The Concrete Pearl (28 page)

Quiet filled the office for a few beats. Santiago stared into me, eyes wide, unblinking. From across the table I watched his Adams apple tremble inside the loose skin on his neck. Until he sat up straight, bit down hard on his bottom lip, nodding. I believe then he’d begun to see the light.

“From this point out,” he addressed the rolling tape, “this office will redirect the focus of its investigation into both the murder of Barnes and the asbestos negligence case at PS 20.” Shifting his brown eyes to me, he added, “Ms. Harrison, this office no longer considers you a suspect in a homicide. You are hereby free to go.”

For a split second I thought about asking for a public apology.

Instead I stood.

Spain stood.

Together we turned and bolted from the DA’s office, free at last.

Chapter 67

It was dawn, Thursday, by the time we got back into Spain’s Charger. The sun was rising red over the Berkshire mountains to the east, its reflection glistening off the Hudson River as we pulled away from the curb, began driving the Concrete Pearl in the direction of my apartment.

Just up ahead, the Miss Albany Diner.

“Let’s grab some breakfast,” I said. “For the first time in days I’m hungry.”

Without hesitating Spain pulled into the parking lot. It was empty, except for a pickup truck that pulled in right on our tail, parked right beside me. Just another construction worker grabbing an early breakfast before the workday began.

“Maybe Tommy would like to join us,” I said.

“He up at this hour?” Spain asked, pulling the key from the starter.

“Trust me, he’s been up for an hour.”

I opened Tess’s cell phone, dialed the old mason laborer’s number.

He answered right away.

I said, “How does bacon and eggs and a free-as-a-bird Spike sound for breakfast this morning?”

“You buyin’ chief?” he said.

The window shattered.

Blood spatter strafed my face.

Spain slumped over into my lap.

A black barrel stared me down.

The phone fell onto the floor at my feet.

Glancing to my right, I caught the logo printed on the side-panel of the parked pickup.

Marino Construction
.

A gloved hand reached out for me through the window.

“Tommy,” I screamed, “Marino…Marino Construction!”

Chapter 68

Duct tape wrapped around our mouths.

Wrists and ankles bound behind our backs.

Tossed hogtied into the back bed of the pickup.

Only when the bastards got back inside the cab and started to drive—the same two beefy bastards who threatened us outside Thatcher Street—could I see that Spain was still alive. He was awake now, wide-eyed, the star-shaped hole in his cheek caked with thick black blood. It dribbled down his chin and neck. The bullet he took to the face had entered and exited his cheek.

They drove for maybe fifteen minutes.

But it seemed like forever as I bounced around in the back of that truck on the hard bed-liner, trying to breathe through my nostrils, knowing that what I faced was the same thing Natalie faced; that Farrell no doubt faced.

When we came to a stop, Slammer and his buddy got out and opened the tailgate.

First they pulled Spain out by his feet, letting him fall to the ground like a bag of mason’s sand. They did the same to me; yanked me by my feet first, my body falling hard to the ground. Slammer kicked me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I wondered if the son of a bitch knew who he was dealing with.

When I got my breath and my bearing back, I could see that the two Marino laborers were not alone. They were acting on the orders of others. I heard voices, but I could not see faces.

Despite the pain, I looked up from the hard-packed ground. I recognized the back side of the Marino Construction Company. I shifted my eyes over my left shoulder, made out the incomplete construction of the poll barn. When Slammer began dragging me by my feet, I made out a long swath of open, excavated trench. Coming to a stop at the very edge of the trench, I looked down inside. A partial naked footing had already been poured, its edge having been bulk-headed off by a dyke framed out of two-by-fours and two-by-tens.

I saw something else too.

At first I didn’t recognize the ball-shaped object that was partially buried by the hardened concrete and partially exposed. It didn’t register with my brain that the object was not a round rock or a pumpkin or a big rubber ball that had gotten stuck in the pour. It didn’t make sense that what I was looking at might in fact be human. The object was really a head that belonged to a body buried in the naked footing. A head, much of the lower jaw portion also buried in the now rock-hard concrete, leaving only half a gaping mouth and two wide open eye sockets, the once blue eyes they housed now eaten away by the crows. A head with wavy blond hair. The head belonged to a man who had been alive when his body was buried in ready mix. The head belonged to a man who tried to avoid suffocation by lifting up his head from out of the soft concrete, but not far enough to avoid it from filling his mouth, hardening in place inside him and all around him.

The head belonged to Jimmy Farrell. I’d finally found him.

In my racing mind I saw the note that he had left on the front door of his asbestos removal business: “Closed Untill Further Notice.” I knew then that the document hadn’t come from Farrell at all. It had come from Marino. The note still sat in my desk drawer at home. It had a diagram of parallel lines on the back, the letters S and C beneath them along with a question mark.

Quite suddenly I knew the meaning behind that sketch. It must have been presented to Marino by the Albany Building Department. By law Marino had to seek city approval for the construction of the new poll barn. When he received his building permit, the building department must have insisted that he pour a long “naked footing” instead of the less sturdy concrete piers. The soil around the Wolf Road industrial park was pure crap—red clay, mixed with unclean fill. You couldn’t trust the structural integrity of the piers in that kind of precarious, foul smelling soil. Clay shifted; trash settled. You’d have to build something that would provide stability, stop the earth from shifting under your feet. Something long, hard and thick. Something that would last forever.

The letters S and C didn’t stand for South Canada anymore than they stood for Santa Claus. The letters stood for Soil Conditions. The building department had questioned the soil conditions behind Marino Construction. In turn they required Peter to pour a naked footing to properly underpin the piers.

That naked footing would become the burial plot for James Atkins Farrell. It would become a hard curing ready mix grave for me; for Spain. Why bury us? Why go to all the bother? So that no one found our bodies; so that we would go forever missing. No body, no proof of murder.

I looked away, felt my body turn cold. I tried to focus on the clear morning sky. I knew now that I’d been preparing for this moment for most of my life—since I was seven years old when I was buried alive. Only this time my dad would not be here to save me.

I felt Slammer’s boot-heel dig into my side.

“You’re gonna love burning in hell, butch,” he said.

His words made me laugh.

The boot heel sent me down into the ditch, flat onto my back. Dazed, I looked up to see Spain being flung into the ditch not far behind me. I struggled against the duct tape to free myself. But the struggle was useless. I couldn’t begin to move. My ribs were on fire. I had no idea how to save myself.

I heard voices. And a dog barking. I recognized the voices. They came from the people who stood at the very edge of the trench. I could see them. Marino dressed in a Seersucker suit, crisp white shirt, white and black rep tie, a barking Sonny by his side. He wore tortoise shell sunglasses with round lenses. He looked like he was on his way to a power breakfast with Albany Development Limited. In his hand he held onto the leash that reigned in the pit bull. The dog’s hindquarters were covered in a bandage that resembled a diaper. The bullet grazing I’d given it didn’t seem to make an ounce of difference. The dog was baring white fangs at me.

Diana Stewart wore black jeans and a pressed blue-jean work shirt. Her earrings glistened in the warm morning sun, red hair parted just above her right eye. I couldn’t make out the words she and Marino spoke to one another. But I knew that the subject of their discussion was important; that it had to do with murder.

The rumble and noise of something else caught my attention.

A ready mix truck had arrived on the scene. A heavy duty cement truck that pulled onto the construction site, its never-still heavy weight making the naked earth tremble beneath my body. When it came to a sudden and abrupt stop, air-brakes hissed and spit. Then came the unmistakable
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP
—the standard OSHA-mandated warning that accompanies all heavy mobile equipment engaged in reverse mode.

From my paralyzed position down inside the trench I listened to the truck backing up. For a quick second I thought it was going to drop into the trench. But then the heavy machine stopped so close to the trench’s edge that the rear wheels sent stinging shards of stone and dirt raining down onto my face. I heard the driver’s side door open, the sound of two boot soles slapping the bear earth.

“Who’s the super?” the operator belted. “Who the fuck orders a half load at six-thirty in the morning?”

A sudden gunshot shattered the plate-glass atmosphere. A body collapsed deadweight to the ground.

“Toss him in with shit-for-brains,” Marino ordered.

The body tumbled into the trench, coming to a rest directly up against Spain.

There was a slight commotion…people moving one way and then the other. Then the concrete truck engine revved up along with the cement mixer. I sensed my fate like the near-dead see the white light at the end of the black tunnel. There came the clanking and banging of heavy aluminum concrete chutes being pulled off the truck and connected together.

When I heard Marino shout, “Okay, let her rip!” I knew exactly what was coming. I’d been in the construction business all my life. First another RPM injection and the whiney, almost high-pitched noise of the concrete mixer spinning rapidly counter-clockwise, its corkscrewed interior sending the wet concrete mixture up through the opening. I could hear the wet muddy gravelly mix sliding down the chutes. Almost immediately I felt the heavy plop-plop-plop of warm mud, stone and slag cement mix. I felt the pain of its collision against my legs and bruised ribs. I smelled its raw, earthy smell.

It took only a few short seconds for the concrete to build up and bury my feet. The lime burned through my boots and jeans. The weight of the concrete pressed against skin, flesh and bone. The spatter slapped my face, stung my eyes, the acrid taste of dirt, mud and lime on my lips and tongue. In my head I saw flashes of Jordan’s face. First an incomplete picture: the eyes, the slightly crooked nose, the flat forehead, the black brows. But then I saw the whole face looking at me, calling me to him.

The cement poured from the chutes and into the trench. It covered my legs, began creeping up against my torso. It buried my belly and most of my chest. Its weight pulled me down, dragged me under, suffocating and entombing me.

I struggled, screamed against the duct tape. But the weight and the heat of the cement was too much. I struggled until I stopped struggling. Until I died in mind before my heart followed.

Then another gunshot. And another.

And then the cement stopped pouring.

Chapter 69

Someone jumped down into the trench.

Footsteps followed.

Heavy rapid footsteps slogging through the wet cement. I could barely see through the tears. But I recognized Tommy.

He had a shovel in his hand. With no words spoken he started digging me out. He shoveled fast until he freed most of my upper body. Like my father did all those years ago, he bent down at the knees, dug his arms under my shoulders, slid me out of the naked footing like a doctor giving birth. He pulled out a pocket knife and cut the duct tape that bound my ankles and wrists. He then moved on to Spain, cut him free of the tape.

As if back in Viet Nam, Tommy had the sense to make a bandage out of the kerchief he stored in the back pocket of his jeans. He pressed the kerchief against Spain’s bullet-damaged face, held it in place with a slice of the cut away duct tape. It was already too late for the concrete truck diver.

The rescue took less than a minute. But time had lost all meaning for me.

I stood up, shin deep in hardening ready mix, ripped the tape from my mouth, never feeling the sting. My cold body was trembling, shivering.

Tommy, stocky body dressed in T-shirt and baggy jeans now covered with ready mix, pressed an extended index finger to his lips. He pointed the finger up towards the sky as if to indicate that something bad was going down outside the naked footing trench.

“Tina,” he whispered.

It took some effort, but we climbed out. That’s when we saw Tina Farrell. She must have followed her father out to this place. She must have known his intentions. She must have also known that he insisted upon his business partners being present for the festivities. All for one and one for all even when it came to murder…
Especially
when it came to murder.

Tina held a pistol in her hand. She’d already shot the laborer who’d been operating the cement truck. He lay face down on the ground by the back wheels of the truck, his right arm still extended upwards towards the stick-like controls.

The second laborer, Slammer, was down on his knees, hands clasped against the top of his shaved head. He didn’t seem so threatening now. Not like he’d been when he was waving a sheetrock knife at my face. Now he was crying, tears soaking his mustache and goatee. But the tears weren’t about to place even the slightest hairline crack in Tina’s stubborn resolve. Slammer was staring up at her with big wet eyes when she shot him in the face, the entire back of his head hitting the ground before the rest of his body slumped forward.