by Clara Nipper
“Don’t bring back any strange!” Sophie called.
I eased carefully down the sidewalk to the waiting bubblegum pink Hummer limo. Ice pellets pelted my scalp like a rain of needles. I sat in the front of the limo with the driver.
“Guido.” He held out his hand.
“Jill,” I said. “Don’t you have anything less conspicuous?”
“Jill?” His eyes traveled from my flattop haircut to my masculine jaw to my flat chest to my slim hips to my Timberland boots. “Jill?” He repeated, ignoring my question about the vehicle’s Pepto-Bismol color.
“Detective.” I pressed. “Drive, moron.”
“Lemme see your badge.”
“Fuck off. Go!”
Guido put the car in park. “Now what about a little respect?”
“In a teenybopper car?” I removed my .40 caliber Glock from its shoulder holster and pointed it at Guido’s head. “How’s that?”
Guido started driving. “Good enough.”
I reholstered my gun. “You didn’t have any other vehicles?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Forget about it. None of those fancy sedans could make the streets in this weather. This baby is the only one who eats ice and snow for breakfast.” Guido patted the dash.
I grunted. We rode in silence.
“Some weather, huh?” Guido asked. “You got power yet?”
“No. Does anybody?”
“Not that I’ve heard. You know if those cocksuckers at the power company would bury the cables, this shit would never happen.”
I grunted again. In an unpreventable natural disaster, everyone knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it.
Finally, we arrived. There were six squad cars with their lights going and crime scene tape stretched around the yard’s perimeter.
“Pull over here,” I said. We were still half a block away. I didn’t want everybody seeing this Hummer.
“Whaddya talk? Front door delivery! You don’t want to walk a lot in this shit.” Guido slid the car right up to the curb in front of the crime scene. “Fuck, you wasn’t kiddin’.” Guido seemed subdued and spooked. The fire trucks were leaving the scene.
“Civilians are not supposed to be here so pull on up the block and play with yourself until I get back. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” I removed a roll of bills from my pocket. I peeled off two hundreds. “There’s a down payment, okay?”
A gumshoe pulled open the door, anger contorting his face. “Move along, shitbag. Oh, Detective Rogers! I’m sorry. I thought it was…never mind. Need a hand?”
“No, I’m fine. Get out of my way.” I slammed the door and Guido drove a short distance and parked.
“I always thought you were a gangsta pimp, and look! I won that office pool.”
I ignored him and pulled my parka hood over my head and ran awkwardly for the house. “Smith, what do we have?” In the entryway, I stomped the ice off my boots and shook my coat.
“A pair of double taps. Attempted arson, but the fire put itself out.”
“Nice when it does that for us. Execution?”
“For him maybe, but not her. The lady’s in the bedroom and he’s out here.”
“Sexual assault on her?”
“Looks like.”
“Witnesses?”
Smith laughed. “In this shit? No one is out. No one sees anything!” He looked out the living room window. “Is that your hot pink Hummer, Detective?”
“I rented it.”
“Stick?”
“I don’t know. Any other evidence around here? Shell casings, prints, what have you?”
“You don’t know if it’s a stick? You’re not driving?”
“A driver came with. Who called in this crime?”
“Phew! I guess you hadn’t heard that the city has a wage freeze, huh? I haven’t gotten a raise in three years. And we haven’t had a full police force since the hiring freeze in W’s admin.”
“Smith, go stand outside.”
“What for, Detective?”
“Because I said so. Now.”
“Fuckin’ brassholes,” Smith muttered as he slammed the door. I greeted Magnuson who had everything under control and was supervising the collection of fibers and prints.
I cautiously walked the scene, noting the man had been killed first, just as he entered the house from the garage. One shot, right in the brain. He never saw it coming. No sign of struggle. A single bullet and then the Dead Man’s Fall. Whenever someone dies while standing, his feet cross and then he falls. People are all the same. I didn’t know if it was a high or low caliber weapon or if the bullet was still in his brain, but I estimated an approximate trajectory and walked to the kitchen sink which was directly opposite the entry hall where the man was killed. There, in a cereal bowl lay the slug with bullet wipe on it, which is human blood seared to the bullet’s surface. “Campbell,” I called. “Tell Magnuson to make sure this is collected,” I told him when he arrived.
He nodded. “Yes, sir.” I patted Campbell’s shoulder. I had long ago surrendered to being either a “sir” or a “ma’am” interchangeably.
I walked to the bedroom to view the woman. She was definitely the target. The scene was a real mess. “She fought,” I said. She was naked, and there was a bloody claw hammer next to the bed. In the corner was a pile of crumpled, sodden newspapers the firemen had ensured was no longer flammable.
“Hey, Campbell?”
“Detective, sir?”
“I remember all my old cases and you know what this looks like to me?”
“No, sir.”
“Bunny Jones,” I said.
“That right, sir?”
“No forced entry. No burglary. Execution-style hit on the husband and sexual assault.”
“Is he out of DOC already?” Campbell said.
“Uh, I don’t know. Find out for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
I crept carefully around the scene, noting the wife’s broken nails, the hair she had entwined in her lifeless fingers, the bruising on her thighs. I saw blood smear all over the lower half of her face, as if she had drunk from a bucket of blood. Her mouth was locked in a grimace, so I stepped close and pried open her mouth with my gloved fingers to see if I should be looking around the scene for missing teeth. I stared into the darkness of her mouth and I was startled back on my haunches. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I shone my flashlight down her throat once more and confirmed. “Campbell?”
“Yes, sir?” He came running.
“Is that, in fact, a testicle?”
Campbell blanched and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Okay, Marcie,” I said, making a Peanuts reference I was sure he wouldn’t understand, “look at it.”
“I was just here to secure the perimeter. I’m sure the forensic people can—”
“See, Campbell, I’m a woman so I don’t have any balls in spite of all my trying, so look at it!”
Campbell’s eyes widened as he looked me over. “But Smith told me you were a man.” He blushed. “I’m sorry, sir, I mean ma’am.”
“Save it. It’s a hazing all newbies get.” I probed the vic’s mouth with my gloved fingers and lifted the object slightly. Rigor mortis had set in and not yet released, so her jaw was locked in position.
“Don’t! Don’t take it out!” Campbell said. “I’m on the burg squad. I don’t know about homicide evidence. I’ll call someone.”
“Campbell?” I shone my flashlight in his eyes. “You do have a pair, right? Then please verify.”
Campbell moved extremely slowly toward the woman. He shone his flashlight for a millisecond into the woman’s mouth. He nodded, turned green, cupped his crotch, and ran outside.
“Good for you,” I told the woman. This will make finding the suspect really easy.
Campbell approached me, wiping his mouth. “I found out about Bunny.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah, he got out six months ago.”
; “Still living at the same dump?”
“I was lucky to reach anyone at all and he didn’t say. You got a hunch?”
“Could be. I’m headed over there anyway. Magnuson’s got this.” I returned to Guido and gave him another hundred and a new address.
“Are you serious?” Guido said, setting his jaw. “There’s nothing but killers and dealers over there.”
“Drive it like you stole it, man.”
Guido carefully eased the Hummer limo into the well-worn ice ruts and cautiously crawled down the street.
“Fuck, your wipers are going faster than you are!” I lit a cigarette and inhaled to the center of my brain.
“No smok—nevermind,” Guido said when I handed him another hundred. “This speed is just right for the conditions.”
I glanced out the window. “I can walk faster than this.”
“That’s the first good idea you’ve had.”
“Drive, pinhead.”
“Guido.”
“Oh. My. God. Step on it!”
“No one is going anywhere in this shit, Detective Jill. Whoever you’re looking for will wait.”
“Whomever.” I corrected him absently and laughed. “You’re right. I got a turd on the hook for suspicion of murder. He’s heating up cocoa and salting the walk right now.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Listen, if you’re trying to flirt with me, no dice.”
“Flirt! You’re unbelievable. I wouldn’t do you if you were the last pig on earth.”
“Sure, I know, honey,” I said in my finest patronizing tone. I saw Guido flush and he stomped on the accelerator. I braced myself against the jolting and grinned. We finally arrived at the mobile home park that was Bunny Jones’s last known address.
I called dispatch for backup. Tammy, the night dispatcher, balked, but once I said Bunny Jones, she said she would send out everyone she could find, fast. I also instructed her to send a few recruits to canvas hospitals for this specific injury. No way would Bunny try to self-doctor that in his mobile home latrine. Hydrogen and a Band-Aid wouldn’t fix that.
Here’s how I knew Bunny: he had a childhood so hard, it made kidnapping look good. After her husband took off, Bunny’s mother stabbed his sister, drowned his brother, and poisoned Bunny with antifreeze. Bunny was already big and strong for his age of ten and survived the poisoning. He was taken into foster care, but returned to his home long enough to beat his mother to death with a claw hammer and set the house on fire. After that, he drowned his sorrows in every chemical concoction he could obtain and spent eight long years in and out of juvenile court.
Since then, I suppose Freud would say every woman wears his mother’s face and he wants their love, hates them for it, and punishes all of them he can catch. I met him after Kendall and I investigated his first three murders.
“He does ’em all the same,” Kendall said, “hammer and fire.”
“I hope he gets death,” I said.
“Best we can hope for is LWOP.”
“Why?”
“Competency.”
Kendall was right. Bunny was found incompetent, and instead of the needle, he got meds and time in an asylum and was recently released, but was on parole for the rest of his natural life. Bunny definitely was not smart, but he was cunning.
“You going in or what?” Guido asked.
I sucked my teeth. “You got somewhere to be?”
“No, I just wondered if…well, aren’t you gonna…I mean, we’re here. Why are you just sitting on your duff?”
“Didn’t you just hear me call for backup?”
“Sure, but you was in such a hurry to get here, I thought you’d stomp in there, guns blazing.”
“You watch Law and Order, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Stay low,” I said as I opened the door and crept toward Bunny’s dilapidated trailer, “and wait here.” I stomped through the ice, wishing I had worn my hat to keep the ice off my head. The parka hood wasn’t good enough. A few of the trailers had lights, and I heard the jet engine noise that indicated generators. Bunny’s was one with power. I rapped on the door with my flashlight. A curtain parted. I rapped again. A distorted voice. I rapped once more.
“Who is it?” A man bellowed from behind the door.
“Your old friend, meth,” I said.
“We ain’t friends no more,” came the answer.
“Crack?”
“Nope.”
“Heroin? Coke?”
“Go away.”
“Bunny, open the door.”
“You got a warrant?” Was the muffled reply.
“Not yet, but I do have frozen assets. I just want to talk.”
“My shit-eatin’ lawyer ain’t here with me.”
“Good to know. Can I just come in to get warm?”
“Go back where you came from to warm up.”
“Goddammit, Bunny! I will get a warrant if I have to, but Judge Kleinfelter is on duty and he will be so pissed to see me, he will make sure you burn for something.”
“Kleinfelter?” Bunny said. He opened the door. I rushed past him, rocking the trailer in my eagerness to be out of the ice.
“Thanks, Bunny.” I shivered.
“You gotta go now,” Bunny said. He had been nicknamed Bunny because he was so mean, even among the prison population. Apparently, convicts understood irony. He was my same height plus one hundred pounds. He only had one eye, and he hated wearing an eye patch because of the pirate jokes, so instead, I had to gaze at a little flesh fist where his eye should’ve been. His face was lined with ropy scars from multiple razor fights. He had a Celtic cross tattooed across his nose in the T-zone. Maybe to go with his Irish coloring, I thought wryly. And the word “DIE” tattooed below his lower lip.
“Already? I haven’t had any coffee.”
“You ain’t gettin’ none neither.” Bunny hung his head and wouldn’t look at me, but he moved to shove me out the door. He got too close, so on a wild impulse, I embraced him. Bunny gasped and flung me into the wall. “Don’t do that.” He still stared at his feet. “Go now.”
“I’m sorry, Bunny. Come on. Let me stay. Of all the convicted murderers I know, you’re my favorite.”
Bunny’s gaze flickered to mine for a flash. I saw a smile pull the edge of his lips.
“You’ve always been a big help to me. I could count on you no matter what. Please let me stay.”
Bunny nodded then turned his back, walked to a battered recliner, and dropped into it like a load of stones. The trailer shuddered. I followed and perched on a coffee table. “So I just came from a homicide scene. Looked like your work. Did you do it?”
“Are you arresting me?” Bunny glared at me, his eye glittering. The dumb lug act was over. I wish the backup were here. They may never arrive. Sanding and salting the streets in this part of town was not even on the city’s to do list in a disaster. Time for bravado.
“Maybe.” I unsnapped my Glock holster. “Do I have reason to?”
Bunny laughed. “I just got out. I’m not goin’ back.” His gold tooth sparkled.
“Then help me, Bun. Do you know anything about this?”
“Don’t forget to read me my rights.”
“Goddammit, I’m not arresting you! This is just a chat.”
“Okay, Detective…what are your hobbies?”
I sighed. This was going perfectly. What a brilliant cop I was. The lights went out. The sudden darkness was almost palpable. I stood up fast.
Bunny said in a slow drawl, “Relax, Jill. The generator just ran out of gas. Spooked you plenty, huh?” He laughed, his voice swirling in the black as the most menacing sound I’d ever heard. I tried to calm down. It’s not an ambush. “I thought we was gonna talk.”
“You want to play this game? I always win this game,” I said as coolly as I could.
“Huh? What game?”
“Bunny, my man, if I pop you for this, you’ll be buried so
far under prison, you’ll have to look up to see hell.”
“Don’t stress me, Jill. I go kinda cuckoo when I’m stressed. Let’s just talk.” I heard the click of some sort of gun in Bunny’s hands.
“Well, Bunny, you don’t seem to want to, so I’ll just follow my other leads.” I made my voice loud and bright. “Thanks a lot. You’re a prince. See you around. Stay out of trouble.” Stop babbling! I said to myself.
“Why did you think it was me, Jill?” Bunny’s voice was sad but so dangerous.
“Lucky guess, Bun. If you’re going to confess to something, I need to tell you that you have the right to remain silent—”
“It was a money gig.” His voice was so low and menacing, like a shark’s fin just visible above the water’s surface and the real threat was right below.
“Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“She wanted him gone. And I can’t get a regular job, you know that!”
“You have the right to speak to an attorney,” I continued doggedly.
“She hated her husband and wanted the insurance money.” Voice like deadly gravel.
“If you cannot afford an attorney,” I took a whopping breath to keep the words from rushing up my throat in a rapid panic.
“Met her through my ex, that lousy whore.”
“One will be appointed to you.”
“So I figure, now this gal is single. I helped her out; she should help me out.”
“Do you understand these rights…”
“She didn’t want to. Don’t you hate when you’re goin’ along swell, something goes wrong, and you have to kill her?”
“As they have been read to you?” I was feeling for my cuffs and my cell. “Bunny?”
“Huh?”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, I’ve got you here, and no, you’re goin’ nowhere.” His laugh rang out like shotgun blasts. My scalp jumped and my skin crawled. Maintain, I told myself. “Bunny, don’t make it hard on yourself. You’re in police custody now.”
“Nope.” I heard the recliner squeal as he stood. I heard ice beads tapping the windows. “You’re in Bunny custody now.”
“Bunny, don’t make it worse.”
“It wasn’t me. I swear I’m bein’ framed.”
In the darkness, my cynicism overtook my nerves and I rolled my eyes. “That right, Bun? Who did it, then?”