by John Hart
“My name is Elizabeth Black.”
“I know who you are, Detective. We do get the papers out here.”
Not aggressive, Elizabeth thought. Not helpful, either. “I’d like to speak to Robert Strange.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He works here four days a week. You pay him cash, off the books. That’s his moped under the pecan tree.”
She pointed at a yellow moped, and another dog stood up, a whine in its throat as if it sensed tension in the air.
The big man stepped out onto gravel, sunlight hard on his face. “Aren’t you suspended?”
Elizabeth counted five men, now, most of them holding back in the dimness of the shed. There’d be warrants out on a few of them: missed court dates, felony charges. “Are you going to make this difficult for me?”
“I’m not sure, yet.”
“I just want to talk to him.”
“Is it about his boy?”
“You know about that?”
“Glenn’s wife works 911 dispatch.” He pointed at one of the men. “She told us what happened. The boy comes around sometimes. He’s a good kid. We all like him.”
Elizabeth studied the shed, the men inside. She thought of Gideon here and could see it. He liked cars and the forest. The river was down the hill. “I want to talk to his father. It’s important.”
“We don’t want any trouble.”
“There won’t be any.”
“Back room, then.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Past the Corvette.”
The Corvette sat on a floor jack, front tires off the rims, the bearings pulled. Beyond it was a metal door painted black. Looking at it, Elizabeth felt a tingle in her fingers. The men were still watching her, nobody working. She’d have to the pass through the gauntlet of their bodies, then twist between cars and jacks and lifts. It was dim in the shed. They were staring at her, waiting; and she wondered what was in the back room, if there would be windows or darkness or a mattress-shaped hole in the world.
“Detective?”
Elizabeth started, then pushed into the shed, between the men. To her surprise, they stepped back to make room. Three of them nodded politely and one mumbled the word “Ma’am,” before ducking his head as if embarrassed. At the door, she looked back, but no one else had moved, so she touched a handle that clicked as she turned it. The room beyond was just a room, a small, square space with vending machines, a vinyl sofa, and a table with four chairs. Robert Strange sat with both hands on the table, a bottle and a glass between them. The lines in his face seemed deeper than normal. He did not look well.
“Hello, Robert.”
“I figured it was you who’d come looking.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s always you, isn’t it?” He lifted the glass and choked on brown liquor. “Is he dead?”
“I talked to the hospital an hour ago. He’s in surgery. I’m hopeful.”
“Hopeful.”
The word leaked out. Elizabeth saw doubt and regret, but darker things, too. She tried to gauge how drunk he was, but he’d always been a quiet, grim drinker. “Do you know why your son was shot?”
“You should leave, Detective.”
“He was shot trying to kill Adrian Wall. Are you sober enough to understand that? He was out by the prison. Fourteen years old with a loaded weapon.”
“Don’t say that bastard’s name.”
“Where were you when this was happening?” He lifted the glass, but she took it from his hand. “Where did he get the gun?”
“Give me the glass.”
“Answer the question.”
“Can you, for once, mind your own goddamn business?”
“No.”
“He’s my son, you understand? Why are you in the middle of that? Why are you always in the middle?”
It was an old argument between them. Elizabeth was part of Gideon’s life. Robert didn’t like it. Looking at him now, Elizabeth studied the bright eyes, the swollen veins. His hands twisted the bottle as if it were her throat. “Did you give Gideon the gun?”
“For God’s sake…”
“Did you want Adrian dead, too?”
He hung his head and ran fingers through greasy hair. Elizabeth studied the heavy jaw, the veined nose. He was tired and nearly ruined and only thirty-nine. With all the bitterness and regret, it was easy to forget that he was a young man, heartbroken from the death of a beautiful wife. “Did you know what your son was doing?” She asked it more gently. “Did you know he had a gun?”
“I thought…”
“You thought what?”
“I was drunk.” He pressed fingers against his eyes. “I thought it was a dream.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gideon with a gun in his hand.” Robert shook his head, dark hair glinting. “It came out of the television. That had to be a dream, right? Guns coming out of TVs. That can’t be real.”
“Was it your gun, Robert?” His mouth stayed shut, so she pushed harder. “Did you know that Adrian Wall was getting out of prison today?” He looked up, his eyes so suddenly pink and shattered-looking Elizabeth knew the answer. “Jesus, you did.”
“It was a dream. Right? How could that be real?”
He buried his face in his hands, and Elizabeth—understanding—straightened.
Had he really thought it was a dream?
Or had some part of him known?
That was the part of his soul that had him weeping. The part that thought it was real and decided not to call the cops, the part that wanted Adrian Wall dead and was willing to let his son do the dirty work.
“Is my boy alive?” He showed the same pink eyes. “Please say he is.”
“Yes,” she said. “Twenty minutes ago he was alive.” He broke then, sobbing. “I want you to come with me, Robert.”
“Why?”
“Because as much as I might hate it right now, Gideon loves you. You should be there when he wakes.”
“You’ll take me?”
“Yes,” she said; and he rose, blinking and afraid, as if condemned to some terrible fate.
6
Elizabeth drove Robert Strange to the hospital and got him situated in a waiting room down the hall from the surgical theaters. After a brief talk with one of the nurses, she returned to the place she’d left him. “Gideon’s still in surgery. It looks good, though.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be.” Elizabeth pulled twenty dollars from her pocket and dropped it on the table. “That’s for food. Not liquor.”
The irony was that Elizabeth wanted the drink. She was tired and drained and for the first time in her adult life knew she didn’t want to be a cop. But what else was there?
Some other job?
Prison?
That felt real as she drove. State cops. Incarceration. Maybe that’s why she took the long drive to the station. Maybe that’s why she was thirty minutes late.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Beckett was waiting outside, his tie loose, his face redder than usual. Elizabeth locked the car and considered the second-floor windows as she walked. “What happened with Adrian?”
“He’s in the wind.” Beckett fell in beside her, deflated by her steady calm.
“Where?”
“Walking down the road, last I saw him. How’s Gideon?”
“Still in surgery.”
“Did you find his father?”
“He’s at the hospital.”
“Drunk?”
“Yeah.”
They were avoiding the obvious. Beckett came around to it first. “They’re waiting for you.”
“The same ones?”
“Different.”
“Where?”
“Conference room.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The conference room was beside the bull pen and glass-walled. That meant the state cops wanted her visible. They wanted every other cop to
see. “I guess we do this the hard way.”
They took the stairs to the second floor and stepped into the bull pen. People stopped talking and stared. She felt the distrust and condemnation, but tuned it out. The department was taking heat, yes. The newspapers had turned, and a lot of people were angry. Elizabeth understood all that, but not everyone could walk into the dark and make the hard choice.
She knew who she was.
The cops in the conference room, though, were strangers. She saw them through the glass, both of them older and stern. They wore sidearms and state credentials and watched intently as she moved between the desks.
“Captain.” She stopped where Dyer waited at the conference room door. “Those are not the same investigators.”
“Hamilton and Marsh,” Dyer said. “You’ve heard of them?”
“Should I have?”
“They report directly to the attorney general. Dirty politicians. Crooked cops. They go after the worst of them. It’s all they do. Big cases. High profile.”
“Should I be flattered?”
“They’re a hit squad, Liz, politicized and effective. Don’t take them lightly.”
“I don’t.”
“Yet, your lawyer’s not here.”
“True.”
“He says you haven’t met him at all, won’t return his calls.”
“It’s fine, Francis.”
“Let’s reschedule and bring in the lawyer. I’ll take the heat.”
“I said I’m fine.” She laid a palm on his face, then opened the door and went inside. Both state investigators were standing on the other side of a polished table. One’s fingertips rested lightly on the wood; the other’s arms were crossed.
“Detective Black,” the taller one began. “I’m Special Agent Marsh. This is Special Agent Hamilton.”
“I don’t care about introductions.” Elizabeth pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Very well.” The one called Marsh sat. The other waited a heartbeat, then sat, too. There was not a kind look between them, not a moment’s softness. “You understand you have the right to an attorney?”
“Let’s just do this.”
“Very well.” Marsh pushed a Miranda waiver across the table. Elizabeth signed it without comment, and Marsh pressed it into a folder. He looked at Dyer and gestured at an empty chair. “Captain, would you care to sit?”
“No.” Dyer stood in a corner, arms crossed. Beyond the glass, every cop was watching. Beckett looked as if he might vomit.
“All right.” Marsh started a tape recorder and gave the date, the time, the names of everyone present. “This interview is in regard to the shooting deaths of Brendan and Titus Monroe, brothers aged thirty-four and thirty-one at the times of their deaths. Detective Black has waived right to counsel. Captain Dyer is present as a witness only and is not participating in the interview. Now, Detective Black…” Marsh paused, face neutral. “I’d like to walk you through the events of August fifth.”
Elizabeth laced her fingers on the table. “I’ve given a statement regarding the matter in question. I have no additions or modifications.”
“Then, let’s consider this discussion one of nuance and color. We simply want to understand what happened a little better. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
“Very well.”
“I’d like to hear more about how you came to be in the house where the Monroe brothers died. Channing Shore had been missing for a day and a half. Is that correct?”
“Forty hours.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Not a day and a half. Forty hours.”
“And police were actively involved in the search?”
“There was speculation she was a runaway, but, yes. We had her description and were involved. Her parents had come to the precinct. They were very concerned.”
“They’d posted a reward?”
“And spoken to local television. They were convincing.”
“Did you believe her to be a runaway?”
“I believed she’d been abducted.”
“Based on what information?” Marsh asked.
“I’d spoken to her parents and been to her house, in her room. I interviewed friends, teachers, coaches. There was no sign of drug or alcohol abuse. Her parents were not perfect, but they weren’t abusive, either. There was no boyfriend, nothing unusual on her computer. She was going to go to college. She was a solid kid.”
“That was the sole basis of your judgment?”
“She had pink sheets.”
“Pink sheets?”
“Pink sheets. Stuffed animals.” Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. “The lives of runaways are rarely pink or fluffy.”
Hamilton stared at Elizabeth as if she were something dirty. Marsh shifted in his seat. “Channing was eventually discovered in the basement of an abandoned dwelling on Penelope Street.”
“Yes.”
“How would you describe that neighborhood?”
“Decayed.”
“Violent?”
“There have been shootings there, yes.”
“Murders?”
“A few.”
Marsh leaned forward. “Why did you go into that house alone? Where was your partner?”
“I’ve explained this.”
“Explain it again.”
“It was late. We’d been working Channing Shore’s disappearance since five in the morning. We were exhausted. Beckett went home for a shower and a few hours’ sleep. I went for coffee and a drive. We were going to meet again at five the next morning.”
“Go on.”
“I received a radio call from dispatch asking me to check out reports of suspicious activity at an abandoned house on Penelope Street. The report indicated activity in the basement, possible screams. I would not normally take a call like that, but it was a busy night. The department was stretched.”
“Stretched, how?”
“The battery plant closed that day—three hundred jobs gone in a city that can’t afford to lose three. There was rioting. Some burned cars. People were angry. The department’s resources were strained.”
“Where was Detective Beckett?”
“He’s married with kids. He needed the time.”
“So, you went alone to a dangerous neighborhood, then into an abandoned house where screams had been reported?”
“That’s correct.”
“You didn’t call for backup?”
“No.”
“Is that normal procedure?”
“It was not a normal day.”
Marsh drummed his fingers on the table. “Were you drinking?”
“That question is offensive.”
Marsh slid a paper across the table. “This is the incident report completed by your commanding officer.” He glanced at Dyer. “It says you were disoriented after the shooting. At times, nonresponsive.”
Elizabeth flashed back to the moment in question. She was sitting on the curb outside the abandoned house. Channing was in the ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, catatonic. Dyer’s hands were on Elizabeth’s shoulders. Talk to me, he’d said. Liz. His eyes faded in and out. Jesus Christ, he’d said. What the hell happened in there?
“I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t drunk.”
Marsh leaned back and studied her. “You have a soft spot for young people.”
“Is that a question?”
“Especially those who are helpless or abused. It’s reflected in your files. People in the department are aware of it. You respond with great passion to young people in distress. You’ve intervened with authorities, used force on multiple occasions.” Marsh leaned forward. “You feel a connection to those who are small and young and unable to care for themselves.”
“Isn’t that part of the job description?”
“Not if it interferes with the job.” Marsh opened another folder and began to spread out photographs of the dead men. They were glossy, full color. Crime-scene photographs. Autopsy photographs. They stretched acros
s the table like a fan of cards: blood and blank eyes and shattered bone. “You went alone into an abandoned house.” He touched the photographs as he spoke. “There was no power. Reports of screams. You went alone into the basement.” He straightened the edges of the photographs until he had a perfect line. “Did you hear anything?”
Elizabeth swallowed.
“Detective Black? Did you hear anything?”
“Dripping water. Rats in the walls.”
“Rats?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Channing was crying.”
“You saw her?”
Elizabeth blinked, the memory collapsing into something dimmer. “She was in the second room.”
“Describe it.”
“Concrete. Low ceilings. The mattress was in the corner.”
“Was it dark?”
“There was a candle on a crate. It was red.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and saw that, too: melted wax and flickers of light, the hallways and doors and shadowed places. It was as real as in her dreams, but mostly she heard the girl’s voice, the broken words and prayer, the way she begged God to help her, please.
“Where were the Monroe brothers at this time?”
“I don’t know.” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “There were other rooms.”
“And the child?” Marsh pushed a photograph forward. It showed the mattress, the wires. Elizabeth blinked again, but the room around her remained blurry. Only the photograph was sharp. The mattress. The memory. “How was Channing?”
“She was as you might imagine.”
“Frightened, of course.” He placed a single finger on the photo of the mattress. “Wired to a mattress. Exposed. Alone.” He removed the photographs, touched two that showed the dead men, their bodies broken and bent and shredded. “These are the ones that interest me the most.” He pushed them toward her. “The bullet placement, in particular.” He touched one man and then the other. “Both knees shot away.” He slid forward a close-up of the shattered knees. “Multiple shots to the groin. Again, both men.” Another close-up hissed across the table, this one an autopsy photo, stark and bright. “Did you torture these men, Detective Black?”