by M. C. Grant
“He’s angry right now. Not thinking. Watch your ass till he cools down, OK?”
“Yeah.” Shit. “Thanks.”
Pinch hangs up and I drop the phone on the coffee table. Prince Marmalade, stretched across my feet, opens one eye in a manner that asks if I’m quite done causing a disturbance so early in the morning. We both drift back to sleep just before the phone rings again.
“You forget something?” I ask grumpily. “Some cheerful news that a tsunami is rushing toward shore or something equally as uplifting?”
“You never just say hello, do you?” says a high-pitched, yet still gruff voice.
I groan. “Morning, boss.”
“Editorial meeting at eleven, looking forward to having you in attendance.”
“What time is it now?”
“Closing in on eight.”
“You must eat worms for breakfast.”
A slight chuckle. “Two dozen every day. See you at eleven?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
I close my eyes and drop the phone for a second time. It starts ringing before it’s even landed.
“This is getting ridiculous,” I say, grabbing the phone on its first bounce. “Is it Bug Dixie Day?”
“I’m sending a car over,” says Frank. “Be ready in ten.”
“Don’t you people sleep?” I ask.
He ignores me. “The fire marshal has issued the all-clear to enter the building. I want you to walk me through what happened before the coroner removes the bodies.”
“Neat-o. Guess I won’t eat breakfast first.”
“Cereal is fine, but I would avoid anything fried.”
“Ha, ha,” I groan. “No wonder you’re dating a coroner. Nobody else finds you funny.”
“You’ve got nine minutes,” says Frank. “Brush your teeth.”
I hang up and look down at Prince. “Put the coffee on while I have a shower, will you?”
Prince’s ears twitch, but he doesn’t even bother to open his eyes. As I walk to the shower, I know there’s not going to be any coffee waiting when I get out.
Men and cats. Bloody useless.
Detective Russell Shaw knocks on my front door and shows an inappropriate lack of disappointment at finding me mostly dressed and ready to go. I was sure he would be picturing me clutching a daringly short damp towel to my bosom and flustered at having been caught au naturel in my empty—well, mostly empty—apartment.
Poor kid must lack imagination.
I leave a note for Bailey and Roxanne and lock the door behind me.
In the car, Shaw studies me with X-ray eyes. But instead of trying to see beneath my clothes, I can tell he’s trying to see beneath my skin.
“What?” I ask. “Never seen a naturally beautiful woman at the crack of dawn before?”
He tries not to grin and mostly succeeds. “No, just curious.”
“About?”
“This. Me escorting you to a fresh crime scene—again.”
“So?”
“I haven’t been allowed inside yet,” he says. “We only received the all-clear ten minutes ago, but Frank wants you there with us.”
“So?” I repeat, which I can tell gets on his nerves.
“You’re not a forensic specialist, you’re not even a cop. And to make it worse, you’re a reporter.”
I decide not to repeat myself again in case the pressure causes his ears to pop off like a plastic Mr. Potato Head I had as a kid. “And your point is?”
“You shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the scene. At least not until we’ve finished our investigation.”
“So, you’re saying Frank’s lost his marbles?”
Shaw’s lips fumble with uncertainty. “I’m not saying anything against the sergeant. It’s just unusual is all.”
“Hmmm. You know what I find odd?”
“What?”
“That you haven’t asked me out.”
“What!” His cheeks blush. His level of discomfort somehow makes me more relaxed.
“It’s obvious that you’re attracted to me.”
“I-I’ve never shown—”
“You’re young, but that’s OK. I like showing new dogs old tricks.”
Completely flustered, Shaw can’t seem to find his tongue for the entire rest of the journey. Pity. I could have shown him what to use it for.
Frank meets us at the car and escorts me past the police barrier and into the building’s lobby, where a large makeshift tent has been erected both to block my curious media brethren and as a forensic lock.
On one table inside the tent, somebody has stacked a neat pile of fresh body bags. Resting beside them are two plastic snow shovels whose purpose I really don’t want to guess at. On another table, someone has kindly arranged a box of assorted doughnuts and a large stay-warm container of coffee from a nearby cafe.
I’m heading for the coffee when Frank cuts me off.
“Put these on.” He hands me a sterile package containing a blue paper suit, complete with a hood.
“Are we playing doctor?” I quip. “’Cause I think Shaw would make a great nurse.”
Frank snorts while Shaw blushes again as the three of us pull the baggy paper suits over our street clothes. After we’re dressed, Frank hands us paper booties and disposable latex gloves.
“Don’t wander,” Frank warns. “The fire marshal has mapped a safe route, but the structural integrity has been compromised, so stay behind me at all times.”
“And what about the coffee?” I ask hopefully.
“Later.”
Reluctantly, I leave the coffee and tantalizing thoughts of deep-fried dough behind to follow Frank out of the tent. The three of us walk into a soggy mess of soaked and charred debris that’s been swept down the stairs from the upper floors by the fire hoses.
“Watch out for needles and glass,” says Frank.
“Charming,” I fire back. “Did the local knitting guild have a rave?”
Shaw snickers behind me, but I don’t reward him with one of my come-hither smiles. I’m starting to get worried about what we may find on the floors above—and how I’ll explain myself.
On the first landing, we stop in front of the dead man Pinch shot through the eye. The fire never reached this far, but the water certainly did. The man is ghostly pale and slumped forward to expose the gaping wound in the back of his head. Water pools in the hollow of his skull along with what’s left of his brain matter. Behind him, the wall is streaked with long fingers of dirt, erasing the telltale splatter of his violent demise.
That could have been me, I tell myself to stop from being sickened by the sight, if Pinch hadn’t been watching my back.
Frank pins a tiny red flag into the wall where a ragged hole the size of my fist punctures the plaster.
“He was shot,” explains Frank. “The bullet expanded inside his skull and punched out the back of his head.” He indicates the red flag and turns to point up the stairs. “By the angle, we know the shooter stood above him.” He turns to me. “Know him?”
“He wasn’t here when I ran out,” I say, betraying no emotion. “I would’ve noticed.”
Frank points at the man’s hand, still holding a gun. “He was expecting trouble.” To Shaw, he adds, “Check if that was fired, or if he was beaten to the draw.”
The young detective instantly squats down to slip an evidence bag over the gun without disturbing the corpse. From past crime scenes, I know he’ll retrieve the weapon after the police photographer has recorded the scene.
When Frank starts up the stairs again, Shaw turns to me and hisses, “You were here?”
“No, she wasn’t,” Frank answers before I can open my mouth.
“God didn’t give him those big ears for nothing,” I say, glad to find my dark bravado hasn’t deserted me comp
letely.
The second floor is uneventful, although Frank shares that somebody scrambled to salvage what they could from the rooms before the water and fire ruined the contents.
“A neighborhood crack operation,” he explains. “The rooms on the first floor are strictly low-rent hangouts for low-rent customers. So long as you’re buying, smoking, and injecting poison in your veins, there’s a spot on one of the couches for you. Spend enough and you can graduate to the redneck VIP lounge with massaging La-Z-Boys and crack hos with scabby knees.”
Frank glances over at me to gauge my reaction, but I’ve been a reporter too long to be shocked by the sad reality of the streets. I say, “So having this place burn to the ground wasn’t necessarily any great loss?”
Frank shrugs. “They’ll relocate and start again.”
He continues, “The rooms on this floor were used to cook cocaine into crack. A simple DIY process without all the toxic hassles of meth, although someone was trying to be inventive.” He shakes his head. “The fire department found vials of blue, orange, and red rock. There’s even a rigged-up dumbwaiter between the floors, so the den mother didn’t need to climb the stairs to supply her customers.”
“What does Narcotics say?” Shaw asks.
“Barely on their radar,” says Frank. “Most serious junkies consider crack a starter drug. It gives you a boost but wears off too soon. May as well snort a can of Red Bull. The colored rocks are bothersome though. Lebed may have been using this place to target younger users.”
“How young?” I ask.
Frank sighs. “They’re using powdered Kool-Aid to give it a fruity smell, so I’m guessing elementary schools.”
“Bastards!”
“That just becoming clear?” When I flash him a dirty look instead of a reply, Frank asks, “Nobody tried to stop you on these floors? Either going up or coming down?”
I shake my head. “No one.”
Shaw glares at me.
“If I had been here,” I add quickly.
“That’s unusual,” says Frank. “Normally, the cook house would have a couple of armed guards outside to dissuade the first-floor customers from climbing the stairs.”
I shrug. “Coffee break?”
Frank doesn’t smile and judging by the intensity of his stare, Shaw looks like he’s about to burst a few blood vessels in his eyes.
On the third floor, we enter the room where Bailey was being held. Frank moves carefully around the dark stain that streaks the hallway, and I find myself holding my breath.
When we enter the living room, I exhale loudly in relief.
There’s no body.
Frank points to another dark stain on the floor and follows it back into the hallway with his finger. “Somebody was seriously injured here,” he says. “Must have dragged himself out.”
“Maybe when he saw Bailey wasn’t here,” I suggest. “He came looking for her because of the fire upstairs, but we were already gone.”
I point to the overturned chair in front of the blank television set. “She was tied there.”
“Bailey was here, too?” Shaw squawks. “The woman in your apartment with the junkie sister?”
“Of course not,” I answer.
Shaw looks at Frank in frustration, but Frank gives him nothing.
“Let’s go up,” Frank says.
The fourth floor is the most disturbing by far. Open and spacious, the giant loft looks like a gut-shot dragon coughed up a cancerous lung and spewed it from one end to the other. Every square inch is charcoal black and reeking of burnt wood, paint, gunpowder, and human meat.
Fortunately, most of the windows are broken, allowing for a breeze to soften the cloying taste, but the breach has also allowed the city’s famous early morning mist to drift inside and crawl across the ceiling, making the space chokingly claustrophobic.
Jesus, Pinch, I think, was all this really necessary?
Frank points to a charred body that’s curled nearest the door.
“He’s not nearly as cooked as the rest,” he says. “Must have arrived to the party late.”
I glance at the body and notice his right foot is twisted at an impossible angle, as though a hollow-point bullet has shattered the bones. Fire may have burned away the rest of his hair and licked at his face, but I’d know this guy anywhere.
I turn away to hide a shudder and swallow a lump of bile that is threatening to climb up my throat.
“It’s too dangerous to walk around up here,” says Frank, “but this is where the bulk of the gun play happened.”
He lowers himself to his haunches for a different perspective and points at several human-shaped black lumps scattered around the debris. “Not sure what they were up to in here, but these men were taken by surprise by someone who knew how to handle themselves.”
He points to scorch marks and bullet holes that only he can see; it’s all black soot and water damage to me.
“He tossed an incendiary into that far corner to split the group apart and then took them down one at a time. He used the smoke and fire to his advantage—definitely a professional. The only anomaly is the guy by the door.”
My attacker. The one I shot and left in the hands of the Good Samaritan.
“If that guy had gone downstairs instead of up, he might still be alive.”
“And we might have some answers,” adds Shaw.
Frank ignores him and looks at me. “This mean anything to you?”
I shake my head. “Not a thing.”
Despite what Frank said, I can be a damn good liar.
“This didn’t have anything to do with drugs,” Frank says. “The pushers and cooks downstairs were purely collateral damage. This was something else. Something personal.”
“The Red Swan has no shortage of enemies,” I add.
Shaw looks at both of us and grits his teeth. I can tell he’s dying to ask Frank what the hell I’m doing here and how I know anything about the Red Swan’s involvement, but to his professional credit, he keeps his mouth shut.
Unfortunately, that also drops him off my list of desirable bed partners.
I only like yes men when they say yes to me.
Thirty-Eight
“Do you need a ride home?” Frank asks as he escorts me down to the lobby.
“Thanks, but I have to get to the office. I’ll take a cab.”
Before reentering the tent, Frank takes hold of my arm and squeezes it lightly to make sure he has my full attention.
“Be careful, OK?” he says. “When I finish here, I’m planning to have a talk with Lebed, let him know I’m watching.”
“Think he’ll listen?” I ask.
Frank’s mouth tightens with residual anger. “I’ll make sure.”
After discarding my paper outfit and booties, I exit the building and head in the opposite direction from the bored media scrum awaiting any scrap of news to feed their chirpy breakfast-TV hosts. An enterprising coffee truck provides a convenient distraction as the skeleton crew of cameramen and wannabe broadcasters is lined up for plastic-wrapped pastries and double-doubles with extra double.
I’m not paying attention as I dart past the mouth of the alley, and a leathery palm snakes from the darkness to close over my mouth, instantly muffling my startled scream.
Dragged into the depths, I’m both terrified and pissed. My terror is obvious, but my anger is a white-hot poker as I realize that despite repeated warnings from Frank and Pinch, I’ve still been too cavalier.
“It’s OK,” a hoarse voice whispers. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I recognize the voice. It belongs to my Good Samaritan.
I bite down on his gloved finger, attempting to pierce the bone.
He yelps and releases me.
“Shit! Didn’t you hear me? I’m no—”
I drop
to my haunches and sweep my foot in a wide arc, clipping his ankles and lifting his feet off the ground.
With another curse, he crunches onto his back on the rancid alley floor, and I’m on top of him. By the time his eyes stop rolling, I have my knife out of my boot and against his throat.
“Don’t ever do that again!” I hiss.
“OK, OK.” He holds up his hands. “I surrender.”
“What the hell are you playing at?”
“You wanted to talk.”
“You scared me to death! I thought you were Lebed.”
“S-s-sorry,” he says. “I … I’m not too good around outsiders anymore.”
I climb off his chest and hold out my hand to help him up. He accepts but grips my forearm rather than my hand, forcing me to do the same. He’s awkward rising and I have to put some muscle into it to bring him to his feet.
“Let’s walk,” he says, wiping at his dirty coat and moving deeper into the alley. “I don’t like to stay in one place too long.”
“Why?”
“Same reason you’re scared.”
“The Red Swan?”
He nods.
“Is that why you killed that gunman last night even though I asked you not to? I just saw his body.”
“If I’d let him live, he would’ve come after both of us.” The Samaritan’s eyes glisten with a feral intensity. “I know these animals—you don’t. Not yet. They don’t just hurt people because Lebed tells them to. They enjoy it.” His voice rises in anger. “It gets them fucking hard. If Lebed does grab you, you better be prepared to kill, because he won’t hesitate to do a hell of a lot worse.”
I stop walking and ask, “What did he do to you?”
“I was a journalist, too,” he says. “Not in the spotlight like you. Just on the desk, but still … ” He carefully removes one of his gloves and displays the blackened stumps where his fingers used to be. “This,” he says, “was for writing a cutline that Lebed didn’t like.”
“I heard about that,” I say. “From Victor Hendrickson.”
“Yeah,” the Samaritan sighs. “Red Swan paid him a visit, too.”