The Yards

by The Yards (epub)

  “I’m calling from the station,” he says. “Where are you?”

  I glance at the microwave’s clock. It’s eight fifteen. “I’m home, Vern, having breakfast. So what’s up?”

  “A call to the hotline just before it closed down last night. A woman.”

  “One call?”

  “Nope, there were lots more, but this was the only call that mentioned the hat. The woman claimed that the hat looked familiar.”

  “That the word she used? Familiar?”

  “Yeah, and that’s as far as it got. She wanted to know if there was a reward. When she heard there wasn’t, she hung up. But here’s the thing. She called on a cell phone, and we have the number and her name.” He hesitates for just an instant. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “You’re right about that. Give it to me.”

  “Isabelle Zanos. And she’s got a record for petty crimes. Shoplifting, bad checks, like that. She lives in Oakland Gardens.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. The bullets we recovered at the Gaitskill scene? I’m thinking the mayor pulled some strings, because the state lab compared those rounds with the bullet that killed Bradley Grieg. They were fired from the same gun.”

  Vern and I are on the way to Isabelle’s, driving through a light but steady drizzle. I’m not dwelling on the task at hand. We’ll hear whatever story she has to tell. Probably after a mild protest. No, I’m thinking about Bradley Grieg and the Gaitskills, especially about Richard’s execution. The man was helpless, one leg shattered, staring up at his executioner. It took a cold heart to pull that trigger, a heart as cold as Connor Schmidt’s.

  “I still think we’re being played, Vern.”

  “Played how, Delia?”

  “Well, there’s a big-time question out there. One the killer must’ve known we’d ask ourselves.”

  “Why use the same gun twice?”

  “Yeah. If it was me, I would have used different guns, and both would be at the bottom of the nearest body of water.”

  “You think he wanted us to know, one perp for all three?”

  “Yeah, I think he wanted us to know. He—not she.”

  The Oakland Gardens neighborhood where Isabelle resides is a notch above the Yards, but only a notch. And I’m not expecting even that small difference to persist, given the effects of the virus on Baxter’s economy. Isabelle Zanos’s ranch home nicely illustrates the changing reality. Decently constructed of brick, with a picture window in the living room, it’s clearly in need of repair. The small porch sags to one side, and the flagstone walk has been raised in places by the roots of an enormous hickory.

  The woman who answers our knock (the bell’s broken) knows exactly who we are, a recognition born of long experience. But if I was anticipating an attitude, the woman merely steps back to allow us inside.

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Isabelle’s in her early thirties, a trim brunette with a hard-eyed smile that betrays a world of experience. She’s not afraid of us, or even impressed. Inside, a manikin stands before a long, humpbacked sofa. The girl’s dress on the manikin is pink. A party dress, for sure, with a scalloped collar, puffy short sleeves, and a hem trimmed with white lace. There’s a little girl to go with the dress. She’s sitting on the couch, staring up at Vern, mouth open.

  “Go on outside, Sofia,” the woman says, “and let me talk to these people.”

  Sofia circles Vern as she makes her exit, giving him plenty of room.

  “Y’all wanna introduce yourselves?” Isabelle’s accent is Southern. Not Kentucky or West Virginia Southern. More like Alabama.

  “I’m Lieutenant Mariola, and this is Detective Taney. We’re with the Baxter PD. I think you know why we came.”

  “Yes, ma’am. The call.” She sits on the couch, picks up a roll of lace, and measures out a yard. “So how ’bout the reward? Y’all change your mind?”

  “Fraid not.”

  “Then how do you plan to compete?”

  “Compete?”

  “With Connor Schmidt. Man put the word out before Chief Black showed that photo on TV. Identify the girl in the hat and the Schmidts will see you’re taken care of.”

  Isabelle lured us out here for a reason, and there’s nothing to be gained by opening my big mouth before she reveals it.

  “I been knowin’ Connor a long time, Lieutenant. He’s worse than cruel. He’s a man who’ll hurt ya cold. That’s why I didn’t leave my name when I called that hotline. Connor told me he had someone in your department. A source, or a spy, take your choice. Anyway, if it ever got back to him that I spoke to you . . .”

  Her voice trails away as she picks up a pair of scissors and cuts the lace in her hand. Isabelle’s searching for the right words, or perhaps the right order. She looks back to me when she’s ready to continue.

  “My husband died in Iraq four years ago. An IED. Just now, I’m living on his death benefit and a survivor pension while I try to get my life together.” She gestures to the dress on the manikin and nods. The dress is obviously well made, and I assume this is the together she’s talking about. “I got into a passel of trouble right after Freddy passed, includin’ a relationship with Connor Schmidt. It didn’t last all that long, not after a court threatened to place Sofia in foster care. But I do have a good idea of who he really is.”

  “And that would be?” This from Vern.

  “Connor ain’t naturally mean, Detective. He’s like ruthless, but it don’t come from his heart. That’s why his enforcer is a psycho named Augie Barboza. Augie likes hurtin’ people. He’ll hurt this woman if he finds her. Bad hurt, if you take my meaning.”

  “Augie Barboza?” Vern again. “I thought Bradley was Connor’s main man.”

  “Bradley was more like Connor’s dog. So, yeah, Bradley liked to strut, but that’s all it was. Struttin’. Connor once told me that Bradley had the brain of a frog. He could barely run errands.”

  “Okay, Ms. Zanos, but why did you call us?”

  “Because I’m hopin’ you’ll get to her first. Way it lines up, that’s her only hope.” She stops for a moment, long enough to form a soft smile. “Thing about it, and y’all are probably gonna be pissed, but I don’t actually know who she is. It’s the hat that looks familiar. See, there’s a woman lives outside of town makes hats look like the one in the photo. Sells ’em on the internet.” Isabelle points to the dress on the manikin. “Like I’m tryin’ to sell my dresses. ’Cause times in Baxter are surely hard, and I got me a girl-child to raise.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CONNOR

  Talk about a waste. Augie and I spend the day bouncing from informant to informant. The story’s the same everywhere. Nobody recognizes the woman, but everybody knows someone who does. Or says they do. Or maybe told someone who told someone else they did. I finally give it up around four o’clock.

  “This ain’t workin’, Augie. We have a business to run, and here we are spinnin’ our wheels. What we did all day? It doesn’t fatten our wallets by a counterfeit dollar bill.”

  Augie nods agreement, as usual. He’s a yes-man, which I sometimes regret. But I’m not in the mood for an argument right now. Or even constructive suggestions.

  “I’m gonna drop you off while there’s still time to do your collections. As for the broad? I wanna find her, sure, but it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t. Meanwhile, I’m gonna get something to eat.”

  Forty minutes later I’m sitting in Maxwell’s Courthouse Diner, in a back booth, enjoying one of Max’s onion-ring bacon burgers. I’m not an inch closer to finding the girl in the hat, but the afternoon’s brought an unexpected reward. A deadbeat lawyer who’s been avoiding me for weeks not only paid the interest on his debt, he paid off the whole thing.

  Kenny Beaumont likes cigars, the bigger the better. When he waved me to the curb, he was smoking one of them, a cigar that could have been mistaken for a blunt object. A few minutes later, as we drove along the perimeter of City Hall
Park, he settled the debt.

  “Sorry for the delay,” he told me.

  I don’t ask how he came by the money, because I don’t care. Beaumont’s a degenerate sports bettor who borrowed from me in order to pay off his gambling debts. I lent it to him because he’s a successful lawyer with the income to pay me back. He’s also a shyster with connections inside the state CID.

  “What are you hearin’, Kenny, about Bradley?”

  “Heard that he’s dead.”

  “C’mon, man.”

  “They got just about nothin’ in the way of usable physical evidence. It’s a motel room, for Christ’s sake. People are in and out of there all the time. You wanna talk fingerprints? They recovered dozens.”

  “So, they givin’ up?”

  “The hat, Connor. The hat is the egg in the basket, the only egg. You find the hat, you find the woman.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Have you seen the photo of the girl?”

  “Sure.”

  “So whatta ya think? You think they’re gonna find her?”

  “From that photo?” He shakes his head. “Look, I’m a criminal defense attorney. I have plenty of experience with photo IDs. Mostly, witnesses can’t make an ID when they review full-face mug shots. And what do you have in that photo? A jawline, the side of a mouth, half a nose? Even if you do find her, you won’t be sure.”

  “So what’re you sayin? Give up?”

  “Nope.” He leans forward. “I’d say find someone who recognizes the hat. Hear me—anybody comes forward, if they don’t mention the hat, they’re full of shit.”

  I’m thinking that Kenny Beaumont’s a prophet. I’m only halfway through my burger when a woman who looks more dead than alive plops her ass down on the seat across from me. She’s thin to the point of gaunt, and her eyes are as yellow as buttercups.

  “I know her,” she tells me.

  I don’t ask who. There’s no point. “I’ve been hearin’ that for the past two days, lady, and I’m tired of the bullshit. Tell me how you know her.”

  “Maybe I put that hat on her head.”

  “Maybe?”

  A waiter approaches our table, but I wave him away. I’m not buyin’ dinner for this skank. No. I’m lookin’ in her eyes and I’m not finding fear. Any fear. It’s like she’s been there, done that, and she’s not walkin’ it back.

  “What’s in it for me, Connor? I want a number.”

  “How ’bout I smash your teeth down your fucking throat. How’d that be for a number?” I was right. Her expression doesn’t change. She’s not gonna scare. “Five hundred, right now,” I tell her.

  I’m expecting a negotiation, but she doesn’t say a word until she’s on her feet and standing next to the table. “You’re never gonna find her without me, Connor. But maybe you don’t want to. Maybe I need to talk to your father. Think it over. I’ll be in touch.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  DELIA

  According to Isabelle Zanos, Henrietta Taunton lives on a small organic farm about thirty miles west of Baxter in the town of Charleston. Henrietta, Isabelle insists, participates in a new, entrepreneurial economy, one certain to replace the outdated employer-employee model. I’ve heard this song before, especially since the virus took its toll on the economy, and I’m not buying the hype. But you’ve got to pin your hopes on something, and I pay attention when Isabelle describes meeting Henrietta at a class on website design, then hauls out her laptop.

  Henrietta’s website pops up within a few seconds, and I find myself staring at a page titled MAGIC WITH LACE. The hats on the page have been treated with a secret process (patent pending). The process allows them to remain shaped after you adjust them to suit your own sense of style.

  No question, some of those hats closely resemble the hat we’re looking for. That makes a trip to Henrietta’s Hattery more or less mandatory. But not right away. As Isabelle describes Henrietta and her business, I receive a text from a city prosecutor. A search warrant for Bradley Grieg’s apartment has been signed by a judge. I need only pick it up at the station.

  Okay by me, because I’m pretty sure a trip out to Henrietta’s will be a waste of time. Not that I’m expecting much from a search of Grieg’s apartment, but it’s a lot closer.

  Energized, I settle into my work. I’m a cop again, which is all I ever wanted to be. I had a friend in high school, a real bookworm who read novel after novel. Why? Because she just had to know how the story turned out. That’s the way I feel about serious investigations, especially when I can’t be sure of the outcome. The cliché is that cops hate mysteries. Me, I love ’em.

  Grieg’s apartment is in a complex of attached town houses a block away from the north end of Baxter Park. Living room, dining room, kitchen on the first floor, two decent-size bedrooms on the second. In the living room (reasonably clean to my surprise), three enormous recliners face a large flat-screen TV. A Formica-topped table that might have come out of a 1950s tract home sits dead center in the dining area. The only decorations are predictably simple—two posters in the living room. Both are of obscure rock bands, Lucifer’s Friend and Yesterday’s Children. A bookshelf behind the couch holds several dozen heavy metal CDs, but no books.

  A plastic box hidden beneath the bed upstairs contains 20-gauge syringes. Taped to the underside of a newish dresser, a full ounce of brown powder that will reveal itself to be heroin when field tested. A snub-nosed Colt, a Police Special, rests atop a manila envelope containing three thousand dollars. A silk robe patterned with birds and flowers dangles from a plastic hanger in the bedroom closet. The robe’s exquisite. I’d be tempted to bring it home if it wasn’t size XXL.

  Vern and I transport the heroin, the gun, and the money back to the evidence room at the station. We’re still doing paperwork when I receive a call from our DA, Tommy Atkinson. As usual, his tone is engaging and friendly.

  “Hey, Delia, how’s it goin’?”

  “Slow, but steady.”

  “You find that woman yet, the one in the hat?”

  “No, but finding her isn’t what has me worried. It’s whether she pulled the trigger.”

  A pause here. In Baxter, the DA’s elected by the people, and Tom Atkinson’s a seasoned politician. “You don’t think she did it?”

  “At this point, I can’t clear the woman, but we know Grieg and the Gaitskills were killed two days apart with the same weapon, so it’s very unlikely that the woman even killed Bradley. But that she returned two days later to assassinate the Gaitskills? Who swore they never laid eyes on her? Tommy, it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, and I think you know it.” I’m talking really fast, but I want to get it all out there. “And there’s another problem, too. The chief’s already told the public that robbery was the likely motive for Grieg’s murder. So what was the motive for killing the Gaitskills two days later, if our person of interest committed the murders?”

  Instead of the argument I’m expecting, Tommy laughs into the phone. “You’re amazing, Delia, but you don’t have to convince me. That’s because I’ve got a woman here, arrested for second-degree assault. Her name’s Marjorie Carver, and this is her third strike. She’s looking at fifteen years.”

  “Let me guess. She wants to make a deal.”

  “Yup, her and her lawyer. And you know what? She’s claiming to be Carl Schmidt’s mistress.”

  “Not Connor’s?”

  “Nope, the daddy, not the son.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  DELIA

  The district attorney’s offices are housed in the courthouse, by far the most impressive building in the city. Its red sandstone blocks are enormous, and its three floors stretch from Monroe to Madison streets, with just enough room for a pitted statue of Thomas Jefferson out front. A central tower rises an additional six stories to loom over this flatland city. It speaks to a past when folks in Baxter shared an unchallenged optimism. The good times would last forever. Progress could not be stopped. Any differing opinion was un-fucking-American.
>
  Maybe progress can’t be stopped, but it can definitely take a hike. In earlier days, the courthouse’s many offices were the exclusive domain of city workers. That ended twenty-five years ago, when the size of Baxter’s government began to shrink. Offices were rented out, mostly to lawyers doing business with the city, but even that wasn’t enough to keep the building fully occupied. Today, the two upper floors on the west side of the building are entirely empty.

  District Attorney Atkinson’s suite of offices, by contrast, reflect the fact that he’s one of the wealthiest men in the city. Large wooden desks with scalloped edges dominate his outer office. Oil paintings on the walls depict racing yachts in competitions that took place fifteen hundred miles away. On the floor, stretching from wall to wall, an ankle-deep carpet receives my feet as though preparing to ingest them.

  Tommy Atkinson’s sitting on the edge of his personal assistant’s desk, but he rises and offers his hand when Vern and I come through the door. His grip is cool, firm, and quick, a politician’s handshake.

  “Quickly,” he begins. “The woman in question is Marjorie Carver, age thirty-two. Did a year for a string of burglaries at nineteen, then two years for armed robbery in her mid-twenties. Two weeks ago, she smacked another woman in the head with a beer bottle at the Dew Drop. Knocked her cold, then stomped her.”

  “Got it. So what’s Marjorie asking for?”

  “For starters, that we reduce her bail from fifty thousand dollars to a thousand. She wants out immediately, and we can discuss the rest later.”

  “And she’s been inside for what? Two weeks?”

  “Yup, that’s the deal. Marjorie wants out.”

  I glance at Vern. He’s already smiling. If she plans to snitch on Carl Schmidt, having her bail reduced is the last thing Marjorie Carver should demand. A sudden release is the sure mark of an informant. No, what Marjorie should do is stay in jail while she trades information for years taken off her sentence. And Marjorie’s no beginner. She knows the system, knows what could happen to her if Carl Schmidt decides she’s a liability.