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That day we have two legitimate wakes that Russian Lurch is overseeing. While they’re going on, and the many folks paying their respects to their dead loved ones are lining up in and outside the Fitzgerald Funeral Home, Joanne, Sean, and I make our way through the back door off the kitchen and then down into the embalming/cooking room.
Skinny Jay and Smirking Jack are dressed in Hazmat suits and facemasks. Both of them are stirring a new batch of Bubble Gum inside a big stainless-steel vat. The rooftop exhaust system that handles both the cookers and the cremation oven is going full bore. Under normal conditions, the big basement room smells of formaldehyde and alcohol. But now it smells vaguely of Double Bubble.
Go figure.
It never dawns on me that the bubble gum smell might be noticeable outside. But then, the exhaust fumes are purposely fanned out the back towards a thick patch of inner-city woods, Employees Only, section of the facility for obvious reasons. No one in their right mind wants to smell the order of burning corpses.
We stand way back, careful not to place ourselves within even a few feet of the toxic vapors. When Smirking Jack notices us, he pulls out the big plastic paddle-like device he’s using to stir the Bubble Gum soup, sets it on the stainless steel counter, pulls off his mask and sets that beside the paddle. He then approaches us, his round, cherub face full of, you guessed it, smirks.
“You guys come to check in on us lonely proles?” he wisecracks.
“Now, Jack,” Joanne says, “you know how much we appreciate everything you do for our organization.”
“Yeah, Jack man,” Sean says. “Maybe you should lighten up a little. You’re making serious bank after all.”
I choose not to fight this battle. Between his round build and his permanent annoying grin, Jack seems like the type of guy who used to be the schoolyard bully. It makes me not like him even though I don’t really know him.
“Well, you’ll be happy to know we have two brand new MacDonald/Jones caskets for you filled with a whole lot of pretty green,” he says. “Once they are unloaded, we’ll fill them with this new batch and unload it on the addicts.”
“Change of plans, Jack buddy,” Sean says.
He proceeds to inform both workers of our new plan to work directly with Don Juan Perez to distribute the product.
“So that means we don’t have to drive this shit around to the projects and the ‘burbs no more?” Jack poses.
“That’s exactly what it means,” I jump in. “But you will have to increase production by double. Think you guys can handle that?”
Jack turns, focuses his gaze on Skinny Jay. They look into one another’s eyes like they can communicate without talking, kind of like Joanne and I are able. He turns back to me, eyes me up and down.
“You might have to lighten up on the funeral services load,” Jack says. “For every dead stiff you bring in here, you waste precious cooking time.”
I glance at my partners. As much as I don’t like Jack, he’s got a valid point.
“But here’s the thing, Jack,” I say. “We gotta maintain a steady flow of clients if we want to appear legit to the authorities.”
“Hey, that’s your problem, pal,” the big man says. “My problem is cooking up some good Bubble Gum shit, so you keep bringing in the big bucks and keep passing them on to me and my partner here, Jay.” He shoots jay a wink of his eye. “Ain’t that right, partner?”
Jay doesn’t answer Jack with words, but instead, he puckers his lips and blows the round-faced, smirking man a giant air kiss. So, they’re lovers. Not that it matters. Not that I really care. But good to know, since they obviously watch out for one another. They have each other’s backs, as it were. No wonder they can communicate by only using their eyes.
“I think what has to happen sooner than later, darling,” Joanne says, “is for us to move the cooking operation to another, safe facility. Preferably one underground, just like this one. Only larger.”
“We don’t quite have the resources for that kind of move just yet, Jo honey,” Sean chimes in. “But you’re right. Once Perez starts moving this stuff in bulk, we’ll have to be cooking in bulk. That means more space, more cooking equipment, maybe more employees, but for sure, more casheshe.”
Jo honey????
“But for now, Jack,” I say, “let’s just try and keep up with the workload as best we can.”
He shrugs his beefy shoulders, makes fists with his rubber gloved hands.
“Maybe a little extra dough-ray-me might be in line for me and Mister Jay,” he poses with that grin I wanna slap off his face. “You know, I’d hate for us to have to go on strike or something like that, right when you ink such a sweet deal with a big shot like Don Juan Perez. I mean, I’d hate for our big boss, Mr. Carcov, to find out about that.”
He has me...us...over a big ass barrel and he knows it...smirking prick that he is.
I nod. “Okay, Jack, we’ll see what we can do.”
“I’ll take care of the extra for the cooking stuff, Brad buddy,” Sean says. Then, his eyes on Jack. “Never say we don’t take care of our own, Jack and Jay, buddies.”
Sean’s phone chimes. He pulls it out of the interior pocket on his suit jacket. It must be a text. An important one at that, since his red face turns even more red while his lips go tight.
“What’s wrong, Sean dear?” Joanne begs.
Sean dear????
“Text from Karl upstairs,” he says.
I turn to Jack.
“Why don’t you guys get back to work, now that you’ve gotten your precious raise,” I say.
“Gee,” Jack says, his grin cutting into my nerve bundles, “I think I will get back to work. Not because you’re telling me, but because I want to.”
From that moment on, I know that one day, Smirking Jack and me are going to have ourselves a big disagreement, and it isn’t going to be pretty.
“We need to take this outside, people,” Sean says.
“I could use the fresh air,” I say.
Joanne makes her way across the embalming room floor and begins climbing the staircase.
We convene out back where none of the mourners who’ve arrived for the wakes can see us.
“Okay, what is it, Sean?” I ask.
“We got a bit of a problem, Brad man,” he says. “Karl was kind enough to send a link to a breaking news story about our dead friends, Mark Camp and his wife, Melanie.”
“As in what kind of news?”
“Turns out the investigation into their deaths isn’t as open and shut as we thought it would be,” he explains.
“Let me see,” I say.
He hands me his phone. While all three of us gather around the screen, I press the play icon on a video that comes from the Spectrum 24-hour local news. The attractive young woman reporter is standing directly in front of the door that accesses Mark’s Little’s Lake cabin. She’s the same reporter who’s been covering the Perez brother’s story from the get-go. Like the nearby roadside crime scene where the Perez brothers were killed, the door is blocked by yellow plastic, Do Not Enter, crime scene ribbon.
“An Albany homicide Detective has confirmed this morning that what was initially thought to have been the murder/suicide of a local North Albany couple is now being viewed as a double homicide. Or so says Homicide Detective, David Danish outside the APD South Pearl Street Precinct.”
The live video switches over to a previously taped video of the dapper, suited cop who stopped me at least three times in a single day back when he was a mere blue uniformed traffic cop. He’s standing on the granite steps of the precinct building, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters, all of whom are sticking cameras, mics, and smartphones in his clean-shaven face.
“After careful examination by Albany Medical Center Pathology, it’s been determined that while Melanie Camp did indeed die of from a fatal gunshot wound to the head delivered not by her own hands, the gunshot wound that killed Mark Camp could not have been self-inflicted. I repeat, could not have been self-inflicted.” As if to demonstrate, he makes like a pistol with his right hand, and points it directly at his temple. “In order to make the fatal shot that presently exists in the right temple of Mr. Camp’s cranial vault, his hand would have to have been abnormally hyperextended upwards, like this. A position that’s essentially humanly impossible.” He demonstrates with his mock pistol hand, pretzeling it into something that makes him look like he has a severe deformity, like the Elephant Man. “So, you see why me, the APD, the DA, in cooperation with the FBI, are going to give this a second, more thorough look.”
One reporter shouts, “So you believe the man or woman who killed the Perez brothers are presently at large, maybe even in our immediate community?”
“Well yes, that’s a definite possibility,” Danish clarifies. He then turns, reaches into his blazer pocket, pulls out a folded sheet of paper. It’s the original FBI poster with Joanne’s and my likenesses on it. He holds it up with both hands so that the cameras can get a good shot of it. “We’ll be seeking out these people who were originally pinpointed by the FBI. Naturally, should anyone know of any persons matching these descriptions we ask that you contact the Albany Police Department immediately.”
“What about Juan Perez?” another reporter shouts. “Has he vowed retribution?”
“We have not heard directly from Mr. Perez who, as you know is a suspect in a drug running operation with ties to the old Escobar cartel in Mexico. But we imagine he’s presently planning his revenge and all we can say is, if you’re watching, please stand down, Mr. Perez. Any violence of any kind directed at a suspect will be met with your immediate arrest and incarceration.”
More shouted questions.
“That’s all I have to say at this time, ladies and gentlemen,” Danish says, abruptly ending the festivities.
About-facing, he heads back through the glass doors of the precinct. The screen shot switches over to the attractive reporter.
“There you have it,” she says into her microphone. “What was once thought to be an open and shut case of murder/suicide has now turned into the hunt for the original suspects in the killing of suspected drug runners and Escobar cartel members, Hector and Julio Perez.”
The video ends. For a long beat or two, we all just stand there, stiff as corpses, not saying a word. I’m not sure if we’re just stunned or too pissed off for words. Eventually, I shoot Sean a look that would kill if it had daggers in it.
He holds up both his hands and backs away a step or two, like I’m about to hit him. And maybe I am, since both my hands are clenched into fists.
“Listen, Brad buddy,” Sean says, his voice tense, his body stiff, “I know exactly what you’re gonna say. What a stupid idea it was putting down Mark and his wife. But like I told you before, it wasn’t my idea in the first place.”
Putting down...like they were sick dogs...
“Sean’s right, darling,” Joanne chimes in. “It was my idea. I approached him.”
My eyes shift to my wife.
“So, Sean just volunteered to be the executioner?”
“Yeah, sort of, Brad man,” he says. “Somehow, I didn’t think you’d be up for that kind of messy work.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I would not have been. Not even close.”
“Listen everyone,” Sean goes on, “I think we’re overblowing this thing. There’s something we’re forgetting. Something important.”
“And what’s that, Sean...buddy?”
The corner of his mouth rises up in a half grin.
“Plausible deniability,” he says.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, not that again?” I bark.
Of course, I know precisely what he’s getting at because it’s exactly what Joanne likes to believe in situations like the Camp murders.
“Listen, Brad man,” Sean says, “if for some reason the cops come snooping around, you just tell them you have no idea what their talking about. You couldn’t possibly have killed the Perez brothers because you two are a couple of mild mannered, lower middle-class suburbanites. You’re a housewife, Joanne, and a library volunteer. Or were a housewife and a library volunteer, anyway. And you were a mailman, Brad man. Life doesn’t get any more boring than that.”
Joanne is nodding emphatically in agreement.
“What if I was a mailman, Sean?” I say. “John Wayne Gacy was a scout master.”
“Yeah, but John Wayne Gacy also looked creepy. He was the type of guy you took notice of when he walked down the street, and your gut automatically told you to cross to the other side. You just didn’t want to be near him. Up until very recently, you and Joanne, on the other hand, were the type of folks nobody takes a second glance at.”
“You see, Brad,” Joanne jumps in, “it’s like I told you already. We don’t fit the profile of two people capable of killing a couple of gang members. Therefore, we possess built-in plausible deniability.” Glancing at Sean. “You and I are so on the same page, Sean dear.”
If Sean isn’t so right about Joanne and I being a couple of nobodies until this thing fell into our laps, I might smack him across his fat red face. But then, like he said, I’m not too good at being the violent type. Of course, there was the little incident at the Post Office—my smacking Martin upside the head.
“Okay, Sean,” I say. “Maybe you’re right. You too, Jo. Maybe it’s best not to get bent out of shape.”
He gives me a friendly slap on the arm.
“We just go about our day, like we have nothing to do with the Perez gang,” he says. “We’re just three amigos who decided to enter into a couple or three brand new businesses together in our middle years. Nobody can arrest us for living the American dream, now can they?”
“They can arrest us for committing atrocious American crimes,” I shoot back.
Sean bursts out laughing.
“There’s the Brad buddy I know and love,” he says. “Always making jokes. Sometimes I feel like we’re right back in high school together.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Bradley,” my wife says. Then, glancing at her watch. “Oh dear, I promised mother we’d stop by and see her on our way home. Bradley Junior is coming for dinner, and we don’t have any food in the house. We really must be going, darling.”
Brad Junior for dinner...It must be that time again...Time to fill his bank account...
“We really gotta stop and see your mother?” I ask.
“Now Bradley, we won’t have her forever,” she says.
Oh good, I want to say.
Instead, I just bite my lip and head for the minivan like the dutiful husband I am.