Hypocrisy Read online

  Hypocrisy

  Annechino, D.M.

  Create Space (2014)

  * * *

  HYPOCRISY

  HYPOCRISY

  D.M. ANNECHINO

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2014 Daniel Annechino

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1495931242

  ISBN-13: 9781495931246

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of D. M. Annechino.

  Also by D. M. Annechino

  They Never Die Quietly

  Resuscitation

  I Do Solemnly Swear

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my Uncle Bob DiMarco, who’s been more of an older brother than an uncle. He’s a guy with strong opinions on everything. He loves a cold beer on a hot summer day, has a great sense of humor, and he makes the best frittata in the world. He’d be near perfect if he’d just give me his Greek hot sauce recipe. But he won’t.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

  PROLOGUE

  When he pressed the pistol against her temple, Dr. Lauren Crawford remembered something she’d heard many years ago. At the exact moment before death, when the end is inevitable, your entire life passes before you. She’d always believed it was a legend, but now she knew the truth. She saw herself playing hopscotch in front of her home with Teresa, her best friend. She could see herself on her tenth birthday riding a Shetland pony at the State Fair. A giant Ferris wheel spun slowly in the background; the smell of cotton candy filled the air. She remembered her high school senior prom, Bobby Hanford, the purple orchid corsage, her first kiss. She could see her dad, lying in a coffin, his skin pale, cheeks sunken, feeling inconsolable and torn to pieces. Then there were memories of Christmas, her favorite time of the year. She envisioned herself helping her mom decorate the entire house, hanging wreaths and garland and red and green stockings above the fireplace. She recalled writing her name on the steamy windows while the fragrance of a slowly-roasting turkey teased her senses. But then, the vivid memories froze and all she could see was a splash of red light.

  In an instant, total darkness.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The call came in to the 911 line from a Yankee fan who had parked his Mustang next to the victim’s Camry. He never would have noticed her slumped forward in the back seat had it not been for the blood spattered on the back and side windows. Amaris Dupree, working out of the 40th precinct in the south Bronx, was the first homicide detective to arrive on the scene. Five CSI officers and the M.E. were already on site, each one performing their assigned duties. Dupree got a glimpse of the body and felt a familiar pang of discomfort. She’d learned to conceal her uneasiness well, but she couldn’t fool her queasy stomach.

  Except for a few seedy characters Dupree had met over the years, conniving for an invitation into her bed, most people wouldn’t call her beautiful. But walking the streets of New York, she still managed to turn a few heads. Of course, most guys weren’t checking out her face. Someone once referred to her as strikingly attractive. She liked that title. It was original.

  “Were we able to ID her?” Dupree said to CSI John Butler, her hands perched on her hips.

  He shook his head. “Whoever ruined her day must have taken her personal items—purse, briefcase, whatever. The only thing we found was a bloody nail file.”

  “Murder weapon?”

  “Nope. Gunshot to the head.”

  “Any eye witnesses?”

  “No one’s come forward,” Butler said.

  “Has the M.E determined time-of-death?”

  “Between eight and nine p.m.”

  “Seems odd that no one saw anything at such an early hour. This is a pretty busy ramp garage, no?”

  “Remember that Yankee Stadium is only two blocks away,” Butler said. “And the Yanks played the Red Sox last night. My guess is that the garage was full of Yankee fans’ cars and she was killed during the game. And believe me, no way any Yankee fan would leave a Red Sox game before the last strike.”

  Dupree thought about that. “Makes sense.” She pointed to the rear of the car. “I-HEAL. Interesting vanity plates. Must be an MD or someone in healthcare.”

  “Did you call in the license plate?” Butler asked.

  Dupree cocked her head to one side, her wavy auburn hair resting on her shoulder. “Really, John? Did you really just ask me that question?”

  “Guess I should know better by now.”

  “You think?”

  “If it was a mugging,” Butler said, “she must have really pissed him off. Who the hell steals someone’s purse and blows out their brains?”

  “Assholes do,” Dupree said. “And so do speedball addicts whacked out of their gourd. It’s amazing what a strung-out junkie will do for ten bucks.”

  “Where’s your sidekick?” Butler asked.

  “T.J. should be here any minute. You know him. Always likes to make a grand entrance.”

  Dupree, wearing latex gloves, carefully opened the back door of the car. She had no intention of disturbing anything; that was a job for forensics. She just wanted to get a visual of the body to see if anything struck her. She removed a small flashlight from her pocket and leaned into the back seat, cautious not to touch the body or any other surface. At five-foot-ten, with breasts any pole dancer would be proud of, she could feel the strain on her lower back as she stood hunched over. Most women envied her generous endowment, but combined with her height, rarely could she stand in front of any man and have them look her in the eyes.

  She turned on the flashlight and illuminated the victim’s face. The entry wound was at her temple and the skin around the area looked charred, suggesting that the assailant had pressed the gun against her head. By the irregular shape of the wound, it appeared that the killer had fired more than one shot. Dupree closed the door and went around to the other side of the car to look for an exit wound. Slowly, she inched the door open, careful not to disturb the position of the body. Dupree saw no physical evidence of an exit wound or any sign that the bullets were anywhere in the interior of the car, which meant that the killer likely used a small caliber, low velocity handgun and the bullets were lodged inside the victim’s head. When Dupree pointed the flashlight at the seat, she noticed an inordinate amount of blood. She looked over her shoulder at Butler, wanting to share this information wit
h him, her eyes opened wide. He and two of his colleagues seemed more fascinated with checking out her butt than doing their jobs.

  Dupree just shook her head.

  Years ago, when she’d been heavy into Yoga, her instructor, a pencil-skinny-gal named Divia, told Dupree that she was blessed with a “perfect pelvic tilt.” When she asked Divia to explain, she’d said, “You have a beautifully-shaped ass, my dear. I’d give my right arm for a rear-end like yours.” Between the boobs and the butt, they’d always made her feel somewhat self-conscious. When she’d made detective, the first thing she did was to buy a half-dozen pant suits to downplay her attributes. She rarely removed her jacket—even when the temperature flirted with triple digits.

  By the disgusted look on Dupree’s face, the boys got the message and went about their business. Butler just stood there and shrugged.

  “He was an asshole all right,” Dupree said. “He shot her in the head—execution style.”

  “I’ll get a sample of the blood and get it to the lab,” Butler offered.

  “You’re going to need two samples,” Dupree said. “There’s a significant amount of blood on the seat and based on its proximity to the body and where the blood is spattered, I don’t think it’s the victim’s. Hopefully, it’s the perp’s blood and he’s listed in the FBI DNA Index System.”

  Butler let out a heavy breath, noticeably upset. “Sometimes I really hate my job, Amaris.”

  Aside from his “man-behavior,” Dupree respected Butler not only for his competence and dedication, but for his sensitivity, a rare quality in the homicide division. Most of her colleagues, particularly longtime veterans, had become unaffected by the shock and horror of murder. Other than Butler, few of her workmates seemed fazed by bodies so badly beaten they made visual identification impossible. Some could even stomach brutalized children without showing the slightest sign of anger or disgust. Dupree wasn’t sure if this apathetic attitude was a self-preservation technique designed to hide and protect their true feelings, or perhaps years of dealing with homicides had made them callous and indifferent. For how many years can a person be subjected to murder and unimaginable cruelty without developing immunity to it? Dupree swore that if she ever felt untouched by violence and death, it would be time for her to seek a new career. Even after five years in homicide, she still felt that twinge of nausea whenever she looked at a lifeless body, and she struggled to conceal her emotions. Ironically—and this fact always puzzled her—she loved her job.

  The sound of squealing tires brought Dupree’s thoughts back to the business at hand. She saw two black and whites and a black Chevy Suburban come to a screeching halt. More troops were on the scene hoping to find a clue—any clue—that might give them a lead. Dupree’s partner, however, still hadn’t shown up.

  When T.J. and Dupree became partners six months ago, she felt an immediate connection, and guessed one reason was because they had something in common: They were both minorities in the homicide division, taking refuge in the same foxhole. T.J. was the only African-American and Dupree the only woman. Cops, by nature, were notorious pranksters and “The White-Boys-Club” targeted T.J. and Dupree often. Their pranks were always edged with racism and sexism. One time, on T.J.’s birthday, he found a beautifully wrapped present on his desk. Inside was a copy of Little Black Sambo with a note that said, “Couldn’t find a copy of Tar Baby, so we thought this would do.” At Christmastime, her first year as a detective, Dupree found mistletoe hanging above her chair decorated with tampons. The note scribbled on her notepad said, “Merry Christmas. You’ve always got the rag on so we didn’t want you to run out.”

  But Dupree and T.J. didn’t take the abuse from their fellow detectives without recourse. For Wells’s fifty-fifth birthday, he got a sample bottle of Viagra. And Parisi, noted for his inability to unscrew the cap off a bottle of ketchup, wasn’t pleased when he received a four-pack of Ensure Muscle Milk for Christmas.

  She got along well with T.J.; he was a good cop with great instincts, but their partnership lacked intimacy. Sure, on a professional level, they were totally connected. They were two forces pulling in the same direction. But on the personal side, they were strangers. Their relationship just didn’t fit the mold for two cops who spent fifty or sixty hours a week together.

  A short, squatty policeman, barely tall enough to meet the minimum height requirement for a cop, approached Dupree. He offered his hand. “Tony Moretti.”

  “I’m Detective Dupree. I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

  He firmly grasped her hand and cranked on her arm as if he were pumping water from a well. “Just transferred from the 122nd in Staten Island.”

  “Lucky you. Welcome to the real world.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” Moretti asked.

  Dupree perused the concrete ceiling, turning her head a hundred-eighty degrees. “Find out who monitors security for this garage and get me copies of all the surveillance tapes for the last 24 hours.”

  “I’m on it, Detective. It’s a pleasure finally meeting you.” He smiled. “I’ve heard from several people that you have an interesting nickname.”

  “I’ve got lots of nicknames, Moretti. Most inappropriate to repeat.”

  “Why do they call you the Velvet Hammer?”

  “When you get to know me better—assuming you do—I think you’ll figure it out.”

  Dupree’s cell phone rang. “Detective Dupree speaking.”

  “Hey Amaris, it’s Brenda, your favorite support analyst. Got something for you. The I-HEAL plates are registered to Dr. Lauren Crawford. Don’t know what kind of doctor she is, but the address on her registration is in Brooklyn. In the Park Slope area. 1550 Plaza Street West, Unit 22C. Date of birth is September 22, 1968. I took the liberty of downloading her driver’s license photo and sent a copy to your e-mail address.”

  “Hang on for a sec.” Dupree fished through her purse and located her iPhone. After a few clicks, the photo of Dr. Crawford appeared on the screen.

  “Got anything else for me?” Dupree asked.

  “I searched our database and as far as I can tell, she’s a model citizen. Never even got a parking ticket.”

  “Next of kin?” Dupree asked.

  “I checked the County Clerk’s birth records and got the name of her mother and father. Dug a little deeper and found out that her father died a few years ago, but her mom is still alive—lives at 213 Penn Street in Williamsburg.”

  “Thanks, Brenda. Please text me both addresses. I should be back to the precinct in a couple hours.” After studying the driver’s license photo Brenda had sent her, and comparing it to the victim, Dupree confirmed that the murdered woman was Dr. Crawford.

  Butler was busy examining the interior of the car, searching for any foreign object—a piece of thread, a stray hair, any clue that might lead them to the killer.

  “I’m out of here,” Dupree said.

  “Had enough fun for one day?”

  “You guys can handle it from here.” Dupree’s lips tightened to a thin line. “I’ve got to track down T.J. and go break a mother’s heart.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “So, where the hell have you been?” Dupree asked T.J. She leaned against her desk and folded her arms across her chest like a teacher waiting for a student to explain why he was late for class.

  “It was a rough night—didn’t get much sleep.”

  “You’ve been a slacker lately.”

  “I’m really sorry, Amaris.”

  T.J. stood a head taller than Dupree; his skin the color of creamed coffee. He’d never talked to her about it, but she’d heard that he was a gym-rat, one of those workout fanatics who would rather pump iron for two hours than do just about anything else. He could also shoot hoops like a young Michael Jordan. Although she’d never seen him with his shirt off, clearly he maintained a toned and muscular body. Always clean shaven, she’d never seen him with any facial hair—not even stubble. And he kept his hair short and neatly styled.


  Dupree’s cell phone rang. She looked at the display and saw Butler’s name.

  “Did you solve the case already, John?”

  “Afraid not. But we did get a positive DNA match on one of the blood samples.” He paused. “Unfortunately, it’s for the victim, not the perp.”

  “Is it Lauren Crawford’s blood?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “How were you able to match the DNA so quickly?” Dupree asked.

  “Don’t know why, but Crawford’s DNA was cataloged in the National Database.”

  “Good work. Anything else to report?”

  “Officer Moretti was able to get copies of the surveillance tapes at the ramp garage. We’re reviewing them as we speak to see if they got a shot of the perp’s face. If so, we’ll put it through face recognition and hopefully ID this creep.”

  “Keep me in the loop, John.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Dupree combed her fingers through her long wavy hair.

  “Positive ID?” T.J. asked, his dark eyes locked on Dupree’s face.

  “Yep.”

  Without saying another word, Dupree grabbed her purse and keys and headed toward the door. She looked over her shoulder at T.J., expecting him to follow her, but he stood there gulping the last mouthful of coffee. “Do you need an embossed invitation or would you rather take the day off and go fishing?” She hated being a bitch, but sometimes…

  He threw his cup in the garbage pail and followed Dupree out the door.

  As much as Dupree loved the energy and pulse of Manhattan, Brooklyn felt more like home. She’d lived there until she’d turned seventeen, a monumental crossroad that redefined her life and overshadowed her fond childhood memories. That’s when she and her mother stopped talking. Every time she drove the busy streets of Brooklyn, she felt overwhelmed with nostalgia and sweet memories turned sour. Except for police-related work, this was no longer her turf.