Eyes of the Innocent: A Mystery (27 page)

“Really,” I said.

“Eddie is the one here who found him,” another said, pointing to the guy who had been in the middle of the scrum when I came up—a short, weathered-looking Latino.

“No kidding,” I said. Eddie smiled proudly at me, showing off a mouth at least three teeth short of a full deck. I stuck out my hand: “Carter Ross.”

“Hey,” he said, not bothering to take his glove off as we shook.

“What’s your name?”

“Oh, Eddie … I mean Edgar … Perez … but they call me Eddie,” he said.

Eddie Perez grinned again. There hadn’t been a lot of visits to the dentist in his past, but he sure seemed friendly.

“So what time did you find him?” I asked.

“Man, I don’t know, it was like six … six-thirty … My shift start at six, you know? And it was at least an hour in, so like … seven … seven-thirty. I don’t know. Yeah, seven-thirty … eight.”

Well. That was precise.

“And what, he was just sitting in one of the cars?”

“Yeah, man, I was doing Row Q, you know, going through, making sure there wasn’t no trash, making sure they got the gas in them, you know? And I get to this one car and I can tell someone left something in the trunk because it’s riding low back there.”

“Tell him about the roast beef sandwich,” one of them prompted.

“Yeah, yeah, man,” Eddie said. “I went around to the trunk and it smelled a little bit, you know? Like you leave a roast beef sandwich in the car for a couple days and it starts to smell, you know? And people, they do this all the time. The check-in guys are supposed to inspect the trunks, but sometimes they get busy, you know?”

“Right, sure,” I said, like I had ample experience cleaning gamy roast beef sandwiches out of rental cars.

“And, man, I open up the trunk thinking I’m going to find someone’s suitcase and a sandwich or something. And there’s this guy all curled up in there, where the, uhh … you know, the thing…”

“The spare tire?” I asked.

“Yeah, man, where the spare tire is supposed to be. Except it wasn’t no spare tire in there, it was this guy.”

“Tell him about the nails,” another one said.

“Yeah, man, he had these nails sticking out his whole body, you know?” Eddie said.

“Nails?”

“Yeah, it was like someone took a nail gun or something and went bam, bam, bam, bam. There had to be like twenty, thirty, fifty nails in him, you know?”

I immediately got the image of Windy Byers, his corpse riddled with metal spikes, curled up in the wheel well.

What a way to go.

*   *   *

Eddie recounted the end of his story, calling me “man” at least seven more times and saying “you know” at least a dozen. But the gist of it was that he went to report the presence of an existentially deprived passenger to his boss, who called the authorities, who came streaming in ever more massive numbers. They interviewed Eddie at some length until they finally realized he was just the guy who cleaned the car and, man, he didn’t really know nothin’, you know?

In truth, Eddie had probably reached the end of his usefulness to me, as well. He had given me some great bits of what we in the business call “color”—those little details that make a story jump off the page. There was a big difference between a lede that read “Newark Councilman Wendell A. Byers was found dead yesterday at a car rental facility near Newark Airport” and “A cleaning man at a car rental facility near Newark Airport made a gruesome discovery in Row Q yesterday morning, when he found the nail-riddled corpse of Newark Councilman Wendell A. Byers rolled up in the trunk of a red Ford Taurus.”

I thanked Eddie for his help, but as the group broke apart, I sidled up to one of the check-in guys, a black guy with short-cropped hair.

“Hey, you mind helping me with something real quick?” I asked.

“Sure, boss, what’s up?” he said, in a perhaps Jamaican, perhaps Haitian, definitely Carribean accent.

“You got one of those little handheld computers?”

“Yeah, boss,” he said, pulling it out of the pocket of his puffy jacket.

“What can you tell me about this car,” I said, rattling off the license plate number to the red Ford that had become Windy Byers’s impromptu hearse.

He did some typing, working quickly on the small keyboard with his thumbs, the only flesh exposed on his otherwise gloved hands.

“It was rented from location oh-one-five—that’s here—Sunday at 7:42
P.M.
by…” He stopped at the name. “Don … Donaa…”

“Spell it for me,” I said.

“First name D-O-N-A-T-O,” he said.

Donato. Got it.

“Last name S-E-M-E-D-O.”

Semedo. Donato Semedo. What kind of name was that? Italian? Spanish? I didn’t dare pull out my pad to write it down, so I did my best to burn it into my memory. Donato Semedo. Donato Semedo.

“Does that thing give you the renter’s address?”

“Yeah, boss,” he said, tilting the computer so I could see it.

It was on Hanover Street in Newark. I didn’t know the street but could guess it was in the Ironbound, which was a German enclave back when all the streets were being named.

“Thanks,” I said, thankful to have found such a helpful check-in guy. “That thing tell you anything else?”

“Rental insurance declined,” he said. “It doesn’t say nothing about the return. He must have just dumped it here.”

That explained why the cleaner was the first to find the body.

I might have pushed for more, but I sensed an attack was coming from lower middle management. A man with straight, mousy brown hair, too-big-for-his-face glasses, and a very unfortunate mustache was approaching fast from the direction of the main building. His jacket was embroidered with
JEFF
on it.

And Jeff looked very excited.

“Excuse me, sir, are you with the police?” he asked.

“No,” I said, and was not inclined to volunteer more than that.

“Well, this is not a public area,” Jeff said. “And I can’t have you walking around talking with employees. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“What’s wrong with talking? It’s a free country.”

Good comeback. For a fourth grader.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said, unmoved by my patriotism.

I briefly considered whether there were any legitimate grounds by which I could protest. But ultimately I was better off bringing as little attention to myself as possible. If the authorities became aware a reporter had been traipsing around their crime scene, they might get persnickety and hit me with trespassing or disturbing the peace or loitering or one of the other charges they typically reserve for young black men hanging out on street corners.

Better to escape relatively unnoticed.

“So you’re saying I have to leave?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, no big deal,” I said. “Which way to the airport?”

Jeff not only showed me the way to the shuttle but escorted me there, stood next to me with his arms crossed until it came, then made sure I was onboard with the door closed and the shuttle moving.

There were only two other passengers with me, a pair of airport-bound business travelers who had seen my prisoner of war treatment and were nervously clutching their luggage, like I was about to steal it. We passed the police barricade, and as we inched along through the narrow channel between the TV trucks, I decided it was time to join my people. I walked up to the driver and said, “You can drop me off here.”

“Here?” the guy said.

“Yeah, I just remembered I’m afraid of flying,” I said, quickly pulling a twenty-dollar bill out of my wallet.

“Hey, whatever works for you, pal,” the guy said, taking the bill as he pulled the bus to a stop and opened the door.

I disembarked next to a cluster of print reporters, one of whom happened to be Tommy. He stared at me blankly for a second, like I was a strange new life-form crawling out of the sea, then broke himself off from the pack.

“Are you coming from where I think you’re coming from?” he asked. He had to shout a little bit to be heard over the thumping of nearby helicopter rotors.

“Yeah,” I said, with a perhaps-too-cocky smile.

“How did you get in there?”

“I happen to be a big fan of Enterprise rental car. They pick you up, you know. What’s going on out here in the media mosh pit?”

“Nothing. It’s just a lot of pretty boys worrying about their appearance too much. It’s like I never left the club from last night.”

“What have you been told so far?”

“Again, nothing. They haven’t even officially confirmed that it’s Windy Byers in there. You ask them why the road is closed and all the spokesman says is it’s a police investigation. For all we know at this point, this whole thing could be for some wino who died of exposure.”

“Oh, it’s Windy all right.”

“How do you know?”

“I talked to the guy who found him,” I told Tommy, then filled him in on all I learned on the inside.

When I was done, Tommy didn’t comment on my genius as a reporter, thank me for providing such great details for the next day’s story, or compliment me on my brilliant—albeit accidental—ingenuity.

Instead, he said, “Donato Semedo of thirteen Hanover Street, huh?”

*   *   *

Tommy took a few steps farther away from the other reporters. I got the hint and followed him over to the edge of the road, which bordered on a small, forlorn patch of marshland. A faint breeze stirred the dried stalks of pampas grass.

“There’s something weird going on,” he said.

“Speak, young Tommy.”

“Remember how I told you I was going over those ELEC documents?”

“Yeah, the Election Law stuff. I thought you were just punishing yourself.”

“I was. But then, I don’t know. Windy’s donor list was strange. I kept coming up with all these Portuguese names. I can’t be sure, I think one of them might have been Donato Semedo. It sure sounds Portuguese.”

“Portuguese? I thought maybe it was Italian or Spanish or something.”

“No, it’s definitely Portuguese,” Tommy said. “It seemed like all of his donors had these fresh-off-the-boat immigrant names. And they all had addresses in the Ironbound. And I just couldn’t figure it out. Why would the Central Ward councilman get all this money from people outside his district?”

“Beats me. Why?”

“I still don’t know,” Tommy said. “It was something I was going to look into a little more the next time I got the chance. Then this came up. But now you’re telling me Windy has been kidnapped and killed by someone named Donato Semedo and, well, fill in the blanks.”

“I suppose we could go pay a visit to Donato Semedo and find out.”

Tommy pointed to the line of news trucks.

“Well, you can,” he said. “I have to stay here and babysit.”

“Oh, right,” I said, and was about to bid him adieu and head in my own direction, except I realized I had no means by which to do so. Unless I felt like walking back to the office.

“Of course, I don’t have my car with me,” I said. “I’m going to need to hitch a ride somehow. Anyone else from our place here with you?”

“Just Tina,” he said.

“Tina?” I said, and the mere utterance of her name brought a surge of guilt, even though I had no cause. “What’s she doing here?”

“She was on her way to the office when she got the call about Windy and she knew she could get here before anyone else. Not that it mattered—the police had already plugged up the road.”

“Where is she now?”

Tommy signaled his ignorance by shrugging. So I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed her.

“Tina Thompson,” she semishouted over the sound of the helicopters.

“Hey, it’s your favorite reporter, where are you?” I asked.

“I’m about a hundred feet away from where you and your boyfriend are having your little chin wag,” she said. “I was going to come over, but I didn’t want to intrude. You two make a cute couple, by the way.”

I looked to my left, then to my right, then back to my left. With all the people and confusion, I didn’t see her. Then finally I spotted her walking toward me, waving.

She looked terrific, as usual. She was not particularly dressed up—just black slacks and a plain black leather jacket—but Tina was one of those women who didn’t have to try too hard. Her hair was up in a ponytail. Her cheeks had a rosy glow from the cold, like she was just coming in from a jog. As she got closer, she even appeared happy to see me.

“Sorry I didn’t wait for you last night,” she said. “To be honest, I was still at the office when you texted me and I was looking for an excuse to cancel anyway. It was a long day and I was too tired for a night out.”

“Oh,” I said. “And here I thought you were pissed at me.”

“What made you think that?”

“The part where you texted me that I sucked.”

“I was just kidding,” she said, then added as an aside to Tommy, “He’s such a girl sometimes.”

“Not in bed, I hope,” Tommy said.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied.

“Still?” Tommy inquired.

“He keeps wasting opportunities.”

“A tragedy.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

Tina crossed her arms and shook her head, her eyes rolling. Tommy consoled her with a pat on the shoulder.

“Are you two finished?” I asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Tina said. “So what have you been up to this morning anyway?”

I gave her the same spiel I had given Tommy but this time finished with how I needed to mooch a ride off her.

“So, wait, where is your car again?” she asked when I was done.

“It’s at the office … I had Enterprise pick me up there,” I lied quickly, because I didn’t particularly feel like explaining why Sweet Thang had taken me home the night before. Tina has a dirty mind. She might jump to conclusions.

“Anyhow, let’s get going,” I continued before she sniffed out my untruth. “Come on. Time’s a-wasting. Chop-chop. Head ’em up and move ’em out.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy,” Tina said, then turned to Tommy. “I assume you’ve got this covered?”

“It’s pretty easy when nothing’s happening and nothing will,” he assured her.

And we were off. Tina drives a Volvo, making her perhaps the only childless woman in American who does. But she often reminded me it was only temporary—the lack of child, that is, not the Volvo. It was a wonder she hadn’t already installed the infant seat.