Two Graves Dug

by Penny Mickelbury

  “Whatever he tells you, he won’t tell no cop. Won’t tell nobody but you.”

  “He won’t need to,” I replied.

  “He’s workin’ a double shift today. He’ll take a break after lunch. ‘Bout two o’clock.”

  “Thanks, Willie. I won’t forget.”

  “I know you won’t,” he said, and his dead eye smiled at me.

  I decided to meet Carmine at the coffee shop and tell him about Jill Mason before he heard it on the vine, and took my second taxi of the day and it wasn’t yet nine o’clock. Who— or what— was I becoming that I hopped in and out of taxis like a resident of one of the Upper Sides? Don’t trip this, Rodriquez, a voice warned me. A voice I knew but had practiced ignoring for a very long time, primarily because I hadn’t wanted to hear it. But this time I listened and knew its correctness. I didn’t have time to walk twenty blocks. I didn’t have time to pay courtesy calls. I had clients who were in real danger and it was my responsibility to act as quickly and effectively as possible to remove that danger. I was, it seemed, functioning like one of those well-dressed, well-paid movie detectives, which made me more than a little bit nervous, since that wasn’t really my job. Bullshit the voice said.

  Carmine looked surprised when I walked in but waved me over to him with a cannoli and nodded his head toward the counter and I knew a cafe con leche and a couple of napoleons would be set before me in a matter of seconds.

  “I’m pickin’ up the police report later this morning, Rodriquez, if that’s what you wanna know,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Dr. Mason got beat up this morning,” I said, without preamble.

  He choked on the pastry he was chewing but kept trying to talk anyway, making the choking worse. The owner hurried over and slapped him on the back until he managed to clear his throat. “Is she OK? What the fuck happened? I knew I shouldn’t ‘a pulled those guys! I knew this fuckin’ shit would happen! Son of a bitch!”

  I let him rant and rave and noticed that nobody in the place paid any attention to him after the danger of his choking to death was over. Then I assured him that the good doctor would be fine, if sore for a while, and I told him what I knew of what had happened. I even told him of the potential witness who hadn’t told the cops anything and wouldn’t, but had agreed to meet with me that afternoon. That seemed to soothe him and I secretly appreciated his not even looking like he wanted to ask me who my witness might be. Carmine truly understood the nature of the streets. And he truly blushed when I told him that Dr. Mason did not blame him and wished him not to blame himself.

  “You got any ideas, Rodriquez, who’s lookin’ to hurt this lady this way?”

  “To tell the honest truth, Carmine, no, I don’t. It doesn’t make any sense, why anyone would want to hurt her. Nothing I’ve looked at or thought about hangs together or connects to any other piece of the puzzle.”

  We sat quietly for a moment, drinking our coffee and eating our pastries and pondering how a woman’s life could be in such danger for no apparent reason. Then Carmine broke the silence with what I knew instinctively was a true statement.

  “Old shit, Rodriquez. Whatever this is about, it’s old shit. This ain’t about somethin’ happened last month or even last year. ‘Cause if it was, she’d be dead. New payback is hot and quick. It’s the old stuff that’s mean and cold and slow. You know what I’m sayin’, Rodriquez?”

  I did. I knew exactly what he was saying and I knew that his assessment was correct. But exactly how old could this grudge be? And if it was old enough, would she even remember it? Is it something that would have been important to her, or only to the person who perceived that he or she was wronged by Jill Mason? How much of her past was she willing to probe? I stood up and dropped some money on the table and pointed my finger at Carmine, daring him to challenge me. He raised his palms in acquiescence, nodded at me what I took to be thanks, and told me he’d see me later, when he had the police and hospital reports.

  It wasn’t merely cold outside; it was frigid. People were bundled in their layers of scarves and sweaters and bulky overcoats, and then hunched deep down within them, shoulders up around their ears, walking rapidly to whatever inside space would provide respite from the bitter, biting, East River wind. I was as hunched and hurried as the next person, but also enjoying the walk. I’d missed my sidewalk time the last couple of weeks and as I realized how much I was enjoying myself, I slowed my pace. Stepped out into the street to let the others keep theirs. Nothing so annoying on a New York sidewalk as somebody walking like they come from some other part of the country where they never learned how to walk on a sidewalk with other people. I also needed to think, to process the conversation with Carmine. If he was correct in his assessment that the root of Jill Mason’s problem was buried somewhere deep in her past—and I thought he was—then the question was why wait until now to dig it up? And I still believed the answer to that was right here, in the present.

  Yolanda was at the office when I arrived, and so was a cop, still wearing his overcoat, his gloves and hat on the chair next to him. I knew he was a cop by looking at him—his pants and socks were brown and his shoes black with thick crepe soles—though I didn’t know him and couldn’t imagine what he wanted. There hadn’t been enough time for them to have anything to ask me about Jill Mason; and nobody but me and Mike and Eddie and Willie’s nephew knew that I knew anything more than the cops knew about her situation. The lights were on and the blinds were open the smell of coffee was in the air and Yolanda was there. It was enough to induce me to say good morning to the cop as I removed my hat, scarf and coat as I walked past him to the closet in the back.

  When I returned, he was standing stiffly at my desk, sans overcoat. His jacket was plaid wool—brown, black and green. He was a dedicated gym rat. His shoulders and neck were so developed that his head was too tiny for the breadth, and his waist and hips were so narrow he looked like a paste-it doll: the kind where unrelated heads and torsos are combined to produce an incongruent whole.

  “Mr. Rodriquez,” he said, in a barely civil tone.

  “That’s my name,” I replied, my hands in my pockets. Damned if I was going to extend a handshake to this asshole. He was in my space talking down to me?

  “We need to talk,” he said, adding supercilious to uncivil.

  “I doubt it,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t know you and I’ve got too much work to do waste time talking to someone I don’t know.”

  “This somebody can pull your license, Buddy, so you better make the time.”

  “Not without a reason, Buddy,” I snarled, putting a thick layer of nasty spin on the word, “which you don’t have, so instead of you wasting my time and yours with your unfounded and stupid threats, why don’t I give you my lawyer’s name and you go threaten him? He’d enjoy the encounter so much he’d actually make time for you, even though he doesn’t know you, either. But he’d be getting paid to make the effort.” I looked in Yolanda’s direction, though without making eye contact, as I asked her if she’d mind writing down our attorney’s name, address and telephone number for my “buddy” here. Then I turned my back on him and this time I did make eye contact with Yo. Only hers were closed.

  “You’ve got your nose way deep in police business, Rodriquez,” the cop said quietly enough that I knew he was choking on the words. He wanted to jack me up but he didn’t have a reason to. Yet.

  “Not true,” I replied, as quietly, determined not to give him a reason. Yet.

  “Oh. So that’s why all of a sudden half a dozen people are asking for police and hospital reports? Because you’re not meddling in police business?”

  “Citizens who are victims of crimes are entitled, by law, to official reports from the police and from the hospital. Surely you know that?” I made the question insulting. He got the message. His entire tiny head flushed red.

  “Some of these crimes are almost a year old. How come they’re just now asking for those reports?”

  “Maybe t
hat’s why, Buddy. Because some of these crimes are almost a year old and these good citizens have heard nothing from their police department. Nothing but the usual bullshit and run-around. Those people are my clients and I have every right, every responsibility, to advise them of their legal entitlements and I don’t give a good goddamn whether you like that or not. And should you or the department refuse to comply with the legitimate requests from citizens, their response—to which they also are legally entitled—will be to file a class action law suit against the city and the police department. And if you didn’t understand all of what I just said, I’ll write it down for you so you can take back to your immediate supervisor. I don’t want there to be any confusion about my position on this issue.”

  His tiny, pale blue eyes, narrowed to slits and the red drained from his face. I knew he was counting to ten or doing whatever he needed to do to keep from losing his cool. And he finally succeeded. “It’s not like we haven’t been working these cases, Rodriquez. And it’s not like they’re the only cases we got.”

  “And how would the parents of those little girls know you were working their cases? When was the last time you had any contact with them? Did you warn all parents of little girls in the area that there was a serial rapist around? Maybe even two of them?” I said that slowly and watched his reaction. It was worth the payoff. He went even paler.

  “You really are in police business, Rodriquez,” he said slowly, sounding quite threatening and menacing, “and in way deep.”

  “I’m just paying attention to the obvious. Dates, times, places, degrees of violence visited upon the victims. Shouldn’t take a dozen investigators almost a year to draw some very basic conclusions, the most obvious of which is that the MOs differ. A little too much, don’t you think? Or aren’t you an investigator? Maybe you’re just the muscle the real investigators send out to intimidate?”

  He was about to blow. I could all but see the steam coming out of his ears. I was wondering what I’d do if he swung on me when the door flew open and Mike Smith and Eddie Ortiz blew in. I’d left them messages about Jill Mason and their outrage and anger were thick enough to cut. But their words stopped and back-pedaled on their vocal cords when they saw my visitor.

  “Temple. What the fuck are you doin’ here?” Mike Smith growled at the muscle-bound young cop.

  “You know this guy, Phil? I didn’t know you knew this guy!” Eddie looked and sounded personally offended and wounded that I would sink so low as to know the cop named Temple.

  “I don’t know him,” I said. “He came to pull my ticket, but he’s on his way out. Aren’t you, Temple, is it? First name Buddy?” I said, being a real wise ass, and feeling safe enough to be one now that I had Mike and Eddie as back-up.

  “First name Aloysius,” Mike said with a sneer.

  Temple shook his head and, with more grace than I’d have given him credit for, walked over and picked up his coat, hat and gloves. “My lieutenant would appreciate a call from you, Rodriquez. Bill Delaney. You know him, right?”

  “Yeah, I know Delaney. Good man.”

  “Yeah,” Temple said, “he is.” He was buttoning his coat and was at the door, putting is hat on. “Funny, now I think about it, he said the same thing about you. Guess he hasn’t seen you in a while.”

  We all watched him leave and I sighed deeply. I’d just taken out on Aloysius Temple the anger and frustration I’d been harboring against all cops for the last couple of months, and especially that which I’d been harboring since this morning.

  “I thought he was going to level you, Phil,” Yolanda said coming toward me. “You just scared me green.”

  “I’m sorry, but he pissed me off. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong attitude. Right now, I’m sick of cops with shitty attitudes, especially ones threatening to pull my license. Which reminds me! Yo, you remember the note you made telling me to check on a discrepancy in Gregory Jenkins’ file?”

  And I told them about Gregory Frank Jenkins and Gregory Francis Jenkins.

  “Gracias a Dios,” Yolanda said. “Did you leave me your notes?” she asked and even before I answered she was retreating to her world. Gregory was about to be in big trouble.

  Then I told Mike and Eddie about the events of the morning and they alternated between blaming themselves, blaming me, and wanting to go find the squirrel and beat him into pulp.

  “We don’t know it’s the squirrel,” I kept saying. I also kept reminding them of my meeting with Willie’s nephew. And of the need to find the squirrel—without beating him into jelly— so we could compare him to whoever Willie’s nephew saw this morning.

  “You don’t know for sure that Willie’s nephew saw anybody,” Mike said.

  “He saw somebody.” I was sure of it.

  “What’s this dude’s name, anyway? Willie’s nephew?” Eddie asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know his name; hadn’t asked and hadn’t been told, either by Willie or by the nephew.

  “Why the hell didn’t you know about that back door, Phil?” Eddie whined at me, the accusation hanging there.

  “Why the hell didn’t you know about it?” I shot back. And we all sat there feeling like guilty, useless pieces of shit.

  “What do you want us to do?” Mike asked.

  “Go find the squirrel,” I said. “Keep an eye on him. Watch where he goes, what he does, who he talks to, where he eats, where he sleeps if you can get that close. Is this guy a bona fide crazy?”

  Mike and Eddie exchanged a look and Eddie answered the question. “I don’t think so. Not if you mean is he a regular at Belleview, with papers and a wrist band and a padded cell with his name on the door. I think he’s probably a little whacko, probably does a little blow, but I think he’s mostly just an asshole who likes being mean and hurting people.”

  “You think he’s the one who grabbed her that first time?”

  The look again between them, and this time Mike answered. “Yeah, we think probably he’s the one. Fits her description. Or as much of one as she had: he’s the right size, build, color. And he’s sure as hell is dirty enough to stink, although I haven’t gotten that close to him. Yet.”

  We were quiet again. Then I asked something I’d been thinking and dismissing and thinking and dismissing for a couple of weeks: “Do you think it’s possible that this stuff is related? Jill Mason and these little girl rapes? You know she treats several of them and, as Yolanda pointed out, shrinks know peoples’ secrets. Maybe one those kids knows who raped her and told Mason.”

  “And she what, called him up and told him?” Eddie asked incredulously. “How would he know to come for her, even if one of the kids did remember something?”

  “Maybe he overheard something,” I said.

  “Like what?” Eddie inquired?

  “Like how?” Mike added. “How would anybody, especially a rapist, hear what a patient is telling a shrink?”

  I took a deep breath. “Maybe he heard it somewhere else. Remember. Doc Mason and Miss de Leon at Beth Israel and Dr. Bader at NYU and that information that Yo pulls from her computers—all say this guy and most sick fucks like him—have access to their victims. Take this Jenkins clown. He worked in the buildings where two of the victims lived. How many bits and pieces of peoples’ conversations do you think building porters hear every day? Who pays any attention to them? They’re just the janitors, right? But they full and total access to the buildings.”

  “But I thought you had this asshole a tight fit for the murders,” Mike said. “And the dead girls don’t have any connection to the shrink.”

  “But would you guess that if Jenkins had any drinking buddies, they would be guys he worked with, or guys who did the same kind of work? Like janitors in the buildings where the other girls lived? And would he ever visit those other buildings?”

  I could see their brains working as they considered what I’d just said. Between the two of them, they had more than forty years of policing experience, which meant more
than forty years of experience with perp behavior. Then they checked their thoughts with each other with that exchange of looks thing they did. Eddie answered for them.

  “It’s possible, Phil, but not likely. I never worked sex crimes but what I hear, dudes like that don’t have drinking buddies, you know?”

  Yeah I knew.

  Something else was bothering me, and I got it off my chest, too, while I was at it. “I might be in over my head,” I said, “in fact, if I take Temple’s visit seriously, there’s no ‘might’ about it. I didn’t start out looking to find rapists and woman-beaters, but I’m looking to find their asses now, and I don’t want to put you two in any trouble.”

  Mike stood up. “We’re outta here, Bro. Now that I’ve warmed up, I can honestly say that I’d rather be out in the cold than in here listening to you lose your mind.” And he walked away from me, put on his coat, hat and scarf, and left.

  Eddie looked after him, then at me. “Do I need to say what he just said?”

  I grinned at him and shook my head.

  “Good. We’ll call you when we tree the squirrel.”

  I sat there for a moment organizing my thoughts. Or, more accurately, slowing them down so that I could organize them. But they were moving too fast. Too many questions and not enough answers; and the answers that were there did not necessarily correspond to the questions that were there. I was more rattled by Temple’s visit than I had let on, and I definitely would pay a visit to Lt. Delaney, sooner rather than later. I didn’t need the kind of trouble he could make for me if he wanted to. I also was still scared to death by the attack on Jill Mason and took no comfort in the fact that I had known it would happen. Now I had to figure out how to make sure it didn’t happen again because next time maybe we—she—wouldn’t be so lucky.

  But first...

  I stood there watching Yolanda. She was dressed in all black today, and her hair was pulled back and tied up with a multi-colored scarf. In the moody light that she preferred—the light from the three computer screens and from a paper-covered Japanese lantern—she seemed much too serene to be looking for a rapist who possibly was a murderer. Her glasses rode low on her nose and her fingers danced across the keyboard as if she were playing a symphony. She stopped typing, hit a key, and the printer began humming. She rolled herself to the right and began typing at the keyboard that I knew operated the client computer.