First Avenue (48 page)

Richard
Rutherford
sat in the backseat of the compact car between
Katherine
and
Judith
Wilson
.
Rutherford
’s hands were cuffed behind him, and he squirmed to find a comfortable place. Each time he moved, his body pressed
Katherine
at different points. No point was welcome.
Markowitz
drove, and
Evans
, who had decided that
Wilson
was not going to be the only lawyer along, sat in the front passenger seat.

“Keep going on
First Avenue
,”
Rutherford
said. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“Where are we going?”
Markowitz
asked as he turned his head.
Rutherford
’s insistence on giving one direction at a time was beginning to annoy him.

“I’ll show you when we get there. I don’t want you to get lost.” It was not clear if he smiled or sneered, but he, alone, seemed to enjoy the show.

“We can still call this off, you know,”
Markowitz
said. “You haven’t shown us anything yet.”

“Yeah, right,”
Rutherford
said while giving his best scornful imitation. He was quite good at it. “And you can spend the rest of your life looking for that bitch.”

Katherine wondered who should hit him first. She felt like it, and her hands almost hurt from holding back.

“That’s enough,
Richard
,”
Wilson
said through a clenched jaw. “If you refuse to cooperate, the detective has a right, at any time, to take you back. Now answer his question.”

“It’s right up here. Here! Turn in here.”

Markowitz pulled into the parking lot behind the Donut Shop and stopped abruptly in the middle of the driveway. He turned around so quickly that
Katherine
wondered if his next move would be to jump into the backseat.
Rutherford
, along with the two women on either side of him, sank back into his seat as far as the cushion would allow.

“If this is a joke, punk, you and me are going to have a talk.”

“It’s here. All right? You want me to show you or what?”

“We’ve looked everywhere around here.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t look so good then.”

Markowitz took a breath that all could see. “All right,
Mr.
Rutherford
. You will show us.”

When
Markowitz
parked the car,
Rutherford
intended to follow
Wilson
out her side.
Katherine
pulled him out through her door instead. He bristled with the forced change of direction and even more when
Katherine
made him stand by the car door until the others joined them.

“You ready for me to show you?” he asked.

“Yes,”
Markowitz
said. “We’re ready for you to show us.”

“Down there.” He nodded with his head and tried to move his hands.
Katherine
’s fingers were around the handcuffs. “In the basement.”

Clearly
Markowitz
did not believe him. “All right, let’s take a look.”

Markowitz led the way, followed by
Rutherford
in
Katherine
’s grasp. The lawyers came behind. They made an odd procession, and the people in and around the parking lot stopped what they were doing and watched. At the stairway yellow tape marked off the entrance, and there were police signs prohibiting entry.
Markowitz
unlocked the police padlock that secured the entrance.

“Counselor, I’ll want you to stand right beside your client. We’ll stop inside the door. I don’t want him to go any farther than that.”

“I understand,”
Wilson
said.

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“I understand,” she repeated.

Markowitz pushed the door open and stepped inside. The cool smell of the basement drifted past them while they waited in the sunshine. It had the smell of darkness.
Markowitz
turned on the light switch and then stuck his head back outside. “Okay,” he said and motioned them in.

They crowded past the front door and shuffled, step by step, farther inside until everyone was in.
Evans
shut the door behind them. In a few moments, their eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, and they looked around the dreary room.

“What’s next?”
Markowitz
asked. He stood directly in front of the boy.

“You have to go into the next room,” the boy said.

“I was there yesterday. There’s nothing there.”

“I need to show you,” the boy said, losing patience with his confinement.

“No. You’re going to stay right here with your lawyer. You can tell me. So far, you’ve been real good at telling me where to go.”

The boy chafed within his handcuffs as though verbal instructions were beyond his ability. “In the next room, there’s a ceiling. Look, I can show you.”

“Keep talking. A ceiling.”

“In one place, the boards are loose. You can’t see it from the floor.”

“All right, let’s say I find those boards. Then what?”

“You push them out of the way and crawl up. There’s space between it and the floor up above.”

Two sentences seemed to be the maximum the boy could speak at one time without being reminded what he had said.
Markowitz
provided him the clue. “I’m up in the ceiling. What do I do then?”

“You crawl a little ways and there’s some more boards that are loose. They go to the basement next door. There’s no other way to get in there.”

“Next door?”
Markowitz
asked.

“Yeah.
Pierre
had it all worked out. You wouldn’t find it in a million years. There’s even a ladder there. We didn’t need it, but
Pierre
was too fat to pull himself up. Now you want me to show you?” the boy asked after finishing his longest speech of the day.

Markowitz ignored him and spoke to
Wilson
. “We’ll go to the next door, and your client can direct from there. He doesn’t go in the room though.”

In single file they walked to the next door. The pace was too slow for
Rutherford
, who could not get his shuffle properly under way. When they stopped,
Markowitz
put on a pair of rubber surgical gloves.

“That corner,”
Rutherford
said.

“Which corner?”
Markowitz
asked.

“Over there.” He nodded with his head.

Evans followed
Markowitz
into the room. The ceiling boards were low enough for
Markowitz
to tap with his flashlight.

“Farther. All the way to the wall. Shit, you guys never would have found it.”

Markowitz finally found the loose boards. Carefully he pushed them away. He muttered something under his breath. He pulled a table that was against the wall beneath the hole and was about to climb up on it when
Rutherford
yelled, “Hey! I forgot to tell you. You’re going to need a shovel.”

Markowitz paused for a moment, then abruptly climbed onto the table. He disappeared into the hole.

Wilson chose to ignore her client, and
Katherine
was willing to follow her example.
Evans
didn’t move away from the opening in the ceiling.
Markowitz
called back his progress. He let them know when he found the other room. Then there was a long period of silence.
Rutherford
wanted to speak several times, but
Wilson
wouldn’t let him. No one spoke.

At last they heard
Markowitz
coming back. When he got off the table, he brushed off his hands and then the knees of his trousers. He walked over to the boy.

“There’s some new concrete in the floor,” he said. “Is that where she is?”

“That’s it.”

“What happened to the old concrete?”

“We carried it out in buckets and put it in the Dumpster.”

“I hate to say this, Detective Markowitz, but we have to be careful what questions my client answers,”
Judith
Wilson
said.

“No problem. Let me know when I’ve crossed your line.”

She nodded her head.

“I’d like to know how they got her over there.”

“She crawled, just like you,”
Rutherford
blurted out. He was eager to emerge from his silence.
Markowitz
looked at
Wilson
and raised his eyebrows as if to ask if the reply was appropriate.

“
Richard
, I can’t help you if you run off at the mouth like that.”

“Hey, you said if I didn’t kill her, they couldn’t do anything to me. I was right here. I never went in there until it was all over. I was supposed to be standing guard at the door outside, but I snuck over here anyway.”

“I think we’re okay then, Detective Markowitz,”
Wilson
said.

“Who went in there with her?”
Markowitz
asked. He signaled with his head that he meant the opposite room.

“Pierre and Morris.”

“Why would she go with them?”

“She wasn’t happy about it, I’ll tell you that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bawling like a baby. But she wanted out, and they said they’d let her out—her and her kid. Shit, can’t nobody get out.”

“So why would she go into that room?”

“That’s where we split the dope. She knew about that. She carried it.”

“So maybe they told her she had to carry it one more time?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you know how they killed her?”

“I was standing here, remember?”

“
Yes
,
Richard
. I remember. We all remember. What did they use to kill her?”

“You should have heard her when she saw that hole. I dug it, man, and it was deep.”

“How deep?”

“Five, six feet. Took me all day. You should have heard her.”

“Yes. I almost can,”
Markowitz
said.

“Hollering like that. It wouldn’t do any good.”

“Somebody might have heard her. You heard her.”

Rutherford snickered from what he had heard. “They shut her up quick. It sounded like they put something over her mouth. You could still hear a little, but it wasn’t nearly so loud. That must be when they threw her in the hole.”

“What did they use to kill her? What happened to her?”
Markowitz
asked.

“They didn’t kill her like that. They just tied her up and threw her in the hole. He said that’s what he’d do if anybody squealed or wanted out. Shit, you should have heard her.”

“That’s enough,
Richard
,”
Judith
Wilson
said.

“Why? I stood right here. I didn’t do anything. Those guys had balls. When they threw the dirt on her, she squealed like a pig.”

He began to laugh, and before anyone could respond,
Wilson
hit him across the mouth with the back of her hand. He fell back against
Katherine
and looked with amazement at his lawyer.