Sunrise Highway Read online

“But you did fuck it up. Like you were trying to get us both caught. And it’s not the first time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Brittany Forster. You sick fuck. Fifteen-year-old with a missing sister. I know you called her up, pretending to be me.”

  “Brittany Forster? Seriously? After all this time? You’re calling me out about that after what you did to the sister?”

  “You don’t talk about what I did—okay?” Joey yelled, both hands on the grip, neck veins popping. “Let’s talk about what you’ve been doing. Those last couple girls they found near the highway? Miriam in Jones Beach? Yelina in the wildlife refuge? I didn’t have anything to do with those. In fact, I haven’t done any of them since two thousand fucking six.”

  “You think it was me, J?”

  “Yeah, I fucking think it was you, trying to get free rides on my ticket. You almost blew up both of us, because you’re a fucking freak. I should do you right now.”

  “Dude, you’re wrong.”

  “Then who else could it have been.” J looked at the girl in the rowboat. “You did this one, didn’t you?”

  “Just put the gun down. We’re talking here.”

  “Were you trying to punish me, for treating you like the bitch you are? Is this your way of getting even?”

  “I said I’m sorry, J.” Plunger put a hand in front of his face, trying not to cry. “I don’t know why it happened again.”

  “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

  They were close enough that he could see Joey’s knuckle turn white as it tightened around the trigger.

  “Dude, don’t kill me,” Plunger begged him. “Seriously. We’ve been friends forever. You know I’ll help you make this right.”

  Joey was still holding the gun steady and looking at him in that insane, implacable way, like nothing you could possibly say would get through to him. Right on the edge of doing it. Plunger could almost smell the discharge from the gun and the odor of his own blood, like his death had already occurred.

  “You don’t want to be dealing with two bodies on your own,” Plunger said. “Remember the insulin girl? Remember Albany? You’re better off with me than without me.”

  “I must be getting soft.” Joey nicked him on the tip of the nose with the muzzle. “Because I really should get rid of you right now.”

  “Please, man. I’ll owe you for life. More than I already do.”

  Reluctantly, J stuck the gun back in his waistband and Plunger saw that the chief looked almost as badly shaken as he was.

  “You need to get your shit on a leash, pronto,” he said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve crossed the line.”

  “I crossed the line? Joey, what about what you do?”

  “I said, you do not get to talk about what I do.” Joey shoved him. “You’re the sick one here. What I do isn’t like that, and hasn’t been for a long time. I keep my dog on a leash and under the porch. In fact, it’s none of your concern what I do.”

  “Until you make it my concern. How long is it going to be like this?”

  “Forever, bro. You know it’s true. We’re in it together. It’s always been this way and it’s always going to be this way. And don’t pretend you never got anything out of it yourself.”

  They both stopped talking. There were pings and drips on the tin roof of the garage, as if the rain was about to start up again. Then sounds of leaking and seeping. Plunger realized it was just more water draining away outside, offering a clearer view of the wreckage left by the storm.

  Joey looked at the girl again, as the smell of garage mildew began to mix with the odors of body secretions, drawing flies. An unfamiliar look of melancholy had crossed his face.

  “I didn’t want to lose this one,” he mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “Never mind.” Joey shook the mood off, moving his mustache around as if trying to remember how it fit with the rest of his face. “We have to deal with this mess now.”

  “What’s ‘we’? I’m done.”

  “You’re done when I say you’re done. And you’re never going to be done, as long as there’s no statute of limitations on murder. Remember you were the one who hit Kim first, because she was gonna tell your daddy what you did and what you really are.”

  “It’s different now, J. I’ve got a life.”

  Joey grabbed him by the throat and squeezed it lightly. “Pull yourself together. Okay? This isn’t just about you, or me. We’re servants of a community that’s been in a natural disaster. People are depending on us. So we’re going to make this problem go away, like it never happened. And then we’re going to go back to being who the people need us to be, to come back from this.”

  “Who they need us to be?” Plunger pulled away and touched the side of his neck. “Joey, if anybody finds out about this, we’re dead. You and me. And we’re gonna take a lot of other people down with us.”

  “Then we better make sure no one finds out. Right?”

  Joey turned back to the boat, knelt down and folded the tarp over the girl with a kind of fastidious tenderness.

  He wouldn’t burn this one. He’d seen what happened when the fire department came too quickly with Angela Spinelli. And he wouldn’t dump her in the Pine Barrens or leave her in a car like he did with some of the others. He’d make sure that she remained more or less intact. And then he would put her some place deep where no one would ever find her, but he would always know where she was. And maybe come visit some time. It would be his secret and sacred place. Not just another trophy, but a memoriam, to show why he was more than the Gacys and Zodiacs of the world. He could be human. If he wanted to be.

  “Fucking storm,” he said softly. “Help me clean this up. I need to call my insurance company and see how much coverage I have.”

  50

  NOVEMBER

  2017

  “So why’d you have a handicap bar in your basement, chief?”

  A week after her visit with the Martinez daughter, Lourdes was at a state police facility in Riverhead, watching from behind the one-way glass as B.B. and Jason Tierney from the Nassau County police interviewed Joseph Tolliver. An attorney had just arrived to represent the chief: Brendan O’Mara, former assistant district attorney from Suffolk County, now counsel to the police supervisors’ union.

  “You want to run that by me again, Detective Borrelli?” Tolliver frowned, creating ridges up to the crown of his stubbly scalp.

  Lourdes was beyond ballistic when she was told B.B. was going to be in on this interrogation. But what could she do? There was no proof that he’d told the Suffolk people about her background before she got pulled over. And as Chief Pritzker pointed out in a blistering text to Lourdes, B.B. was almost as familiar with the details of the case as she was. Just the same, she no longer trusted Borrelli and as she watched him slide a folder across the table to Tolliver and his attorney, she had a queasy draining sensation in the pit of her stomach, like she was about to see state secrets given away to a mortal enemy.

  “Chief, you filed a claim with the Allstate insurance company for a flood at a home you inherited from your father in Rockaway, Queens,” B.B. said.

  “And you know that how?” the lawyer interrupted.

  “We’ll get to that.” B.B. reached across to open the file and turned several pages. “Look here. It says the claims adjustor inspected the basement and found holes, which you said were there for a handicap bar you’d put in because your father was having trouble walking toward the end of his life.”

  “Yeah.” Tolliver tugged at the side of his mustache. “My father developed ALS before he died. You’re going to make that a crime?”

  “Definitely not.” B.B. said. “But the thing is, no steps to the basement. No elevator. No chairlift. And no additional handicap bar near the bathroom. Doesn’t that seem a little odd?”

  “Only if you’re looking to make it seem bad.” Tolliver uncrossed his arms, a man with nothing to hide. “Obviously I took the stairs ou
t after my father died because I was in the process of renovating and converting the whole house into a rental before the storm hit. I applied to change the certificate of occupancy as soon as I got the settlement from the insurance company.”

  “But you took the stairs out before the hurricane caused the flood?” Tierney asked, a little too much buttonhook in the question for Lourdes’s taste.

  “Yeah, you got me.” Tolliver raised his hands. “Guilty of starting the work without a C of O. That certainly justifies all the time and expense you and Detective Robles have wasted on investigating me and my department.”

  “Okay, but you had a fully plumbed bathroom in a basement without stairs?” B.B. affected confusion.

  “Wait a second.” Brendan O’Mara put an arm in front of Tolliver to prevent him from answering. “You still haven’t told us where all of this is coming from. By what conceivable method did you even access this information about the insurance settlement?”

  “We just got a subpoena to look at the chief’s financial records.” Tierney handed the lawyer the document. “It’s all right there for your reading pleasure, counselor.”

  “Hang on.” Brendan shook his head. “We got this quashed. You have no probable cause to get into any of this.”

  He was a milky-looking man in his fifties with streaks of gray and a softening chin that gave him a vague resemblance to pictures Lourdes had seen of his father, Philip. Even in his gray attorney suit and red power tie, there was something a little boyish and self-conscious about him. Like he still had to remind himself to shake hands firmly and look people straight in the eye.

  “Actually, we do have probable cause.” B.B. leaned forward quickly and clasped his hands, his polished rings shining under the fluorescent lights. “You’re talking about the old subpoena. We refiled and got a new one based on information we just developed. Read it and weep.”

  While Brendan donned a pair of half glasses, B.B. threw a look at the one-way. Lourdes had to admit Borrelli was doing a good job here. If he kept this up, she might have to start trusting him again. A little. Maybe he’d just slipped up earlier with Tolliver because he was trying to get his kid a job and didn’t realize the full monstrosity of the situation they were facing yet.

  Now Tolliver followed B.B.’s glance and gave a slow baleful headshake as if he could see Lourdes on the other side of the glass.

  “You should all be ashamed.” Brendan set the subpoena aside. “The chief is one of the finest, most upstanding law enforcement officials I’ve ever known and you’re using these flimsy excuses to dig through his service record and personal information to try to find dirt. And you men call yourselves professionals?”

  Tolliver mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “The men aren’t the problem.”

  “What’s that, chief?” B.B. asked.

  “Leave it alone, J.” Brendan put his arm out again. “I’m seriously beginning to question the purpose of this interview. If you had enough to make an arrest, you would have done it already.”

  Bogdan, the FBI agent on the task force, had finally arrived in the observation area. He gave Lourdes a nod and she knocked on the door of the interview room before she entered, holding a file.

  “Counselor, can we get a word with you outside?” she asked.

  “I think we better.” Brendan stood up. “This little discussion has gone way beyond the parameters of what we agreed to.”

  “We hear you.” She put the file in front of her mouth. “We’ll just be a minute, chief.”

  “No discussion while I’m gone.” Brendan threw a glance around the room. “My client doesn’t answer questions if I’m not here.”

  Lourdes turned to lead the way out, just as she saw a flicker of a knowing smile on the chief’s face. Like he’d figured all along that she had to be behind all of this.

  “Just over here, counselor.” Bogdan was standing by an open door across the hall. “We ordered a coffee for you. We know it’s been a long day already.”

  Brendan had brought his briefcase with him. He seemed like the kind of person who would have always had this kind of official-looking bag, even in grade school. The DA’s kid. Not just a former prosecutor himself, but the son of Kenny Makris’s predecessor Philip O’Mara. The pieces were beginning to fit together.

  Brendan entered and looked around the barren little room, with three chairs and one table, and then took the seat closest to the door. Not an alpha dog, but a beta. He hadn’t earned the gray at his temples by wisdom or gravitas but by worrying about what others were going to do.

  “So how long you known the chief?” Lourdes asked casually, as if it was a throwaway question.

  “Why does that matter?” Brendan peered inside the coffee bag but didn’t reach in.

  “Because when you work with people, sometimes you develop a social relationship.” She shrugged. “Look at me and Agent Bogdan. This weekend we’re going to a Balkan music festival together.”

  Bogdan just stared at her, nonplussed, monobrow pasted into place, not quite going with the riff, but not blowing it up either.

  “So I’m guessing you have a social relationship with the chief that extends outside of work,” she said. “I know you guys come from the same town. Right? Did you know him before?”

  The information that Joey Tolliver and Brendan O’Mara had gone to school together in Shiloh came straight from one of Leslie Martinez’s files. Just a dashed-off note on a torn-off piece of paper with a question mark on it, stuck between the pages of more official-looking documents. Lourdes had almost missed it that day at Shauna’s house. And an even more cryptic entry below it: “Why no Ninja Turtle for Brendan? Where was he?!?” Leslie Martinez had sensed there was a lead here but had almost certainly died not knowing what it could be. So a very good question had remained suspended for twenty-one years. Until right this second.

  “How is that even remotely relevant?” Brendan looked back and forth between them, trying to read the room. “Where are you going with this, detective?”

  “Have you ever been to the chief’s house or his father’s place in Rockaway?” Bogdan broke in.

  “Of course not.” The lawyer huffed. “What kind of stupid question is that?”

  “So you weren’t there in Rockaway, on the night of Hurricane Sandy?” Bogdan said.

  “What the…” Brendan’s voice cracked as he looked around, like someone just realizing he was ticklish. “Why would I be driving around in the middle of a hurricane?”

  “Exactly.” Lourdes nodded. “You’d have to be nuts to be out on a night like that. Or have no choice.”

  “What is this conversation really about?” Brendan pushed back in his chair.

  “You’d remember if you were out in the middle of a storm like that?” Bogdan said, ignoring the question. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Brendan stood. “I don’t know what you people think you’re up to, but I won’t allow it. I’m the attorney of record here and if you’re trying to do some kind of end run to interrogate me instead of my client, it’s not going to fly.”

  “Sit down, Mr. O’Mara,” Lourdes said.

  “I don’t think you’re in any position to be giving me orders, detective.” Brendan threw back shoulders that didn’t quite fill out his jacket.

  “Mr. O’Mara, you’re aware that Agent Bogdan works for the FBI.” She made a point of barely looking at him as she spoke, as if he was unworthy of her full attention. “And I’m sure you’re also aware that lying to a federal agent is a crime. You could not only lose your law license, you could go to prison for five years.”

  “You don’t have to explain the law to me.” Brendan raised his voice. “I know just what’s at stake here.”

  “Do you?” Bogdan asked, taking the folder that Lourdes handed him.

  The agent opened the file and laid out the two photos, both nighttime shots with 10/29/12 date stamps and both clearly showing the rear license plate of Brendan’s Land Rover as it went
through the tolls toward Rockaway.

  “You would have thought the cameras wouldn’t be working because all the street lights were out.” Lourdes turned to Bogdan, as if this was just a matter that would only concern them. “But I guess the generator must have kicked on for the toll plaza. Because these pictures are clear enough.”

  Brendan stood stiffly, holding on to the back of his chair, his face turning the color of a crushed cigarette.

  “This must be some sort of mistake,” he said.

  Lourdes took her time, walking around the table, sitting down across from him, crossing her legs, looking up, and breezily letting him know he was screwed.

  “There’s no mistake,” she said, taking the second document from Bogdan and laying it down in front of him. “We also know you got a traffic ticket outside Albany on the day an investigator named Leslie Jesperson got shot to death there.”

  “I need to speak to an attorney of my own,” Brendan said, no longer just ruddy complected but something very close to purple.

  “That’s certainly your right.” Lourdes pushed the photocopy of the ticket at him. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t want to tip the chief off that your interests may start to diverge. Just tell him that he needs a real defense attorney at this point, not just a union lawyer.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.” Brendan seemed to be having trouble breathing. “A traffic ticket doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Lourdes said—no need to get into the full crushing argument yet. “We’re going to talk a little longer. Then we’re going to go back in that room and you’re going to act like everything’s fine. You’re going to assure the chief that it’s all under control, and the change of attorneys is for his own good. He’s going to go to his office and you’re going to go back to yours. And then we’re going to meet up again and have a much more real conversation about your friend.”

  “You can’t use me against him.” Brendan shook. “I’m his lawyer. There’s attorney-client privilege…”

  “Yeah, fuck that,” Lourdes said, done playing nice. “That privilege doesn’t apply here. We know you guys went to high school together and you’ve known each other all your life. We’re talking about acts before you were his lawyer. And you’ll find a reason to get yourself recused, so none of your ongoing discussions will be privileged.”