by TG Wolff
“Dear Lord. Are you sure he’s dead?” Sam Bell asked
“Yes, sir. We have positively identified him.”
“With the hair, right? He was dead when you came to talk to Melissa.”
“Yes, sir. He was a John Doe.”
Bell swore with heart-felt emotion. “Melissa has got to be torn up.”
“Mr. Bell, she needs a friend. She shouldn’t be on her own right now.”
“’Course not. I’ll be there as fast as I can. If I get a ticket, you’ll fix it?”
“Follow the traffic laws, Mr. Bell,” he said but cracked a smile.
“Some detective,” Bell said under his breath before the line went dead.
In hindsight, Cruz should have realized bringing Bell in would create more problems than it solved.
“We demand to see Bobby Mayes with our own eyes!” Bell’s voice echoed off the plaster walls. “A grieving mother has the God given right to see her child.”
Bell pushed, but Cruz stood his ground. “I understand this is hard, but it is not possible at this time. The investigation into Mr. Mayes’s death is active and ongoing.” Bell’s antics were not helping Mrs. Mayes. The man was too busy being righteous to notice.
Bell narrowed his eyes, looking for deception in every word. “When are you going to release his body?”
As soon as we have it.
“As soon as possible.” And that was the moment he realized he omitted the fact the Bobby Mayes had been decapitated. It wasn’t intentional, but he did it. He wasn’t going to undo it in front of Bell.
Bell did not go quickly or quietly. When he and Mrs. Mayes were out the door, Cruz notified everyone from his commander to the chief, including the PIO. Another meeting was hastily scheduled, and a plan developed. Then came the press conference. Cruz attended, standing dutifully behind the chief and wearing a game face to rival Yablonski’s. Confidence. Resolve. Strength. Determination. Every hour of every day until a killer was behind bars.
Coming out of the press conference, he received some good news. Peter Bartoli was in an interview room. Either the young man was the luckiest kid on the planet or he knew how to not be found. Eventually his luck ran out. The kid looked strung out. Cruz let him sit for a while, let some of that fish food work its way out of his system. He wasn’t interested in Bartoli’s illegal smile. He was chasing a killer and needed to know what the kid knew.
The interview went on for close to an hour. Bartoli thought Mayes had a girlfriend, maybe a married one because Bartoli hadn’t met her. Mayes snuck off once or twice a week to meet her. No, he didn’t have a name. When pressed about the drugs, he was afflicted with a sudden bout of deaf-dumb-and-blindness. Yablonski took over from there. He had nothing Cruz wanted.
It took Cruz as long to write the details in a report as it did to talk to the guy. He wouldn’t have minded the time if he’d had gotten something for it. His personal cell rang. He answered as he finished typing a sentence. “Yeah?”
“Should I be insulted, Detective?”
That voice. He recognized it and smiled inside and out. “Why would you be insulted?” A thought dawned. “Shit. What time is it? Shit. You’re at my house and I’m not. Aurora, don’t leave.” He jumped to his feet, banged his knee, swore, hit save, and closed the program. “Whatever you do, don’t leave.”
She laughed, she should have been annoyed but instead she laughed. “It’s a bit cold for waiting—”
“On top of the light next to the front door is a key.” He had put it there for a neighbor to use when he had appliances delivered. He was glad he hadn’t put it away. As Cruz listened to the sounds of his door opening and his fantasy woman walking through it, he shut the computer down, pulled on his coat, and stuffed his pockets with keys and gloves.
“Nice. Sparse but nice. Dart board in the dining room. Unconventional.”
“I’ve been working on it one room at a time. I’m on my way now—”
“Cruz,” his commander called. “My office.”
“Uh, but…” There was no arguing that he should have left an hour ago. “I need to speak with the commander. Will you stay?”
“For a while.”
A while, a while. How long was a while? Cruz thought about throwing on the lights and sirens. But that would be wrong. Completely inappropriate.
Taillights stretched out ahead of him.
Cruz flipped on the lights, pulling into the turn lane to bypass the congestion. Lights off, he pulled into his driveway, pinning in the little Jetta. He took the steps two at a time, bound in his front door with a child-like excitement.
Well, no, not a child.
More like with horny teenage excitement.
Except, she wasn’t there.
There was a pizza box on the table. He lifted the cover. It was his usual with one slice missing.
“Aurora?”
“Up here.”
Her voice came from the stairs leading to the upper floor. It was part future master bedroom, part attic storage. He sprinted past the two-by-fours caging in a porcelain throne and swung into his unfinished bedroom. His hand came away from the door frame wet.
“Painting? You’re painting?”
The large space was nearly the size of his living room and dining room combined, with a little headroom lost to sloping sections of the ceiling. Aurora Williams, barefoot, roller in hand, was ten strokes away from finishing the first coat.
The smile she flashed had troublemaker written all over it. “I had to do something, and you hadn’t gotten very far in here. Plus, I’m good at painting.”
Cruz hadn’t gotten very far because he was going to return the paint. The color he picked out was a virile blue. What was on the walls was an effeminate purple-ish color that no self-respecting man would voluntarily put on a wall of his house, let alone his bedroom.
“I just love this color. It’s so…happy. Homey.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “Sexy.”
“That’s just what I thought when I picked it out.” He ate up the tarp covered floor with his long strides, capturing Aurora in his arms, pinning her to the wall as his mouth devoured hers. She shouted in surprise. He consumed that too.
It was too soon. They barely knew each other. His head knew it, but every other part of him said this was exactly right.
Except she fought his marauding hands, shoving at his shoulders. “The paint is wet!”
He lifted his head. “What?”
“I’m covered in paint and so are you.”
He looked at his shoulder where her hand, complete with the roller full of purplish paint, pressed against his black dress shirt. He smiled when he looked down at her. Without those sky-high heels, her head fit just under his chin. She wore skin tight pants with a shapeless, white T-shirt. “That’s my shirt.”
“Well I wasn’t going to paint in mine.” She narrowed her eyes. “I better not have paint in my hair.” She turned her head.
The thick black braid that ended between her shoulder blades had an iridescent line down the center.
“It’s latex, it’ll wash out. You can jump in the shower. I’ll help.”
She pointed the roller at him. “Two steps back, Detective.”
He held his hands up and did as ordered. Aurora stepped away from the wall, turning to survey the damage. She sighed heavily, reloaded the roller with paint and went for her outline.
Cruz walked the perimeter, inspecting. There were no marks on the ceiling where the roller had kissed it. There was no purple-ish paint on the white trim of the windows or door. Even the tarp was clean. “You do nice work.”
“Of course, I do. There.” She handed him the roller. “You get to clean up while I shower.”
He never spent less time cleaning up. She painted with the precision of, well, a painter, leaving him time to chop vegetables for a salad. He opened the door beneath the sink and pulled out his garbage can. Something black and smelling of smoke filled it. The room did smell like smoke. How did he miss it? And
what was it? He poked at it, and it collapsed to dust.
“Tell me about your day,” Aurora said as they sat side-by-side eating salad and reheated pizza
He couldn’t think of a thing he wanted to share. His world was doom and gloom. He didn’t want to be the clouds to her sun. “Nothing worth telling.”
She cut him a look. “Something made you late. Do you always work on Saturdays?”
“Depends on the week. The case I’m on had a development today. I lost track of time, then the commander called me into his office.”
“Are you late often?”
“I guess. I haven’t had a reason to come home, so it wasn’t an issue.” Any other night, he’d have come home to a dark, quiet house. This was better. “Thanks for ordering pizza. I know I said I would cook…”
“There wasn’t time for that. I tried to make a frozen pizza—you had one in your freezer—but it didn’t turn out.”
“Is that what is in my garbage can?”
Aurora’s brows pressed together. “I think your oven is broken. I followed the directions and poof. I called the pizza delivery on your refrigerator magnet. They knew your favorite. Sausage, onion and green pepper.”
“Let’s try again. Come back tomorrow. You can do the second coat. I’ll have a hot meal on the table by the time you’re done.”
She stabbed the tender greens and pointed at him. “Paying me off in food. I’ll consider it.”
Sunday, February 18
“You’re late.” Oscar Bollier chastised with his hand wrapped around a water glass, his cheeks filled with bread.
Cruz took his chair. “Bad couple of days. Took a nap this afternoon, overslept.” He rubbed his hand over his day and a half old beard, reminiscing about the best day he’d had since…since the day before. Aurora had come back. They painted together, until she took his brush away after he got paint on the molding. After that, she painted while he flirted. Then she painted while he made lunch. She kept painting while he slept. He woke when she draped a blanket over him on her way out.
Bollier sat up a little straighter. “Something you need to talk about?”
“No. Not like that. It was work.”
“Ah.” Bollier lifted his hands to allow the waiter to set a simple white plate carrying a serving of filet mignon and several vividly green stalks of broccoli.
“Good evening, Cruz.” The waiter smiled with the warmth reserved for long and well-tipping clients. “Coffee?”
He checked his watch. “Yes, and French onion soup and a salad. Could you bring more bread? Dr. Bollier seems to have eaten it all.”
“It was mine to eat,” Bollier said, buttering another piece of the fresh-made artisan bread. “Interesting case?” he asked, when the waiter had departed.
He reached for a piece of bread. “That’s a word for it.”
Bollier rapped his knuckle with the butter knife. “You have your own coming. I want to hear about your case.”
Cruz rubbed his smarting hand. “You’re a doctor. Don’t you know slathering on the butter isn’t good for you.”
“My cholesterol says otherwise, mother. Carry on.”
The tables were set far enough apart to ensure private conversations, especially with the jazz in the air. “I was called out Wednesday night to investigate the report of a body. It was the third time since November I’d taken a call like this.”
Bollier sliced the steak and put the piece in his mouth. A surgeon for as long as Cruz had been alive, the messier side of Cruz’s life not only didn’t bother him, it intrigued him. “Do tell.”
“In each case, only the head was found. Mounted on the side of an interstate, right at the city’s corp limit.”
Bollier chewed, little lines forming between his brows. “Welcome to Cleveland. Tell me more.” Over the years, Bollier had proven himself to be an excellent sounding board. Right now, Cruz needed new ideas, different takes on the information. He laid it all out.
The conversation stopped as the waiter served. Bollier dismissed him so hurriedly as to be rude. “I haven’t heard anything on the radio, TV. I haven’t seen anything in the paper.”
“The chief had a press conference with the second discovery at Christmas. There were a few hundred words buried in the metro section.”
Cruz broke through the cheese that covered the brown ceramic bowl of onion soup. Bollier cut another piece of steak, concentrating to the point his eyebrows linked together. Cruz knew that look on his sponsor’s face. The brain beneath that salt-and-pepper hair spun at a hundred miles an hour.
“I’d like to see the coroner’s report.”
“I’d appreciate your take.”
“Is there a task force on this?
“Task force? No. I have a team.” A thin one. Yablonski, when it fit his own caseload. A few extra hands when he needed it.
“Because of the drugs. If it were school teacher heads dotting the interstate, you would have a team of ten officers working with you, half of them working to keep the union at bay.”
“We are taking these crimes seriously.” Insult had him snapping back.
“I’m sure you are.” Bollier pressed his fist to his heart. “I’m disappointed that you think I would think otherwise. I am merely pointing out the untimely and even gruesome death of drug dealers is going to have a different reaction than if it were respectable people of the community.”
Bollier was brilliant but he was arrogant and could edge on elitist. He was a white doctor, top of the white food chain. Cruz often wondered if he was the only person of color Bollier could call a friend.
“Someone interrupted the lives of three men. Regardless of what they were in life, they are mine in death.”
Bollier laughed. “Do you have a cape to go with that speech?”
“This isn’t funny,” Cruz said, teeth gnashing together.
“Who said anything about funny? You think I’m being cruel? I am only saying what most won’t venture to say.”
“Ever think it shouldn’t be said?”
Bollier cocked his head, considering the question literally. “What isn’t said, can’t be talked about. What isn’t talked about, can’t be discussed, resolved and moved past. I firmly believe such things should be said. But, I’ll concede, the way something is talked about matters.” The gleam in those shiny eyes dimmed. “I…I…”
Cruz lifted his head, aware for the first time something more was wrong than an obstinate man’s callousness. “What happened?”
“Hospital politics.”
“You were fired?”
He waved it off. “I have too much political capital for that.”
“Then what. Spill it, Doc.”
“I have been moved aside. I am…a floating apex.”
“Shit. When did that happen?”
“It has been happening for months. These things are neither quick nor clean.”
Cruz set his silverware down. “You haven’t said a thing. Week after week. You haven’t said a thing.” He was mad at his friend, on behalf of his friend, and at himself for not tuning into the fact that Bollier’s life was as unsteady as his own.
He put it away. Drawing from his own experience, dealing with someone else’s temper didn’t help. “Well, now that you’re talking about it, we can discuss it, resolve it, and move past it. Do you have options?”
“I’m thinking about starting a clinic of my own. The healthcare laws are opening new opportunities, especially for an eccentric old doctor with a good idea and a fat bank account. I’m going to use their money to serve the very people they say aren’t worth the money.” He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. “That is what is new in my life.”
“I have something new.” Interest, excitement made him smile. “I met a woman.”
“She must be something. I don’t think you’ve dated in all the time we’ve known each other. You asked her out?”
“She asked me, then she painted my bedroom.”
Monday, February 19
Win
Ramsey stood behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back, pissed. The glare weighed heaviest on Cruz, but there was plenty left over for the other invited guests—Commander Kurt Montoya, PIO Alison Hyatt, and Detective Matt Yablonski. Not even Special Agent Zachary Bishop was immune. “How did this get out this way?”
Alison lifted her chin. “Mrs. Mayes went to the Medical Examiner’s office, demanding to see her son. Unfortunately, one of her staff didn’t realize the condition of Mr. Mayes. Needless to say, it was a shock. Mrs. Mayes’s associate, a Mr…” She fumbled through her pages for the name.
“Bell. Sam Bell,” Cruz said.
“Mr. Bell called the The Real News ranting about a cover-up and caught Edward Lutz’s attention. You’d think Lutz would get a clue after being fired from the Plain Dealer. Instead that tabloid fed right into his delusions.”
“Fucking Lutz,” the chief said. “He gives journalists a bad name. Why did it say we were unavailable for comment?”
“I found a message on my desk this morning,” Alison said. “Time stamp said seven last night.”
“On your desk voice mail?”
Alison shook her head. “I forwarded my desk phone to my cell, just like every night. He didn’t call my desk.”
“Fucking Lutz,” the chief repeated. “Cruz, where do we stand on this latest vic?”
Cruz caught the chief up. “Bobby Mayes fits the M.O. The suspect set up Mayes for a series of weeks, probably since the beginning of the year. There wasn’t anything random about this.”
“He was a kid, Cruz. A nineteen-year-old kid. I’ve taken calls from the mayor, city council and every Tom, Dick, and Harry who donated to their re-election campaigns. You tell me right now if you can’t handle this—”
“It’s mine, Chief.” Cruz surged to his feet, teeth bared to protect his territory as Ramsey pointed to Bishop. “All of them are mine. You and the FBI can take this case from me, and they’ll still be mine.”
Ramsey scrutinized Cruz with his dark gaze. Cruz stood under the pressure, letting his chief see he meant every word, without hesitation. “Work this hard, Cruz,” Ramsey said, enunciating each word. “Yablonski, clear your case load, you’re officially glued to his hip. Montoya, make sure they have what they need. Bishop, let me know what the FBI has to offer. Stay, Ms. Hyatt. The rest of you are dismissed.”