselves deep in citizens' memories. The Yuppie Murderer. The Subway Avenger. The Wilding Rape. Son of Sam. The Werewolf Slasher.

  Caruso scanned the material fast. Yes, the story came back to him. Sarah Lieberman was an elderly woman killed by a bizarre couple--a mother and son pair of grifters from the Midwest. He saw another name in the stories, one of the witnesses: that of the woman sitting in front of him. Carmel had been Sarah's housekeeper and Carmel's husband, Daniel, the part-time maintenance man.

  She nodded toward the stack. "Read those, read that. You'll see what I'm talking about."

  Generally Caruso didn't spend a lot of time in the free initial consulting session. But then it wasn't like he had much else going on.

  Besides, as he read, he knew instinctively, this case had Game written all over it.

  # # #

  Here's Eddie Caruso: A lean face revealing not unexpected forty-two-year-old creases, thick and carefully trimmed dark blond hair, still skinny everywhere, except for a belly that curls irritatingly over the belt hitching up Macy's sale Chinese-made somewhat wool slacks. A dress shirt, today blue of color, light blue like the gingham that infected the state fairs Caruso worked as a boy to make money for cars and dates and eventually college.

  Rhubarb pie, cobbler, pig shows, turkey wings, dunk-the-clown.

  That was where he came from.

  And this is where he is: not the FBI agent he dreamed of being, nor the disillusioned personal injury lawyer he was, but a pretty good private investigator, which suits his edgy, ebullient, Game-addicted personality real well.

  The actual job description is "security consultant."

  Nowadays, everybody cares about security. They don't about investigating. Why should they? A credit card and the Internet make us all Sam Spades.

  Still, Eddie Caruso likes to think of himself as a PI.

  Caruso has a scuffed, boring, nondescript office in a building those same adjectives apply to, Forty-sixth near Eighth--decorated (office, not building) with close to twenty pictures he himself has taken with a very high-speed Canon of athletes in action. You'd think he was a sports lawyer. The building features mostly orthodontists, plastic surgeons, accountants, one-man law firms and a copy shop. That's one great thing about New York: Even in the Theater District, the Mecca of all things artistic, people need teeth and boobs fixed up, their taxes paid and resumes exaggerated. Next door is a t
ouristy but dependable restaurant of some nebulous Middle Eastern/Mediterranean affiliation; it excels at the grilled calamari. Caruso, who lives in Greenwich Village and who often walks the three miles to work (to banish the overhang of gut), likes the five-story bathwater-gray building, the location, too. Though if the city doesn't stop digging up the street in front of the building Caruso may just write a letter.

  Which he'll never get around to, of course.

  Now, Eddie Caruso finished reading the account of the murder, well, skimming the account of the murder, and pushed the material back toward Carmel.

  Yep, Game...

  Sarah Lieberman's story had indeed interested Caruso, as Mrs. Rodriguez here had suggested. Sarah's itinerant younger days, a bit of a rebel, her settling into life in New York City quite easily. She seemed to be irreverent and clever and to have no patience for the pretense that breeds in the Upper East Side like germs in a four-year-old's nose. Caruso decided he would have liked the woman.

  And he was mightily pissed off that the Westerfields had beat her to death with a hammer, wrapped the body in a garbage bag, and dumped her in an unmarked grave.

  It seemed that mother and son had met Sarah at a fundraiser and saw a chance to run a grift. They recognized her as a wealthy, elderly vulnerable woman with no family, living alone. A perfect target. They leased the apartment on the ground floor of her Upper East Side townhouse and began a relentless campaign to take control of her life. She had finally had enough and one morning in July, a year ago, tried to record them threatening her. They'd caught her in the act, though, and forced her to sign a contract selling them the townhouse for next to nothing. Then they zapped her with a Taser and bludgeoned her to death.

  That afternoon Carmel returned to the townhouse from shopping and found her missing. Knowing that the Westerfields had been asking about her valuables and that Sarah was going to record them threatening her, the housekeeper suspected what had happened. She called the police. Given that--and the fact that a routine search revealed the Westerfields had a criminal history in Missouri and Kansas--officers responded immediately. They found some fresh blood in the garage. That was enough for a search warrant. Crime scene found the Taser with Sarah's skin in the barbs, a hammer with John's prints and Sarah's blood and hair, and duct tape with both Sarah's and Miriam's DNA. A roll of garbage bags, too, three of them missing.

  The clerk from a local spy and security shop verified the Taser had been bought, with cash, by John Westerfield a week earlier. Computer forensic experts found the couple had tried to hack into Sarah's financial accounts--without success. Investigators did, however, find insurance documents covering close to seven hundred thousand dollars in cash and jewelry kept on her premises. Two necklaces identified as Sarah's were found in Miriam's jewelry box. All of the valuables had been stolen.

  The defense claimed that drug gangs had broken in and killed her. Or, as an alternative, that Sarah had gone senile and went off by herself on a bus or train.

  Juries hate lame excuses and it took the Lieberman panel all of four hours to convict. The two were sentenced to life imprisonment. The farewell in the courtroom--mother and son embracing like spouses--made for one real queasy photograph.

  Carmel now said to Eddie Caruso, "I kept hoping the police would find her remains, you know?"

  John's car had been spotted several days before Sarah disappeared in New Jersey, where he was reportedly looking at real property for one of his big business deals, none of which ever progressed past the daydreaming phase. It was assumed the body had been dumped there.

  Carmel continued, "I don't know about her religion, the Jewish one, but I'm sure it's important to be buried and have a gravestone and have people say some words over you. To have people come and see you. Don't you think, Mr. Caruso?"

  He himself didn't think that was important but he now nodded.

  "The problem is, see, this is a simple death."

  "Simple?" The woman sat forward, brows furrowing a bit.

  "Not to make little of it, understand me," Caruso added quickly, seeing the dismay on her face. "It's just that it's open and shut, you know? Nasty perps, good evidence. No love children, no hidden treasure that was never recovered, no conspiracy theories. Fast conviction. With a simple death, people lose interest. The leads go cold real fast. I'm saying, it could be expensive for me to take on the case."

  "I could pay you three thousand dollars. Not more than that."

  "That'd buy you about twenty-five hours of my time." On impulse he decided to waive expenses, which he marked up and made a profit on.

  Before he went further, though, Caruso asked, "Have you thought this through?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, it was a terrible crime but justice's been done. If I start searching, I may have to ask you things--you'll have to relive the incident. And, well, sometimes when people look into the past, they find things they wish they hadn't."

  "What could that be?"

  "Maybe there'd be no way to recover the body, even if I find it. Maybe it was... let's say disrespected when it was disposed of."

  Carmel had not considered this, he could tell. Clients rarely did. But she said, "I want to say a prayer at her grave, wherever it is. I don't care about anything else."

  Caruso nodded and pulled a retainer agreement from his credenza. They both signed it. Also, on whim, he penned in a discounted hourly rate. He'd seen pictures of her three children when she'd opened her purse to get her driver's license number for the agreement. They were teenagers and the parents were surely facing the horror of college expenses.

  You're a goddamn softy, he told himself.

  "All right," he said to her. "Let me keep these and I'll get to work. Give me your home and mobile numbers."

  A hesitation. "Email please. Only email." She wrote it down.

  "Sure. Not call?"

  "No, please don't. See, I mentioned to my husband I was thinking about doing this and he said it wasn't a good idea."

  "Why?"

  She nodded at the news clippings. "It's in there somewhere. There was a man maybe working for the Westerfields, the police think. Daniel's worried he'd find out if we started looking for the body. He's probably dangerous."

  Glad you mentioned it, Caruso thought wryly. "Okay, I'll email." He rose.

  Carmel Rodriguez stepped forward and actually hugged him, tears in her eyes.

  Caruso mentally bumped his fee down another twenty-five, just to buy her a little more of his time.

  When she'd gone he booted up the iPad just to see what he'd missed sportswise. The match was over. Senegal had won five zip.

  Five?

  A BBC announcer, beset by very un-BBC enthusiasm, was gushing, "Some of the most spectacular scoring I have ever seen in all my years--"

  Caruso shut the device off. He pulled the stack of clippings closer, to take more notes--and to read up in particular on the Westerfields' possible accomplice.

  He was reflecting that in all his years as a privately investigating security consultant, he'd been in one pushing match that lasted ten seconds. Not one real fight. Caruso did have a license to carry a pistol and he owned one but he hadn't touched his in about five years. He believed the bullets had turned green.

  He wondered if he would in fact be in danger.

  Then decided, so be it. Game had to come with a little risk. Otherwise it wasn't Game.

  # # #

  Senior NYPD detective Lon Sellitto dropped into his chair in his Major Cases office, One Police Plaza. Dropped, not sat. Rumpled--the adjective applied to both the gray suit and the human it encased--he looked with longing affection at a large bag from Baja Express he'd set on his excessively cluttered desk. Then at his visitor. "You want a taco?"

  "No, thanks," Caruso said.

  The portly cop said, "I don't get the cheese or the beans. It cuts the calories way down."

  Eddie Caruso had known Sellitto for years. The detective was an all right guy, who didn't bust the chops
of private cops, as long as they didn't throw their weight around and sneak behind the back of the real Boys in Blue. Caruso didn't. He was respectful.

  But not sycophantic.

  "You'll guarantee that?" Caruso asked.

  "What?"

  "No beans, so you're not going to fart. I don't want to be here if you're gonna fart."

  "I meant I don't get the refried beans. I get the regular beans, black beans or whatever the hell they are. They're lot less calories. 'Fried' by itself is not a good word when you're losing weight. 'Refried'? Think how fucking bad that is. But black beans're okay. Good fiber, tasty. But, yeah, I fart when I eat 'em. Like any Tom, Dick and Harry. Everybody does."

  "Can we finish business before you indulge?"

  Sellitto nodded at a slim, limp NYPD case file. "We will, 'cause sorry to say, the quote business ain't going to take that long. The case is over and done with and it wasn't much to start with."

  Out the window you could catch a glimpse of the harbor and Governor's Island. Caruso loved the view down here. He'd thought from time to time about relocating but then figured the only real estate he could afford in this 'hood would come with a view even worse than his present one in Midtown, which was a few trees and a lot of sunlight, secondhand--bounced off that Times Square high-rise.

  The detective shoved the file Caruso's way. The Sarah Lieberman homicide investigation. "That was one fucked-up twosome, the perps." Sellitto winced. "They ick me out. Mother and son, with one bed in the townhouse. Think about it."

  Caruso would rather not.

  Sellitto continued. "So your client wants to know where the Dysfunctional Family dumped the body?"

  "Yep, she's religious. You know."

  "No, I don't."

  "I don't either. But that's the way of it."

  "I looked through it fast." Sellitto offered a nod toward the file. "But the best bet for the corpse is Jersey."

  "I read that in the Daily News. But there were no specifics."

  Sellitto grumbled, "It's in the file. Somewhere near Kearny Marsh."

  "Don't know it."

  "No reason to. Off Bergen Avenue. The name says it all."