Warpath

by Ryan Sayles

  I stick my card out. She doesn’t accept it. “Ma’am, I’m a private detective. You’re Carla Gabler, am I correct?”

  Silence. The eye hovers, doesn’t blink. Then: “Get out. Whatever you want, you get out.”

  “Ma’am, I’m trying to solve a rape. Occurred twenty years ago while you were still in Happenstance. I was just—”

  “You tryin’ to scare me?” Her voice cracks. I can imagine she’s intimidated—which is not what I want. I’m sure she’s alone in the house with the toddler. She’s a felon so she can’t legally own a firearm but who knows. That never stopped anyone. Here’s a man on her porch four times her size who knows where she lives, her name, her history. I’m sure she’s wondering what else.

  “I’m callin’ the cops,” her voice cracks harder. She looks back inside the home. I’ll put good money that she looked at the little girl. She turns back. I see a tears watering up in the green eyes.

  “No, I’m not trying to scare you. I just wanted to ask you about an old boyfriend. The guy you got busted with.”

  “Mickey? I haven’t seen him in—” She stops. “He got out before I did. He—one day he just—”

  Things are adding up in ways she doesn’t want them to. Like when a doctor tiptoes around the word “terminal” but the patient gathers the clues together, Carla hears twenty years ago, boyfriend and rape.

  “You don’t mean—” she says, having fully lost her ability to speak in complete sentences.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I say. Hold up a shopping bag from the little kids store eight miles up the way. “I got your granddaughter some things. Thought maybe she could use them.”

  Carla’s green eye scans above and below the security chain, looks at the bag, looks at me.

  “Who did you say you are again?”

  “Richard Dean Buckner. I’m in the directory if you have one.” I hand her my card again. Her small hand offers two fingers through the doorway. I gently slip the card between them. Skittish. I need her to talk with me. Everything has to be gentle.

  She pauses at the door for some time. Then: “I’m not ready to talk about this.”

  “I understand. There is a time issue here, but let it sink in. Call me or, if I may, I’ll just stop by tomorrow. Same time.”

  I sit the toy store bag down on the porch, next to the box of diapers. “For your granddaughter.”

  I walk back to the car. Get in. Hoping to hear her call out for me before I shut the door. She does not. I shut it. So loud right now. Back out of the driveway. Leave.

  Damn it.

  I light a smoke and try and think of a new avenue I can go down while I wait for Carla to fall in line. What I really should have done this morning is gone right to PD headquarters and petitioned for some DNA from the rape kit. At least start that paper trail nightmare.

  Two miles up the road my phone rings.

  “Mr. Buckner?” Carla says, timid but forcing her manners to the front. “Thank you for the new diaper bag and whatnot...I have some sweet tea if you’d like some.”

  Inside the home the little girl sits in the middle of the floor, playing with the new Barbies I bought her.

  I sip sweet tea and study her. Perfect little hands, her bare feet with toes that look like they were rushed to be put on right before she was born, her small elbows and knees that are perfect replicas of our own, how her face is all curves.

  “She’s a doll,” I say. I lean back, recall the only Carl Sandburg I know, and I don’t even know why know it. “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”

  “Thank you,” Carla smiles at the poet’s quote. I’ll take credit for it, but it would be my luck she’s his number one fan. Instead, she says, “Absinthe, can you say thank you to Mr. Buckner for the toys?”

  The little girl regards me with a very shy sidelong glance. Under her breath I hear her tender voice say “thank you” and then she immediately focuses on something else besides the stranger in her grandma’s house.

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart.” I look at Carla. “Her name is Absinthe?”

  “Yes.” Rolls her eyes.

  “As in the alcoholic spirit Absinthe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Green? Flavored by green anise and sweet fennel?”

  “Yes. Grande wormwood. The Green Fairy. I know. I don’t understand what my daughter was thinking,” Carla says. “Jamie—my daughter, she got pregnant at fifteen. I was so furious. She made it through her sophomore year and then had Absinthe, dropped out. Got a job at a restaurant as a hostess.”

  “And the father?”

  “Twenty-six years old at the time. Punk kid. I had him locked up for statutory rape. He signed away his parental rights for Absinthe the day she was born. He’ll be out in another two years. Little shit is in the same prison as Mickey was all those years ago.”

  I study Absinthe for a moment and wonder what I would have been like as a father; then I blow it off because with the shape my wife was in when we dated, when we married, there was never a chance. I heard a woman once say as an experiment we should all list the people we’d be willing to have sex with. Those lists would be miles long. But then, she said, make a list of those you’d be a parent with. Those lists had a single name. Maybe less. Somewhere along the line people somehow forgot that one leads to the other, and look at the difference in the selection process.

  “Sometimes gifts come out of bad things,” I say. “I’ve seen it on the streets all the time.”

  “I agree,” Carla says. “That’s why I have Absinthe as much as I can. Jamie is so willing to pass off being a mother that she actually took a second job. I didn’t mind; it gets me more time with my grandchild. Plus, Jamie is not interested in being a parent. That’s not fair to Absinthe. I am interested, and truth be told, I’m better at it. More experience if nothing else. So this is our arrangement.”

  “Good for you,” I say and I mean it. In my time I’ve seen so many single moms with small children slung on their hips who had no interest in loving the kid. Their interest stopped at the sex, which I’m sure was a one-night stand. And the kids I saw, those are the lucky ones who were passed over by the Abortion Fairy. Cruise through any ghetto stuffed with any example of the human race and know that out of all the kids playing in the streets, they’re the surviving fifty percent or less.

  No one can wait to blow their load, nor can they be any less interested in their own children.

  “Good for you,” I say again. “Maybe we can switch gears a little bit and talk about Mickey.”

  “Well, I’d rather you keep telling me how wonderful my granddaughter is, but okay,” Carla says, rubbing out a cigarette. “So, who got raped?”

  “A woman named Shelia.”

  “I see. Is she okay?”

  Not too many details. If I assume the worst here and Mickey is the rapist, let’s assume he lives here with Carla. I don’t think he does; but assuming the worst he’ll be home after his shift is over at five. Carla here gets all the dirty details out of me, passes them on to Mickey who thought he was in the clear. Now it gets more complicated.

  Or, assuming Carla knows nothing about it, she might clam up when she hears the man she loved is now accused of raping a woman who later killed herself over it.

  Not too many details.

  “I haven’t spoken with her. I think she’s a lot better now.”

  “Good,” Carla says, lights a new cigarette. Drags deep, blows out long and cleansing as if the act of doing so releases her pent-up tensions about her long-lost love Mickey Cantu.

  “Mickey and I met at a bar. Sweet, sweet guy. Never hit me. Never really even raised his voice. He treated me like I rode in on a pumpkin that had been turned into a carriage or something. We lived together for a year. I knew he was a burglar but he never hurt anybody. I can’t say that enough. He took good care of me. I was Jamie’s age when I moved out. I had terrible parents. By the time I met Mickey I was jaded. The thought of being with a fel
on didn’t make me bat an eye. I’ve got stories about old boyfriends if you want to know about real felons.”

  She drags off her cigarette, a long, slender feminine thing. Her nails are meticulous. She’s pretty for her hard life and her fashion looks like she borrowed it from Miami.

  “Anyways. Mickey. Like I said we lived together for a year and then I asked him to take me along some night. We were probably drunk and I just got a wild hair. I was a receptionist for the local telephone company at the time and they just had laid off four of us. They called it cut backs. So I had time on my hands. He didn’t want to take me but I have my ways. He had been scouting a display home in a new neighborhood for a week or so. The builders were showing it off day and night so he and I posed as an interested couple although we could never afford it. The builders had stocked it with furniture and some electronics. If nothing else Mickey thought the display items were better than what we were living with so he figured it’d be a good score.

  “We gave it a week so they’d forget us and see a bunch of new faces. Then we hit it one night. What we didn’t know was there was an electrical problem earlier in the day and the builders had an electrician inside the house working until it was fixed. I can’t imagine the overtime money they were paying that guy...but he was there.

  “He stayed upstairs while we rushed around downstairs grabbing things. He called the cops. We were busted red-handed. Charged with aggravated burglary. I was so pissed I pleaded not guilty just to cost the city money. Mickey tried and tried and tried to talk me into pleading guilty so I could plea down my sentence but I have a stubborn streak. I lost and became inmate number one-one-nine-seven-one-one-three. Mickey pled guilty and worked things a bit, as much as he could. That’s how he got out before me.”

  “When did he get out?” I ask.

  “Spring of ’92. The bitch of it is with good behavior I got out like four months later. But I never saw him again.” Twinges of regret surface in her eyes. It’s been too long and buried under too many new regrets to be tears. Those, I’m sure she finished crying a long, long time ago.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Carla retreats into her memory and begins to recount mundane events stitched together as the timeline of her imprisonment. I see her eyes drift up and off as her lips move with very quiet words. She ticks off on her fingertips.

  “Well, I remember President Bush vomiting on that Japanese guy. There was the whole Dahmer trial. There was a big corrections officer house cleaning at Happenstance right around then. Male guards and female inmates. It was problem. Mickey wrote a letter and said probably half those CO’s wound up at his prison. The Bosnian War started right about the time I got a phone call from Mickey saying he was out. I remember that pretty well because I wanted him to watch the TV and tell me where the hell this Serb place was. I can show you Hollywood, Vegas and New York City on a map but Bosnia and Serb-whatever? Forget it.”

  The Bosnian War started in the beginning of April, 1992. Shelia Petticoat was raped in the last week of April. Which puts Mickey out of prison.

  “Did he say anything about burglarizing a new house?”

  Carla looks away. Very pointedly. A tell. She exhales smoke forcefully. Again, that cleansing. She scrubs the ashtray with her cigarette, as if it were a fingerprint she was trying to rub off or a bloodstain she needed to work out of clothing.

  Occupied with her cleaning, she says matter-of-factly: “He mentioned he was ‘looking at some employment’ which was Mickey’s way of saying he thought he had eyeballed a new place to hit. That’s all. I swear.”

  She stuffs that butt into the growing mound in the tray and lights a new one. She stares at Absinthe, who now has the two dolls tucked into the little play purse I brought to replace the plastic grocery sack. She looks at her grandma, smiles bright and beautiful and then twists from side to side to show off her new bag.

  Carla smiles for a long while, beaming at her second chance for a good daughter. Still looking away, she lets her smile fade some before she says, “That was the last time I heard from him. Then he just...disappeared. When I got out I looked for him, went and saw his family and everything. Everybody said that by May first, 1992 he was a ghost. Vanished.”

  She looks to her hands. “I loved Mickey Cantu very much. Flaws and all. No one ever treated me better. Years later I had Jamie, but I never loved her father. I never loved another man. Wherever Mickey went, he took that from me. He kept it when he vanished.”

  I stand. Carla mimics me, then holds out her hand for my empty glass. I give it her and say, “One last thing. Who was your PO when you got out?”

  “Started off as a guy named Dan Martins, but after he made a pass at me and I blew him off, I eventually got shuffled over to a woman named Jean Jamison. Or Johnson. Jean J-something.”

  Dan Martins. He was a parole officer with the city. Actually, Dan says he had been making house calls with her as well. Dan said one night during some pillow talk, she was recounting her life. Telling him about the boyfriend she used to date who got her in trouble. Then she said something about him robbing my house.

  I don’t know Dan Martins but I make the play anyways. “Martins was known for sleeping with his clients.”

  “That’s what I heard on the street.” Carla says, walking to the front door. “Amazing how many folks you meet in the system. It’s like buying a car you’ve never seen before being on the lot and when you drive around, you see ’em everywhere.”

  “You’re right.”

  “That’s how it was with Dan. Over the years I run into people, they knew Dan by way of parole. Always the same story.”

  I nod. I don’t like the complication.

  Carla gives me a genuine smile. “Anyways, thanks again for all the stuff for Absinthe. Really. You didn’t have to do it.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” I say.

  “Also, the Sandburg quote melted me about my granddaughter.”

  I knew it. Number one fan. I go on, “Hey, not to pry, but why would Dan tell people you two had a relationship?”

  “If he did, he’s a liar. I only met with him twice and both times were in his office. Then I was transferred. My heart was still very much set on finding Mickey. Plus, Dan was a sleaze. Looking back at life I picked mostly bad men, but Dan was too low, even for me.”

  “Okay. Again, sorry to pry.” I step on the front porch and thank her for being so cooperative. She smiles in a sad way.

  “Carla, if I find out anything about Mickey, good or bad, I’ll let you know.” I start to walk to the car. As I approach it this time she calls out after me.

  “Just the good, Mr. Buckner. What I have of him is untarnished. Just let me know the good.”

  I look back. “I will.”

  I get in the car and leave.

  Carla might be lying about a relationship with Dan Martins. I don’t think so. Dan Martins might be lying as well. Could be.

  Clarence Petticoat might be lying about the two of them.

  Probably. My gut says it.

  Probably.

  9

  1100 hours, Monday

  I call Captain Rose MacHowell at the PD. She and I were never an item but I think there was a time where she would have obliged me. This was back in the day when night sticks were still one solid piece of wood and your portable radio was a better offensive weapon than just about anything on your belt.

  “Hello?”

  “Rose. It’s Richard. How are you?”

  “I’m just great, Richard! Things are great. They have me over at Precinct 3 now. I come in and knock out all the paperwork that I can and then after roll call I spend a couple of hours out in a car. I missed it. Did you hear that my oldest is getting married?”

  “Cassandra?”

  “Yes. Her fiancé will be graduating state this year. He’s got a job lined up. She has one more year left and will finish. His company has branches in Denver, Chicago, Atlanta—” Rose continues on. Sweet gal. I tune her out and wait for
a momentary break in her rapid-fire blabs to get around to what I want. The reason I originally called Rose is because, up until her transfer to Precinct 3, she was the Records captain.

  In the Saint Ansgar PD, the evidence locker falls under Records as well. If anyone can grease wheels for me into getting the DNA from Sheila Petticoat’s rape kit, it’s Rose. I fill her in on what I need and she says she can probably make it happen as early as Wednesday, but Friday at the latest. I’ll take it.

  We say goodbye and I start making phone calls. Playing telephone, creating links in a chain from me to a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy who works in the same office as Hank Madison. I get his extension. Catch his voice mail. Hello. You’ve reached the desk of Sergeant Madison with the Saint Ansgar Police Department, Precinct 5. I’m unavailable to take your call but please leave your name, number and a detailed message after the tone. If this is urgent, please press the star key. You will be transferred to the Precinct switchboard and they can transfer you to my cell. Thank you.

  Star key.

  “Precinct 5 switchboard, how may I help you?” A pleasant female voice.

  “I need to be transferred to Sgt. Madison’s cell phone please.”

  “And your name, sir?”

  “Richard Dean Buckner.”

  “Ohhh.” Drawn out. Spit out. Like she bit into something sour. Seems the switchboard operator knows me. Bitch. “One second.”

  Cut to God-awful hold music. New Age Jazz.

  Thirty unbearable seconds later and I hear ringing. Thank the Lord.

  “Sergeant Madison.”

  “Hank. It’s Richard Dean Buckner. Long time.”

  “Buckner. Holy shit. How are you?”

  “As good as a burned cop can be. I was hoping I could sit down with you and talk.”