Triple Threat

estate he could afford in this ‘hood would come with a view even worse than his present one in Midtown, which was a few trees and a lot of sunlight, secondhand--bounced off that Times Square high-rise.
    The detective shoved the file Caruso’s way. The Sarah Lieberman homicide investigation. “That was one fucked-up twosome, the perps.” Sellitto winced. “They ick me out. Mother and son, with
one
bed in the townhouse. Think about it.”
    Caruso would rather not.
    Sellitto continued. “So your client wants to know where the Dysfunctional Family dumped the body?”
    “Yep, she’s religious. You know.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “I don’t either. But that’s the way of it.”
    “I looked through it fast.” Sellitto offered a nod toward the file. “But the best bet for the corpse is Jersey.”
    “I read that in the
Daily News
. But there were no specifics.”
    Sellitto grumbled, “It’s in the file. Somewhere near Kearny Marsh.”
    “Don’t know it.”
    “No reason to. Off Bergen Avenue. The name says it all.”
    “Kearny.”
    Sellitto’s round face cracked a smile. “Ha, you’re funny for a private dick. Why don’t you join the force? We need people like you.”
    “Marsh, huh?”
    “Yeah. It’s all swamp. Serious swamp.”
    Caruso asked, “Why’d they think there?”
    “Ran John Westerfield’s tags. They had him at a toll booth on the Jersey Turnpike. He got off at the Two-Eighty exit and back on again a half hour later. Security footage in the area showed the car parked in a couple places by the Marsh. He claimed he was checking out property to buy. He said he was this real estate maven. Whatever maven is. What’s that word mean?”
    “If we were in a Quentin Tarantino movie,” Caruso said, “this’s where I’d start a long digression about the word ‘maven’.”
    “Well, it isn’t and I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
    Sellitto definitely had Game.
    Caruso flipped through the smaller folder inside the bigger one. The smaller was labeled
John Westerfield
. Many of the documents were his own notes and records, and a lot of them had to do with real estate, all the complex paperwork that rode herd on construction in Manhattan: foundation-pouring permits, crane permits, street-access permissions. Interestingly—and incriminatingly—these were all multimillion-dollar projects that John couldn’t possibly have engaged in without Sarah Lieberman’s money.
    “Good policing. When was Westerfield in Jersey?”
    “I don’t know. A couple days before she disappeared.”
    “
Before
? Was there a toll record of him being there
after
she disappeared.”
    “No. That’s where the grassy knoll effect comes in.”
    “The…?”
    “Dallas. Kennedy assassination. The other gunman.”
    “I don’t believe there was one. It was Oswald. Alone.”
    “I’m not arguing that. My point is that the Westerfields probably
did
have an accomplice. He’s the one who got rid of the body. In
his
car. So there was no record of Westerfield returning to Jersey.”
    “Yeah, my client mentioned there might’ve been somebody else. Why would he be the one who dumped the body, though?”
    Sellitto tapped the file. “Just after they killed her—Crime Scene knew the time from the blood--the Westerfields were seen in public so they’d have an alibi. They would’ve hired somebody to dump the body. Probably somebody connected.”
    “Organized crime?”
    “What ‘connected’ means.”
    “I know that. I’m just saying.”
    Sellitto said, “We think some low-grade punk. The Westerfields had connections with mob folks in Kansas City and they must’ve tapped some affiliate here.”
    “Like Baja Fresh. Mobster franchises.”
    Sellitto rolled his eyes, maybe thinking Caruso wasn’t as clever as he’d first thought. The detective said, “The Westerfields stole three-quarters of a million from Mrs. Lieberman, cash and jewelry. They would’ve paid this guy from that.”
    Caruso liked it that Sellitto called her Mrs. Lieberman. Respect. That was good, that was part of Game. “Any leads to him?”
    “No, but he was after-the-fact and nobody in the DA’s office gave a shit really. They had the doers. Why waste resources.” Sellitto finally gave in. He opened the lunch bag. It did smell pretty good.
    Caruso began, “The couple—”
    “They’re mother and son, I wouldn’t call ‘em a couple.”
    “The couple, they say anything about the third guy?”
    Sellitto looked at