It was just past four in the afternoon when Eli decided to wander back and move a load of wash into the dryer. The communal laundry room had been strategicallly placed behind Eli’s parents’ house so that seasonal tenants in the rear cottage could have access. As Eli wound the bend, he noticed a strange man in denim jeans leaning up against the cottage. This man stood 5’9 with dust-brown hair and drooping jowls. He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt over denim jeans.
Eli looked up at a glass jalousie jutting out above the stranger’s head. Then he looked back down again, establishing direct eye contact with the stranger as a means of discouraging sudden movement. Eli crouched down slowly. He placed his laundry basket on the ground. He stood back up, placing both hands shoulder-wide in mock surrender.
“You mind if I ask what it is that you’re doing?” Eli said.
The stranger put an index finger to his lips. Shhhh. He dropped that finger to his waist, where he burrowed it inside a pocket. Seconds later, the stranger pulled a jet-black ski mask from his jeans. He wrung that mask out like a soiled rag.
“I’m coverin’ up,” the stranger said. He motioned with his hand toward the cottage door.
Eli noticed several bursts of steam rising slowly from a shower vent. That vent was clearly missing two of its main slats.
Eli swung down low to grab the laundry basket. He held it firm to shield his chest. He angled step by step toward the stranger, minimizing any exit points along the way. The stranger stutterstepped before leaping up and over a chain-link fence that ran along the edge of the property. Touching down inside a neighbor’s yard, the stranger leveled out and broke full-stride. He went pounding across a checkered maze of lawnchairs and linens, until he disappeared around the back side of a house.
***
Billy Lee was one of five tenants who had been living in the rear cottage that summer. The other four were all females – Billy’s older sister and a few of her close friends. There was only one tenant at home during the incident, a short brunette named Vicki who had just stepped out of the shower when a pair of police officers arrived at the front door. The officers conducted a routine inspection of the premises, which revealed an additional glass slat had gone missing from the cottage door. That particular slat – or louver, as it is more formally called – ran roughly parallel to the door knob … a knob which Vicki noted she had found suspiciously unlocked, despite having locked it when she had returned an hour before.
The officers informed Vicki that the perp’s M.O. was consistent with a series of similar incidents that had occurred in the vicinity that summer. Two of those incidents had escalated into sexual assaults. This was unfortunate, albeit not so surprising. Cape May County had recently reported a 14% spike in violent crime, with local clearance rates lagging 9% behind where they had stood a year prior. Aggravated assaults were up 16%; sexual assaults were up 11%. Robbery was up to the extent that – by year’s end – there would be more than a million dollars worth of stolen merchandise still left unaccounted for throughout the area. On top of which, a series of highly-publicized incidents had suddenly thrust the City of Wildwood into the limelight.
Back in December of ’92, a suspicious offseason fire swept across Midway Pier, resulting in an estimated $2.5 million worth of damages – a devastating blow, leading skeptics to wonder how a blaze of that magnitude could have erupted during the stone-dead hush of winter. A few months later, a small contingent of L.A. Bloods traveled east to Wildwood, where they carried out a premeditated hit on an unarmed father of three outside a birthday party on West Schellenger Avenue. One of those assailants – a juvenile – was arrested almost immediately, with two more being apprehended outside the Atlantic City Bus Terminal a few days later, and a fourth being extradited from Los Angeles in the weeks that followed.
But the real shocker came on July 20th of 1993, when a team of special agents raided the Sea Wolf Hotel in North Wildwood, seeking to execute an arrest warrant for Matarawy Mohammad Said Saleh, one of 11 federal suspects later convicted in a conspiracy to simultaneously bomb not only the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, but also the United Nations and the Federal Building in New York City. When the FBI confronted Mr. Saleh, he momentarily seized an 11-year old boy and attempted to flee on foot. Saleh was subsequently tackled from behind, and the boy was separated from Saleh unharmed.
***
Throughout the first two weeks in August, the rear cottage on East 10th Street remained on lockdown – bolts fastened, curtains drawn. There was nary a spot of natural light to be found, and even less in the way of laid-back conversation. Nevertheless, Billy and I rushed back there every evening after work, where we’d remain on patrol straight until the break of day. Eventually, the fear passed, and life went back to normal down on 10th Street. Meanwhile, Billy and I had grown so fond of spending nights drinking around his kitchen table that we just went right on doing so.
One night in late August, Billy’s sister and her roommates were all drinking in the living room, waiting for a fourth roommate named Garden to finish getting ready, so they could head out to the bars. Garden was in her bedroom now, fresh out of the shower in a towel. Just before Garden went to get dressed, she noticed something odd in the reflection of her mirror. The bedroom window was ajar, allowing central air to escape into the night. Both of Garden’s bedroom curtains had been pushed aside, as well. Garden put her curler down. She wandered fast onto the window. She forced the wooden panel shut, grabbed the curtains with both hands. Then she froze and squinted hard into the darkness. A silhouette stood staring back behind the glass.
Day 315
***
(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)