Chapter 9
I also figure Amaya has other cases to handle. I think again of all the other people sitting in that cramped cell, some in pain and not receiving medical attention. They need help, too, and I’m not more important than them.
“Where do you think this guy was stabbed?” Amaya asks as we walk outside the courthouse. I’m not yet sure we even know where we’re going. She crosses her arms as if she’s guarding herself against my bullshit answer.
“I don’t know, I thought he was alive until I got to JFK,” I say truthfully. “The cab wasn’t always moving. I mean, I did get out once. That could have been the time to…have done it.” My passenger’s dead body flashes into my mind like one of those dreaded Times Square billboards.
“Where?” Amaya gets her phone out.
“The intersection of Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue. There was a woman stumbling and I…”
“Maybe there’ll be security camera footage,” she remarks excitedly. She taps the information on her phone.
“Should we start there?” I ask.
“Is there another place where he could have been stabbed?” Amaya asks. She looks worried, and I can’t tell if it’s directed toward me, or because she thinks this case is going to be impossible to investigate.
I think of the late-night revelers.
“I’m pretty sure that someone may have reached into the cab’s open window.
These guys were drunk and trying to moon us, and it was distracting.
I didn’t think they were knife-wielding killers.
” I was too distracted by the man’s bare bum.
I haven’t seen one of those in a long time…
and this one wasn’t even particularly nice.
I try to think of my last romantic encounter, and I’m taken back to two years ago to my cheating ex, who annoyingly has a perfect butt.
“Where was that?”
I try to think back. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?” She sounds incredulous.
“Well, it was a long drive to the airport. At least forty minutes. I was listening to my podcast. I wasn’t paying attention.
I didn’t think this night might be the one night where someone was murdered in my back seat.
” I silently curse my constant need to escape the thoughts in my head through Dateline podcasts.
There was a bar on the corner, although there could be at least two dozen blocks that qualify based on that description alone. It was also dark…my mind elsewhere.
“We can trace the route and look for footage?” I suggest, hopefully trying to prove myself to be an asset. This was how one case in rural Kansas was solved on my favorite true crime podcast.
“Siriwathi, there are a million cameras even in one city block. You need to know the exact location. We don’t have the time!”
“What about looking for signs of struggle? We could follow the route I drove and look for blood.” I feel confident that this is some sort of solution.
It’s at least something to get us going.
The killer must have left something behind.
They always do…at least according to my podcasts, which thus far have not been helpful.
“Think about NYC streets. The struggle happened over a day ago now. Blood that’s dried, been run over a million times, probably thrown up on by this point, isn’t going to stand out.
Besides, the guy was stabbed. Blood wasn’t spraying out everywhere—you saw the body.
There was just one trickle of blood out of the wound.
There wouldn’t be any in the road,” Amaya explains to me more patiently than I probably deserve.
I’m waiting for her to sarcastically ask me if I have any more bright ideas, but instead she looks deep in thought.
So much for my podcasts…I rack my brain to remember anything important.
“Wait!”
“Yes?” Amaya looks at me expectantly.
“There was a backpack that looked Halloween themed because it was orange and black. It wasn’t in the taxi after the stabbing. The killer must have taken it.”
“Okay,” Amaya says. From the look on her face, I can see it’s not the brilliant observation I had thought it was.
“So where does that leave us?” I ask, nervous that the investigation has ended before it began.
Amaya is texting away, and I assume she can’t hear me. I’m about to ask her again, when she replies.
“Okay, well, my colleague owes me a favor, so she’s picking up the video footage from the intersection.”
At least I’ve been a little helpful? I’m lying to myself, like I do when I convince myself that I won’t be a taxi driver forever.
“We need it ASAP before it’s deleted, and she lives around there.” Amaya continues. “Where did you pick up the dead guy?”
—
I try to wave down a cab, but I’m ignored.
Amaya, hand in the air, causes the next cab to screech to a stop, and I try to hide my embarrassment as we pile in.
I look through the clean plastic at the driver, grateful I don’t know him and can remain anonymous for now.
If I had known him, I’m not sure how that conversation would have gone.
How am I doing? Well, I was just arrested for murder.
You? Wife and kids good? The press will be bad, merciless even, Amaya cautioned me wearily.
The cabdriver doesn’t make any conversation with us, other than to ask where we are going.
I’ve turned into one of those people who don’t want to talk in the taxi, and for once, I can appre ciate their position.
I tell him the cross streets, not just a specific address like out-of-towners do.
People think I have some sort of encyclopedic knowledge of every individual address in the city, and they get mad at me when I inquire a little further.
We cross into Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge with a direct and beautiful view of the Statue of Liberty and the downtown Manhattan skyline, with One World Trade Center rising above all the other buildings.
Suddenly, my mind takes me back to Sri Lanka, where I’m sitting in a cold, dark theater, a reprieve from the hot summer.
I’m eating peanuts and spicy cashews—I wasn’t introduced to the greasy deliciousness of popcorn until I moved here—waiting for the screen to fill with a dramatic bird’s-eye view of the Empire State Building.
I leave the theater with the distinct feeling that dreams come true in New York City, if you just work hard enough.
That was, of course, before I moved here and realized my wide-eyed optimism needed to be met with grit if I was going to survive in a city where jaywalking was a competitive sport.
“You said you picked him up where?” Amaya asks, confusion on her face.
Truth is, I don’t remember exactly where I picked him up. He carried an oblong box with holes. Why would a box have holes? Maybe it was a pet carrier. I remember seeing a vet office in the area. I pray he was coming from there.
“I picked him up around the vet office…or animal hospital or something…” I say, hoping this little white lie turns out to be true. If I can’t help out, I won’t get to keep investigating.
“Okay, great. Animal hospital…that would be open twenty-four hours a day…” Amaya looks lost in thought. “Could he have committed suicide?” The skepticism that coats her voice seems to answer her own question.
“It’s an odd way to go, stabbing yourself.” I shudder at the thought. “How could we prove that?”
“Forensics will be helpful. DNA. Fingerprints. All that should help clear your name but may take a few weeks or even months to get back to us. You said you didn’t touch the knife, right?”
“Right.” I nod. True crime rule number one: Never touch potential evidence at the crime scene.
I may have gotten a little blood on me, but I certainly didn’t touch the knife.
“What do we know so far? What evidence do we have?” I ask, envisioning boxes of files about my case currently sitting on Amaya’s desk.
“Uh, not much, to be honest with you. The prosecutor has some time before they have to give us any evidence. They certainly don’t want to give us anything before the grand jury.”
“I thought the grand jury was really important. How can they hide evidence? Don’t they want the right person caught?
” So far the judicial process feels less about a person’s freedom and more like the randomness of deciding what takeout to order on Seamless.
Despite my lifelong fascination with the law, I find myself frustrated with how far all this feels from justice.
I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts and watched so many true crime shows.
It’s all pointless knowledge right now. I don’t understand how anything works in real life.
Amaya chuckles without warmth. “They think the right person is you. They’re not going to give us anything helpful until they absolutely have to. We have nothing. Not even the name of the victim. Legally they have several weeks to turn over discovery, which is the evidence they have against you.”
They won’t even give us the name of the victim, the most basic information about this crime.
Without that, investigating is impossible.
I am literally Amaya’s only lead, at least until the media picks up the story and the victim’s name is revealed.
Despite Amaya’s reluctance, I have to find a way to stay as involved as possible in this case beyond today.
I never bothered to dig any deeper and question the methods and tools used to get to a conviction as I listened to my true crime podcasts and watched my shows.
She’s the one with the real-life experience.
The taxi veers down familiar streets. I look out the window at the bodega that has the best bacon, egg, and cheese in Brooklyn.
I see the Jewish temples with signs scrawled in Hebrew as people stream in and out.
We pass a group of people having a neighborhood barbecue on the sidewalk, farther down a large line forming for oxtail pizza, and finally a Korean restaurant where Alex and I got bao buns after a night of drinking, back when life didn’t feel so hard.
A smiling cartoon dog tells me we’ve arrived at the right place. The investigation is afoot.