The Yards

by The Yards (epub)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CONNOR

  It’s after ten o’clock when the bitch lieutenant kicks me out of the precinct. I head straight to my home, a two-room cottage on my father’s property. I might have gone to Augie Barboza’s place, but Augie’s got two kids and a wife with a tongue almost as sharp as Mariola’s.

  I call Augie from inside on my house phone. He comes on a few seconds later, and I can already hear Donna in the background, her mouth going a mile a minute.

  “I got picked up,” I tell him, “which is why I didn’t make the meet last night.” I’m too wiped out for a long explanation. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning. Say seven.”

  One thing about Augie, he never argues. “Got it, boss.”

  I’m up early, at six o’clock, in the kitchen with Mom. As often as possible, we have breakfast while the scumbag’s still asleep. Mom’s wearing a terry-cloth robe over her pajamas this morning. The robe’s brand-new and thick. It makes her appear even tinier and more vulnerable.

  The air in the kitchen is saturated with the odor of bacon and Mom’s homemade rolls, still in the oven. I draw a long breath through my nose, remembering that I never did get to eat last night. My little cottage lacks a kitchen, and Baxter was pretty much closed down by the time I was released. I suppose I might have driven out to one of the truck stops on the interstate, where meals are served 24-7, but I was too tired. Now I plan to make up for lost time.

  I kiss my mother’s forehead, then take a seat. Mom’s at the oven before I can lay the napkin in my lap (which she insists I do). She’s pulling out a small baking tray that she lays on a trivet. A half dozen rolls, still steaming, form two rows on the tray. She makes these rolls from scratch, as she makes her own pasta, a source of pride.

  I drive a fork into one of the rolls and bring it to my plate, then a second. The butter I slather on melts as quickly as my mouth fills with saliva. The rolls are still too hot to eat, and I have to drink from a glass of cold orange juice before nibbling at one end.

  “Unbelievable,” I say, more to myself than to Mom.

  We don’t speak much as I work on my breakfast. Instead of words, I show my appreciation by finishing everything she lays before me, the bacon, the eggs, the little cubed potatoes fried up with onions and garlic. I show it again when I carry my plate to the sink. Mom needs to know that someone cares for her, even if that someone is a dope-dealing asshole like me.

  Mom hugs me for a minute before I leave. “You take care, Connor. Don’t do anything foolish. Your father’s very angry.” She hesitates long enough to look over her shoulder. “I think he suspects you for whatever . . . happened.”

  As I turn to go, I suddenly remember Violet Arabella and what she told me about her pimp: “Everybody needs somebody.”

  Turns out the whore was right.

  Me and Augie pull into the Skyview a few minutes before nine. There are no cars parked in front of any of the rooms, but Richard Gaitskill’s electric cart is parked outside one of the cabins. There’s also a cleaning crew working in a cabin at the other end of the lot, Mexicans who refuse to speak English. Richard brags about paying them six bucks an hour. That’s below the minimum wage by more than a dollar.

  “If I make a phone call,” is the way Richard puts it, “they’re on a plane back to Mexico.”

  This is good for me and Augie because these workers are sure to keep their mouths shut, no matter what goes down. They might even join the party if we decide to give Rich a good beatdown.

  Rich is in the cabin’s little bathroom when Augie and I come through the door. He’s bent over the sink, a monkey wrench in his right hand. Rich is a big kid. He could do a lot of damage with that wrench, but that’s not who he is. When he catches our reflections in the mirror, he turns to face us.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Come out here and talk to me.” I don’t tell him to put the wrench down. I don’t have to. He lays it in the sink, wipes his hands on a towel, and walks toward me, stopping about five feet away. He’s scared, and for good reason. We’ve got a deal, me and Rich. He gets to buy a small piece of whatever dope we’re runnin’ at ten percent above my cost. In return, he keeps the rest of his guests—and there ain’t that many—away from my and Brad’s business. That and a heads-up if the cops come around or set up a surveillance, which before last night they hadn’t.

  “Talk to me, Rich.”

  “What could I say? The cops are all over Bradley’s murder.”

  “Which cops?”

  “The broad was in charge. I think she said her name’s Mari-something. She was with Vern Taney.”

  “And?”

  “They wanted to know when Bradley checked in, did he go anywhere. I gave ’em the time he registered. It was in the book, anyway. But if he left his room, I told ’em I didn’t know about it.”

  “Nothin’ else?”

  “Yeah. I dummied up. Told ’em Grieg was just another traveler in search of a bed.”

  Augie’s something of a mind reader, and I only have to glance in his direction before he steps forward and slams a fist into Rich’s ribs.

  “Whatta ya tellin’ me, Rich? The cops didn’t look at the video from the surveillance? Huh?” I don’t do anger as a rule, not in my head, but I can fake it well enough. I step forward and put my finger in Rich’s face. He’s dropped to one knee and is showin’ exactly no sign of tryin’ to stand up again. “Don’t play me, man. I’m not in the fuckin’ mood.”

  “Okay. You could just ask, Connor. Sure, they watched the video. It showed Bradley drivin’ off somewhere. That was a little after nine. He came back about ten thirty with a woman. She had her own car . . .”

  “Didn’t you just tell me you didn’t know if he left his room?”

  “I meant what I told the cops when they first asked.”

  Rich’s answers are coming too quick. “What’d she look like? This broad?”

  “You couldn’t tell, really. She was too far away. You couldn’t even tell what kinda car she was drivin’.” He hesitates. “But she was definitely wearin’ a hat. Ya know, like with a brim that covered her eyes.”

  “That what the cops said? They couldn’t make an ID?”

  “The cops didn’t say nothin’. They just watched.”

  “And that’s it? They saw a woman and nobody else?”

  “Not exactly. See, it started rainin’ a little later. After that, you couldn’t even see Bradley’s car—or the cabin.”

  “For how long?”

  “All night.”

  I take a minute to think it over. The cops probably think the broad killed Bradley. They have a motive, too, robbery, which they’ve already announced to the world. Or at least to Baxter. Plus, if it started rainin’, like Rich says, and you couldn’t make anything out, the cops’ll have to put it on the broad. She’s the only game in town.

  Of course, they gotta find her first. But maybe that’ll be easy. Maybe it’ll turn out to be one of Bradley’s girlfriends. He’s got enough of them, and more than a couple of ’em will do just about anything to get the price of a fix. For eighteen large, they’d kill their own kids.

  “So let’s have a look, Rich. At the video.”

  I don’t surprise easy, but this time Rich catches me off guard when he steps back and says, “The cops took it.”

  “What?”

  “The cops took it with ’em. The video. It was on a thumb drive.”

  “Did they have a warrant?” I don’t wait for an answer. They couldn’t have had a warrant, not that early. “The cops didn’t take that video, Rich. They got no right to take it. No, you gave it away. Why would you do that?” Again, I’m not waitin’ for an answer. I look over at Augie and say, “Hurt him.”

  It doesn’t stop until Rich is doubled up on the floor, gripping his sides. I don’t blame him. We’ve left his face alone, but he’ll be pissin’ blood for a couple of days. The cracked ribs probably won’t feel all that good, either. Rich doesn’t fight back—he’s too smar
t for that—but I’m thinkin’ that he knows too much about my business. I mean for a guy who’s basically straight. He knows too much, and maybe I have to do something about that.

  “What else you do, Rich? Did you mention my name?”

  “No. I swear, Connor.”

  He’s lying and it’s fucking obvious. The cops know that me and Bradley were close. Mariola made that clear last night. “So what else did you tell them? What else did they want?”

  Rich brightens suddenly. Something he’s remembered, most likely.

  “When Bradley registered, he told me he might go out for a while and I should keep an eye on the cabin. I asked him where he was goin’ and he said Randy’s. To pick up a woman, right? He told me he’s been runnin’ around for the last few days and he needed a little relief. Randy’s was the place to find it.”

  I have more questions, but they’re not gettin’ answered. Not today. That’s because Rich’s mom comes through the door holding a sawed-off 12-gauge in her hands. I’m not scared exactly, but I’m not about to make a move. No, I’m looking into Felice Gaitskill’s baby blues and thinkin’ my old man’s the only reason she doesn’t pull the trigger to protect her little boy. What I heard, Felice came up hard. She understands consequences.

  Felice steps to the side as I walk past and through the door, Augie trailing behind. Neither of us speaks until we’re in the car and driving away. Augie’s behind the wheel.

  “So what now, boss?”

  “We’re gonna pay another visit to Rich and his mom, Augie, but that’s for later. First thing, we gotta find the woman who stole from me.”

  “Randy’s?”

  “Randy’s doesn’t open till six. They won’t even start settin’ up until four. So I don’t know. Maybe I should drop you, then hang out at the Black Sheep. You can pick me up this afternoon.”

  My phone goes off before Augie replies. My burner. The incoming number has been blocked, and I answer before it rings a second time.

  “Hey, C, it’s Waylon.”

  “What you need, Waylon?”

  “A couple of pounds.”

  I don’t have to ask pounds of what. Waylon and his crew deal ice out in the countryside. They’ve been at it so long, they take turns going to prison. “You’re lookin’ at around twenty-five,” I say. “You got that kinda money? Last time, you held me up for two days. I can’t have that, Waylon. You know my game.”

  “I got it, Connor. Swear on my mother.”

  Waylon’s mom has been a tweaker for thirty years. She hasn’t got a tooth in her mouth.

  “Gimme a couple of hours, Waylon. I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  DELIA

  I start my day with an early-morning call to my mother in Centralia. Mom was the rock that anchored my childhood, and I reached out for her comfort whenever life became too much for me. I loved my daddy, too, but he worked at a factory that manufactured replacement windows and grabbed every opportunity to work overtime. At home, he tended to veg, except on Sunday morning, when we attended church. Mom worked, too, part-time as a bookkeeper at Centralia’s library. She often took me with her when I was young, maybe hoping I’d pick up a love of learning. Instead, she got a female Action Jackson. Disappointed? If so, she never complained.

  “Hey, baby, how are you feeling?”

  “Good, Mom.”

  “And my grandson?”

  “Your adorable grandson lost his temper on Sunday and punched a kid in the mouth. For calling me a dyke.”

  We go on for a good ten minutes, back and forth, until the conversation finally shifts to Bradley Grieg’s homicide. Mom reads the Baxter Bugle online every morning, and the murder’s grabbed her attention. Call it prurient interest. On some levels, she’s worse than Danny.

  “I think I’ve wanted the woman, the one in the hat, to be a lone suspect from the beginning,” I tell her. “Easy-peasy. Find her and close the case.”

  “But you can’t make that work?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Then what are you going to do about it if you have to arrest the woman?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Our conversation continues for another fifteen minutes, until Danny wanders into the kitchen and I suddenly become redundant.

  “Is that Grandma?”

  “Is that my grandson?”

  As they talk, grandma and grandson, I rummage in the refrigerator. Baxter’s just a bit over four hundred miles from Centralia, close enough for visits on Thanksgiving and Christmas, plus a weeklong stay during the summer when I’m on vacation. That’ll be six weeks from now, in mid-August.

  My workday begins with Bradley Grieg’s autopsy, performed at Baxter Medical Center, a second-rate hospital I hope never to need. The interior of Bradley’s abdomen, emptied of his organs, has the texture of old leather.

  “I’m listing the cause of death as a gunshot wound,” Rishnavata tells me as he saws away.

  “No chance of an overdose?”

  “If his heart hadn’t continued to beat, there’d be less blood. And by the way, given the bleeding, I’d have to say he lived for a couple of minutes after he was shot.”

  “Is that possible?”

  Arshan surprises me. “A small caliber bullet, say a .22, will fragment as it pierces the skull, sending splinters of lead in every direction. A higher caliber round, a 9mm for example, cuts a straight path, with unpredictable results. It depends upon which regions of the brain are impacted. One can live for some time, or even survive. In this case, I’m finding blood in the victim’s nasal passages and trachea, blood he most certainly aspirated.”

  We’re in Baxter Medical’s basement pathology room. Rarely used, the room smells only slightly of decayed flesh and antiseptic. Grieg’s lying faceup on a stainless-steel table, his organs removed. Rigor mortis has deserted his body, and he’s lying unnaturally flat. Every curve, his lower back, his buttocks, even his neck, is flattened. The gaping hole in his abdomen has rendered him hollow, empty, unreal.

  Coming into the autopsy, I still clung to the living Bradley Grieg who deserved what he got. At least according to Danny. No more. Bradley Grieg is gone. There’s nothing left to blame.

  Vern’s waiting for me when I finally walk out of the building. He’s in his Ford with the wipers running. “You convince Arshan to narrow it down?” He puts the car in gear and pulls away from the curb. We’re on our way back to the station. Chief Black wants an update.

  “Yeah, but the prick made it worse. If you could believe that.”

  Vern’s asking about the time of death, originally set between nine and two.

  “How so?”

  “Now it’s between eleven and three.”

  Vern’s too laid-back to vent, but I’m sure he’s as frustrated as I am. Grieg’s female companion left the cabin at eleven fifteen. That puts her close to the earliest estimate of time of death. In the hands of a defense lawyer, even a bad one, it’s ammo. In the eyes of a jury? If we can’t develop any forensic evidence?

  Ten minutes later, Chief Black has no trouble reading the bottom line. “Any chance our beloved coroner will reverse himself, Delia?”

  “He can’t, Chief. He’s committed his estimated time of death to paper. It’s now part of the autopsy report. That leaves fifteen minutes for the woman to kill him.”

  “And the next three-plus hours,” Black observes, “for somebody else.”

  “There’s good news, too,” Vern announces. “The bullet, the one recovered from the mattress, is only slightly flattened. If we get our hands on the murder weapon, it’ll make for an easy match. And we’ve found the nightclub Grieg visited. Randy’s. Given that a woman followed him back to the hotel, it’s likely that he met her there.”

  “Have you been to the club?” the chief asks.

  “Not yet, Chief,” I tell him. “Just now, we’re headed to the courthouse. I want a subpoena for the club’s security tapes. That way there’s no chance something wil
l happen to the data before it’s surrendered.”

  “What about Bradley’s drug works. You find DNA?”

  “I called the state crime lab this morning. Don’t hold your breath is what they basically told me.”

  Chief Black favors me with a nod. I’ve given him a line of attack if he needs to hold another press conference. Blame the state. “Better get on with it, then.” He taps the table with a forefinger. “And good work, Lieutenant. Excellent.”

  We’re still inside the precinct when Vern speaks for both of us. He has a habit, Vern does, of reading my mind when it comes to policing.

  “We need to reenact the sequence,” he tells me. “You’re not gonna be happy until we do.”

  The conditions are perfect. The light rain and drizzle that began early this morning will continue through the night. All we need is a bag of rice and a pillow. My own weapon is a 9mm. I can fire it through the pillow into the bag of rice while Vern watches the video from the office. But the way I’m thinking, my interests are best served by abandoning the whole business. That’s because Vern had it right.

  “The cameras at the Skyview are for shit,” he told me. “They’re also far away, and it was raining, and we know the muzzle was jammed into a pillow.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DELIA

  Vern and I spend most of our day interviewing women on the list supplied by Cindy Sherman. The term of art these days is person of interest. But to me, and probably Vern, these are suspects. Any one of them might be the woman who entered Grieg’s room at 10:42 and left at 11:15.

  The ladies recite the same basic story. Their affairs were brief enough to be called hookups, and they haven’t seen Bradley Grieg in months. What’s more, despite running in the same circles, they don’t know anything about his current life. They don’t know his friends or his lovers. They don’t know about his relationship with Carl and Connor Schmidt. So sorry.