Charles Willeford - New Hope For The Dead

by Unknown

  "Not even to Ellita?" Sue Ellen asked.

  "Especially not to Ellita. Jesus. She's a Cuban and a Catholic. She'd be shocked if you told her about any of this stuff I'm telling you. But VD is the worst. A dose of clap'll make an old man out of you before you're thirty."

  Both girls laughed.

  Hoke grinned. "That's what my old first sergeant used to tell us every payday, when I was in the army. So it won't make an old man out of you girls, but clap's harder on a woman than it is on a man because it can make you sterile. Got any questions?"

  The girls looked at each other. Aileen smiled; Sue Ellen studied the tip of her cigarette. "Can I let the hair grow under my arms? Like Ellita?"

  "Not yet. Wait until you're eighteen. Okay? And any questions you have, ask me, and if I don't know the answer, I'll find out for you. If you can't trust your father to give you the straight goods about sex, who else have you got? Okay, run along now. I'm going to stay up here for a while."

  The girls kissed him and took the elevator down. Hoke lit a cigarette and walked to the parapet. The sun was down, but the entire western sky was still a watercolor wash of red, purple, and orange. Low on the horizon, there were darker, slanting shafts of blue-black, indicating the rain that was passing through the Everglades.

  All in all, Hoke thought, his little talk had gone fairly well, but he was glad it was over. He had left out a lot, but there were some things the girls weren't ready for, even though they were brighter than he had thought they were. They had made it easy for him, too, by not asking a lot of dumb questions. But he still didn't know what he was going to do about finding a decent place to live.

  18

  Hoke let Sue Ellen off near the county courthouse in downtown Miami and told her to meet him across the street at the Government Center Metrorail station at 5 P.M.

  Ellita had left the hotel earlier that morning, and she had dropped a note on Hoke's desk at the station, explaining that she was meeting her mother at her cousin's house. Her mother had two boxes of clothing and some other things for her to pick up. She intended to be back at the station by eight-thirty, if not before. Before leaving the station, Ellita had taken all of the files to the interrogation room and aligned the three piles on the deal table. She had left the Mary Rollins file and the Xerox copies of Rollins's birth certificate and driver's license on Hoke's desk.

  Hoke typed a short report about finding Rollins, made a Xerox copy of the report for Lieutenant Slater, and then took the closed file into Major Brownley's office. Brownley looked up and frowned when Hoke entered without knocking.

  "The Rollins girl's alive, Willie, and living in Delray Beach. Sanchez found her yesterday. But she also promised Rollins that she wouldn't tell her mother where she was living. So now you can call Mrs. Rollins and tell her that her daughter's alive and well."

  "Are you positive?"

  "It's all in the report. If you don't want to call Mrs. Rollins, I'll do it."

  Brownley was reading the report, and he didn't lift his head. "No, I'll call her, Hoke. It'll be a pleasure to withhold the girl's address. The mother really bugged me about her daughter."

  Hoke left Brownley's office, put the Xerox copy of the report in Slater's in-box, and went down to join Bill Henderson in the interrogation room. He told Bill about Sanchez's finding Rollins. They both read silently for a halfhour. Then Ellita came in at a quarter to nine, bringing them some coffee and doughnuts she had picked up in the cafeteria.

  "Everything go all right?" Hoke said.

  "Much better than I expected. My mother's on my side now, and she even agreed with me that it was time I found a place of my own. Meanwhile, my furniture and the rest of my things will just have to stay there till I find an apartment. But I feel a lot better after talking to my mom."

  "If you're looking for a house to rent," Henderson volunteered, "I can ask Marie to find you something. She handles a lot of rental properties in Little Havana."

  "Thanks, Sergeant Henderson." Ellita shook her head. "That was my original plan, to find a place near my parents, but I think a one-bedroom apartment in a different area would be better. I don't even want to be in the same neighborhood now, and I don't want to live in Little Havana either. Talking to Mary Rollins taught me a lot about my own feelings. I know they didn't do it consciously, but my parents were taking advantage of me." She smiled at Hoke and sat at her place at the table. "What did Major Brownley say about Mary Rollins, Hoke?"

  "He said he'd call her mother."

  "Is that all?"

  "He won't kiss you, Ellita. Willie isn't much for patting people on the head. But he's happy about it. Now that we've arrested Captain Midnight and cleared the Rollins file, he'll probably get together with Slater and give the media the info on our cold-case assignment. I've decided that none of us will talk to reporters. No matter what you tell these people, it's never enough. They'll be after us every day for progress reports. We can't say what we're working on, because it might alert someone we're checking on. So let's just say nothing at all. I'll talk to Brownley about this later and tell him that he'll have to be the spokesman--he or Slater. Slater loves to talk to reporters, as if you didn't know, and I've already told him I'll send him the same progress reports we send the major."

  "So we just say 'No comment,' right?" Henderson said.

  "No, not 'No comment,' just refer reporters, either on the phone or in person, to Slater."

  A few minutes later Major Brownley came into the room. He puffed on his pipe, then pulled his jacket down in the back.

  "Seeing as to how yesterday was Sunday, Sanchez," he said, "I don't mind authorizing four hours of overtime pay." He placed a hand on Hoke's shoulder. "Add Sunday's overtime to the voucher, Hoke, when you send it through." He left the room and closed the door.

  Bill Henderson grinned at Ellita. "That's about as close to ecstasy as Willie ever gets, Ellita. Congratulations."

  "I didn't ask for overtime," Ellita said.

  "Don't reject it," Henderson said. "You may never get it again. On this assignment, we aren't even entitled to comp time--are we, Hoke?"

  "It's just us three," Hoke said, "so we'll adjust our hours to what we have to do, that's all. I've got to take some time off this week for house hunting, and so does Ellita. Any time you need a few hours off, Bill, just tell me."

  Henderson tapped the file he was reading. "I haven't run into a promising case yet. All this shit is just too old, Hoke. I really should be out there on the street with Teddy Gonzalez, working on the triple murder."

  "We haven't winnowed 'em all out yet, Bill. Out of fifty, we should get four or five--"

  "We've solved two already," Ellita said.

  "That doesn't help us," Henderson said. "With two out of the way already, Brownley's gonna expect miracles now, and we may not resolve another case in the next two months."

  "In that event," Hoke smiled, "consider the assignment a vacation. Slater's running Teddy around in circles out there."

  "I know." Henderson shook his head. "The poor bastard. But he was happy as hell when I told him about Leroy's crap game."

  At ten-thirty, Hoke went into his office to check the distribution. He skipped through the junk, looking for the lab report on Jerry Hickey. There was no lab report, so he took the elevator to the forensic lab.

  Dan Jessup, the chief technician, was lighting a cigar with a Bunsen burner. His long left arm was covered by the sleeve of a dark blue cardigan, but the right arm of the sweater dangled. The rest of the sweater was bunched up and pinned to the back of his shirt. He looked like he was either taking the sweater off or putting it on, but Hoke knew that Jessup always wore it that way because his arthritic left arm was always cold. Jessup was a bald, wiry man in his late thirties. The corners of his short mouth pointed down; it gave him a petulant expression.

  "I didn't get the lab report on Hickey, Gerald," Hoke said.

  "No shit."

  "It was promised for today."

  "Today isn't over. You'll
get it through normal distribution."

  "It isn't in this morning's distribution."

  "Should be. I remember initialing it." Jessup went to his desk and searched through three file boxes. One was marked NOW, the second NEVER, and the third, SOME DAY. The Hickey report, together with a half-dozen others, was in the NOW box. Jessup put his glasses on and read it.

  "That was good shit the kid had, Hoke. About as close to pure heroin as you'll ever see. It was only five percent procaine and thirty percent mannitol. The rest was almost pure H, with a few impurities."

  "Mannitol? That's the baby laxative, isn't it?"

  "You might say mannitol's also used as a baby laxative. The dealers probably use more mannitol to cut coke and heroin nowadays than they ever used for babies. Anyway, if Hickey wasn't used to shit this strong, it could've been an accidental OD."

  "Dan. You know an overdose can't be proved either way."

  "I know that. I'm just saying that an accidental OD was possible. I know what you can prove and what you can't. I've spent ten fucking years in this freezing lab. Did Hickey have piles?"

  "I don't know. They haven't done the P.M. yet. He could have, but I don't know."

  "Well," Jessup said, "if he had 'em, he had 'em bad, because the blue tinfoil wrappers you sent came from Nembutal suppositories. To get Nembutal suppositories, you need a doctor's prescription."

  "Can't you buy them on the street?"

  "You can buy anything on the street, Hoke. But I never heard of anyone selling hemorrhoid suppositories on the street. Have you? You can't get high on 'em. They just relieve your pain and put you to sleep, that's all."

  "There are people in Miami who'd pay damned near anything for a good night's sleep."

  Jessup smiled. "I wish they had 'em for arthritis. I could slip one under my arm at night. That's all I can tell you, Hoke." Jessup handed Hoke the typed report. "It don't make no never-mind anyway. If Hickey had piles, they don't bother him now."

  Hoke nodded, folding the typed sheets in half. "Thanks, Dan." Hoke hesitated at the door. "You know, Dan, I can remember when we used to go out to lunch once in a while."

  "Me, too, and it's my fault. It's just that I've been so damned busy lately. Why don't you call me some time? I still have to eat, and we can have lunch anywhere you want except the cafeteria."

  "Okay. I'll call you. Not this week, but maybe next week."

  "Good. And another thing, Hoke. A lot of my old records have been sent into storage at the warehouse on Miami Avenue. So if you're going to need any old lab reports from four or five years back, you'd better send me a memo on it soon and give me a little lead time."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean if you need any old lab reports for those cold cases you're working on."

  "Sure, Dan, I'll let you know. But there's nothing I need right now."

  Hoke left the lab and returned to the interrogation room. If Dan Jessup knows about the cold cases, he thought, everybody in the damned building must know about it by now. How, Hoke wondered, did the word get out so fast! The Morrow case, that was it. The detectives in the division had talked among themselves about that old case and put two and two together.

  At eleven-thirty, Bill Henderson was called away from the interrogation room to answer a phone call. Sue Ellen came into the room a few minutes later with her thin lips compressed. She clutched her banana-shaped purse so hard her knuckles whitened.

  "What's the matter, honey?" Hoke said, getting up from his chair. Ellita rose, then sat down again.

  "I couldn't do it, Daddy." Sue Ellen shook her head. "I just couldn't do it. It was hard to go into any stores, and when I did they were always speaking Spanish and all, and I couldn't ask for a job. I knew I wouldn't get one anyway, and I was too scared to ask. All I did was fill in an application at the Burger King across from the downtown campus of Miami-Dade, but the manager there said he usually just employed college students part-time. He let me fill in the application, but I know he won't hire me."

  "Did you eat lunch yet?"

  "I'm not hungry. Are you mad at me, Daddy?"

  "Of course not." Hoke patted her shoulder. "Now, didn't you take Spanish in school?"

  Sue Ellen shook her head and bit her lower lip. "You couldn't take a language at my high school unless you passed an aptitude test, and I didn't pass it. Instead of a language, they gave me civics."

  "It doesn't matter. Maybe it'll be better if you just help your sister wash dogs this week. We'll get you a job later, after we move next Friday."

  "I'll drive Sue Ellen back to the hotel, Hoke," Ellita offered. "She can help me unload the stuff from my car. Then I'll see that the girls both have lunch before I come back."

  "If you don't mind."

  Bill Henderson came back to the room, and Hoke introduced him to Sue Ellen. Bill bent over and shook hands with the girl. "You've certainly got your father's eyes, but you're a lot prettier."

  "Thank you," Sue Ellen said. She looked down at the floor, still on the verge of tears, and edged away.

  Ellita got her purse and opened the door.

  "When you get back, Ellita," Hoke said, "type up the overtime and mileage voucher and leave it on my desk. It'll take five working days to get your money, so we'd better send it in today."

  Sue Ellen kissed Hoke good-bye. Hoke hugged her. "Cheer up, baby. Don't worry about it." She and Ellita left together.

  "She's not a bad-looking girl, Hoke, but she shouldn't be running around downtown by herself."

  "She's been looking for a job. But she's a little shy."

  "School's been out for a while, Hoke. Most of the part-time jobs've been grabbed off already. That's what Marie told me."

  "It won't hurt her to look. I'll find her a job later, after we move back to the city."

  "I just had a call from the Dade County Stockade. Louis Dyer. He's a corrections officer now, but he used to be a Metro policeman when I knew him. Have you run across the Buford homicide in your pile? A black guy, a drifter and can collector, killed under the Overtown bypass."

  Hoke shook his head as he glanced at his list. He looked at Ellita's pad. She had crossed out a Tyrone Buford; the accordion file on Buford was in her reject pile.

  "Here it is." Hoke read the summary sheet on top, frowning. "I would've rejected this one myself. Buford was a wino, and he was found on a strip of cardboard under the overpass. A dozen or more bums sleep in that area every night, and he could've been killed by anybody. Those guys fight each other every night just to have something to do. I don't see why Brownley picked this one in the first place. It isn't even a possibility."

  "Probably because he was black, Hoke. He couldn't very well pick all white cases." Bill read the summary sheet, then leafed through the notes in the file. "I remember this Buford. He was an obnoxious sonofabitch. There were several complaints about him, but no arrests. He collected aluminum cans, and I remember seeing him in the old Jordan Marsh lot, before they built the parking garage at Omni. He usually worked parking lots, and he would stomp on the cans before he put them in his Hefty bag. He would tell people, when they walked trough the lot, that stomping the cans gave him a headache. The.n he would hit 'em up for three dollars and forty-nine cents to buy a bottle of Excedrin. When he was turned down, he cursed them out. Some people complained, but there was no point picking him up for panhandling, and no one ever swore out a complaint."

  Hoke grinned. "Brownley probably liked the man's style, asking for three dollars and forty-nine cents. Some people, especially young women, would dig a rap like that and give him a dollar or so. Some of these secretaries downtown'll believe anything."

  "But somebody killed him, Hoke. And Dyer said on the phone he's got a prisoner over in the stockade who wants to see a Homicide detective about Buford."

  "Okay, let's go over and talk to him. We can't solve any cases sitting around here on our ass."

  "I already told Dyer we'd be coming over," Henderson said, slipping into his seersucker jacket. "If Dyer
didn't think it was an important lead, he wouldn't have called me."

  Henderson drove his car, and they decided to stop for lunch before driving to the stockade. They ate at the Tres Cubanos Café on Seventh Street, both ordering the $3.95 -Especial-, which included -café con leche- and -flan- with the -arroz con pollo- main dish.

  At the Dade County Stockade they identified themselves, asked for Louis Dyer, and put their pistols and handcuffs into a metal-bound wooden box. The jailer locked the box with a padlock and took them down the hallway to a small, pastel-green interrogation room with a door of heavy wire mesh. There was a folding table, a pair of straight chairs and a coffee-can lid on the table. The brown linoleum floor was freshly waxed.

  Louis Dyer, a stocky, serious man in his late forties, joined them a few minutes later. He shook hands with Henderson, who introduced him to Hoke. Dyer then handed Henderson the stockade file on an inmate named Ray Vince.

  "I don't know if there's anything to this or not," Dyer said. "The guys in here are always looking for an angle, trying to make some kind of deal. Vince is pulling a single for assault, with six months suspended. But the chances are good now that he won't get the six-months suspension. He broke his wife's jaw, and her parents filed the charges when she was in the hospital. When his wife could talk again, she begged the judge to let him out. She needs the paycheck, you know. But before the judge decided what to do, Vince made another inmate eat a towel, so I don't think the judge'll release him now. He'll probably have to do the full twelve months."

  "How can a man eat a towel?" Hoke said.

  "He didn't eat all of it, he only ate part of it. Then when he started to choke to death, another inmate pulled the towel out and tore about half the guy's vocal cords out at the same time. He's still in the locked ward at Jackson Hospital. If he ever talks again, he'll be lucky if he can whisper."