Authors: Chris Grabenstein

Hell Hole (3 page)

BOOK: Hell Hole

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The Garden
State Parkway is a wide ribbon of concrete stretching the whole length of New Jersey, 175 miles from Montvale to Cape May.

Every now and then they make you stop and toss 35 cents or a token into a plastic basket so you can drive down to the next tollbooth and plunk in another 35 cents. If you have E-ZPass, you can pay without stoppingâin some spots you can even pay while doing 50 MPH, which is very difficult to do the old-fashioned, nonâE-ZPass wayâchucking change at basketball buckets strapped to the sides of tollbooths. Trust me on this one. Me and my buddy Jess tried it once.

Yes, this is the kind of crap I think about when I'd rather not think about where I'm going and why I'm going there.

I slide into the left-hand exit lane. The rest area sits in the wooded center of the roadway so you can access it from either the northbound or southbound sides. Buses are welcome.

These GSP rest areas are like pit stops set up every thirty miles or so. Of course the gas costs more than it does back in the real world. Rest areas are like airports. Independent countries cut off from reality and manufacturer-suggested retail prices.

Okay.

That's all I've got. Time to face what comes next: a dead soldier sitting atop a toilet with the lid to his brain blown open. As I said, it won't be my first dead body. But it will be my young partner's. I know Starky's never seen anybody dead who wasn't dressed up in their best suit and laid out in a padded box at a funeral home. I glance over at her.

She's working her jaw hard. Now she puts a fist to her lips. She looks a little green around the gills. Puke green.

We see the state police vehicles and an ambulance parked near the south side entrance to the main building.

We climb out of the patrol car. Dixon jabs his cigar stub back into his mouth. Rolls it around until it's good and wet.

“I' m sorry for your loss,” Starky says as we try to keep pace with the hard-charging sergeant in the parking lot.

What else can she say?

Dixon ignores her. Keeps marching. We're going into the rest stop where, according to the plastic translights, we'll find a Burger King, Cinnabon, TCBY, Sbarro, Starbucks, and a Commerce Bank ATM. No sign announcing the presence of Corporal Shareef Smith, deceased.

“Where the fuck is the men's room?” Dixon asks as we push our way through the first set of glass doors.

“Over there.” I point to the sign. Restrooms.

The big building is pretty empty, except for a gaggle of state troopers guarding the men's room, because it's nearly 2:00 AM. During the day, about a thousand travelers zip in and out of here every ten minutes. They hit the head or grab a snack in the shop where everything hangs in bags on pegs. They look at the giant wall map or stand in cafeteria lines so they can guzzle jumbo-sized sodas to refill their bladders and be primed to hit the next head, which, according to that wall map, is thirty-six miles down the road.

Most of the plastic-scooped seats in the food court are empty. I see some sleepy kids in Burger King uniforms scraping down the grills. A few cold slices of pizza sit under infrared lamps at Sbarro. Tables
clustered near the Cinnabon outpost are occupied by what looks like a busload of losers on their way home from Atlantic City.

The troopers at the entrance to the men's room see my badge and give us the nod that says it's okay to head in.

“Where is he?” Dixon's voice echoes off the tiled walls in the bathroom entryway.

“Shit,” shouts somebody around the corner up ahead. “Who the fuck is it now? Tell'em to go take a leak in the ladies' room.”

I recognize the voice. Can't figure out why.

“This is Sergeant Dale Dixon,” he barks.

“Who?”

“One of the Army guys,” says some other voice up ahead.

“About fucking time he showed up.” Again, I can't see who's talking. Just tiles and a mirror and one of those hand-blower deals mounted to the wall near a barrel of crumpled hand towels. “You think I got all night to stand around in a shitty crapper scraping your buddy's brains off the fucking walls?”

Up ahead, the corridor hits a
T
. There are urinals, stalls, and sinks to either side. We turn right, step into the side where all the men are. Some women too. State police. Burlington County CSI. They're clustered in front of an open toilet stall and block our view at whoever is inside. A state trooper raises his hand, suggests we wait where we are. He also shakes his head in a way that tells me he can't believe his bad luck in catching this call.

I look back toward the toilet stall and see feet under the partition: one pair of scuffed black shoes facing in, one pair of high-tech sneakers facing out. The sneakers are spotted with paint. Brown paint. No. Blood.

That would be the dead man.

Someone in a backwards Jersey Devils cap hauling a boxy camera steps toward the open door and triggers a lightning storm of fa-whomping flashes.

“Jesus!” says the guy standing inside the stall. “You want to fucking blind me? Enough with the pictures, already. We don't need'em! This thing is open-and-shut. Mr. Smith here stuck a pistol in his mouth, pulled
the trigger, and sprayed his brains against the back wall. End of story. Now move out of the way. I'm fucking starving.”

The photographer retreats. Starts breaking down his gear.

A fat man steps out, pulls the stall door shut behind him.

Saul Slobbinsky.

Actually, his real name is Saul Slominsky but everybody calls him Slobbinsky because he's the sloppiest crime scene investigator in the state of New Jersey, maybe the world. Once he blew a county prosecutor's whole case by smearing chocolate from a Snickers bar on the lift tape of the only fingerprint found at the scene of a pretty heinous crime.

“It's summer,” Slobbinsky told his bosses. “It melted.” It became known as the Snickers bar defense: you screw up on the job, it's not your fault. Blame it on the nearest candy bar.

I met Slominsky a couple summers ago on the Tilt-A-Whirl in Sea Haven. At the time, he was with the state's major crime unit. Usually worked a desk job but we were lucky enough to have him come out into the field that particular Saturday and muck up our evidence.

“Anybody know if that Burger King out there is still open?” he asks the room, wiping his hands on his pants.

He's even fatter than I remember. Still has a floppy mustache. Looks like a walrus working on his winter coat of blubber.

“I need one of those angus steak burgers,” he says to his crew. “That fucking yogurt cone isn't going to hold me, you know what I'm saying?”

Chocolate yogurt. Explains the brown crud clumped in his whiskers.

Rumor has it Saul Slominsky only kept his cushy MCU job with the state because he had a well-connected friend in the governor's office. However, that particular governor gave the New Jersey homeland security job to his boyfriend, got caught, resigned, wrote a book, and told the world about it on
Oprah.

Slobbinsky lost his “friend” when New Jersey lost its first officially gay governor. Now he works with the Burlington County prosecutor's
office. Seeing how he's here in a men's room at 1:00 in the morning, I gotta figure they gave him the graveyard shift. It's where they always put their best and brightest: in the dark where nobody can see them. This particular GSP rest stop is, of course, in the middle of Burlington County. Slobbinsky's jurisdiction.

The fat man is in charge.

He goes over to the sink. I figure he's going to wash off his hands after crawling around searching for evidence on the floor of a toilet stall. Instead, he ducks down so he can drink straight from the tap.

“How's this fucking thing work?”

“Motion detector,” answers one his guys. This one has a major belly too and is working on a jumbo bag of Chex Mix, shaking it out over his face so he doesn't miss a single crumb. Guess everybody working the night shift is here for a reason.

“What fucking motion detector?”

“In the black circle. See it there?”

Slominsky waves his hand around the spigot.

“Fucking thing's broken.”

“Stand up and lean in again,” suggests his colleague. “You need to make motion that it can detectâ”

“Sir?” It's Dixon. He's seen enough of the Saul Slobbinsky Show.

“What?” Slominsky stands up from the sink.

“The body? I'm here to identify it.”

“Cool your jets, pal. He ain't going anywhere.” He laughs. So does Mr. Chex Mix.

“Sir,” Dixon demands, “what is your name?”

Slominsky snorts. “Me?”

Dixon nods. His eye slits are thinner than the space between tightly drawn blinds.

“You.”

“Saul Slominsky.”

“Your position here?”

“Senior investigator for the Burlington County prosecutor's office. This is my crime scene. You are here at my invitation.”

“Then show me the goddamn body!”

Slobbinsky eyes the big man. They probably weigh the same. Two hundred and fifty pounds. Only Dixon is six-three. Slominsky is more like five-two and the soldier's belly doesn't flop over his belt.

“Show it to me, now.”

“Ease up, ace. Who'd you say you were again?”

“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 knowâscag. 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 âfindings' 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.

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 shirtâI think it used to be blueâwas 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 âyes'?”

“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.”

Slobbinskyâthe assholeâyawns. 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 leftâprobably 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? Okayâhow about a guy who tries 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 hereâthis 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 â¦”

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 saidâhe 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?”

“Heyâwhy 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 heyâyou 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 openâ”

“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 âlost 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. “FrankieâI 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 knowâthe 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 hereâsomething 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.

BOOK: Hell Hole

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