Drowning Barbie Read online

  “Mice?” Ruth asked.

  “Cheap glue most likely. Does anyone ever use the word mucilage for glue anymore?”

  “It may be the ugliest word in the English language, Anglo-Saxonisms excluded. Language aside, and stop stalling, Schwartz, where,” Ruth said as she simultaneously sipped and grimaced at her wine glass, “do we begin?”

  “No idea. Parties and generating guest lists are not in the male skill set. They are in the category that includes thank-you letters, Christmas cards, and the excessive affection for cats that often borders on the obsessive. I think those traits are on the X chromosome and apparently require two of them to be expressed or, in this case, to generate such a list.”

  “Bullshit, Schwartz, you don’t get off that easy. This is your town and these are your people. You pick up your BIC and start writing.”

  “Let’s think this thing through. Do we really need a party? How about a mass mailing of a nice engraved announcement? I can run down to Roanoke tomorrow and have the whole thing done in an hour.”

  “And what? You will order an ‘All in ZIP Code’ mailer?”

  “It’s a thought. How about I find us a bottle of wine with a label still attached while you mull over the idea?”

  “Yes to the wine, no to mulling. There is another possibility, you know. The Reverend Fisher might reconsider and anyway, he’s not the only game in town.”

  “We’ve been through this once already. I told you Rabbi Schusterman would likely say the same thing as Blake, and showing up at the Baptists or the Methodists begs the question.”

  “I’m not thinking about trying another church. Why not a Justice of the Peace?”

  “It would require we apply for a marriage license which could take some time to acquire and an affidavit that there are no impediments and/or previous marriages. Since it is a legal document, that might entail a bit of perjury on our part. Jail time or probation isn’t a good way to start a marriage, do you think? It’s a stretch, but it could happen, and then our embarrassment would triple.”

  “Crap. So, what do we do?”

  “We have three options. We beg Fisher to reconsider, we proceed with the party and admit to our rash behavior, or we do nothing and hope lighting strikes—metaphorically speaking.”

  “You are hoping someone or something else solves this for us?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “That is a trait found exclusively on the Y chromosome, I believe. Doing nothing only puts off the inevitable. Our relationship, as jolly as we seem to think it is, has produced major heartburn among the faculty, your deputies, and our respective parents. Doing nothing will only promote more of the same and perhaps irrational behavior by the people we need in order to maintain our professional positions.”

  “Wow! All that? Who knew? In the first place, you know what I think about my professional position, as you call it. I have been elected sheriff of the town twice, which is one more time than I had planned for. So, if the job goes away, it will be a mercy. You, on the other hand, can pick just about any academic post you want. If it’s in the northeast or the People’s Republic of California, our relationship would be celebrated as an exercise in diversity and broad-mindedness. Political correctness would elevate us to star status. So, no big deal.”

  “Don’t be a horse’s gazunka, Schwartz. You know what I mean. We are here, will be for the near future, and at the moment I have no desire to move north, east, or in any direction, and for all your fake disdain for your job, you love it and you know you do. So, get the wine and let’s get serious.”

  Ike uncorked a bottle of Merlot with an odd year, which he’d been assured by the bald guy at the liquor store was a good thing. Ike did not know or wish to learn the niceties of wine appreciation. Red was red, white was white, and pink was pink. What more did anyone need to know about wine?

  Ruth tasted the new batch and nodded. “Better. Plans?”

  “How about this? You know the mayor…”

  “Of course I know the mayor. Everybody knows the Town Dope. Why?”

  “We’ll ask him to do the honors.”

  “You want “the Mayor from the Dark Lagoon” to perform our wedding? Ike, he hates your guts.”

  “He does and that’s the best part. He hates me, but he owes me for saving his cookies in the last election, remember? So, he’ll be glad to even things up a bit.” Ike grinned at the idea of putting the mayor front-and-center. “Oh, and let’s have your guy who teaches comparative religion…you know, the Presbyterian-pastor-turned professor to be the co—whatever you call them when they tag-team a wedding. Think of it. Town and gown together, a celebration of unity.”

  “I know you think you are being cute and funny, but you may have hit on something. Do you think the mayor would do it?”

  “We have but to call and ask.”

  “You think?” Ruth did not sound convinced.

  “No, but on the other hand I really do not want to make a party list tonight.”

  “No? No, you’re right. We need to think this through and neither of us is acting particularly sensible at the moment. Remember you’ve slept at your apartment for the last three nights and if you’re over the leg cramps you developed in your Buick, not to mention the endgame, shall we say, coming up less than what you expected—”

  “I have no complaints about the end game. You may end the game that way anytime you wish.”

  “Be happy to, but it is a bit one-sided. Anyway, with that thought in mind, I have a better idea where we might polish off this mediocre red. Different ending, however.”

  “I like the way you problem-solve.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sunday dinner at Abe Schwartz’s farm was variously described as a heart attack-about-to-happen or the tryptophan two-step. Either way, the time that might have been devoted to discussing—or rather avoiding a discussion of—a forthcoming wedding, devolved into desultory murmurings and, in Abe’s case, snoring. The dinner and its sequelae would have no long-term effect on the life and times of the citizenry of Picketsville, nor on Ike and Ruth. After all, plans are made to be modified or, in this instance, remain unspoken.

  While the family attempted to stay on task, four miles away, two people, who should have known better, sat across the table from one another and downed the first of what would be many sidecars. By the end of the next week, one more body would be added to the count. It would not be discovered for several hours and its significance for several more.

  One of the two was George LeBrun, convicted felon, arsonist, and local terror. He had been put away for life-plus-twenty for murder, attempted murder, and assault on a police officer among other things. But a judge, at the cajoling of a member of the Richmond ACLU and backed up by the considerable talent of one of the country’s more prominent jurists and former member of the previous presidential administration, had been persuaded there were, or might reasonably be, certain technical irregularities with the evidence presented at George’s first trial and ordered a new one. The Rockbridge County prosecutor would assure local police and Ike’s office that re-conviction on all counts was a slam dunk. That was all well and good, but in the meantime, George posted bond and God only knew where he disappeared to. The betting was on Picketsville with revenge in his heart. Essie Sutherlin, nee Falco, would hear of his release on Monday and, unlike George, would really disappear. She would take her child and remain invisible until her husband, Billy, found her in a cheap motel in Bristol, Tennessee. He would consider and then reject the sensible possibility of joining her there.

  ***

  Meanwhile, back in the nation’s capital, Hannibal Colfax’s cynicism, combined with his superior’s ambition and the threat of a Congressional Oversight Committee visit to his small corner of the FBI, had resulted in one of those classic bureaucratic moments when progress and accountability cross paths and efficiency flies out the win
dow. By late Friday, his section had, as he’d ordered, ground to a complete halt. All requests for information, some even vital to the solution of serious crimes in several parts of the country, piled up in in-boxes. Police departments from Albany, New York, to Albany, Georgia, from Bangor, Maine, to Bangor, Washington, waited while suspected perps with dental records on file roamed free. Within the remoteness of the alabaster-lined halls in the nation’s capital, the possibility that a Congressional committee might create as many problems as it solves is a topic rarely, if ever, discussed.

  At any rate, the dental chart belonging to the unidentified remains found in the woods outside Picketsville, Virginia, arrived, was logged in, and then sank deeper and deeper in a pile of similar requests forwarded hourly to the NDI/IR, all newly dispatched to it from all parts of the country and nearly all marked URGENT. They had continued to pile up on Saturday and Sunday. For all intents and purposes, on this weekend the National Dental Information/Imaging Repository did not exist. Thus, it would be days before a tentative ID would be forthcoming and a few more days before Ike would hear anything. And, when he did hear, it would not be what he’d hoped or expected.

  As Hannibal had expected, the arrival on Monday of the Congressional Oversight Committee turned out to be all “show and no go.” An array of politicians and their sycophant aides, following an unacknowledged but familiar choreography, pranced through Hannibal’s area poking into cabinets and asking questions about privacy and the potential breech of Fourth Amendment guarantees. He guessed they’d lifted the queries from the morning’s New York Times. An Op-Ed columnist, possibly tipped off by one of the members of the committee, had devoted three column-inches to the topic and the impending visit, and wondered editorially if storing dental records of criminals was somehow another blatant example of governmental over-reach infringing once again on the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution. It was followed by a brief and quite inaccurate recap of the leaks that had dominated the news sometime in the recent past.

  Hannibal bit his tongue and resisted the temptation to quote the amendment to them and point out that the word privacy does not appear in the text at all, and in any case, what his group did was not technically a search, and was most certainly warranted. The staff stayed busy and the piles of requests for matches slowly diminished. The group from across town finished their posturing and was on its way back to the halls of Congress and an early lunch, not to mention the evening news deadline, when a worker signaled to Hannibal that he had a problem.

  “There’s a flag on this one,” he said.

  “A flag? What sort of flag?”

  “This guy is dead.”

  “Of course he’s dead. That’s why the…” Hannibal glanced at the sheet of paper that accompanied the chart, “…why the coroner for the Picketsville police requested the search.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. Look, the FBI investigated this murder a bunch of years ago. They filed this chart with a notation that the case was closed, the body accounted for.”

  “Wait a minute. If the case was closed, why did they send the chart over to us?”

  “It came in a batch. When we set up the NDI/IR they just sent everything they had, old, stuff, new stuff…everything with notations of each case’s status. I guess they figured they didn’t want to waste time culling through them and figured if the case was closed it wouldn’t get a hit and, anyway, it would be our problem.”

  “They punted it to us and now we have a dental chart of a man who’s supposed to have been identified and accounted for eleven years ago. That would mean either we have a dental twin or somebody screwed up over in the big house.”

  “I guess.”

  “Find out who closed the case and ask them to check in with us. It’s probably just a foul-up or a wrong label on the file.”

  “Probably.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Karl Hedrick had been assigned desk duty for more than a month. He wasn’t complaining, but he found shuffling through the old cases of a recently retired agent bordered on the boring. Still, he could catch a quick nap now and then, which he counted as a blessing. With a new baby, sleep in his eight hundred-square-foot apartment had become a rarity. More importantly, Samantha, his wife, was on maternity leave and, between the baby and the gift of free time, she’d discovered just how small their apartment really was. Every Sunday she dragged out the real-estate ads from the paper. The words “Here’s a nice place in Fairfax we could afford” had induced a cold sweat on Karl’s forehead. He greeted Mondays and the need to drive downtown to his office at the FBI with relief, desk job or no desk job.

  His morning had been quiet and, except for inventing excuses for why he couldn’t possibly go look at some properties during lunch, uneventful. As it happened, he had been assigned all the old cases left by retired special agent Tom Phillips. Most of them needed no attention, but he had been instructed to be keep them as active/solved until all parties involved were deceased. Karl had only a quick look at most of them. Some were still on microfiche, waiting to be digitalized. Newer ones had already been processed into the latest technological format which, given the rapidity of technological innovation, would be obsolete in six months. Someday, he thought, he would find the time to sort through them, but not today. The live bad guys and open cases owned his time.

  His phone rang and the person on the other end asked for Phillips.

  “Not here, Special Agent Phillips retired a year ago.”

  “Oh, sorry. I was told the Barbarini file was his and was given this number.”

  “You got half of that right. I am Special Agent Hedrick and Phillips’ files were dumped in my lap. What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t really know. This is Al Sampson at the NDI/IR and—”

  “The what?”

  “The National Dental Imaging/Information Repository. We have a problem with an ID.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “We had a request to match a dental record with anything we might have on file and we made it but it can’t be right. What can you tell me about Anthony Barbarini?”

  “Who?”

  “Anthony Barbarini. The notation on the file says he is dead and the case closed ten or eleven years ago, but we have a newly unearthed stiff down in Virginia whose dental records match his. I need to reconcile this somehow.”

  “I’ll have to pull the file and call you back.”

  Karl made a note and went back to sorting through the stack of papers on his desk. One dead guy more or less could wait. He’d take the file to lunch and see what’s up with Anthony whoever he is, or was. He’d told Sam he was too busy at lunch to house hunt. Now it was true.

  His phone rang again.

  “Hedrick? This is Tom Phillips. I’m—”

  “You’re a retired Special Agent. I have your cold files.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m calling. Listen, you will be getting a call from those dental guys about—”

  “I already have. Something about a guy named Barbarini.”

  “Tony Barbarini. He was known as Barbie back in the day.”

  “Barbie as in Barbie and Ken?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know where the nickname came from. Anyway, they think they have his body but that can’t be.”

  “Okay…you might want to fill me in a little here.”

  “Do you have some time? This could take a while.”

  Karl looked at his watch and sighed. “Shoot.”

  “Barbarini was a made man in the New York crime scene and a wannabe big-time wise guy. The word on the street back then said he had plans to take over one of the New York families. Next thing you know, he disappeared and then the word got out that Alphonse Damato and Johnny Murphy iced Barbarini. It turns out it was Damato’s family he was trying muscle into. Both of them were arrested, charged, and convicted of murder, racketeering, and
witness tampering a dozen years ago, okay? The federal prosecutor believed that Barbarini had been dumped in the ocean off Atlantic City.”

  “In the Atlantic Ocean?”

  “Yeah. A snitch said that Murphy and Damato took Barbie out in Murphy’s boat one night, wrapped an anchor and chain around the guy’s ankles, and dumped him overboard. There was surveillance film of Murphy dragging something in a bag, that could have been a body, onto his boat which backed up the prosecutor’s assertion. It was a weak case, but juries don’t like organized crime and will happily convict anybody of anything if you can show they’re mobbed up.”

  “Okay. So, he was drowned, but no body was recovered?”

  “You’re kidding, right? It’s a big ocean with lots of hungry fish. Unless you had GPS coordinates and got on it within days, the chances of finding anything other than the anchor and a pair of five hundred-dollar shoes would be slim to none.”

  “Maybe he slipped his chains and swam away. Made it to shore and—”

  “You don’t really think he was awake when he went in, do you? Houdini he wasn’t. No, they would have made sure he was dead.”

  “So, if he’s in the ocean, how come the dental records people are getting a request to ID a body from someplace in Virginia?”

  “See, there’s the problem. If it turns out that guy is Barbarini, we have a couple of goons in Sing Sing who might get sprung or, best case, get a new trial. That would create a problem because the snitch who was obviously lying back then, turned up dead a few weeks after the trial, and the evidence trail, you could say, is very, very cold. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office is going to get egg on its face. The goons could walk. You see where this is going? If that’s Barbie down there, nobody’s going to be happy.”

  “What are you telling me, Phillips?”

  “I’m not telling you anything, Hedrick. Consider me the messenger, okay? I am passing on a heads-up from some folks who worked the case a dozen years ago who hope, if you follow my drift, that you will declare that this new dead guy is definitely not Barbarini.”