she asked it.
“The Huddleston kid,” answered Eddie.
FIFTEEN
I f Nikki couldn’t have access to the Huddleston file, she would have the next best thing. She asked Eddie Hawthorne to walk her through the case. The ex-detective leaned far back in his plastic chair, and when his head left the shade of the umbrella, the sunlight that hit his hair made the black dye shine purple. His eyes worked back and forth as he searched his memory, and he exhaled loudly, girding himself for this unexpected heavy lifting. “Two thousand four,” he said. “Charles and I were working Homicide out of the Four-one and got the call about a gunshot victim in a car over on Longwood. That zone was pretty much junkie central, you know? Joke among the uniforms was, you hit a perp with your baton and the crack vials come falling out like a pinata. Anyway, so Charleston and I roll, figuring this was just another garden variety crack whack.
“We reset that notion pretty quick, though, as soon as we drove up and clocked the M5. The only Beemers in that zip code belonged to dealers and we knew them by heart. So we got ready to check out the vic, figuring on a kid from maybe Rye or Greenwich who saw Scarface one too many times and made the mistake of coming to the big city to bypass his pharmacological middle man. Profile was right, too, when we saw the body. Very early twenties, expensive clothes, Green Day CD still blasting an endless loop on the custom sound system. But then it kicks up a notch when Montrose says he knows this kid. Not personally, but from TV. Wallet and registration both ID him as Eugene Huddleston, Jr., son of the movie star, and then it all starts to tumble in place for us. He’d been all over the news, especially Access and ET, for his drug spiral. Nothing like Charlie Sheen, but enough for me and my partner to paint the picture. And why wouldn’t it make sense?” Eddie wasn’t just being rhetorical. Nikki could see he was seeking her understanding. She gave a mild shrug, enough to acknowledge how it could happen, but mindful, too, that a detective follows evidence and doesn’t lead it, which was probably the same homily that kept her captain awake in hindsight.
“How was he done?” asked Heat.
“Single head shot.”
“How, face? Execution style in back?”
“Temple,” said Hawthorne.
“Like a drive-up buy where the dealer sees the gourmet car and thinks fat wallet and puts one… here?” She pointed a finger pistol at Rook’s left sideburn.
“See, that’s where it started to fight our theory.” Eddie put a finger to his own right temple. “Entrance wound on this side. Passenger side.”
All these years later, Heat was back there in her mind with Montrose and Hawthorne, processing that first odd sock. “You sure he was done in the car?”
“No doubt. Brains and broken glass on the driver’s side.”
“The window was up?” Odd sock number two for Nikki; not inherently significant, just… odd. “What about the passenger window, open or closed?”
Eddie’s eye rolled upward while he thought. “Closed, yeah for sure, closed.”
“So whoever shot him was probably inside the car with him,” said Heat.
“Riding shotgun,” offered Rook. He saw their expressions, crossed his arms, and said, “All yours.”
Nikki continued, “And I assume no prints?”
“None that did us any good. Just his clubbing and party buddies, a few girlfriends, and plenty of no-matches.” Which meant no criminal records for the unknowns. “All the matched prints alibied out,” he said, a step ahead of Nikki.
“Anything else about his body? No signs of beating?” She wanted to know if Eddie knew about the TENS burns.
“Not beating, per se. His wrists had marks like he’d been tied up.”
“Or cuffed?”
He grew thoughtful. “Honestly, never thought of cuffs, but here’s what we did attribute it to. We check out the neighboring buildings, of course, and we come upon this empty loading bay inside a low-rise industrial space. Old sign said it had been one of those textile rental places that supply uniforms and coveralls to hotels and construction. Door’s unlocked and, inside, there’s nothing in the whole place but this wood frame lying in the middle of the concrete floor.”
Heat and Rook exchanged glances and Nikki said, “Describe it for me, Eddie.”
“Simple. Like a wood pallet hammered together, kind of crudely, but in the shape of a big X-about seven feet long, three wide. And the thing of it is, it had straps at each corner.”
“Like restraints,” said Heat.
“Yeah, but improvised. I think they were tie-downs, like you’d get for strapping a kayak to your roof rack. Of course, this was the point when me and Rose totally fell out of the drive-up-drug-deal-gone-bad notion. Somebody took that kid in there and lashed him to that rig.” When Hawthorne’s face grimmed up, it was like he was seeing something unpleasant right then and there instead of years ago. “In addition to the chafing at the young man’s wrists and ankles, he had these red marks like a bad sunburn. Only in blotchy areas all over his skin. I’m talking about his chest, his legs, his… his groin…” Eddie winced and said, “You get the idea. Charles and I worked it as best we could, but given the kid’s history of drugs and drug busts and all the crazy and dangerous stuff he got into, it went down as a sour drug deal.”
“What about the torture?” asked Rook. “Didn’t that play in?”
“Oh, yeah.” Hawthorne nodded. “OCME said it was electrical, something called a TENS. That just added credence to the bad drug deal theory, saying Huddleston wasn’t a drive-up target of opportunity but was probably dealing regularly with a player who the kid shorted on money, and the torture and killing was payback to make him an example to others or to increase the dealer’s status in the ranks.”
“I’m not accusing, Eddie, I’m just asking this to get into the load Captain Montrose was carrying,” said Nikki gently. “You guys didn’t take it any further?”
“We wanted to, but the Huddleston family, they were begging for closure. They’d had enough, so pressure came from downtown to move on, especially since there’d been official disposition. And then Charles got his promotion and took over the Twentieth, so it fell away.”
Heat handed him the mug shot of Sergio Torres. “This guy would have been doing some low-level dealing north of 116th and in the Bronx back then. Ever come across him?”
He studied it carefully and said, “No, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t around. I was Homicide, not Narcotics.”
“Speaking of which, does this guy look familiar? He worked Narco around then.”
Eddie took the picture of Steljess and said, “Mad Dog.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Total dipshit, that’s all you needed to know. He was undercover but everyone knew he crossed over. Went native, you could smell it on him.” He handed the picture back. “I hear they drummed him out. Good riddance.”
“Well said,” from Rook.
After Heat took back the pictures, she said, “One more question, if you don’t mind, Eddie. Who was the big player then?”
“In drugs? Uptown and in the Bronx?” He chuckled. “One man, Alejandro Martinez.”
On the flight back to LaGuardia Nikki said, “Nice one, thinking about Eddie.”
“Not a problem. I am an investigative journalist, you know.”
“Oh? And I understand you also have not one, but two Pulitzers.” She drilled his ribs with her knuckle.
“Do I say that too often?”
“Not really. Maybe if you just carried the awards around it would be more subtle.” She laughed and said, “But you did put your talents to good use. Even if we don’t know all the answers to this yet, we do know one thing.”
“If you’re dyeing your hair black, keep out of direct sunlight?”
