Hell Hole Read online

  “Sergeant Dale Dixon.”

  “And you know this Shareef Smith character how?”

  “We served together. Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

  “You are, therefore, qualified to identify his body in lieu of familial representation?”

  I think some insurance agent told Slominsky to say that so he doesn’t get sued later by the family of the deceased.

  “Yes. I have known him for several years.”

  “Did you know he was a junkie?”

  “Come again?”

  “Heroin. You know—scag. Schmeek. We found a dime bag on the floor of the stall next to his.”

  I check out the handicapped stall. Two guys move in on their hands and knees to pick stuff off the floor with tweezers and plop it into paper bags.

  “We found his works over there too. Cute little leather wallet-type deal. Guess he came in here to take a dump and fly off to happy land. Decided to take the express route instead. Head all the way home to Jesus. Anyway, I figure Mr. Smith dropped his drug shit when he swallowed the bullet.”

  The guy crumpling up the Chex Mix bag nods. “That’s what we figure,” he says. “Death throes, you know? Flung it sideways. Kicked it over when he kicked the bucket.”

  “How do you know it was his drug paraphernalia?”

  “We dusted it for prints.”

  “Do they match Corporal Smith’s?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” says Slominsky. “You think I got a microscope up my ass?”

  “So your ‘findings’ at this point are pure supposition?”

  “Hey, what’s your problem, sarge? Your fucking boy has needle marks up and down his arms, okay? Probably started shooting up while you two were over there whacking Iraqis.”

  Slobbinsky heads toward the closed stall.

  “Go on. Check it out. Look at his fucking arms. The fact that he’s black makes the splotches easier to spot.”

  Slobbinsky swings the stall door open as wide as the hinges will allow.

  Guess it’s finally time for Dixon to see the dead man.

  4

  Starky loses her cookies.

  I did the exact same thing when I saw my first corpse. Fortunately, Ceepak was there to prop me up so I didn’t end up facedown in a puddle of my own puke.

  Fortunately for Starky, we’re in a humongous bathroom. I hustle her over to the other side, find a toilet, hold her up under both arms, turn my head and give her a moment.

  “Sorry, sir,” she groans after the second gusher.

  “Take your time. Happens to all of us.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Another spasm. I think she’s empty. We’ve moved into the dry heaves stage now. Means we’re almost done. Don’t ask me how I became an expert on the regurgitative process. Probably my misspent youth chugging warm cans of beer from my dad’s stash of Busch out in the garage.

  Truth be told, I too nearly barfed when I caught a quick glimpse of Shareef Smith. Didn’t see much. Starky started making urp noises behind me. Duty called.

  But what I did see was gruesome.

  His head had exploded.

  It’s like it was a giant tennis ball somebody squeezed inside a vise until the trapped gas found a soft spot up top and burst free. Flanges of splayed bone gave him a crooked little red crown.

  He was slumped backwards, propped up by the thick elbow pipe behind the commode. Blood had gushed out of his mouth and nose. His shirt—I think it used to be blue—was soaked with the stuff. So was this bib of tissues he was wearing around his neck. At least that’s what it looked like: a thick circle of paper sitting on his shoulders, tucked under his chin and behind his head. It was like a Thanksgiving Pilgrim’s collar, only bloodier. I don’t know what it was, what it was made out of.

  “Well, Sergeant?” I hear Slobbinsky say on the other side of the men’s room. “That your boy? Sarge? Jesus, take your fucking time, why don’t you? I got all night, here.”

  I guess Dixon is just standing there, mesmerized by the horror show behind door number three.

  “You okay?” I ask Starky.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You want to wait outside in the car?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about some water?” I gesture toward the sinks lining the far wall. Someone has decorated them with vases of fresh-cut flowers. Not to honor the dead soldier, just to give this rank room a touch of class. Hey, I know they try their best to keep these restrooms clean. Got the clipboard on the wall indicating that somebody from HMM Host comes in every hour to swab the decks, fish the gum wads out of the urinals. But, come on: if thousands of strangers traipsed through your guest bathroom all day every day you could hose it down with a tanker truck full of Lysol and still end up with a room that reeked of urine mixed with industrial-strength ammonia.

  “I’m good to go,” Starky says, straightening up her uniform.

  “Come on.”

  We hurry back to the other side of the restroom.

  “Everything come out okay, miss?” Slobbinsky cracks when we make our return. His colleague, Chex Mix man, snorts out a crumb-filled chuckle.

  Dixon is still standing in the stall. Staring straight ahead.

  “That’s him,” he finally says.

  “You sure?” asks Slominsky.

  “Affirmative.”

  “That mean ‘yes’?”

  “Yes.”

  Apparently, seeing his friend in such a grotesque pose has caused Dixon to lose some of his swagger. He turns and addresses the room. Looks solemn.

  “That is the body of Corporal Shareef Smith. We served together in Echo Company. He was a good soldier. A good man.”

  Slobbinsky—the asshole—yawns. Checks his watch.

  “Great. Thanks. The body is positively identified at One-fifty-six AM. Somebody write that down.”

  Dixon steps out of the stall. Reveals the mess behind him. I try to take it in. See it like Ceepak would.

  The pistol is still gripped tightly in the young black man’s right hand. Rigor mortis? I’m not sure. The gun hand rests on his right thigh. His head is twisted slightly to the left—probably from the force of the bullet’s impact. Plus, it has that gaping explosion hole up top.

  “Tell me what happened,” says Dixon.

  Slobbinsky shrugs. “He shot himself.”

  “I need more.”

  So do I. I check the walls of the stall. Gray gunk is splattered behind and above Smith’s head. Blood streaks down the back wall. It starts where it should: in a straight line up from the exit wound. Ceepak has taught me to look for this kind of stuff. Trajectory paths. I just wish he were here to tell me where to look next.

  Smith didn’t pull down his pants when he entered the stall. Just sat on the toilet seat and did his business: a little heroin, a quick bullet to the brain.

  The toilet paper roll near his right knee is clean. No blood splatter. Makes sense. Most of the blood exploded out of the back of his head when the bullet shot up through his skull. The rest of it ran in a thick river out of his nostrils and mouth. I think the heart keeps pumping even after your brain calls it quits. Need to check that one out with Ceepak.

  All that blood ran down and soaked into that paper collar.

  That paper collar.

  I look above the roll of toilet paper. The seat-cover dispenser is empty. Just a cardboard box. None of those flushable sheets of tissue paper for you to drape over the toilet seat in an effort to avoid everybody else’s butt germs.

  That’s what’s around his neck.

  He pulled out the whole stack, pushed his head through the hole cut in the center, and wore it like the cape the barber drapes over your head to catch hair clippings.

  Why?

  Why would a suicidal junkie bib himself with sanitary tissue paper before blowing out his brains?

  He didn’t want to make a mess?

  Ceepak always asks me: What’s wrong with this picture? What doesn’t belong? Okay—how about a guy who tr
ies this hard to be tidy on his way out the door?

  And there’s something else.

  I’m not sure what it is. Not yet. But there’s something else seriously wrong with this picture.

  I reach to my belt. My cell phone has a camera in it. I should snap a shot when Slominsky isn’t looking. I need a picture to figure out what else is wrong here.

  “Tell me what the hell happened,” Dixon says again.

  “I can’t say for certain,” Slominsky answers. “Aren’t any security cameras in here—this being a men’s room and all.”

  “Give me your best guess. Based on the evidence and any witnesses you might have interviewed.”

  Slominsky sighs.

  “Fine. Seeing how you two served together and all …”

  Dixon nods to indicate he appreciates Slominsky doing him a solid.

  “Okay. Here’s what we figure. Your buddy comes in with his needle kit and some kind of Russian pistol with a six-inch silencer screwed on the muzzle. He closes the door, throws the latch, and locks himself in. Wants his privacy.”

  “Did anybody hear the pistol shot?” asks Dixon.

  “Nope. Like I said—he screwed on a silencer. Must’ve worked. Nobody heard nothin’.”

  “Not even a pop?”

  Another shrug from Slominsky. “Nothin’. Too much farting, I guess. Besides, that floor blower over there was going,” he gestures toward this portable fan the maintenance crew must use to dry the tile after they mop. “Then you got your hand dryers whirling away, toilets flushing all over the place.”

  “Why would he do that?” asks Dixon. “Why would he use a silencer?”

  “Hey—why would he wear a stack of sanitary tissues around his neck? Maybe your guy Smith doesn’t want to cause anybody any trouble. Maybe he’s just too damn courteous.”

  “You retrieved the round?”

  “Yep,” says Chex Mix man. “Dug a slug out of the wall. Back there where his brains are smeared.”

  Dixon nods. “Go on.”

  Another yawn from Slominsky. The man needs caffeine.

  While he stifles the yawn, I pull the cell phone off my belt. Flip it open. Thumb the button to switch it into camera mode.

  “Not much more to say. Janitor comes in for his scheduled eleven PM rounds. All of a sudden he sees these tennis shoes in stall number three. Doesn’t say or do anything at first. Doesn’t want to disturb some dude in there taking a dump or choking his chicken, you know what I’m saying?”

  Nobody responds.

  “Anyways,” Slominsky continues, “the janitor swishes his mop around and some of the dirty water slops up on your guy’s shoes. The janitor says he’s sorry. Your guy, of course, says nothin’.”

  He lets that hang. Allows us to fill in the punch line: Because he’s dead.

  “Anyways, when he’s all mopped up everywhere else, he knocks on the door to stall number three. Gets no answer. Asks if everything is all right and explains how he needs to mop up all the stalls. Still no answer. So, he goes outside, tries to find someone to tell him what to do. Some management type. It being after eleven, there aren’t any of those hanging around the food court. This janitor, by the way, is Mexican. Doesn’t hablo too much Inglese. He’s legal, I think, but hey—you never know, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Who opened the door?” asks Dixon.

  “The janitor. He couldn’t find nobody to help him figure out what to do so he comes back in and uses this little knife he keeps in his work clothes for peeling fruit and shit. Slips it through the crack, flips the latch up, grabs the door, swings it open—”

  “And loses his lunch.” Chex Mix man finishes for him.

  “Where?” I ask.

  Slominsky turns to me. Studies my face. Tries to figure out where he knows me from.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Danny Boyle. Sea Haven PD.”

  “Sea Haven? Jesus, kid. You’re what? Twenty miles outside your fucking jurisdiction.”

  “Where did the janitor vomit?”

  “That’s confidential.”

  “No it’s not,” I say back. “Where did the guy throw up?”

  “Why the fuck do you want to know?” Slominsky is straining to remember who I am and why I piss him off so much.

  “Because,” Dixon jumps in for me, “if, as you suggest, he ‘lost his lunch’ when he opened the door, why is there no evidence of his vomit on the floor there?”

  “Because he puked in that sink, okay?” He points to the one Chex Mix man is leaning against. “He held his gut, ran over, grabbed hold of the porcelain goddess, and let it fly! Jesus. You guys satisfied?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Thanks.”

  I see the lightbulb go off over Slominsky’s greasy head. “Boyle,” he says with a grin. “You worked that Tilt-A-Whirl job with me, am I right?”

  That’s one way to put it.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He turns to his buddy at the sink. “Frankie—I ever tell you about that one?”

  “No.”

  “How about you guys?” He calls to the team working the floor around the handicapped toilet. “I tell you about Reggie Hart?”

  “No.” One of the CSI guys in the stall sits back on his heels to hear the story. “Who’s he?”

  “Reggie fucking Hart? You know—the billionaire.”

  “Trump?”

  “No. This guy was even richer. When I showed up, that crime scene was fucked-up beyond all recognition. But we straightened things up, figured out whodunit, right, Boyle?”

  “Yeah.”

  Actually, Slominsky didn’t help us at all. I’m lying through my teeth here—something my partner John Ceepak would not let me get away with because he lives by this very strict moral code that doesn’t allow him to lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do. Well, tonight I figure a little lie will get us out of this aroma-filled room a little faster.

  “Yeah,” says Slominsky like we’re old pals from back in the day. “That was some case. Did some solid forensic shit on that one, didn’t we, Boyle?”

  “Mind if I snap a picture?” I ask, since, all of a sudden, we’re old pals.

  “Sure, Danny. Sure.” He smiles. Strikes a pose. Thinks I want his picture.

  So, I take it. Then I turn around and snap the shot I really want: Smith in his toilet stall, a ring of blood-tinged tissue wrapped around his neck.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “No problem, Danny.” Slominsky is all smiles now. Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t contradict his version of the truth. “Let’s see. What else can I tell you guys? Oh. Right. We searched his pockets. Found the Internet map in his shirt, which is how we found you guys. Had that phone number scribbled on it. We also found these.”

  Slominsky pulls a key ring out of his pocket.

  “His car?” Dixon asks.

  “Yeah. Poor bastard. Couldn’t buy a break tonight. We found his vehicle in the lot. Seems that while he’s in here doing the deed, somebody was out there breaking into his ride.”

  5

  Someone ransacked Shareef Smith’s Ford Focus.

  “Bastards,” mutters Dixon as we stare at the mess the burglars made.

  “Happens all the time,” says the state trooper who escorted us out into the parking lot.

  Saul Slominsky stayed back in the men’s room with Smith’s body to, as he put it, “tag him and bag him.” He wanted to wrap things up fast. Pack up the body and head home. Maybe grab a double Whopper with cheese on his way out the door.

  Meanwhile, we’re staring at the tumbled interior of a recently broken-into subcompact. No broken glass. Guess Smith forgot to lock his doors. Maybe he was in a hurry to grab a Whopper too. Either that or a hit of heroin. I see papers on the seats. Cigarette butts crowning a mound of gray dust in the cup holder. Someone yanked out the ashtray and dumped it there. There is no radio in the dashboard. Just a hole with loose, torn wires.

  “Same old, same old,” says the trooper. He’s pretty y
oung. Muscular. Balloons for biceps.

  Dixon doesn’t say anything. He looks shaken. Queasy. Like he just stepped out of the Hell Hole, this ride they used to have on the boardwalk before they closed down Pier Four. You stand against a wall and the room begins to spin. It picks up speed and rotates faster—so fast centrifugal force pulls you away from the center and pins you against the wall. All of a sudden, you feel paralyzed, like a wet sock during the spin cycle. That’s when they drop the floor out from under your feet and you don’t even budge because you’re glued to the wall.

  It’s when the room stops spinning, when you step out and try to walk through the real world that you feel wobbly. I think that’s where Dixon is. Thrown for a loop. Wondering what the hell happened to one of his men who survived the horror show over in Iraq only to end up dead in a men’s room on the Garden State Parkway.

  “Small-time hoods,” says the trooper, swinging his flashlight around inside the car. “They prowl these parking lots. Look for unlocked doors. Keys in the ignition. Folks on vacation typically pack a lot of pricey gear. Bikes. iPods. Satellite radios. Seatback DVD players for the kids.”

  “So, what the hell happened there?” asks Dixon. Guess he found his land legs again because he sounds pissed. He’s pointing at the steering wheel. “These hoods think Smith hid a DVD player in his steering wheel?”

  “No, sir. They stole his air bag.”

  “What?”

  “Happens six hundred times every week,” explains the trooper.

  I’m amazed. “On the Garden State Parkway?”

  “No. That’s a national figure.”

  Starky nods. I think my rookie partner spends her weekends memorizing the same crime statistics this trooper does.

  Encouraged by Starky’s interest, he continues. “The thieves sell these stolen air bags to disreputable repair shops who resell them to unsuspecting customers as replacements for bags that have deployed.”

  While he yammers on how easy it is to do—disconnect the car battery, unscrew four bolts—I check out the other side of the front seat. They rifled through the glove compartment too. It’s emptied out. Stuff dumped all over the floor mats.

  Dixon is looking where I’m looking.

  “Probably searching for his drugs,” he mutters.