Fare Paid Woodhaven Junction

The National Insurance Company, or NIC, has its steel and glass executive offices in Manhattan on Madison Avenue just below 28th Street. Investigator Mike Warren’s phone has just rung in his modest office on NIC’s sixteenth floor. It’s his boss Foster Hill, who has a bigger more impressive office two flights up.

“I’ve got a case for you Mike out in Queens. We insured a vacant industrial site that burned to the ground last night. What’s left is on 99th Street just below Atlantic Avenue in Woodhaven Junction. I’m sending you a copy of the policy—see what you make of the damage.”

Mike stares at his watch. It’s nearly four.

The building is in the southern part of Queens, one of the four outer boroughs of New York City.

A half hour later Mike parks his company sedan on Atlantic Avenue under the Long Island Railroad’s rusting trestle, which still supports a now unused elevated station on the abandoned line to Rockaway Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. He notices an aging three-story dirty-brick powerhouse with large arched but now boarded- up windows. It once generated electricity for the commuter trains. The railroad does still run a train east and west under six-laned Atlantic Avenue from Jamaica to Brooklyn. But this subway-styled commuter line zips past the Woodhaven station with its cemented over staircases leading up to the sidewalk. There once was a sidewalk-level ticket window. It’s just the barest hint of rectangle etched in a dirty wall of concrete under the trestle.

The industrial building Foster Hill had mentioned on 99th Street is 100 feet south of Atlantic Avenue. Mike’s scans for telltale signs of arson even though the official investigation is in the hands of the New York City Fire Marshals. With arson, the problem is to determine the exact location where the fire started, what ignited the fire, and whether accelerants like gasoline played a role in the fire’s development. The final determination comes down to—act of God, human accident, negligence, or arson.

Mike lives in an apartment building in historic Brooklyn Heights with its views of Manhattan and the East River. So, he’ll take the company car home with him since he’s going to return to the burned-down building using the car tomorrow morning. He’ll have supper with his girlfriend Cory Aldrich, who lives in the same building he does. A nearby gourmet delicatessen takeout service will supply a tasty supper for two.

Sitting with Mike at his dining room table, Cory is saying, “Don’t those burned out sites depress you?”

“They could.” Mike answers, “But I see the fire debris as a problem to be solved or a jigsaw puzzle to be assembled. The smell even invigorates me.”

“I suppose the smell of ink should invigorate me. But, being a reporter today is a mostly computer laptop experience.”

Cory has worked as a reporter for one of the city’s tabloid newspapers for five years. She got her training at a small upstate newspaper called the Glen Island Press. Now she feels more like a New Yorker than a Glen Islander.

The next morning finds Mike Warren talking with his boss by cell phone on the drive along Atlantic Avenue back from speaking with the local police and fire marshals.

“The marshals think the place was torched. They’ll know better when the lab tests are back. According to the local cops, the building’s owner doesn’t have a good reputation.”

Foster Hill has uttered the occasional grunt as he has listened. He now advises, “Mike, I’ll leave the company’s interests in your capable hands. Keep me informed.”

Mike Warren later searches the computer database at NIC and finds that the insured party has a brother who cashed in a fire insurance policy several years ago. Brian Kiel may have taken lessons from his older brother Ted Kiel.

Brian Kiel is a wheeler-dealer known to pal around with unsavory business types in south Queens. He even socializes with several mobsters. The neighbors around the burned building had complained often about rats in the vacant premises. The muddy-colored brick building has also become a prime target for graffiti. Now

the graffiti has vaporized and the rats have temporarily left for better quarters. Kiel has been interrogated but asked to see his lawyer rather than answer questions.

Mike meanwhile, will begin forming a recommendation that National Insurance should not pay on the policy, a finding that should make Foster Hill happy.

Cory’s editor has also assigned her to cover the story.

Later that afternoon, two neighbors standing on the opposite sidewalk near the fire-gutted building on 99th Street are talking.

One with a dog on a leash says, “Have you seen that kid Billy today? He was hanging around the building the day before the fire.”

“You don’t think he could have set the fire, do you?” asks the second neighbor.

The dog starts pulling on the leash as a gray squirrel scampers by.

“I know he’s only about ten, but kids that age have done things like that before.”

“Yeah, but the buzz is that the owner of the building may have done it,” adds the other.

The dog owner starts to jaywalk across the now quiet street and says over the shoulder, “Well, I don’t want to get the kid in trouble. He’s really got no one.”

Halfway down the block, Jack and Valerie Blocker run a foster service out of their modest one-family house with its large mature oak tree out front. There take care of two foster children, Billy and Wendy, along with their own three children. An attractive teenaged girl, the daughter of Jack’s older sister, sleeps in the finished attic. The others sleep in the three bedrooms on the second floor.

With a television playing, one of the children asks, “Has anybody seen Billy today?” No one answers, perhaps because Billy sometimes disappears for the better part of a day.

Jack ascends the narrow staircase to the attic floor and pokes his head into Viki’s room asking if she plans to get up for the day. She looks at him and pouts like a model in a clothing ad although she is just wearing a clingy pair of pajamas.

Meanwhile at the Queens County District Attorney’s Office the evidence against Brian Kiel has been piling up. Charges of arson now seem imminent.

Cory Aldrich, Mike’s reporter girlfriend, has finally gotten out to the burned out brick building on 99th Street in Woodhaven Junction with its view of the abandoned Long Island Railroad trestle. She has found a neighbor to interview, sitting on a front brick stoop on the opposite side of the street from the burned out building. It’s that neighbor with the dog.

“The block looks terrible with all that rubble,” the neighbor complains.

The large mixed breed brown dog with floppy ears is lying down with its jaw resting on the sidewalk pavement. An old fast-food plastic dish filled with water sits unbothered next to the dog.

Cory asks, “Were there bad feelings between the neighbors and the building owner?”

“Of course there were, he’s a creep. He doesn’t care about the block,” answers the neighbor. “The building attracted graffiti taggers and the local kids played in back of the building where the rats sometimes came out.”

Cory continues, “Was the building ever used for anything?

“Not while he’s had it. A long time ago, I think it was used for manufacturing cheap toys. Maybe he thought he would make a lot of money leasing it to someone.”

“Tell me about the kids who played in back?” Cory probes.
“Not my kids,” says the dog owner, “but the foster kid down the block was always hanging out back there.”

The neighbor looks and points to the left. “The city pays them to keep one or two kids at a time. I can’t say much for the Blockers. They let the kids run wild.”

“Has anyone reported the Blocker couple?” asks Cory.

“Are you kidding? You can’t get enough decent people to do foster work these days. Complaining would be a waste of time.”

Cory thanks the neighbor just as the dog sits up and yawns. Cory walks down the block to have a look at the Blocker’s foster home. Its siding and front wall could use a new coat of white paint. There are three kids sitting on the stoop, two pre-teen girls and a boy who looks about seven. One of the girls is sucking on a grape flavored lollypop that has colored her lips. Later Cory learns that New York City Fire Marshals are considered law enforcement officers in the State of New York.

According to the fire marshals, Kiel’s lawyer is saying his client had nothing to do with the fire. Perhaps it was vandalism. However, the marshals have an unexpected ace in the hole. Kiel had a pair of jeans in his apartment with a suspicious smell of spilled gasoline that is being analyzed in the lab. The next day Cory files her story about the fire:

Flushing Man Arrested for Arson By Cory Aldrich

FDNY fire marshals arrested a 35-year-old Flushing man on June 15 for setting fire to a vacant commercial building he owned in Woodhaven Junction, Queens.

Brian Kiel is being held pending arraignment on charges of second and fourth degree arson. Second- degree arson is punishable by up to 25 years in prison. The Office of the Queens District Attorney will prosecute Mr. Kiel.

On June 13 at 12:07 AM, a fire was reported at 94-36 99th Street that escalated into a fourth alarm. The three-story building contained plastic materials from a previous toy company. Authorities believe the fire started on the first floor in a rubbish pile that had been doused with gasoline.

Mr. Kiel was arrested at his apartment in Flushing and is currently in custody. He was previously convicted in 2002 for being in possession of stolen property.

...

The next morning, Fire Marshal Ruben makes a courtesy telephone call to Mike, because he is the representative of the company insuring the building.

“We were looking for more evidence to send to the lab when we uncovered a human corpse. The medical examiner’s preliminary finding is that it’s a boy of about ten or twelve. The body was charred beyond recognition.”

“That’s terrible.” Mike opines, “How long do you think it will be before you get an identification?” Ruben answers, “I don’t know.”

Then Mike remembers the Blocker house. “By the way, there’s a foster care kid in a house near the end of the block, who apparently wanders off from time to time.”

“We’ll check into that. But, according to the medical examiner, whoever it was, died of toxic smoke inhalation before the body burned.”

“That’s horrible either way,” Mike adds and the call ends.

The investigation will now get wider, with the police looking for Billy Thomas the skinny ten year-old with sandy hair and blue eyes.

An hour later, someone has decided that the neighborhood “silence to outsiders” rule can no longer stand between telling what was seen during the evening several hours before the fire. Two police officers talk out on the sidewalk with a forty year-old neighbor holding a burning cigarette.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” the neighbor who’s wearing a pair of shorts and sandals says, “Jack Blocker handed Billy a wrinkled old shopping bag with some clothing in it and told him to go find another place to live.”

One of the two police officers asks, “What happened next?”

“Billy went across the street to sit on that storage building’s porch railing. About ten minutes later Jack walks across the street and says to Billy—Don’t just sit here, get going!”

The two officers walk over to the Blocker home and ring the front doorbell. Valerie Blocker answers and the officers ask to speak with her husband Jack. He comes to the door, wearing a bathrobe and bedroom slippers and lets them inside where they repeat the allegations just heard from the neighbor.

“That’s a damn lie! I would never tell a foster kid, or even my own kid, to leave the house!” The first officer asks, “So, where is Billy Thomas?”

Jack looks down and laments, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know. I walked the abandoned railroad tracks on the hill calling his name. My wife and I have racked our brains trying to think where he would go.”

Just then, Valerie Blocker comes out onto the porch and adds, “I heard what you said. Some of our neighbors are vicious liars.”

The second officer says, “Mr. and Mrs. Blocker, do you know that the badly burned body of a young boy was found two hours ago in the burned out building?”

Mrs. Blocker sinks into an Adirondack-styled porch chair. “Oh God, was it him?” “We don’t know who it is yet. But we’ll keep you informed.”

The first officer says, “Do you have anything that might have his DNA on it, like a brush or piece of clothing he wore that has not yet been washed?”

Jack Blocker nods and goes inside. About two minutes later, he returns to the porch with a comb, a toothbrush, and a baseball cap.

Several days later, the likely has become a certainty. The corpse found in the arson fire on 99th Street was Billy Thomas. There is no sign of that wrinkled paper shopping bag he had the night the building burned. Now it will be up to society to see that justice is served, even if that does nothing for the now dead ten year-old. When the medical examiner releases the body it will in all likelihood go to Potter’s Field on Hart Island in the East River.

The last words on the charges against Brian Kiel are not yet in. That someone died because of an intentionally set fire adds a megawatt degree of seriousness these days. Some states are even invoking the death penalty in such cases because the deaths are seen as a type of murder, even if the arsonist did not intend to murder anyone. Cory now must file an update on the arson case.

Arson Suspect Charged with “Murder” By Cory Aldrich

The Queens District Attorney announced yesterday that Brian Kiel would be charged with arson “murder” instead of the second-degree arson charges. The man accused of torching the building he owned will now face the more serious charges because of the death of a ten year-old boy, who perished in the fire of June 13.

The body of Billy Thomas was found the next day by fire marshals as they searched the building’s rubble. The body badly burned beyond required DNA tests for identification. The boy lived in a nearby foster home and the whereabouts of his birth parents are unknown.

...

Society has now cleansed itself of Brian Kiel. He’ll be away for a very long time. It all happened at the Supreme Court 11th Judicial District of Queens County. A judge sentenced Brian Kiel to 25 years to life. His lawyer will appeal the case, arguing that the building was just an empty warehouse, and that the child had entered the vacant building illegally by breaking a rear door lock. But, anticipating that issue, the district attorney noted during the trial that nearby houses were inhabited and could have caught fire.

As Mike is entering his small 16th Story office at the National Insurance Company on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, a secretary tells him a woman with a young child is waiting to speak with him. It’s one of the neighbors from 99th Street out in Queens, with a story to tell.

She begins, “Valerie’s sister once abducted Billy for 24 hours. She had this thing about having a son. I know she worked out in California as a nurse for a time. But, I also know she came back to New York every once in awhile.”

Mike sits absorbing the story and finally asks, “Are you saying the sister had something to do with Billy’s death?”

“Well, the first time she took him, they found her with him in the abandoned factory. They had slept there overnight.”

“That’s very interesting,” Mike admits, “but, it would be quite a coincidence that the sister would come along just as Jack Blocker was sending the kid out with a shopping bag.”

“Maybe Blocker and Valerie’s sister had an arrangement. She’d take the kid for awhile and Blocker could still collect the foster-care money.”

“Well, if what you’re saying is true , and I don’t know that it is, the sister might be criminally responsible for leaving the kid in the factory the night the factory burned down.”

“Billy had a wild imagination. He used to tell my son about dead bodies buried on the block behind brick walls! I had to tell him to stop scaring my son with his creepy stories.”

That night Cory is doubtful. “This sounds like a good plot for a soap opera.”

“I can’t disagree with you,” Mike concedes, “but I feel in my gut that Blocker, his wife, and possibly his sister- in-law have gotten away with complicity to a murder. Brian Kiel may have set the fire, but if that family hadn’t done the things they did, the boy would still be alive. I sure would like to talk with the sister-in-law!”

Cory has another point. “What would your boss, Foster Hill, think about you investigating this on company time?”

Mike smiles. “He wouldn’t like it one bit.”
“He wouldn’t give it two bits,” Cory adds, for a bit of humor, “but you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?” Meanwhile, back out in Queens at the Blocker House, Viki is up in her attic bedroom writing in her diary:

Valerie always suspects things about her husband and me. Last night I was in the basement talking to my boyfriend on my cell. She came down from the kitchen and told me to go up to my room, as if maybe I was waiting for Jack. She’s getting to an age where she’s losing her confidence to attract men. But, I am a sexy baby. I might do what he wants if he’d treat me as an adult and with some respect. He’s more of a turn-on than any of the boys I know. And, I am a sexy baby.

She closes her diary and leaves the house by way of the back door and heads to the convenience store on Atlantic Avenue.

Actually, Valerie has become suspicious lately that something has been going on between her husband and the seventeen year-old girl who sleeps in the attic. Viki is family but that doesn’t mean a whole lot in some social circles. Valerie and Jack are sitting in the living room.

Valerie says, “How long is she going to live with us?”

“We’ve got the room,” Jack answers, “And from what I can tell, the foster people aren’t going to send another kid anytime soon.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t do anything. Can’t she get a job?” continues Valerie. Jack looks concerned. “She’s a high school dropout, what can she do?”

Looking exasperated Valerie says, “Why don’t you put her on the street. From what I can tell, she’s good at that.”

“I’m no pimp, Valerie.” Jack answers with a tone of self defense.”

Just then, Viki comes back to the house, this time using the front door, from her cookies-run to nearby Atlantic Avenue. She’s wearing jeans with the knees torn on purpose, black sneakers, and a blouse that creates a bare midriff.

“I got some marsh mallows. Anyone want some?”

Neither Jack nor Valerie answer. They just watch as she climbs the stairs to the second floor with the jeans clinging to her rear-end and showing more than a hint of cleavage.

When Viki closes her bedroom door Jack says, “Sometimes I think what she needs is a good old fashioned spanking with the flat side of a hairbrush.”

“And you’re volunteering,” Valerie answers, “Forget it.”

Maybe it’s the season for volunteering. Cory has signed on to help with Mike’s weekend investigations, which are now about the mysterious sister working as a nurse out in California. Cory is checking the paper trail on the house Jack and Valerie own on 99th Street.

After a searching the county records, the newspaper reporter finds that the previous owner was Valerie’s mother and that the title transfer to Valerie and Jack took place twelve years ago, most likely when the mother died.

While Cory searches the county records office on Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens near the court house, Jack and Valerie are at the same moment down in their Woodhaven Junction unfinished basement. Jack is sitting on an old chair and Valerie is sweeping up the dust that has accumulated since the last time she swept up.

“Do you think we’re in the clear?” Valerie asks.

Jack kicks over some debris in the direction of Valerie’s broom. “If they had anything they’d have made their case by now.”

“But, I have bad dreams at night.”
Jack looks up at Valerie and replies, “We’re in the clear!”

Just then, Viki calls down to them from the top of the stairs to the cellar. “I’m going out for awhile. I have a date.”

“See if you can get him to buy you dinner, honey,” Valerie calls back.

“That wasn’t nice,” Mike adds with a reprimanding tone of voice, after he hears the first-floor door to the basement staircase close.

“You seem so protective.”
“Valerie, I’m old enough to be her father.”

“That’s just the point,” Valerie answers, “For men, young pretty girls are like brand new cars. You can’t wait to get in the driver’s seat.”

“All right Valerie. I’ll confess. I’m going to follow Viki and take pictures of her in the back of her boyfriend’s van. Then I’ll bring the pictures home and breathe heavily when I’m looking at them in the bathroom.”

“Well, be sure to let me see them too.

...

Both Cory and Mike would love to interview Valerie’s sister Jennifer. So, Cory is playing a hunch at the high school closest to the Blocker house. She talks her way into the school library and asks to see the graduation yearbooks from fifteen to twenty years ago. Sure enough, she finds Valerie Reese’s (now Blocker) picture

from the class that graduated eighteen years ago. Valerie had said she wanted to be a teacher. Cory continues looking and finds a picture from two years earlier for a Jennifer Reese. The resemblance is striking. Jennifer had said she wanted to be a nurse. Cory makes the assumption that if Jennifer went on to study in a nursing program she would have gone to a local college. The nearby Queensborough Community College has a strong nursing program and as a first try, Cory searches the records there and confirms that a Jennifer Reese graduated from that school with a nursing degree.

Mike is now out in California on the case that Foster Hill assigned him after the arson case officially closed. He rings Cory’s home phone.

“Hi hon, what’s doing?” Mike asks.

“I’ve got a clue for you to check,” Cory answers, “The sister is a registered nurse. She worked for a doctor in Queens and then resigned. One of the neighbors gave me the name of a doctor she worked for in the neighborhood when she first graduated. He says she left after six months and re-located to San Francisco.”

Back in Woodhaven Junction on 99th Street, Jack and pretty, seventeen year-old Viki are sitting by themselves at the kitchen table talking about Billy.

Viki says, “Don’t you feel badly about what happened?”

“Of course,” he replies.

“But, don’t you feel guilty. I mean you did give him his walking papers, didn’t you.”

“Viki, I don’t like that kind of talk. We feel bad enough about what happened to the kid. Nobody forced Kiel to light that fire.”

“But, if you hadn’t sent Billy on his way, the fire would not have made a difference,” Viki persists.

“Would have, could have, should have. You can always second-guess what you do after the fact. He came back the last time, didn’t he, when we found him with Valerie’s sister Jennifer.”

“But, why did you do it Jack, you know, tell him to leave a second time?”

“You want the truth. I couldn’t stomach looking at him. He was always acting like he was smarter than I was. A ten year-old kid, mind you thinking he was smarter than I was. By the way, why are you so interested at this late date?”

“I just want to remind you I have something on you!”

“Oh, so that’s it. Don’t even think it! You’re playing in the big leagues now little girl. You could turn up with big troubles too.”

“The hell with you, Jack!”
“Just remember what I said little girl.”

Meanwhile, as Cory learns by searching the county records, the probate of the mother’s will apparently went smoothly. The will named Valerie and Jack as joint beneficiaries.

Cory and Mike are eating Thai food for dinner at one of the small bistros on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights.

“By the way Cory, did you notice who signed Valerie’s mother’s will as witnesses? We could talk to them.”

“But Mike, if the witnesses are on good terms with the Blockers it would alert the dangerous duo that as far as we’re concerned the case is not yet closed, at least in our minds.”

“That’s right,” Mike concedes, “But maybe we can at least check them out discretely.”

“I’ll give it a try tomorrow. I have their names in my notes.”

The next day Cory puts her newspaper investigative skills to work in tracking down a Mr. and Mrs. Slate, who when signing as witnesses had given an address on the next block over from where the Blockers now live.

Cory discovers that Mr. Slate died five years ago. Mrs. Slate currently resides in a nursing home in Brooklyn. This should be a piece of cake because residents of nursing homes are sometimes lonely and happy to have visitors.

Later that afternoon Cory parks in front of the Lazy Days Rest Home not far from the Shore Parkway that rings the southern edge of Brooklyn near the bay water. She asks to visit with Mrs. Slate, claiming to be the daughter of an old friend from the neighborhood who wants to chat about the neighbors. After showing identification and signing in, Cory is escorted to one of the dayrooms and introduced to Mrs. Lillian Slate.

Cory smiles and says, “Hi, I’m Cory Aldrich. You probably don’t remember me but I think we know some people in common in Woodhaven Junction.”

Mrs. Slate smiles but shows no indication that she recognizes the name Aldrich. Nonetheless, she invites Cory to sit down next to her on the lightweight plastic loveseat with room for two.

“Mrs. Slate admits, “I’m sorry but my memory is not what it used to be.”

Cory next takes a chance. “Maybe you remember a younger couple, Jack and Valerie Blocker.”

“Yes Valerie and her sister Jennifer! I don’t remember anyone named Jack.”

Cory adds, “Jack is her husband. They take in foster kids.”

“Maybe? No, I can’t remember the name. Valerie was very nice but her sister Jennifer was so angry all the time.”

Cory smiles and says, “Oh, it’s such a nice day. It’s not important. But, you do remember Valerie.”

“Valerie was always coming over asking me to sign things for her. The last time she asked me and my husband to witness her mother’s will.”

“Oh, how nice of you to help her with that,” Cory replies, “Was there more than one will?”

“Now you got me!” Mrs. Slate exclaims with a bright smile, “Could have been. She was always asking me to sign things.”

Cory moves the conversation to what’s going on in the nursing home. About ten minutes later, an aide enters the dayroom reminding everyone that snack time is coming in a few minutes. Cory thanks Mrs. Slate for talking with her and leaves, just as a rolling cart with muffins and fruit juice is brought in.

Back on 99th Street Viki is sitting and chatting on the stoop of the neighbor who had visited Mike at his office to tell him about how Valerie’s sister had abducted Billy for a day.

The neighbor says, “I still feel terrible about what happened to Billy.”
“I know,” Viki agrees.
“How’s the rest of the house taking it, Viki?”
“The kids don’t really appreciate what happened. But, Jack and Valerie haven’t said much at all about it.” The neighbor looks quizzically. “That’s funny.”

“Don’t tell anyone I told you this. But, Jack hated Billy for some reason.”

“Why?”

“Jack threw him out once before because Billy used to spend a lot of time playing by himself in the basement.”

“What was the big deal with that?” the neighbor asks.

“I guess nothing. But, Billy had also accused Jack of not letting Valerie’s sister come to visit the house. The sister had no use for Jack and the feelings were mutual.”

“Please don’t tell anyone this. I don’t want Jack coming after me.”

“Don’t worry,” the neighbor assures Viki.

But as soon as Viki leaves to get marsh mallows at the convenience store on Atlantic Avenue, the neighbor calls Mike and gives him the new information.

Mike listens carefully and then asks, “By the way, do you know where Valerie’s sister Jennifer lives?”

“Somewhere in California. But I always wondered why she didn’t inherit part of the house along with Valerie and Jack. I don’t think she was mentally stable, but still.”

“Boy do I wish I could take a look inside the Blocker house,” Mike laments, “I don’t know what I would look for, maybe old letters from the sister or something.

The neighbor answers, “I can’t help you with that. There’s a neighbor two doors down from the Blocker house who knew Valerie’s mother very well, before she died and left house to Valerie and Jack.”

“Do you know the owner’s name?”

“It’s a French name, Ballamont. They say they’re a French Huguenot family that has been on the block since the early 1900s. They used to attend a French Protestant church a block away. But, it’s not there anymore.”

...

Mike and Cory take what they hope will be their last trip to 99th Street in Woodhaven Junction. They’ll talk with Mr. Ballamont if they can, two doors up from the Blockers.

Mike rings the front doorbell and a man answers. “Yes can I help you?”
Mike speaks up first. “Are you Mr. Ballamont?”

“Yes.”
“We’re looking into the tragic death of the boy two doors down.”

The man at the door smiles and says, “I think I know who you are. You’re the fire insurance investigator for the burned out building down the block.”

Cory now speaks up. “Mr. Ballamont, I am going to be up front with you. We’re conducting an unofficial investigation about whether the Blocker, his wife, and her sister are criminally responsible for Billy’s death, even though the police closed the case.”

“Mr. Ballamont smiles and says, “Ok, come in. I can use a break. I’ve been repairing the brick base-wall in my basement.”

Mike asks, “Do you know anything about Valerie’s sister?” Ballamont answers. “Of course, she’s a nurse.”

Cory adds, “The odd thing is that she wasn’t named in her mother’s will. The will named Valerie and her husband Jack.”

Mr. Ballamont nods his head. “Yes I remember talking with the mother about that a year before the mother died. That was more than ten years ago. The mother said she was afraid her daughter Jennifer would contest the will if she were left out of it.”

“Did she mention where the other daughter was at the time?” Cory asks. “No.”

Now Mike remembers the weird story the neighbor who visited his office had told him about Billy’s wild stories.

“Did you say you were working on a brick wall in your basement?”

“Yes, why?”

“Do you think the Blocker house also has a brick wall in its basement?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, the two houses are almost identical. Why do you ask?”

Mike answers, “Apparently Billy was in the habit of telling one of the kids on the block about dead people buried behind brick walls.”

“You don’t think the sister is buried behind a brick wall in the Blocker house basement.”
Cory answers, “As far as we can tell, the sister has not been seen by anyone we could locate for ten years.” Mr. Ballamont answers, “That’s pretty thin. Do you think the police could get a search warrant just on that?”

Perhaps fate has taken control on the issue of a search warrant, as the sound of a police car siren interrupts their conversation. Viki and Jack have apparently gotten into a dispute bad enough for Valerie to call 911. Mike, Cory and Mr. Ballamont exit the side door half way up the basement stairs and walk over to the house to see what’s happening.

While two police officers are inside the Blocker house investigating what happened, another officer is talking with a neighbor out on the sidewalk.

Mr. Ballamont says, “Officer, I think you should hear what these two people with me have to say about what may be buried in the basement of that house.”

“Yes,” replies the officer.

Cory speaks first. “It’s a long story. But, a missing sister might have been cheated out of her part of the will for inheriting this house. The boy who died in that fire down the block told another boy that he had seen a

dead body behind a brick wall. And we’ve just looked at Mr. Ballamont’s very similar house and there is a brick wall...”

An hour later detectives are called to the scene and Jack is now nowhere to be found. Valerie is asked if she’ll give permission to search the basement with a cadaver dog. She just sits down on the porch couch and says, “You don’t need the dog. I’ll show you where she is.”

Finally, the corpse of Jennifer Reese has been found behind a basement wall and is currently on its way to be examined at the Queens County Medical Examiner’s office. Perhaps she’ll be another candidate for Potters Field, since beyond Jack and Valerie there are no other living adult relatives.

One of the detectives asks Valerie, “Where do you think your husband went?”

“I can think of only two places to look. One is on the old abandoned tracks out back on the hill. The other is... You’re not going to believe this.”

“That’s alright just say where you think,” says the second detective.

“You might try looking on Potters Field. I think the guilt was getting to him about throwing Billy out of the house more than any guilt he felt about my sister. She was a real bitch. She would have ruined everything, demanding the house be sold or at least split up. So he killed her and I convinced my mother that Jennifer wasn’t coming back. So my mother changed her will.”

A short while later Jack is walking on City Island’s east bank facing Hart Island. He has found a rowboat to temporarily requisition. As Valerie guessed, he begins paddling toward Hart Island where Potters Field now hosts nearly a million dead bodies. The public is not allowed on Hart Island because prisoners work there occasionally interring bodies. But, it won’t be long before the detectives in Queens communicate with the officers who patrol the island. Jack will soon be in custody to face murder charges along with Valerie. Their children will now themselves become foster children.

The part of the story that no one knows is that on one of those nights when Billy had slept in the basement without anyone knowing where he was, he became interested in a particular brick in the basement’s front- wall. The brick had a crack around its circumference.

Out of curiosity, Billy started playing with the brick to see if it would come loose. It did. When he pulled out the brick, he couldn’t see anything behind it. But, he could smell something peculiar. So, he found a candle and lit it in the almost dark basement. Through the hole left by the brick he had removed, he could see the mostly decomposed body of someone. He quickly replaced the brick, doused the candle and went back up to his bedroom, never telling any of the adults about his discovery. He did in a way tell eight year-old Anthony down the block. Oddly enough, Billy was more concerned about not being blamed for damaging the brick wall than about what he had seen.

The end