“I want you to go home.”
“What? I have to stay and give my statement,” I said numbly.
“No.” Smitty pulled me into the video store and out of view of the uniforms talking quietly near their car. “Go home and get cleaned up. I’ll make some excuse about you not feeling good.”
I didn’t move. He shook me. I thought he was close to slapping my face.
“I can make this go away, but you have to listen to me. You’re a good detective, and nobody cares about a child molester. He isn’t worth spending the rest of your life in a jail cell. You were never here. Understood?”
I nodded dully as the ramifications of what I had done washed over me. My career…my life was over. The captain’s words echoed in my head: You’re going to lose your temper one time too many, Everett, and I won’t be able to help you.
“Go home,” Smitty repeated. “Don’t call a cab. Just go home and let me handle this.”
I started walking. My life was over and I’d had no warning whatsoever.
*
I skirted the accusatory brilliance of the streetlights like a seasoned criminal. The long walk home was fine by me. I needed time to think. How could things have gone so wrong so fast? I realized there had been signs. The captain had identified them loud and clear. I was losing it by degrees. It was only a matter of time before I snapped. She knew it, but I had refused to see it.
When I got home I pulled off my bloody pants and T-shirt and thought about leaving them on the floor with the rest of my laundry, to be picked up sometime when I could be bothered. I’d always wondered why people who committed crimes didn’t remove the evidence immediately. Now I had my answer. It was simply too damn hard. All I wanted to do was sleep, something I had never been successful at. But I was also a cop, and the bloody handprint on one of my shirtsleeves told me I needed to eliminate everything that connected me to the man I’d just killed.
I approached the bloody clothes as if I were approaching a meth house, with extreme caution. I picked up my T-shirt, purposely not looking at the glaring palm print. I had blood on my hands and I always would.
I shoved everything into a plastic grocery bag, along with my blood-spattered Doc Martens, and slipped out of my apartment. Thank God I live in an old building that still has an incinerator. Fire hazard that it was, it allowed me to get rid of the evidence. I made my way down to the basement, tossed the bag and all its contents into the incinerator, and watched as it ignited. I used a metal rod that had been left in the room to make sure that all of the stuff was incinerated beyond recognition. As the evidence of my guilt burned a hot orange, I thought how I would need to go out and buy the exact same boots tomorrow. I would have to be late to work and talk the same shit to the same people, like today had never happened. It would look suspicious if I suddenly changed my routine. Wouldn’t it?
Chapter Three
Almost a month went by. I expected my life to undergo a drastic change in that time, but guess what? It didn’t. Nothing happed. Nothing, nada, zilch. It was business as usual. Well, there was the fact that one Harrison Canniff, wanted on suspicion of murder, kidnap, and child molestation, was found floating in the water near the southern shore of Santa Monica beach. His body had been burned postmortem and he had floated for days before being spotted by lifeguards. They could smell him for miles.
Smitty had lovingly recounted all of this to me. When the body was removed from the water, a small ecosystem had already taken up residence. According to Canniff’s driver’s license, he had been 160 pounds, but by the time he was pulled out, he looked closer to 300. When a body floats for a certain amount of time, the fatty tissue starts to break down and the body can swell and bloat even though it may actually weigh less due to the chemical breakdown that it undergoes. The smell is even worse than your typical decomposing body. And I’m here to tell you there is nothing like the stomach-turning stench of a rotting corpse. Anyway, we closed the books on the case. The captain was happy, and the media and the public simply shrugged it off. No one feels bad about the death of a child molester, right? Nobody, that is, but me. I wasn’t sleeping well. I explained this to Smitty when we stopped the car to pick up my third cup of coffee for the day.
“Well, shit, when have you ever?” Smitty asked as he eased us into traffic. We were headed into the division after following up dead-end leads on yet another cold case. “Hey, I was meaning to talk to you, though. You losing weight? You used to have some meat on your bones. Now you just look too skinny.”
I tried to joke about the loss of my little beer belly but Smitty wasn’t having it, so I simply shrugged and made up some half-assed excuse about going on a crash diet. I was so full of shit. A month earlier I was stuffing hot dogs down my throat and swigging beer with the rest of the guys down at Charlie’s. And while my coworkers were complaining of stomach pains, I was already working my way through the baskets of peanuts on the bar.
Smitty made a right turn into an alley the patrol cops used to catch people making illegal right turns after six o’clock. He cut the engine and faced me. “You having problems with what happened?”
“Yeah. I just never thought it would go down like this. I never killed anyone, Smitty. I thought when I finally had to, it would be no problem. You know, my life or theirs. This wasn’t that way.”
I blinked furiously at the red brick wall. “Kimmy loves Stan” was crossed out with black spray paint, and the slogan “Stan is dead” replaced the earlier sentiment. I wondered how Kimmy was handling the loss. Probably better than me.
“Let this shit go.” Smitty’s voice was unusually gruff.
“I don’t know if I can. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything but see that guy’s face as I whaled on him.”
Smitty had a theory. He thought that when I kneed Canniff, I probably smashed the guy’s nasal cartilage into his brain, killing him instantly. “You thinking about turning yourself in?” he asked tightly.
“Yeah.” Before I could say another word, I was wrenched around so that I was facing him.
“Now you listen here, Everett. I know you’re sorry. I know you hate that this happened, but damn it, there are other people involved. I’ve got a wife and a kid. Those rookies that corroborated the story have families, too. We can’t afford to lose our jobs over some two-bit asshole who didn’t deserve to live anyway.”
I avoided his fierce stare. The hopelessness of my situation threatened to pull me under again. I couldn’t even confess to my crime without taking people down with me. Smitty had gotten rid of the body, so that was aiding and abetting. The uniform cops had confirmed our story that Canniff was not at the scene when we arrived. They would be in trouble, too.
“Have you talked to your father yet?” Smitty asked.
“No, I haven’t called him since it happened.”
“He was on the force for thirty-six years. I think you should talk to him. He can probably give you some perspective.”
Contrary to what Smitty might have believed, my father and I weren’t exactly close. I respected the man for raising me when my mother left, but our relationship was always strained at best. He didn’t seem to know what to do with me, and I was angry because he was never around. It didn’t help matters that he’d married a woman only four years older than me when I was sixteen. I went through a wild, rebellious stage that basically didn’t end until I got accepted into the police academy at twenty-one. Thankfully, Dad had cleaned up any mild scrapes I wasn’t able to talk my way out of, so my record stayed clean.
I moved to Los Angeles and accepted a position with the LAPD because I didn’t want to work in my father’s shadow in New York. I thought Los Angeles was far enough away that my father’s larger-than-life reputation wouldn’t follow me there. I was wrong.
Shortly after I’d arrived in L.A., Dad decided to come visit me before he took his wife to Vegas for a vacation. We had arranged to meet at Charlie’s because I didn’t want him coming to my tiny studio and seeing that af
ter six months, I still hadn’t bothered to buy any furniture. I walked into the bar to find my dad surrounded by about seven guys from my division. He was obviously regaling them with story after story about what the dumbass crooks did in New York. It wasn’t like New York had cornered the market on shit like that. We see that every day, I thought grumpily as I sat back and pretended not to listen. All of the guys, especially Smitty, were hanging on every word Dad spoke. I wondered why he’d never told those stories to me. Probably because he thought I wouldn’t be interested. He was right.
“I can’t tell my dad I killed some defenseless perp, even if he was a worm,” I said.
Smitty let go of me and maneuvered us through downtown traffic. “When I became your partner, I promised your dad that I would look out for you. He cares about you and he knows how things are. Call him, okay?”
I said something noncommittal. I thought this emptiness in the pit of my stomach would stop feeling painful one day and all I had to do was cope until then.
“You saw that kid,” Smitty persisted. “He would have killed him and sold the fucking movie, just like he did with the others. You know as well as I do that he has probably messed up more than just that one kid’s life. The way I see it, you did the world a favor. That’s how your dad will see it, too. Call him, that’s all I ask. Tell him what you’re thinking about doing and see what he says.”
*
“Just see what he says,” I grumbled, holding my little roommate in my hand. “What do you think, Bud? You think I should call up old Dad and see what he says about this situation, hmm?”
I handed Bud a piece of cheese, which he held in his two front claws and, after turning it rather delicately, popped the whole thing into his mouth. Bud was turning into a chip off the old block. I had never gotten around to releasing him, and he had grown on me. I’d never had a pet before and I never intended on keeping Bud, but he gave me something to go home to. I put him in his little hamster-world-thingy so that he could roll around and crash into walls. He seemed to get a great kick out of it, and the noise kept me from concentrating on any one thing in particular. If it weren’t for Bud, I wouldn’t even have bothered going home. I would have probably just drowned myself in other people’s squalid lives at work, and hoped I could forget my own.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number for my father’s condo in New York. After his retirement, the stepmonster, as I called her, had persuaded him to sell the house I grew up in and buy a new high-rise condo. My stepmonster was a fairly accomplished author of those fat paperback romances you see in the grocery store with the gay-looking man and the busty woman bent in those awkward positions. I wonder if her fans cared that she was short and dowdy and married to a man twice her age.
The mean thought was enough to cheer me up, along with the fact that the phone had not been answered yet, so I was almost certain to get a reprieve. I was just about to hang up when Dad greeted me like he was happy I’d called.
We made a few meaningless remarks to each other, then he asked, “Foster, is there something you need to talk to me about?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, you never call to just shoot the breeze.”
“There is something.” A tear slipped from the corner of my eye, and I brushed it away. “I don’t know where to start.”
I expected my father to ask me, as he had for the last few years every time I called him, if I was pregnant. He refused to see the signs, even though I’d been hitting him over the head with them since I was about fifteen. I would never be interested in men. Nothing against them—Smitty was my best friend. They just aren’t my thing, never have been.
Dad didn’t make his normal comment, though. Instead, in a soft, commanding voice, he ordered me to start from the beginning. So I did, telling him all of it, starting from when Smitty got the lead from Jackson and Fuller, to today and my conversation with Smitty in the alley.
Several long seconds passed and then he said, “I think Smitty’s right.”
I expelled my breath, amazed that he hadn’t lambasted me for going aggro on that guy. “You do?”
“What good will come of it if you tell the truth? It’s not like the LAPD needs another lump, either.”
“But Dad, the guy didn’t even try to fight back. It was in cold blood.”
“What’s done is done. You saved that little boy’s life, probably several others, too. That’s what you should be thinking about.”
“The point is that he had the right to—”
“A speedy trial the taxpayers foot the bill for, so we can watch the son of a bitch wearing a suit on Court TV, claiming he was molested as a child so he’s not responsible for his crimes.”
My dad’s voice faded as I walked over to the window. I didn’t have to listen to what he was saying, because I’d heard it all from Smitty. I stared down at the streets below. Brake lights flashed as the cars inched along in traffic like ants on a chalk line, all going somewhere and getting nowhere fast. I held the phone between my shoulder and neck as the drone of my father’s voice continued in my ear. I assured him I wouldn’t do anything without talking to him first. After I hung up, I wandered over to Bud’s hamster house and watched him crash happily into one wall a few times before deciding on a different direction. Going nowhere fast.
*
The House of Secrets was a neighborhood women’s bar that went through stages of being seedy or trendy, depending on what time of year you went. I didn’t keep alcohol in my house, as I was far too likely to anesthetize myself after seeing some of the things I saw on a daily basis. My father and every older cop I knew drank too much. I didn’t want to be like them, so I regulated my alcohol intake. That regulation also included not going to Secrets as much as I would have liked.
I was surprised when a muscular brunette checked my ID at the front door. She was about six feet, looked my age, and was built like a brick shithouse, as my friend Marcus would say. She wore her hair in a braid as I did; however, that’s where the resemblance ended. Where mine was always unruly and whispering around my forehead, hers was brushed back so tightly that it gave her an almost severe look. She glanced at my department ID and then stared hard at my driver’s license before silently handing them back to me, her eyes already on the next customer. I found my usual dark corner at the edge of the bar and ordered a shot of tequila.
“Ouch, hard day, Foster?” Stacy, the owner and sometimes bartender slid the shot down.
I caught it and tossed it back in one continuous motion.
“Yeah, you could say that.” My eyes watered and my chest burned from the drink. Tequila. Nasty shit, but it sure does the job fast. I ordered a beer to kill the taste, then followed this with another shot of tequila. As Stacy warily handed me the shot, I could tell she was thinking about refusing me, but I was of legal age and nowhere near drunk.
“So what’s up with this place?” I tossed down the tequila, trying not to grimace and failing miserably. “It looks busier than usual.”
“Yeah, the college crowd got hip to us. Lot of them graduate in a few weeks, though, so it’ll probably be back to the regulars again. You should stop by more often.”
Her eyes focused on my chest as I leaned over the bar and grabbed a bowl of peanuts. Stacy had been trying to get me into bed for at least two years. She and her partner Lisa had one of those open relationships that women sometimes have when they get bored with each other and are either too scared to be alone or too chickenshit to break it off.
“You know me, I try to stay away from the alcohol as much as possible.”
“Yeah, so whatcha doin’ here tonight?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Thought I’d get my mind off some crap.”
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place. Let me know when you need something else.” She moved off down the bar to help some chick in a leather vest and crisp new Levi’s. I wondered how she could bear to sit down in those hard-assed pants.
Like every other
seedy bar I had ever been to, Secrets had a line of mirrors that ran the length of the bar. Obscure brands of liquor lined the shelves in front of it, but there was enough space between and above the bottles to allow a person to check out the bar’s patrons without looking like she was cruising. Stacy had just walked over and handed the big Amazon standing watch at the front door a bottled water, and was now standing with her hands on her hips, grinning for all she was worth. The bouncer was listening politely, but seemed as uncomfortable as I was with Stacy’s blatant come-ons.
I snickered. Better her than me. I finished off the last of my beer and slammed the bottle down on the bar. I was already starting to get numb, which was good. It would be nice to get some sleep. Stacy returned and replaced my empty. More out of boredom than anything else, I kept watching the bouncer in the mirrors.
A group of women came staggering through the door. One of them, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde, held on to the big bouncer’s arm as if she knew her. Her friends rolled their eyes and headed toward a table. I watched the scene play out, staring blatantly now. The bouncer towered over the blonde, who was probably my height if not an inch or two shorter. The chick seemed to be saying something pretty intense, because her eyes were half closed. The bouncer’s face didn’t register any emotion for a moment, then she said a few words and turned away. The blonde, looking severely miffed, stomped over to her friends and sat down in a huff.
“Whoops, shot ya down, didn’t she?” I chuckled. “Damn, who is that anyway?” I was speaking to myself, but Stacy was walking by and overheard.
“Oh, you mean Riley? You sure have been away for a while. Things started getting rough in here with this younger crowd, so I called a security agency and asked for a female bouncer. They sent Riley down. She’s finishing up her physical therapy degree over at the university, but she is working here for the last few months of the season to help me out.”
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