twenty-two
friday, april 25

With my mental health week coming to a close and the beginnings of a sketch in my possession, I was eager to impress Frank with my progress. I took a few steps back from my easel. The hair wasn’t dark enough, so I rubbed the charcoal hard against the canvas surface. The woman I remembered had bottle-black hair, cut in a tight pageboy. She was medium-height, five-six or -seven, and skinny, maybe a few years younger than myself. I drew the woman leaning in with one shoulder forward, because I was still convinced she had been moving toward me. The twinkle of a jangly earring peeked out from the sharp border of her bob. Unfortunately, I had to leave the oval of her face completely empty, giving her a ghostly appeal.

It would have to do for now, as I was confident the rest of my memory would surface soon enough. As Katrina had urged, I forced myself to see this person as a whole. The minute I stepped back and considered my peripheral memory, something appeared in the woman’s hands. She had been carrying a paper bag. With one shoulder sloped, I remembered the bag had heft, and there were odds and ends spilling out of it. I thought there may have been plastic tubes. Maybe supplies for one of Bob’s dioramas, I thought. I remembered the tubes because as the woman turned to go, one of the hoses got caught around her skinny jeans.

I scooped up my sketch and headed down one flight to Frank’s makeshift office. From the staircase window, I could see Cheski and Lamendola pulling in. Perfect timing.

“Frank, I’ve got something,” I said. I found a random nail on the wall, hung my sketch and pretended to model the canvas like Vanna White turning block letters. Cheski and Lamendola arrived in time to catch my television game show spoof.

“Asian?” Cheski asked, noticing the straight dark hair.

I thought about it. “No, but that’s a good question. At least we know what she’s not.”

“Was she pretty?” Lamendola asked.

Again, good question. “I don’t remember being turned off by her looks so no, she wasn’t unattractive.”

Cheski pulled a folded sheet of paper out his pocket. It was a photocopy of a Facebook page. “Is that her?”

I stared at the picture, a glam shot of a woman with too much of everything. The hair was black alright, so black it bled purple. Instead of a short cut, the salon-styled hair was voluminous and windswept, framing a perfectly drawn face, not with pencils but with make-up brushes.

“She looks like the aggressive perfume lady at a cosmetics counter,” I said.

“But is it the same woman you saw?” Cheski repeated.

Frank leaned over my shoulder to grab a look. “Who is she?”

I shook my head. “That’s not the woman I saw.”

“Too bad,” Cheski said, “because I think this woman is who Katrina saw at HG storage. Cheryl Goldberg.”

“Another Goldberg cousin?” Frank asked.

“Go ahead,” Lamendola urged his partner. “You’re dying to tell them what we found.”

Cheski tacked the Facebook image up on the wall next to my sketch. “Cheryl Goldberg is David Goldberg’s wife. Harry Goldberg’s cousin-in-law.”

“What was she doing at Harry’s place?” I asked and then stopped. “Ohhh,” I said knowingly. “She wasn’t breaking in, was she?”

“Breaking in the mattress Harry’s got stored in the back office, maybe,” Cheski laughed.

“Interesting,” Frank said as he started his first lap of the day around the cramped room. “So Harry is having an affair with his cousin’s wife. I knew there was something off about him. Do we think David Goldberg knows?”

“Maybe,” Cheski said. “I’m just not sure if the bad blood goes any deeper than this affair.”

“How’d you find out they were screwing around?” I asked.

“We’ve been driving through the industrial parking lot for the past two days,” Lamendola said. “Yesterday we saw Harry arrive around noon and then a half hour later, a woman showed up with the scarf and sunglasses.”

“Twenty-three minutes after that,” Cheski chuckled, “Cheryl came out and Lamendola followed her home. We checked the address. The house belongs to David Goldberg.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean Harry and his cousin’s wife are having an affair,” I reasoned.

“Yeah, it does,” Frank said. “There’s no other reason for David Goldberg’s wife to be at his cousin’s place of business, especially if the cousins don’t get along. Now that it’s come up, the mattress in the HG offices did catch my attention on our first walk through.”

“Maybe it’s for the night guard?” I challenged.

Cheski shook his head. “I checked in on Harry after David’s wife left. I may be old, but I remember what a crumpled shirt and a flushed face look like.”

“I wonder if Harry is sleeping with Cheryl to get information on his cousin’s business. But even if that’s true,” Frank answered his own question, “it’s inconsequential unless it links back to the Goldbergs being involved in a garbage scam that led to Bob’s death.”

“Otherwise, it is what it is.” Cheski shrugged, his palms open. “Two small business owners that cut a deal with the wrong company. Just like Charlie described—the Goldbergs got stuck on the wrong end of a recycling shell game.”

“But why are the warehouses empty now?” I pushed. “It doesn’t make sense. In fact, do we even know that David Goldberg’s warehouse is empty? That information came from Harry, but then again, he’s sleeping with his cousin’s wife. Maybe he lied about his cousin’s warehouse.”

Everyone with a badge in their pocket fell silent. No one had spoken directly to David Goldberg since Harry’s warehouse was found empty. Lamendola walked out of the room with his cell phone in hand and returned within seconds. “Confirmed. The DG Self Storage warehouse is empty too.”

I kept up with my questions. “Is it possible Harry emptied both warehouses to divert attention away from him and any association with Bob?” I pondered. “You have to admit that his closed-eyed reaction to Bob’s name was sly.”

“That’s possible,” Frank said as his eyebrows rose. “You know what else I’m thinking?”

We all waited.

“When Barbara left town, she dropped the duties typically reserved for a widow. There hasn’t been a funeral.” Frank took another lap. “Who else knows Bob is dead?” he continued. “There hasn’t been anything in the paper.”

“Harry Goldberg and all the workers at the recycling center are aware of Bob’s passing,” I said. “But some of them think it was an accident.”

“I think the question Frank is getting at is when did Harry Goldberg know Bob was dead?” Cheski said, turning to Frank. “Did he know before us, and was he trying to clear out those warehouses before anyone linked the two events?”

“Exactly.” Frank pointed at Cheski. “And then there’s the doughy man,” he added. “If he pushed Bob, then he is certainly aware of Bob’s fate. In fact, since the news is not fully public, then the only people who know Bob is dead are those we’ve told and those involved.” He motioned to my sketch. “If this woman knew Bob was dead, why would she be at his house?”

“Maybe she was looking for him? It’s possible she didn’t know he was dead,” I said, thinking about the bag in her hand. “Maybe her intent was to give him the contents of the bag?”

We all stared at the drawing of the department store paper bag with a spaghetti-like string sticking out the top.

“It could also be evidence she wanted to hide,” Frank said.

Cheski walked up to my sketch. “Are these tubes or elastic bands?”

“Why?” I asked.

Cheski gave Frank a forlorn look.

Frank sighed and sat down. “Bands are used to enlarge a vein before shooting up.”

“You just can’t drop the drug thing,” I said angrily. “Can you?”

Frank was silent.

“The answer is in the garbage,” I remind him as I abruptly removed my sketch from the wall. “Bob died in a twenty-foot mound of garbage. That’s where our focus should be.”

“CeCe is right,” Frank said.

“I am?”

Frank laughed. “We all appreciate your …” He paused to think.

Lamendola filled in the blank: “Enthusiasm.”

“Good word,” Frank said. “We all appreciate your enthusiasm, but now that you’re working with us you’ll need to get used to something we call ‘contained speculation.’”

Cheski placed a fatherly hand on my arm. “You’re a good thinker, CeCe. Try not to take our criticism personally.” Cheski took the sketch out of my hands and rehung it on the wall. “Most police work is administrative. It’s boring. This”—he nodded to his co-workers—“the part where we theorize, is the fun stuff. Keep an open mind and use the facts.”

“It’s what gets us to the best part,” Lamendola said. “Nailing the bad guy.”

Frank stopped pacing briefly. “And I think I’ve got a way to get us there. Let me tie up a few loose ends and we can meet tomorrow.”

Cheski’s face fell. “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

Frank looked confused, as if weekends were a new invention or a word only recently accepted by Webster’s. “Oh,” he replied. “Is that a problem?”

Cheski shook his head.