by Tim Green
"How did that sweatshirt get in your garage?" he said, his voice now laced with hostility. "It's her blood on it, you know."
"I don't know," Clark said. "I have no idea."
"It's your sweatshirt, right?"
"Yes, but I have several of them just like it. Someone could have taken it from my locker. Annie had one of them. Trane could have gotten it from her."
"Trane?"
"He's obviously behind this," Clark said.
Brinson pressed his lips together in a skeptical frown and looked at Madison. She looked at her client, obviously as puzzled as Brinson.
"Let's not get into the possibilities, Clark," she said gently. "Let's just answer the questions as the lieutenant asks them."
Clark nodded.
"What about the key to the Mercedes?" Brinson said. "Didn't you take that from Trane's locker?"
"Never."
"It just showed up in your garage with the sweatshirt?"
"And I have no idea how they got there," Clark added. "I never touched them."
"Was there someone at your house who might have put them there?"
"No," Clark scoffed. "No one who's been at my house would do that."
"Did someone break in?"
"Maybe."
"Did you report a break-in?" "When they did it, I didn't know about it."
Brinson nodded doubtfully. "Tell me about your religious convictions," he said suddenly.
Madison shifted in her seat and said, "That's totally irrelevant here, lieutenant."
"I don't think that it is," Brinson said, not taking his eyes off Clark. "What are they?"
"I don't think you should get into that, Clark," Madison said.
Clark looked at him calmly and said, "I'm a born-again Christian. You know that, Lieutenant."
Brinson nodded. "Yes, I know. I know about Jesus being your personal savior. I've heard all about it. I've seen you say it on TV I've read it in the paper, too. But what about the Bible? How does the Bible fit into all this?"
"The Bible is the word of God," Clark said, glowing proudly now.
"You mean it's man's interpretation of what God wants," Brinson said, knowing full well that he was being contradictory.
"No, the Bible is God's literal word. He used the men who wrote it the way we might use a typewriter. It's God's word."
"So when it says 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,'" Brinson said, "that's God's word."
"Of course."
"Lieutenant," Madison interrupted, "we did not come here for a discussion in theology. I would appreciate it if you kept your line of questioning to the matter at hand."
"Oh, but it is, Counselor. It is," Brinson said patiendy and with a strange smile.
"So if someone killed, let's say . .. your child," Brinson said, staring intently at Clark and poindng at him with a pistachio he held pinched between his thumb and his index finger, "then they would deserve to die."
"That would be God's will," Clark said, frowning emphatically. "We can see that over and over in the Bible. But God gives out justice as He sees fit, Lieutenant. Jesus said turn the other cheek."
"But you believe that if someone killed your son that God would have justice, isn't that right?"
"In His time, yes."
"How about abortion?" Brinson said.
"Good God, Lieutenant!" Madison burst out. "This is enough."
The word seemed to have hit Clark upside the head with the force of an iron bar.
"What about it, Clark? Is that murder?"
"Of course it is," Clark hissed. "It's the most brutal form of murder."
"And she murdered your child, didn't she?" Brinson said, forcefully, keeping his eye contact with Clark, ignoring the lawyer's protests, moving in for the kill.
Clark shook with rage. Madison grabbed him by the arm.
"That's enough!" she said, standing and tugging at her client. "Clark, let's go. This is enough. No more. Lieutenant, you're way out of line."
Clark shook her off, his eyes locked on Brinson's. "You know," he said flatly, his eyes filling up with pain.
"1 told you before, it's my business," Brinson said. Then, quietly but forcefully he whispered, "She killed your baby, Clark. She sucked it out of the womb in pieces with a stainless-steel tube. What does that do to you?"
Clark let out a primordial bellow and leaped across the table at Brinson. Brinson bolted back. Clark missed his neck but got hold of his shirt and tore it wide open. Brinson's pale flesh spilled out into the open. Kelh^and Arnsbarger burst through the door and grabbed Clark by either arm.
"It was God's will!" Clark bellowed. "It was God's will, if that's what you want to know! She got what she deserved! She got what she deserved!
"Clark!" Madison's scream pierced the melee as she grasped the front of his sweatjacket and shook him with surprising strength. "Stop it! Stop it!"
Clark went limp. He was shaking and tears streamed down his face.
"You're under arrest!" Kelly shouted, forcefully pulling one of Clark's hands behind his back.
"No he's not!" Brinson ordered with an outstretched hand. He was gasping for breath. "He's not. Let him go."
The two detectives dropped Clark's arms and Madison looked fiercely at Brinson. The overweight detective was pulling the remnants of his shirt together with one hand and steadying himself on the back of his chair with the other.
"That was wrong," she said, seething.
"Take him," Brinson snarled back at her. "Take him outta my sight."
Chapter 42
Coach Gridley addressed the team first thing Wednesday morning. His eyes were bloodshot and each had its own puffy gray satchel to contend with. He needed a shave.
"This team has overcome tremendous distractions this season," he began in the rough morning voice of a smoker. "I thought we finally had all this bullshit behind us . . . but we don't. For those of you who don't know, Clark Cromwell is now being investigated for the death of... of that girl."
Gridley looked around the room at his silent team and their scowling faces.
"Clark won't be here today," he continued. "I don't know what to say to you all except to tell you the facts and to tell you to keep focusing on the game the way you have since this whole thing began. Now, we've got to go out to Buffalo this week and it's going to be cold and nasty. We win this game and we've got home field throughout the playoffs. We all know what that means . . ."
Everyone did. Home field during the playoffs gave a team a distinct advantage in reaching the Super Bowl. The emotional edge of a home crowd often made the difference in lifting a team up over the top. The season's final games were a time when everyone was mentally worn and physically battered.
"We've got a lot of work to do to prepare for their thirty-four defense and we can't afford to be thinking about all the bullshit going on outside this facility. Like I said, you've done that well so far and you've got to keep doing it. We've got the thing with Trane behind us now, and that's a goddamn relief. Hopefully the same thing will happen with Clark, I don't know. It seems like the police have their heads up their asses but we'll just have to weather it. Ossenmeyer, if Clark doesn't practice this week, you'll start in Buffalo. As far as the media is concerned, you guys just keep treating those whores to silence a la mode. I don't want to see any comments on this bullshit. You just do your jobs and talk football. We've got a championship to win."
For Trane the day went like any other. He slept during the meetings, then practiced hard when it came time to go out on the field. At the end of the day he headed for the weight room to do his upper-body lift. He went through the machines with a steady intensity that even the hardest-working of his teammates admired. While he might slack off on the mental preparation for a game, it was a rare day when someone outdid him in the physical realm.
After a shower, Trane found himself alone in his section of the locker room with Ike Webber.
"Hey, Ike!" he said, loud and sudden enough to make the younger player start. "C
ome here, brother. You an' me gotta talk."
"Wha's up, Trane?" Ike said with a nervous grin. Trane rarely spoke to Ike, and most times when he did it was to poke fun at him. "Country Brother" is how Trane referred to the young runner. Ike never said anything about that. Trane was a star. He held a place in the NFL's hierarchy that Ike dreamed of. Even his mild insults to the coaches were tolerated.
"Wha's up is you, brother," Trane said with a sneer. "I wanna know if you're a brother or a motherfuckin' Oreo, a white brother. You a white brother, Ike?"
Ike bit the flesh beneath the inside of his lower lip. Trane just talked that way to people. It wasn't anything to get offended about. It was just his way.
"I ain't white," he said. "I ain't white, Trane."
"Then how come you walkin all over hell with them white- boy Bible motherfuckers? That's a white man's bullshit."
"Naw," Ike said. "They're good people, Trane. They got Jesus."
Trane snorted. "They do what they do. They ain't no better than you or me. That's a white man's thing. Been usin that shit fo two hundred years to keep the black man his slave."
Ike twisted his face in protest but said nothing.
"What you need is to spend some mo' time with the brothers," Trane said, slowly drying his privates. "An' I got just the thing. Tonight's gonna be a big motherfuckin party at Phatt Momma's. Zeus Shoes is celebratin' my innocence. That's where you need to be."
"I don't do that stuff, Trane," Ike muttered.
"You don't do drugs. You don't do alcohol. But you sho' as hell like a freak. I know that. An' I got a sister that's gonna do shit to you that you don't even wanna know. Yeah, you like that. I see that smile . . .
"Besides, Conrad gonna be there, an' he don't want you actin' like some white boy. "Vbu gotta spend some time with your brothers if you wanna be a brother. Conrad, he don't wanna represent no white brothers."
"Okay, Trane. That sounds okay. I'll check it out."
Trane's warm broad smile made Ike feel good. It was like an unexpected burst of sunshine on a gloomy winter day.
"That's what I like to hear, brother. An' the shit starts at eight so don't be late."
Chapter 43
Conrad Dobbins snickered to himself. Most people could be bought for next to nothing. He'd closed multimillion-dollar deals over inside information he'd purchased for the price of putting a fifty-thousand-dollar addition onto someone's home. He'd obtained information that cost people their lives for the price of a used Mercedes convertible. It was laughable. So when he got a call from Sergeant Arnsbarger, he wasn't caught off guard. Ten thousand dollars in a paper bag was all it cost him to keep abreast of the wheres and whys of the Annie Cassidy case. Ten thousand dollars. Dobbins was looking at thirty million.
"He's over the edge," Arnsbarger said.
Dobbins was on a lounge chair beside the pool looking out over the smog-cloaked city. The sun's brilliant rays were blocked out by a large cloth umbrella. A fresh drink sat quietly sweating beside him on a little cocktail table. On his other side, just beyond the shade, lay a twenty-six-year-old dancer facedown without her top.
"You gonna nail him?" Dobbins wanted to know.
Arnsbarger was quiet for a moment and Dobbins could hear traffic in the background. The cop was calling from a pay phone.
"I should probably be asking you," the detective said sarcastically.
"What I wanna know is if you got enough shit on this motherfucker to put his ass in jail right now?" Dobbins said, reaching out for his drink and taking a slow sip before putting it right back in the center of its wet ring.
"Maybe," Arnsbarger said. "Maybe not. The lawyer seems pretty sharp. I hear she doesn't lose. You know that. She was with Trane. He could go down, but he might not. I've seen good lawyers get people off with even more against them. We've all seen that."
"What about Brinson? Is that fat son of a bitch sold on the white boy?"
"Oh yeah, Brinson was onto him from the start."
"Good. That's all I need to hear."
"Okay, hey, if you need more stuff, you know, in the future . . ."
"Yeah, I'll keep you in my mind."
Dobbins snapped the phone shut and tapped its shell against his teeth before setting it down beside the drink. With his left hand he reached over and felt the curve of the dancer's ass where it met the back of her thigh. He stroked the tiny white hairs growing there even though they were too fine to be felt. Then he gave her a little slap that made her start up with a small shriek.
"Go on, bitch," he said cheerfully. "I need to talk to my man. You go on inside an' I'll be in there real soon."
The girl rose shamelessly from her chair, exposing her naked breasts and even adding a little arch to her back. Conrad and Zee leered together. The bodyguard stood resting his bulk against the wrought-iron railing that kept the agent's guests from falling to their death.
When the girl was gone Dobbins said, "Put yo' fuckin' eyes back in yd motherfuckin' head an' come over here. Zee."
Zee adjusted his sunglasses and grumbled something about his eyes being right where they should be, but did as he was told all the same.
"S'up," he rumbled, now standing directly in front of Dob- bins's chair with his feet spread shoulder-width apart and his hands clasped firmly behind his back. The man was so large he obliterated the sun.
"What's up is you, brother," Dobbins said congenially. "I got somethin' that you gonna like. I gotta job that's gonna take all your motherfuckin' abilities, an' I know you like that. . ."
Zee knew what was coming. "All his abilities" meant someone was going to have to die. It also meant that he was going to get paid, and paid big. Being a bodyguard was fine, but when there was something special to be done, his deal said that he got bonuses, big bonuses. It was the kind of money a professional deserved. A few more jobs that required "all his abilities" and he wouldn't be working for anyone but himself. He already had close to a million dollars socked away in a safe-deposit box. Zee fingered the medallion that hung from his neck on a thick gold chain. The medallion never left his neck. Behind it he had adhered the key to his deposit box. It was his passport to freedom. His face broke out in a nasty smile now, because after this job he might just have enough to break out on his own. Maybe he'd have a bodyguard of his own.
The first time Zee went into the gated community of Rancho Palos Verdes it was in the bed of a pickup truck full of Mexican yard workers. For a hundred bucks the boss let Zee ride around with them for the day all through the neighborhood. Hiding beneath a Green Thumb cap and armed with his own weed whacker, Zee had free rein inside the exclusive community. And while it was true someone couldn't just drive up and pass through the gates, the community's intricate web of horse trails made it accessible if only you were willing to crash through some underbrush. Under the cover of a stolen municipal water truck, Zee pulled over at a park outside the community. He pushed through the dark underbrush until he emerged onto a horse trail that he knew would take him to within a hundred feet of Clark Cromwell's house.
Dobbins had alerted him that there would be police outside watching the house, but that was no problem either. Zee knew how to get in through the back. With the stars shining brightly and a half-moon in the sky, negotiating the woodchipped trails wasn't a problem. Less than twenty minutes after leaving his van Zee was lurking in the shadows of the neighbors' lawns. At one house he stopped to watch a young girl doing her homework at the kitchen table. In the next room her mom, with the same long dark hair pulled into a similar red ribbon, sat twisting her pony- tail as she talked on the phone. Zee felt the thing he liked buzzing up inside him. He could wait right there until these rich white fools went to sleep and then snuff the life out of them. They felt so safe in their home behind the gates. But he was real and he could end it for them in a terrible way. It was an alluring thought, but business was at hand.
If he did this job right he'd have more than enough money so that he wouldn't have to work. With this deal he'd be m
aking more money this year than some of Conrad's richest clients. With the money he already had in the box and the money he'd get from selling the new options Conrad had promised him, Zee wouldn't have to work like he did. With money like that he could go down to Mexico where the value of a human being was supposedly much less than it was in L. A. He had a notion that he'd like to make some movies down there, and he knew just where he could sell that kind of thing. But first he had to take care of business. He moved through the shadows with a stealth that belied his size. Before climbing a neighbor's tree that would let him drop down inside Clark's wrought-iron fence, Zee stopped to check out the cops. They sat in an unmarked car across the street. One slept with his head against the window while the other read a book, glancing up every few moments at Clark's house. When the one cop's head went back down to his book Zee shouldered his black leather pack and swung himself up into the tree.
Chapter 44
Clark sat watching the phone as it rang. It rested in the middle of his coffee table surrounded by a regiment of empty beer bottles. Normally the sight would have filled him with guilt. But now his head swam in alcohol and the mess and the annoying sound of the phone didn't seem to matter all that much. He had bought a case of St. Pauli Girl at the grocery store on his way back from the police station. His intention had been to only have a few to settle his nerves, but he had ended up drunk. In an abstract way it was shameful, really. He knew you couldn't be drunk and have the spirit of God. The two didn't go together.
The phone didn't stop. He knew it was Madison. She had said she was going to call him and he'd promised he'd be there.
"I am here," he slurred out loud to himself.
The phone stopped. Clark's spirits continued to fall from one level to the next without apparent end. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Not God, not Jesus, not football, not anything. He was so alone it made him ache. His head lolled against the back of the couch and his eyes drooped shut. The room began to spin.