H is for HOMICIDE

by Sue Grafton

  The restaurant kitchen was hidden around one corner where a wall angled out. The scent of shrimp touffee and blackened red fish hovered in the air as if you’d caught a whiff of someone else’s Sunday dinner. There were seventeen tables in all, most of them empty, each covered with white butcher’s paper. Hurricane lamps provided illumination that flattered the patrons, at the same time dispensing light sufficient to eat by.

  Jimmy ordered Cajun popcorn ��� crawfish parts fried crisp with a spicy sauce ��� and then a pot of jambalaya for the three of us. Bibianna wanted oysters on the half shell first. I watched them negotiate the meal, feeling strangely passive myself. They argued the issue of wine versus beer and finally ordered both. They’d become nearly playful, while I felt myself disconnect. I picked at a combread muffin, trying to figure out what time it was in Dietz’s life. Germany was what, eight hours ahead of us? I entertained a few wicked fantasies about Dietz, while observing Bibianna and Jimmy idly as if through a two-way mirror. It seemed clear to me that there was more going on here than a quick fling. Jimmy Tate was a good-looking guy with all the sunny charm of a California surfer, wire-rimmed glasses adding interest to a face that might otherwise have been too handsome to warrant serious consideration. Handsome men have never held a fascination for me, but he was an exception, probably because of our shared history. He’d played hard in his life ��� booze and drugs, late nights, bar fights ��� and at thirty-four was just beginning to show evidence of self-abuse. I could see fine lines near his eyes, deeper lines around his mouth. Bibianna’s youth and her dark Latino beauty were a perfect counterpoint to his blond, blue-eyed attractiveness. They seemed suited for one another, a crooked cop and a con artist… both willing to cut corners, both manipulating the system, looking for a fast buck. Neither was malicious but they must have recognized the lawlessness in each other’s natures. I wondered what had drawn them together in the first place, whether they had sensed the shared bonds of mutiny and trespass. The similarities certainly weren’t apparent on the surface, but I suspect lovers have some unerring instinct for the qualities that both attract and condemn them in relationships.

  When the food arrived, they fell on it with the same lusty appetites they exhibited for one another, killing a bottle of red wine between them. I wasn’t interested in anything more to drink. I concentrated on the meal in front of me with the kind of gusto that can only be thought of as sexual sublimation. After the beers I’d had, it was nice to have the opportunity to clear my head for the drive home. The place was beginning to fill up with the late night crowd. The noise was on the rise, but it couldn’t begin to compete with the bar we’d just left. Dimly, I was aware of the front door behind me, opening at intervals as the midnight rush began ��� people looking for hot coffee, a wedge of sweet potato pie. Nature called again in response to all the beers I’d drunk. “Where are the restrooms?”

  Bibianna pointed toward the rear. She and Tate were both bombed and I began to wonder if I’d have to ferry them both back to her place in the interests of safety. “Be right back,” I said.

  I wound my way through the tables, spotting the posted sign that indicated the location of the restrooms and the public telephones. I pushed through hurricane shutters and found myself in a short corridor, lighted by the same flickering bulbs. At the end of the hallway, there were two pay phones flanking an exit with a sign above it reading THIS DOOR MUST BE KEPT UNLOCKED DURING BUSINESS HOURS.

  To my right were two doors marked M and W. I pushed into the W. The light was better. There was a two-sink counter to my left with a mirror running above it, a paper towel rack above a metal trash bin, and two stalls, one of which was in use. I entered the other. Under the raised partition between the stalls, I could see the feet of the other’s occupant, whose copious urination sounded like a quart of lemonade being poured from a great height. I glanced idly at her shoes: patterned stockings, sling-back pumps with spike heels. I squinted, bending for a closer look. I’d seen the same shoes or a pair just like them on the blonde at the CF offices earlier. I heard the toilet flush. I reassembled myself in haste while she washed her hands and snatched a towel from the dispenser. I heard the rustle of paper as she dried her hands. I flushed the toilet in my cubicle, stalling for time. I didn’t dare leave the cubicle until I knew she was gone because she might well recognize my face. I heard the tip-tap of her heels crossing the tile floor. As soon as the door closed behind her, I emerged and moved swiftly to the door. I poked my head out into the corridor. I caught sight of her at one of the pay phones, inserting numerous coins into the slot. She turned away slightly as if to insure privacy. It was the woman who called herself Karen Hedgepath: spiky, punk blond hair, severely cut business suit. She kept herself in profile with her right hand pressed to her ear to block out noises from the restaurant. From the shift in her posture, I guessed that her call had been picked up. She began to speak rapidly, making gestures with her free hand. I did an about-face and returned to the main part of the restaurant while she was still occupied. A quick check revealed the presence of the big guy with the plaid sport coat. He was seated with his back to me at a two-top on the side wall, but I recognized his jacket and the set of his shoulders. He was smoking a cigarette, a bottle of red wine visible on the table in front of him.

  At our table, the seats were arranged so that I was facing the restrooms, my back to the front door, with Bibianna on my right and Jimmy Tate across from me. I kept my voice down, one eye cocked in case the blonde returned unexpectedly. Bibianna looked at me with curiosity, sensing my alarm. I handed her the menu and said, “I would like for you, very discreetly, to check that doorway leading to the restrooms. A blonde is going to make an appearance in a moment. See if you know her, but don’t let her know you’re looking. You got that?”

  “Why? What’s going on?” Bibianna said to me.

  “I heard her on the pay phone outside the John and she was talking about you.”

  “About me?”

  Jimmy leaned forward. “What is this?” The blonde appeared, coming through the shutters from the corridor. Her gaze settled lightly on our table and moved on. “Do not crank your head around,” I sang under my breath.

  Bibianna’s eyes flicked to the woman. The reaction was subtle, but I could see the animation fade from her face. “Oh, hell. I gotta get out of here,” she said.

  I handed her an open menu, pointing to the first item in the dessert list, which was the key lime pie. Conversationally, I said, “Take your handbag and go to the ladies’ room. Go out through the door at the end of that hall and wait at the mouth of the alley. One of us will pick you up. Leave your jacket draped across the chair. We don’t want it to look like you’re really going anywhere, okay?”

  Jimmy’s gaze shifted from my face to Bibianna’s. “What’s going on?”

  Bibianna got to her feet, groping blindly for her handbag. Too late. The couple converged on us. The blond woman placed a firm hand on my shoulder, effectively nailing me to the chair. The guy pressed a Browning .45 against Bibianna’s spine as if he might be an orthopedist probing for a herniated disk. I saw Jimmy reach for his .38, but the guy shook his head. “I got the option to smoke her if there’s any problem whatsoever. Your choice.” Jimmy put both hands flat on the table. Bibianna picked up her jacket and her handbag. Jimmy and I watched helplessly as the three of them moved toward the back door. Jimmy had better instincts about these things than I did. The minute they were out of sight, he bolted for the front, attracting startled looks from all the patrons he bumped in passing. He didn’t bother to be polite. The front door banged open and he was gone. I threw some money on the table and headed after him.

  By the time I hit the street, he was already pounding toward the corner, elbows pumping, gun drawn. The streets were damp, the air filled with a fine mist. I ran after him, plowing straight through a puddle on the walk. In the distance, I could hear tires squeal in the alleyway where the couple must have had a car parked. I reached the in
tersection moments after Jimmy did. A Ford sedan shot out of the mouth of the alley three doors down. Jimmy, as if moving in slow motion, took a stance and fired. The back window shattered. He fired again. The right rear tire blew and the Ford took a sudden fishtailing detour into a van parked at the curb. There was the gut-wrenching wham! of metal objects colliding. The Ford’s front bumper clattered to the pavement, and glass fragments showered down with a delicate tinkling. The few pedestrians within range were running for cover, and I could hear a woman’s protracted scream. The front doors of the Ford seemed to open simultaneously. The blond woman emerged from the passenger side, the big guy from the driver’s side, taking cover behind the yawning car door as he turned and took aim. I hit the pavement and flattened myself in the shelter of a line of trash cans. The ensuing shots sounded like kernels of popcorn in a lidded saucepan. I hunched my shoulders, tasting grit, sucking up the mixed smell of garbage and rain-wet cement. I heard three more shots fired in succession, one of them plowing into the pavement near my head. I feared for Jimmy, felt a sick sense of dread for Bibianna, too. Someone was running. At least somebody was still alive ��� I just wasn’t sure who. I heard the footsteps fade, then silence. I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees and scrambled toward a parked car, peering over the hood. Jimmy was standing across the street. Abruptly, he sank down on the curb and put his head on his knees. There was no sign of the blonde. Bibianna, apparently unhurt, clung to the Ford’s rear fender and wept hysterically. I rose to my feet, puzzled by the sudden quiet. I approached her with care, wondering where the guy in the plaid sport coat had gone. I could hear panting, a labored moan that suggested both anguish and extreme effort. On the far side of the Ford, I caught sight of him, dragging himself along the sidewalk. There was a wet patch of bright blood between his shoulder blades. There was blood streaming down the left side of his face from a head wound. He seemed completely focused on the journey, determined to escape, moving with the same haphazard coordination of a crawling baby, limbs occasionally working at cross-purposes. He began to weep with frustration at the clumsiness of his progress. He must have been a man who’d always counted on his physical strength to carry him through, who’d enjoyed a certain unquestioned supremacy by reason of his size. Now the sheer bulk of his body was an impediment, a burden he couldn’t quite manage. He laid his head down, resting for a moment before he inched forward again. A crowd had collected, like the spectators at the finish line of a marathon. No one cheered. The faces were respectful, uncertain, perplexed. A woman moved toward the injured man and dropped beside him, reaching out tentatively. At her touch, a deep howl seemed to rise from him, guttural and pain-filled. There is no sound so terrible as a man’s sorrow for his own death. The woman looked up, dazed, at the people standing nearby.

  “Help,” she called hoarsely. She couldn’t get any volume in her voice. “Please help this man. Can’t anybody help?”

  No one moved.

  Already, there were sirens. Jimmy Tate lifted his head.

  Chapter 8

  *

  I crossed to the Ford. The left rear door was open and Bibianna sat sideways in the backseat, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She was shaking so hard that she couldn’t keep her feet flat on the pavement. Her spike heels seemed to do a little tap dance as she pressed her hands together and clamped them between her thighs. I thought she was humming, but it was a moan she was trying to suppress through tightly clamped teeth. Her face was starchy white. I hunkered beside her, placing one hand on the icy skin of her arm. “You okay?”

  She shook her head, a hopeless gesture of terror and resignation. “I’m dead meat. I’m dead. This is my fault. There’s going to be hell to pay.” Her gaze strayed vaguely toward the street corner, where a crowd had gathered. Tears rose in her eyes, not from sorrow as much as from desperation.

  I gave her arm a shake. “Who is that?”

  “His name is Chago. He’s the brother of this guy I was living with before I came up here. He said Raymond sent him up here to bring me back.”

  “Bullshit, Bibianna. They weren’t going to take you anyplace. They were going to kill you.”

  “I wish I could have gotten it over with. If anything happens to Chago, Raymond’s going to kill me anyway. He’ll have to. Like a blood debt. My life’s not worth shit.”

  “I thought Jimmy was the one who shot him. Why is it your fault?”

  “What difference does it make? Raymond doesn’t care about that. It’s my fault I left. It’s my fault he had to send Chago up here. It’s my fault the car got wrecked. That’s how he sees things.”

  “I take it the blonde was Chago’s girlfriend,” I said.

  “His wife. Her name’s Dawna. D-a-w-n-a. Do you love that? Shit, she’ll kill me herself if Raymond doesn’t kill me first.”

  Jimmy Tate approached and put his hand on the back of Bibianna’s neck. “Hey, babe. How are you?”

  She took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. “Oh, God, oh, God… I was scared for you.”

  He pulled her to her feet and took her in his arms, enfolding her, murmuring against her hair.

  “Jesus, what am I going to do?” she wailed.

  An emergency vehicle came barreling around the corner, orange light flashing as the siren ground abruptly to a halt. Two paramedics got out, one of them toting a first-aid kit. I rose to my feet, watching over the hood of the Ford as the two of them crossed rapidly to the guy, who was lying facedown on the sidewalk. His lurching journey to the corner had come to a sudden halt. I noticed he’d left a long, smeared trail of blood in his wake like a snail. The woman who knelt beside him was crying uncontrollably. I was certain she was a stranger, only connected to him by the quirk of fate that had placed her at the scene. Her two companions tried to coax her away, but she refused to relinquish her hold.

  One of the paramedics knelt and placed his fingers against the guy’s carotid artery, trying to get a pulse. He and the other paramedic exchanged one of those looks that in a television episode replaces six lines of dialogue. Two squad cars swung into view, tires squealing, and pulled up behind the emergency vehicle. A uniformed patrolman got out of the first car and Jimmy Tate walked over to meet him. The beat officer in the second turned out to be a woman, tall, sturdily constructed, her pale hair skinned away from her face and secured in a small, neat knot at the back of her neck. She was hatless, in dark regulation pants and a dark jacket with Santa Teresa Police Department patches on the sleeves. She crossed to the paramedics and had a quick conversation. I noticed that none of them jumped into any emergency procedures, which suggested the guy in the sport coat had already departed this life. The beat officer moved back to her patrol car and radioed the dispatcher, asking for someone from the coroner’s office, the CSI unit, and backup on a Code 2 ��� no sirens. She was going to need help securing the crime scene. The rain had begun again, drizzle lending the night air a softening haze. The crowd was subdued and there was no suggestion of interference, but someone was going to have to begin interviewing witnesses, collecting names and addresses, before people got restless and started leaving the area.

  Bibianna slumped back into the backseat of the car again. Long minutes passed. Bibianna had lapsed into silence, but when the first backup unit arrived, she stirred, shooting a dark look in the direction of the two officers emerging from the black-and-white. “I don’t want to talk to any cops,” she said. “I hate cops. I don’t want to talk to them.”

  “Bibianna, you’re going to have to talk to them. Those people tried to kill you. There’s a dead man on the sidewalk…”

  Fury flashed across her face and her voice rose several notches. “Just leave me alone!”

  Several people turned to look at us, including the beat officer, who began to walk in our direction. She put a hand on her left hip, touching her nightstick like a talisman. As she approached, I checked the name on her tag. Officer D. Janofsky. Probably Diane or Deborah. She didn’t look like a Dorothy. Up close
, I could see that she was in her late twenties, probably new to the department. I knew most of the officers who worked in this area, but she was not one I’d met. Her manner was cautious, her expression alert. Like many cops, she’d learned to disconnect her emotions. “Everything okay here?”

  She scarcely had the words out when a third patrol car skidded around the corner. All three of us turned as the car came to a halt some distance away. Tuesday night in Santa Teresa is usually very quiet, so aside from the obvious desire to assist a fellow officer, the officer responding must have been thrilled to see some action. This was better than rousting the homeless down at the railroad tracks. Janofsky turned her attention to Bibianna, whose face had darkened. I was keeping tabs on Tate out of the corner of my eye, and I realized, as had Bibianna, that he had been taken into custody.

  “Keep her away from me,” Bibianna said.

  “We’re fine,” I said, hoping to defuse the situation.

  Janofsky ignored me, fixing Bibianna with a testy look. “I’d like to see your driver’s license.” She reached for her flashlight as if she meant to examine the license once Bibianna had produced it. I knew from experience a flashlight that size could serve as a powerful protective weapon. I watched apprehensively.

  “What for?” Bibianna asked.

  “Ma’am, could you show me some identification?”

  “Fuck you,” Bibianna said. She managed to infuse the two words with maximum boredom and maximum contempt. Why was she being so belligerent? I could feel my own temper climb and I knew the policewoman was close to blowing. This was no time to fool around. For all Janofsky knew, Bibianna had shot the man herself.

  “Her name is Diaz,” I interjected. “She’s upset about the shooting. Can I answer any questions for you? My name’s Hannah Moore.” I was babbling like an idiot, trying to offset some of the tension in the air. The patrol car with Tate in it pulled away from the curb, easing through the crowd of curiosity seekers that was milling about.