Cop Town

by Karin Slaughter

  “I’ll put a note on his windshield.” Maggie opened the file. Eduardo Rosa’s rap sheet. There were six pages front and back.

  “Been like Grand Central Station here all morning.” Gail clamped the brake on her wheelchair. She had turned sideways so she could see Maggie. “Rick was here, Cal Vick. Les Leslie brought me some whiskey. Red Flemming drank half of it. Your uncle Terry finished the rest. Couple of the colored girls brought me some chocolate. Delroy and Watson. You know ’em?”

  Maggie looked up from the sheet. Delroy and Watson. She could tell from the way Gail was staring at her that they’d blabbed about finding Lewis Conroy naked in a phone booth.

  Gail asked, “Did it feel good?”

  “When I was doing it,” Maggie admitted. “Afterward …” She shrugged. She knew Conroy deserved it. Even on top of what Delroy and Watson had planned, he deserved it. Still, Maggie felt bad. Not for Conroy, but for herself. She had lost control. She’d never done that before.

  Gail said, “It always feels good when you’re doing it.”

  “Does it always feel bad after?”

  “Every goddamn time.”

  Maggie couldn’t bear Gail’s scrutiny. She looked down at the rap sheet again. Eduardo Rosa’s early life was typical to most criminals. Convenience store robberies. Liquor store holdups. A few years in and out of the Big House. On paper, it looked like he’d cleaned up his life. There was nothing recent in the last twenty years. Probably because Gerald had handled the family’s criminal exploits.

  “Edu-ardo.” Gail pronounced the name phonetically. “Who’s that cat?”

  “The tranny pimp.” Maggie closed the file. “Or at least the pimp’s mother. Father. Husband?” She sounded like Kate. “Remember the Portuguese lady?”

  Gail made a face that Maggie deserved. Of course she remembered the Portuguese lady.

  “She’s really a man. We saw her this morning. She practically had a beard.”

  “Holy shit!” Gail laughed so hard her foot kicked out. “Hot damn!” The chair rattled from her laughter. She looked up at the ceiling to keep from doubling over. “Oh, Jesus.”

  Maggie smiled, not because it was funny, but because she was relieved that Gail could still laugh about things.

  “Shit.” Gail wiped her good eye. “Shit, man. That’s a cracker. I think I peed myself.” She told Maggie, “Really, I think I did.”

  “Should I get a nurse?”

  “Nah, let Trouble deal with it. He likes that stuff.” Gail stuck her hand into her purse and started blindly digging around. “Can’t believe none of those dipshits picked up on it yesterday. The entire station musta been at that house. Somebody took her statement?”

  “She gave them an alternate name.” Maggie didn’t go into Gerald and Sir Chic. Gail had had enough fun this morning. “Did you know Murphy’s Jewish?”

  “Sure. Wanda Clack told me. Read it in her file.”

  Of course she did. “She’s rich, too.”

  “No shit.” Gail’s penchant for sarcasm had obviously recovered. “What gave it away—the fancy accent or the car?”

  Maggie couldn’t bring herself to ask about the car. “She’s been lying about a lot of things.”

  “Oh, gosh,” Gail mimicked. “Tell me something, kid: you been sayin’ you got them bruises from falling down the stairs?”

  Maggie didn’t answer.

  Gail held up her purse so she could look inside. “Come over here. Pull up that chair.”

  Maggie sat down in front of her. “You think she’ll make a good cop?”

  “Murphy?” Gail opened her compact. “I’m still trying to puzzle that gal out. Closer.”

  Maggie leaned closer.

  Gail used the sponge to pat foundation on Maggie’s cheek. She was gentle, but the pain made Maggie’s toes curl. “Murphy’s gotta sink or swim on her own. Nothing we can do for her. She’s sharp as a tack, but she’s too stupid to know when to be scared.”

  “She’s scared of Terry.”

  “Shit, he ain’t gonna hurt her. It’s not like she’s family.”

  Maggie laughed because it was probably true.

  “Stop smiling. This is hard work. He clocked ya good.”

  Maggie closed her eyes as Gail blended in the makeup around her eye. She couldn’t recall the last time someone had taken care of her. Delia wasn’t the type to fuss over her children. The few times Maggie had been sick with a cold or the flu, her mother had sent her to her room so no one else would catch it.

  Even the day Maggie had come home from next door, Delia had told her to go upstairs and stay in her room. The only person who’d cared about her well-being was Deathly. He had stood by the couch in his mother’s kitchen. The cords from his hearing aids were sticking out of his ears. The receiver was strapped across his chest. She had never been that close to him before. He had the kindest eyes that Maggie had ever seen.

  “There you go, Miss America.” Gail had finished the makeup job. “It’s not your color, but that’s the best I can do.”

  Maggie took the compact so she could see herself in the mirror. Gail’s skin tone was darker. The foundation was a little too tan. Still, the bruises were covered. “Thanks.”

  “Listen, baby.” Gail dropped the compact back into her purse. “What went down yesterday. Bad shit happens. That’s just how it is.”

  Maggie knew she was right, but her gut kept telling her otherwise.

  “You killed that fat motherfucker. That was good. I got hurt. That was bad.” She shrugged. “That’s the job. You been doin’ it for five years. You’re gonna do it another fifty more.” She gripped the arms of the chair. “You got ice water in your veins, same as me, kid. Ain’t nobody on this earth right now I trust more than you.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  “Good.” Gail nodded. “That’s out of the way. Now tell me about this BOLO on Jimmy.”

  Maggie thought about Jimmy’s confession, what they’d found out at Dabbler’s. Maybe she didn’t trust Gail as much as she wanted to. “He just disappeared.”

  “That don’t sound like Jimmy.”

  She tried Kate’s line of reasoning. “Don was shot right in front of him. Jimmy got shot yesterday. That’s two bullets that nearly took him out in two days. I think he needed to go off somewhere and pull himself together.”

  “Jimmy Lawson, your brother?” Gail sounded extremely skeptical. “He don’t sulk outta sight. Shit, no man sulks unless a woman can see him. What’s the point otherwise?”

  “This is different. He’s not sulking. I think he really got scared.”

  “And he didn’t tell you where he was going? Didn’t tell Terry or Bud or Chip or any of ’em?” Gail shook her head. “Nah, kid. I don’t buy it.”

  “He left a note.” Maggie didn’t show her what she’d transcribed. “He said he wanted to be alone.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No.” Maggie kept eye contact. She regulated her breathing. She didn’t fidget or shift in her chair.

  Gail saw right through it. “You’re lying to me.”

  Maggie bit her lip. Even if she wanted to tell Gail, she couldn’t. There was too much to explain. Maggie couldn’t put herself through it again. And she couldn’t tell Jimmy’s secret. The gossip would be too irresistible for Gail. Plus Maggie knew from experience that as much as Gail loved to raise hell, she could be extremely judgmental when she caught other people crossing the line.

  Maggie settled on telling her, “I looked for Jimmy all night. He doesn’t want to be found.” She grappled for a better lie. “He said in his note not to look for him.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “That was it: ‘I’m going away. Don’t look for me.’ You know Jimmy. He’s not gonna write a book.”

  “He turn in his papers to the boss?”

  “No.”

  “He ask for time off?”

  “No.”

  “He tell your mama he was leaving?”

  “No.”

>   Gail wasn’t swayed. “That’s all right, chickie. I lie to you sometimes, too.”

  “I’m not—” Maggie caught herself. She couldn’t even lie about lying.

  “You’re trying to put together this case,” Gail said. “You think you got a line on the Shooter?”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Bullshit.” Gail still thought she was lying. “You asked me about the cops who got killed. Why didn’t you ask me about Don?”

  Maggie said the first thing that came into her head. “Tell me about him.”

  She shrugged, like she hadn’t solicited the question. “He had his demons.”

  “Such as?”

  “War.” Gail leaned on the arm of the chair. “It tears these guys up. They go in thinking it’s for God and country and they come out knowing it’s all bullshit—just a bunch of old generals playing Battleship because that’s the only way they can get their dicks up.”

  “I heard Don pushed his girlfriend around.”

  “Pocahontas.” Gail snorted at the name. “Lookit, that don’t mean nothing. All them soldiers come back seeing the world a different way. Most of ’em let it go, get on with their lives, raise a family. Some of ’em can’t do it. Look at your uncle Terry. All that shit he saw over in Europe—don’t think for a minute that ain’t still with him. Jett almost lost an arm at Midway. Mack was captured in the Philippines. Chip and Red pissed away their souls at Guadalcanal. Who the hell knows what Rick did over in Nam. Point is, they hold on to it, too, but in different ways. That’s just how it is.”

  “Pocahontas,” Maggie echoed. That was the only thing she had heard. Her gut was telling her not to let it go. Don Wesley’s girlfriend was American Indian. Alex Ballard and Leonard Johnson were married to black women. Jimmy didn’t have a girlfriend, but he might have a boyfriend. She asked Gail, “Do you remember Mark Porter’s wife from the funeral?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “She was white, right?”

  “White as snow. Short, round, kinda looked like Totie Fields. High as a fucking kite. I saw her going for a toke behind the hearse.” Gail picked up on Maggie’s train of thought. “I know Greg Keen’s wife is white, too. If she was black, I woulda heard about it. Where are you going with this, kid?”

  “It’s just weird that three of them had women who weren’t white.”

  “You gotta take Jimmy and Don out of the equation. They don’t usually work nights. They were filling in for Rick Anderson and Jake Coffee.” Gail rubbed her chin in thought. “Rick ain’t got a gal that I know of, though bless his heart he’s tryin’. Jake’s girlfriend is all hippie-dippie. Good lookin’, though. Kinda has a Marina Oswald thing goin’. Works for some group that’s been trying to start a union down at the supermarket.”

  “Jimmy and Don weren’t the targets.” Maggie had to say the words out loud. She didn’t know why she felt relieved. If her brother was going to have a target on his back, she wanted it to be because he was a cop, not because he was gay.

  Gail blew out a huff of air. “So, dead end number ten-thousand-whatever-the-fuck.” She reached into her purse. “Shit. Where’s Trouble with my cigs?”

  Maggie shook her head. She was still thinking it through. Rick was one of the good ones. That’s what everybody said. He helped the women out. He took up for them when he could. He didn’t seem to mind that they were on the job. Jake Coffee was the same way.

  So, there was a connection between four of the men at least—six if you counted Don and Jimmy.

  They were all men who were bucking the system.

  “Am I interrupting?” Kate stood in the open door. She was glowing again, the same way she’d looked when the elevator doors opened this morning. “I’m sorry I’m late. The conversation took longer than I expected.”

  Gail gave a raspy chuckle. “Hey, mama, where do I get some a that conversation you just got?”

  Kate blushed. “Gail, I’m glad to see you’re up and about. I’m so sorry that—”

  Gail clicked her tongue.

  Kate smiled, but her cheeks were still red. “Do you mind if I use your restroom?”

  “Take your time, darlin’. Looks like you need a sec.” Gail was still chuckling when Kate shut the bathroom door. “My, my, my. That slick bitch might be a cop after all.”

  Maggie didn’t care about Kate. “Gail, what we were talking about before: all of the victims. They stood up to the system.”

  “What’s that?” Gail was still distracted.

  “Ballard and Johnson were married to black women. How did their station house feel about that?”

  “How do you think? They put a goddamn noose in Ballard’s locker.”

  “And Jake’s girlfriend. What about her?”

  “Shit, she’s white as you or me, but she’s some kinda communist, trying to start a union like that.”

  “And Rick is practically a hippie. He’s the only guy I know who thinks women should be on the job.”

  Gail rested her chin in her hand. She was giving it serious thought now. “Porter voted for McGovern. Had a bumper sticker on his car.”

  “So did Jake Coffee.” Maggie remembered the teasing he’d gotten at the station house. Cal Vick had revoked his parking pass.

  The bathroom door opened. Kate had obviously been listening. “Greg Keen drove a Toyota. I read it in his file.”

  “She’s right,” Maggie said. The toaster-sized foreign car got lost in the sea of Fords and Buicks with their extended front ends and beefed-up chassis.

  Kate said, “Keen also had a peace symbol tattooed on his arm. I saw it in the autopsy report.”

  Maggie said, “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I’m sorry. The tattoo was on his upper arm, anyway. No one would see it.”

  Maggie had showered in the men’s locker room last night. There were no curtains, just a pole in the center of a tiled room with shower nozzles all around.

  Everyone would’ve seen it.

  Gail said, “You know, I been thinking about that bullet that took out Sir Chic. Came all the way from across the street. Shooter musta used a rifle. That’s—what?—fifty yards?”

  “At least.” Maggie hadn’t considered the skill involved in hitting such a precise target.

  Gail said, “I fooled around with a rifle once. You gotta know what you’re doing. Take wind direction into account. Anticipate where your target’s gonna move. It’s not like a shotgun, where you just yank the trigger and blow a hole in the fucker.”

  Kate said what they all were thinking. “He could be a cop or a soldier.” This was the same description the bartender had given them at Dabbler’s.

  Gail told them, “There’s only one gun range fitted out for rifles. It’s over by the women’s prison. The city owns it, but there are civilians, too.” Gail frowned. She obviously didn’t like where this was going. “Shit, it’s what we were saying in the car. The Shooter could be some ex-military jackass hanging around cops. You see it all the time. They can’t make it through the academy, so they buzz around cops, picking up the lingo, hearing the stories. You know how we are. Give us a couple of beers and you can’t shut us up.”

  Kate said, “That’s how he would know the codes and procedures.”

  Maggie thought about all the time Jimmy spent at the gun range. He was one of the best shots on the force. Her earlier theory floated back up. Had Jimmy met someone? Was there a man at the range who was good with a rifle?

  And was the man more to Jimmy than just someone who knew how to handle a weapon?

  Kate said, “I remember at the range that they had targets posted on the wall. It’s part of some sort of scoring system.”

  “That’s Jett’s department. He’s the rangemaster.” Maggie knew anything she said to the man would go straight back to Terry. She asked Gail, “Can you call him?”

  “Don’t trust that asshole. Go down to the range and see for yourself. Murphy’s right. The targets are on the wall, plain as day. They got the names wri
tten right underneath ’em.” She pointed at Maggie. “You find out who’s the top scorer, then you’ll have a good suspect.”

  Kate asked, “Maggie, did you hear the radio? We’re supposed to go back to the station. They upped the reward. They’ve been inundated with calls.”

  “You go back.” Maggie stood up. “Somebody downstairs can give you a ride.”

  “I’m not going to leave you alone.” Kate had her hands on her hips. She sounded like a cop until she said, “Don’t be silly.”

  Gail said, “Both of you go. You think they’re gonna write you up if you figure out who the Shooter is? Even Terry won’t be able to fuck with you.” She grabbed Maggie’s arm. “Only you listen to me, sweetheart. Make sure it’s by the book. You don’t go handin’ this off to your uncle or one of those other dumbasses. It’s gotta stand up in court.”

  Maggie stared at Gail. This was the closest she’d ever come to saying that Terry had planted the evidence against Edward Spivey. The gun found in the sewer grate. The bloody shirt. The two snitches who put one hand on the Bible while holding a get-out-of-jail-free card in the other. Nobody seriously believed Terry had gotten that lucky. And the shitty part was that the case against Spivey was solid without the fake evidence. At the trial, his lawyer had used the gun and shirt as misdirection, waving both items in front of the jury while the prosecutor’s case disappeared out the door.

  “Okay,” Maggie said, a tacit agreement to all that was left unsaid. “If I find anything at the range, we’ll do it the right way. I’ll radio Rick and Jake. We’ll take it straight up to the brass.”

  “Good girl.”

  Kate’s radio squealed with feedback. Instead of turning down the volume, she covered her ears.

  Maggie turned off her transmitter. She told Kate, “Just turn down—”

  “No.” Gail told Kate, “Turn it up. Turn up your radio.”

  Kate adjusted the volume. A familiar long, drawn-out tone came out of the speaker, like someone was holding down a button on the telephone.