The Policeman's Daughter

by Trudy Nan Boyce

  “Wonder!” The dog jumped out of the barrel and ran to her, shaking water all the way. She squatted down beside him, realizing too late that Wonder’s plastered wet fur outlined the fresh scars.

  “What happened to him?” Wills asked, his voice heavy in a way she hadn’t heard before.

  She dropped her forehead to his back and took a deep breath. “Somebody broke in the house. He’s territorial.” She tried to smooth the wet fur.

  Wills held out his hand, palm down, to Wonder’s snout.

  “Move slow. He’s not much for petting.”

  They were both squatting down beside the dog. He tentatively sniffed the detective. The smell of sheep lanolin, wet dog, and summer dust floated around them. Wills moved the hand that he had held out to the dog and lifted a damp coil of Salt’s hair. His fingers slightly touched the top of her ear. She quit breathing and looked down at her dog for safety.

  “Don’t make any sudden moves. He’s wary.”

  “Salt,” said Wills, just as Wonder sat back on his haunches and started a furious flea-scratching.

  She laughed nervously, stood, and brushed her jeans. “He has about the same amount of social skills that I do.”

  Wills, still squatting in the dirt, let his head drop between his shoulders. He looked up at her.

  “I didn’t even make iced tea.”

  “Give me a hand up,” he said, reaching out for her. “Do you have tea bags? Sugar?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “My only pitcher has tiger lilies in it.”

  “We’ll switch them out.” He took her by the elbow, easy, and walked with her to the house.

  * * *

  • • •

  The sharp, clean smell of mint cut through the outside odors that hung on their clothes. They sat at the kitchen table. Mint leaves stuck to the inside of the cold tea glasses. The flowers were by the sink in a tall canning jar.

  Wills looked good dirty. She liked the way he sat at her table, leaning forward, forearms spread. “Wills, ATF? Did the trace come back?”

  “I didn’t come out here today because I wanted to work on crimes.” He pushed his chair back from the table, crossed one leg on top of the other, and pulled at the stains on his jeans.

  She looked down at her hands. Even after all the sheep work two of her fingers were still yellow-stained from the lilies. “Flowers, pollen,” she said.

  “What?” Wills looked up at her.

  She held out her hand to show him.

  He smiled and took her hand. “We’ve both got something to remember the day.” He pointed to his jeans and rubbed her fingers. “Salt, what about a report? Did you make a report? Does anyone know about your dog, about the break-in here?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know how hard it’s been for me to keep The Homes beat. In general, women have to work harder to earn a reputation for handling their beat. Some command staff still automatically want women cops riding desks and would jump at the chance to reassign me. I would resign rather than take an inside job.”

  He let her hand go and sighed. “There is a connection between Mitchell and Shannell.”

  “Shannell and the man I shot?” The morning light receded into hazy images of the city streets. “The guns?” She drew her hand back.

  “Shannell was a straw purchaser. Mitchell was transporting guns back up north because, as you probably know, gun laws are tougher there and guns harder to come by, especially for convicted felons. Shannell had bought two of the guns found in his trunk. The rest had been bought or stolen by other people.”

  “She was a crack user and a prostitute. How could she buy guns?”

  “She never had a felony conviction. She was perfect. Just under the radar for the background check.”

  “How many guns had she bought?”

  “ATF found forty purchases she made over the past five years.”

  “Five years. So she couldn’t buy many guns at one time. Whoever was pimping her probably had other straw purchasers buying for them. Could she have been holding the guns for pickup, storing them?” She thought about Shannell’s red windows.

  “What makes you think that?” Wills asked.

  “Sister Connelly, you remember, lives across the street from Shannell’s place, said that she saw a car with New York tags there.”

  “Some of the guns Shannell bought were recovered from crime scenes in New York. Mitchell had ties to a drug ring there that is believed to be distributing cocaine to points south, including our fair city.”

  “Do they know who the connection was or is here?” Salt asked.

  “No, but whoever is receiving has to be handling weight.”

  “Then Man does know,” she said, bracing herself, elbows on the table.

  “You’ve been putting pressure on the Homes gang, haven’t you?” Any trace of a smile was gone from Wills’s eyes.

  “Obviously not enough.” She looked down at a chipped spot on the table.

  “Who’s got your back? Does Pepper know what you’re doing? Does your sergeant?” His voice low and flat.

  She stood and walked to the screen door, facing out.

  Wills said, “Let me do my job, Salt. This is not the way I wanted this day to end.”

  She turned to him. “You’re not gonna report what I told you about what happened to Wonder, and the break-in?”

  “Would you let me come back if I did?”

  She didn’t answer, just looked out at the sheep.

  He stood. “And if I don’t let someone know, you will continue taking terrible risks. Salt, I’m the Homicide detective. This is my case.” He stepped closer.

  “How many open cases are you carrying?”

  “I can make time for this case. But why do you care so much about this murder?” He reached his hand to the underside of her arm.

  “She was the mother to a child I failed.” She looked away, past Wills.

  “We all fail children in places like The Homes,” he answered. “Why this mother? Why this child?” He tilted his head, seeing her close.

  “I don’t understand exactly but when Mitchell’s bullet scorched my head something broke loose. I didn’t know he had ties to Shannell but somehow I’m not surprised.” She looked over at the lilies in the canning jar beside the sink. The image of Shannell’s kitchen flashed in her mind, an image of the girl, Lil D, and a green envelope. “I’m remembering things.”

  “It’s my case. You don’t have to put yourself at risk,” Wills said.

  “Shannell and her family have been special to me for a long time. About five years ago I got yet another domestic to Shannell’s apartment—the usual—she’d cut Big D because he was ragging on her, probably about her crack use and whoring. They gave up their son, Lil D, years before, and then Shannell gave up her daughter and Big D got fed up. You know how it goes—just another Homes call, Big D bleeding, Shannell crying, face all smeary, I’ve already judged her because of giving up Lil D and on and on.”

  Wills shrugged his recognition of the scene and sentiment.

  “So I trudge up those rickety stairs, five years on the job. That day Shannell, snot running down her nose, said, ‘I couldn’t take care no baby. I can’t take care of my own self, much less no baby.’ Something like that and then she said, ‘I didn’t think a baby would love me.’”

  At the bottom of the steps, Wonder lay, head pointed at them, as if waiting for the next command.

  Wills made a soft dog-calling sound.

  “He still wants to work the sheep.”

  “Does he ever just want to play, have fun, be a dog?”

  “Work is what he’s wired for. It makes him feel good.”

  Wills put his hand to the screen door and opened it. “You won’t back off, will you?”

  Salt followed Will
s to his truck. He opened the driver’s door, then turned to her, his face different now, softer. She thought he might kiss her. She put her hand to her back pocket feeling for the hoof clippers, only to find that she’d left them beside the pen.

  “Give me a chance,” he said, and got in the truck. He turned on the ignition, set his hands on the wheel, and, keeping his eyes to the front, steered out of the drive to the road.

  Salt watched the dust stir and blow into the fields. She weighed what Wills offered against what she needed, then inhaled to the hollow place that she was afraid of wanting him to fill.

  24.

  RED HIGH HEELS

  The red high heels sat on the floor of Salt’s closet like cardinals on a gray winter day. They were exotic-looking next to the dark navy uniform shirts and pants hanging above. Bright compared to the jeans and T-shirts folded on the shelves. Strange sitting there next to the work and sheep shoes. She stood admiring them, then thought of Wills taking his time on the tour of her house, wondered if he would have noticed them, smart detective that he was. He was on her mind a lot, and not just because of Shannell’s murder. She liked Wills’s steadiness.

  She liked the company of men in general, partly a legacy of the companionship she’d had with her father. She’d had one or two close, intimate relationships: David, a college sweetheart, and a brief but intense one-year affair with a state cop. But she had felt something missing, or broken, likely having to do with her father’s death. She understood enough to know that understanding wasn’t the same as making things right.

  This was the third night of the john detail. She laid out stockings, a garter belt, a pink short skirt, and a red knit off-the-shoulder top. Getting into the blouse and skirt, she began to anticipate the shoes. She’d manicured her rough work hands so they wouldn’t snag the stockings while she slid them over each foot and leg, attaching them to the garters at mid-thigh. She picked up one of the shoes, the red leather soft, the spiked heel, four skinny inches. In some situations it might be a dangerous weapon. The insides of the shoes were lightly padded with soft leather the color of butter. She crossed one leg over the other, pointed her toes to glide her foot into the shoe, feeling the arch lift first her toes, then her foot as it narrowed to fit into the high heels. As she stood, the shoes moved her whole body to a different shape, her ass more pronounced, chest thrust forward, legs longer. She’d practiced and if her vision stayed clear during the eight-hour shift she hoped she could walk steady in the shoes, and not waffle or wobble. A small .38-caliber Airweight five-shot pistol tucked comfortably in her waistband was the only other accessory.

  Salt had volunteered to do a week with Vice in order to look for Dirty Red, who had disappeared after their first conversation. Working the whore detail also gave her access to information she couldn’t get in uniform.

  Whores and police decoys aspired to a look that advertised body parts, not women, a look that appealed to fetishists and johns seeking a particular sexual act. So she had gone shopping for a cheap pair of shoes, something Shannell or Dirty Red might wear. She had been headed for a discount store when a mall window, displaying the extraordinarily expensive red heels, caught her eye. She stopped, then immediately wanted those shoes, somehow reasoning that it would help her feel less like a trickster if she wore shoes that even she couldn’t afford. Trying them on confirmed her desire, standing up to watch her body change in the store mirror, a body she would be literally selling for the job.

  She’d been loaned to the Detail before, when they needed fresh meat for the johns. She knew what was required to keep them interested and not suspicious, not letting the johns get too close until the takedown, small bits of free conversation.

  “You dating?”

  “Sure, what you want?” A light smile. Get him to name the act, no entrapment.

  “What do you do?”

  “What you need?” Another smile.

  “Not regular sex. Can I pee (shit, watch, get you to beat me with this, suck, around the world, butt fuck)?”

  “Sure, I can do what you need.” Still smiling.

  “How much?”

  “What’s it worth to you?” A little sex in her voice, get him to name the price, as the law required.

  “One hundred (fifty, twenty-five, ten, five, food stamps, a shared crack pipe).”

  Why did she let herself be seduced by the expensive high heels? All she had to do was step out into the street and she could become one of the women on the Avenue, unevenly lit neon signs reflecting off her skin, tinny music ringing in her ears. Even her perfume would turn and smell more like asphalt than lavender. Already she could taste the grit blown from the passing cars.

  A platinum wig added protection against being recognized and covered her itchy scar. Behind an abandoned skating rink on the Avenue she got out of an unmarked that she’d gotten from the Vice Unit’s motor pool. She tucked the shoulder-length hair behind her ears as she went up to the converted bus that served as a mobile office for the PD details, and was now parked at the command post location. There were other policewomen in whore clothes milling around the dark area behind the crumbling building. Even if she hadn’t known the other women cops, it wasn’t hard to tell them from the real street whores. The cops had better teeth. For several of the women it was their first time posing as prostitutes, and the rookies were laughing and admiring each other’s ingenuity at finding the right wig or in daring to wear the shortest skirt or tightest pants. Salt smiled, waved, spoke to her colleagues, and acknowledged the requisite off-color admiration from the male plainclothes. They were bringing in the first of the real hookers, busted so they could be replaced on the street by cops. The in-custody whores looked like wilted flowers, faded a long time ago.

  Salt moved her toes in the red shoes, watching for a minute, then decided and walked over to the lieutenant in charge. “LT, how long before you put us out? Love your hat.”

  He was a skinny, hyper guy wearing a baseball hat, which he habitually touched, the hat embroidered with the word John. “We got a late start so I think you have about an hour to kill before we’re ready,” he answered, moving the cap to the back of his head.

  “Then I think I’m gonna go get something to eat.” Salt’s ankle turned and she stumbled.

  “Hey, don’t get hurt in those great shoes,” he said. “You don’t want to ruin your red slippers, Dorothy.”

  She gave an ironic salute and went to the car.

  So in the hour before the reverse-Cinderella time she headed back to her beat, back to The Homes and to Marcy Street in the unmarked car.

  * * *

  • • •

  Parked, ignition off, she looked in the car mirror to check her wig but couldn’t see, so she switched on the overhead light. A fractured image met her eyes and for a moment it felt like someone else was in the car with her. She shook her head, careful not to dislodge the wig, switched off the light, and got out at Sister Connelly’s.

  Looking down at her shoes like a penitent, synthetic hair hanging around the sides of her face, she stood at the door and knocked. Sister opened the door wearing half-glasses and carrying an open Bible, its black-grained leather cover soft and pliable. She closed it using one thumb to hold her place and narrowed her eyes over the glasses. “You got the wrong house.”

  “Sister Connelly, it’s Sarah, Officer Salt.”

  The old woman took her glasses off and looked at Salt hard. “My Lord, I thought for a second you were a street girl. I couldn’t see your face clear.”

  “Can I come in?”

  Sister moved back from the door but only slightly.

  “Why you wearin’ that whore getup?”

  “I’m working Vice, undercover.”

  “You had me convinced.” Sister closed the door behind Salt. “That where they send you when you don’t do your job?”

  “What job?”

  “
The other.”

  “What other?”

  “You didn’t arrest anybody for killin’ Shannell.”

  They were still standing close in the small entranceway. A tobacco-and-coconut odor was coming off Sister, still taller than Salt in heels.

  “Homicide detectives are the ones responsible for solving murders. I’m still assigned to my beat but I’m on loan, on special assignment for a week.” She had to tilt her head to make eye contact in the close quarters of the hall.

  “‘Special assignment.’ Yeah, it look special.”

  “I wanted to ask you a few more things about Shannell.”

  “What more?”

  “Like who was around her place when she died?”

  Sister led her into the dimly lit living room, to where they’d sat the last visit. She sat down in the same chair across from the sofa where Salt now took her same seat, careful of the short skirt. Again, the only illumination in the room came from the lamp beside Sister. Salt sat in the shadows.

  “I save on the electric,” Sister said. She let the Bible fall open on her knees. A small bunch of dried flowers dropped from the pages to the braided rug. Salt came off the sofa and knelt to pick them up.

  Sister also bent to retrieve the flowers. Their eyes were inches apart. Salt looked down, picked up the blooms, and, still kneeling, turned the little flattened bouquet over in her hand. They weren’t wisteria like the scattered petals on Shannell’s floor or tiger lilies like Wills had given her. They were rose blossoms, tiny, faded, dried, and fragile.

  “Are these from your garden?” she asked. Something was knocking around in her peripheral consciousness. The flowers were pinched together by a faded pink ribbon.

  “Of course.”

  Salt handed them back, looking up into Sister’s face again while struggling to get back onto her feet in the spiked heels and trying to keep her dignity in the short skirt. Slipping back onto the shadowed divan, she asked, “Sister, did Shannell come get flowers before Mother’s Day?”

  Sister looked up at the ceiling. “When you my age, Sarah, things tend to run together.” She shifted her gaze past Salt to the window behind the sofa. After a minute she looked down, put her hand on the Bible, and said with flat firmness, “No, I’m sure she didn’t.”