Ed Dee - The Con Man's Daughter

He stared at it, knowing exactly what it was, a circular piece of green cloth covering an elastic band. A "scrunchy," the kids called it. Both Kate and Grace used them in their hair. Kate wore them around her wrist until she was ready to put her hair up in a ponytail. It couldn't have fallen there by itself. Someone had stuffed it down there. Eddie held it up to the window. In the glare of light off the ocean, he could see strands of red hair.

Sunday

1:00 P.M.

Babsie Panko snatched two black trash bags off the Coney Island sidewalk and carried them to Eddie's car. She'd found other pieces of a torn photograph in one of the bags. She didn't know whether or not they were all pieces of the same picture, but it bugged her that there was not a single photograph in the apartment. It had to mean something. She needed time to find whatever else was in those bags. At this point, it was garbage, not evidence, so screw jurisdiction. She wasn't even going to ask. The kidnapping was her case; she'd take any damned garbage she felt like. She slammed the trunk of the Olds just as Matty Boland, followed by the sector car from the Sixtieth Precinct, pulled into the block.

"I thought you were going to Queens," Eddie said.

"I am," Boland said. "As soon as I figure out what the hell you two are doing to me."

"Doing to you?" Babsie said. "Is everything about you?"

"You have our warrant?" Eddie said.

"On what basis, Eddie, a hunch?" Boland said. Then in a lower voice, he added, "I'm not getting roped into some bullshit illegal search. It's my case; I'll say when we apply for a search warrant."

"This is not your case," Babsie said.

"Borodenko is my case, and we're making serious progress right now. Let's not screw it up with some cowboy move."

"Will this serious progress get Kate back?" Babsie said.

"Possibly, very possibly."

"Kate was in that apartment," Eddie said. "That's definite, very definite. Either you get a warrant or I go in without it."

The uniformed cop had come alone in a white Crown Victoria with courtesy, professionalism, respect written on the side. His partner was in the station house with the paperwork from a four-car accident on the Belt Parkway. He'd been sent to meet a female Yonkers detective but was reluctant to approach them when they were still arguing. He figured he'd let the suits work the problem out between themselves. They'd call him when they were ready. As long as the discussion remained heated, he figured he'd sit in the car and get his memo book caught up.

"You don't know she was in there," Boland said.

"Parrot told me he saw a redhead being dragged in here last Monday."

"Saw it where, in a crystal ball? Let's get his ass out here. I want to hear this story from his lips."

Boland strode over to the radio car and asked the uniformed cop to go to Brighton Beach and bring Parrot back. Every cop knew the Parrot. Sensing the urgency, the cop made a squealing U-turn.

"Who lives here anyway?" Boland asked Eddie.

Eddie's quick lie to Boland made him realize he didn't fully trust him. Boland seemed to have adopted the feds' tough-love approach. He'll come around, Eddie thought; he's a cop. But this was too important for loyalty tests. With the clock running and one lie under his belt, Eddie told Boland a true story and a fantasy. He explained how Parrot had identified the sketch of the person who kidnapped Kate as a woman named Zina. Babsie had traced a burn victim named Fredek Dolgev and a Zina Rabinovich to this address. Both worked for Borodenko. The odds were that it was Dolgev who had been burned in the Rolls-Royce explosion. When Babsie came to interview them, she found the door to apartment B open. Eddie said they didn't go in but that he could smell Kate's perfume.

"Who are you bullshitting?" Boland said. "You were in the apartment already."

"What is it with you, Boland?" Babsie said. "You're more interested in covering your ass than in finding Kate. Here's a cop you worked with, tells you he knows his daughter was in there. He gives you a perfectly logical explanation, and you want to pick him apart."

"If that's logic, I'm fucking Einstein."

"Shut up for a second, will you, you selfish bastard," she said. "Listen to him. Eddie isn't telling you he was in there. But he knows his daughter was. Read between the lines and let it go at that. Do the right thing for once in your self-centered life."

"I'm the one who has to sign the affidavit, not you, Babsie."

It struck Eddie that if Kate had been here and was now gone, she might be dead. They might have panicked when he was getting close. He could feel the weakness in his legs. But then he realized they didn't want her dead. It was about torturing him. As long as he writhed in the shackles, they'd let her live. Her death would be the endgame. The radio car screeched around the corner. The driver was still alone. Boland went over to him; he didn't even let the driver get out.

"Parrot's flown the coop," the uniformed cop said. "Just a few pieces of shitty furniture left. All Caranina's hocus-pocus shit is gone. People in the bakery said they split Friday night."

"So how do we get the warrant now?" Boland said. "The victim's father ID's a whiff of perfume?"

"Which apartment we talking about?" the uniformed cop asked. "I know these people."

He introduced himself as Carlos. Babsie explained she was working on the kidnapping of Eddie's daughter. Looking for an edge, she told Carlos that Eddie was a former NYPD detective. Carlos knew about the kidnapping.

"Sorry about your daughter, man," Carlos said. "We've been doing some serious looking. Especially since, you know, you being on the job and all."

"We need your help, Carlos," Babsie said. "We came here to interview someone in connection with this case and found the door wide-open. No sign of violence we can see, but we thought the precinct should check it out."

Carlos picked up the radio and told the dispatcher that Six-oh Charlie would need no further assistance at this location. It was the first radio car Eddie had looked closely at in years. The dashboard and front-center console contained more technology than he'd ever seen. The picture of Kate that Babsie had submitted to all Brooklyn precincts was stuck in the visor on the passenger side.

"The apartment on the right belongs to Freddie," Carlos said. "Freddie probably forgot to lock the door. It's not the first time."

"Fredek Dolgev," Babsie said.

"Freddie's all I know him as."

Carlos described Freddie as a large, broad-backed man with thinning white hair. Probably in his early fifties. A Russian with very little English at his command.

"Burned skin on his face and arms?" Eddie said.

"Is that what it is, burned skin? I just noticed it this week."

"It happened Monday," Babsie said. "He told the hospital it was an accident with a barbecue grill. He squirted the fluid and it flared up in his face."

"No shit? He had his face bandaged, but I never asked. He's not one of our talkers. A lot of the Russians will come up and talk to me rather than to the Anglo cops. Because I'm Hispanic. I guess they figure I'm non-American, too, but I was born in Brooklyn."

"Ever see him barbecue anything?" Babsie asked.

"No, but that doesn't mean much. He could barbecue on the other side of Coney Custards. They got a little dirt patch out there."

"Does that seem plausible to you?"

"I could see that happening to Freddie, yeah. He's not all there, you know," Carlos said, pointing to his head.

"What do you mean, 'not all there'?" Boland said.

"Slow, I guess. Slightly retarded. But not drooling or anything. The guy has a job; he works somewhere toward Brighton Beach. I see him walking to work every morning. He walks down the boardwalk, no matter how bad the weather is."