A Good Bunch of Men

by Danny R. Smith

  I know it sounds crazy, I told him, this watch commander who seemed a little uncertain about the information I provided, but there really is no other way to look at it. Yes, I have confirmed my partner is home and accounted for. No, his car was not stolen from a bar or motel and we are not trying to clean up some sticky mess my partner got himself into. Not that Floyd isn’t capable of any such mischief, I thought, but this time he seemed to be squeaky-clean. Seemed to be.

  The mysterious house across the street sat still in the quiet darkness. Yellow crime scene tape decorated the front porch and yard, a red evidence sticker sealed the door. I thought about the serial killer who previously occupied this place and wondered what type of man would shoot it out with the cops, get away, and then steal the same cop’s car—from the cop’s house, apparently—and drive it back to the crime scene. Every cop in the county looking for him, and he boosts a cop car and drives it home?

  It made no sense. Maybe I needed to rethink this, make sure I hadn’t been completely fooled by my partner, or that I wasn’t missing something even bigger than that.

  Or maybe I just needed a drink.

  Floyd lived just close enough to the edge that a situation like this gave me pause. I had to consider the possibility that he went bat-shit crazy on me, off the deep end, over the top. I always knew it could happen. After all, it had been his idea the time I had dinged up a county car during an unauthorized pursuit, to clean it up without a report. I had tried to stop abruptly at the end of a pursuit and slid into a clothesline, creasing the bumper and bending the clothesline nearly in half. When chasing bad guys, it was easy to get caught up in the moment. But we weren’t supposed to be in the projects, which were outside our jurisdiction, and the department generally frowned on driving across sidewalks and lawns. For that matter, we shouldn’t have been in pursuit in an unmarked vehicle to begin with. So with all of these factors, doing the right thing took a backseat to career survival. Rather than reporting the damage, the two of us muscled the pole back into a nearly vertical position, and then we took the damaged county car to a shady body shop where cash bought us a quick but doable fix, and most importantly, no paper trail.

  Sometimes you had to be creative, clean up your mess.

  Which left me with doubt. Maybe Floyd’s car had been stolen, but maybe from somewhere else, I thought. Somewhere he maybe shouldn’t have been. Just one of the many possibilities.

  I’d know soon enough, I thought. As soon as I could look him in his eyes and continue the conversation face to face. He wouldn’t be able to lie to me, any easier than I could lie to him.

  The police arrived and established a perimeter of Fudd’s house, covering the back from the next street over and making the front look like a donut house parking lot. They had just started evacuating neighboring houses when Floyd pulled in behind me, the narrow Jeep headlights leaving no doubt it was him. He hopped out—the top and doors almost always removed from his weekend toy—and met me between our vehicles.

  “What kind of shit have you gotten me into now, dickhead?”

  “Comfortable?”

  He looked down at his jeans and Rockports beneath a V-necked pullover sweater. “What did you expect, I’d put on a suit to come out here and kick your ass, yours and Elmer’s?”

  “Why would you kick my ass?”

  Floyd started counting on his left pinkie, working his way toward the thumb: “One: you shouldn’t be here without me. Two: what the hell is my car doing here? Three: you just need your ass kicked.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you on three; I definitely could use a good ass-kicking.”

  “Oh, and five—”

  “Four.”

  “—now you’re giving me shit about my outfit.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not as G.Q. as you, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” he agreed.

  “We have a witness to talk to,” I said, “once we resolve this other mess. I would have thought you’d wear something a little more professional, or at least something that wouldn’t get you beat up, have your lunch money taken.”

  “You’re an asshole,” he said. Then he looked toward the conglomeration of police vehicles casting beams of red, blue, and amber-colored lights throughout the neighborhood. “You got SWAT rolling?”

  “I was stalling.”

  “Why?”

  “Wanted to talk to you first, face to face.”

  “What for, Dickie?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and back. “This lieutenant out here from Downey seems like a real hard-on. So far, this isn’t much of a deal, but before we make it a big one, I felt the need to make sure you’re clean on this.”

  “Dude, I swear to God . . . Wait, you think I pulled this shit? Why would I do something this bizarre?”

  “I don’t know, you’re just funny that way.”

  “Yeah, I’m hysterical that way, sometimes. But I had no part of this, that I can assure you. I’m a victim.”

  “You went straight home, parked the car out front, right?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dickie, I did. Do you need a note from my mother?”

  “Just tell me there’s nothing bizarre going on here, nothing at all.”

  “I’d tell you, you know that.”

  “I know,” I said, and looked off for a moment. I turned back to him, pushed the brim of my hat up in front and said, “I’ll notify the desk, tell them we need SWAT and they better notify the captain. You call Norwalk Station, ask them to check your street—probably your whole neighborhood—see if there’s any suspicious vehicles around there. Make sure they look for that brown van.”

  “So if it was Fudd, how the hell would he know where I live?”

  “Good question, but I don’t have an answer. Better have Norwalk check in on your family too, maybe leave a couple guys at the house until we sort this out.”

  “Jesus, Dickie.”

  Floyd appeared concerned, worried. Not a common reaction from the man who welcomed challenge and danger. I put my hand on his shoulder as if telling him it would be fine. There were no words necessary, both of us knew that whatever we went through, we went through it together. Professionally or personally, that’s just the way it had always been.

  Floyd took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Likely getting himself back in his zone: focused, driven, in complete control, and prepared to prevail under any circumstance, against any challenge. Floyd had always prepared for the ultimate confrontation, mentally and physically. On the rare occasion of insecurity, he would reach into that treasure chest of confidence, compiled from all the years of training and preparation, to quickly regain his edge.

  I recalled an occasion when Floyd had a problem that involved a family member and a rather aggressive adversary. He called, and I heard it in his voice, that same but very rare uncertainty. I told him I’d be there with him, and when I arrived, he explained that the person he had to deal with was a violent one, the type who’d probably look for a fight. He also worried the guy would show up with friends, as he always seemed to be in the company of other thugs. I had lightened it up, saying, yeah, and he probably runs ten miles a day and lifts weights and trains in the kickboxing gym and spars with professional fighters too. Floyd nodded as I finished making the point. I said, “I’m just here to watch this guy either bitch up or get pummeled, that’s it. You won’t need me for anything else, unless his friends get involved, and then I guess we’ll both be busy.” He realized he had no real need for concern, and in that instance too, he gathered himself, focused, and mentally prepared for the event. Which interestingly, never happened; the guy never showed up and was never heard from again. Likely a sign of intelligence.

  With SWAT having an estimated arrival time of whenever the hell they got there, I told the Downey lieutenant we would be over there, pointing toward Donna’s house, if anyone needed anything from us. I explained we might have someone who could provide some insight into all this crazy shit, and we needed to talk to her sooner
rather than later.

  Donna answered the door with a puzzled look about her. “What’s going on now? It’s getting crazy around here.”

  “Donna,” I said, “this is my partner, Matt Tyler.”

  Floyd smiled and offered a hand. “Nice to meet you, Donna.”

  She opened the door and stepped aside. “Come in.”

  I led the way to the living room and returned to the sofa. Floyd plopped down in the adjacent chair and Donna took a seat next to me. I opened my notebook and jotted the date and time, her name, the location of the interview and then asked, “What is your birth date, Donna?”

  “Um, January tenth, nineteen-eighty-two.”

  “You’re what, twenty-three?” Floyd asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Damn,” he said.

  “What?” she asked, as she and I both glanced at Floyd.

  His expression seemed to say, did I say that out loud?

  “Nothing, sorry . . . I was just thinking, you’re really young.”

  I stepped in. “Donna, when’s the last time you spoke with Shane Wright?”

  She tilted her head and studied each of us for a moment before answering. “Last week sometime, why?”

  “Can you remember the day?”

  “I don’t know, why? Is something wrong?”

  “It’s important that you think of when you last saw him.”

  “Okay, let’s see . . . I left for Cabo Saturday morning, so it must’ve been Friday. Yes, she was here Friday night. You know, it’s actually Susie, she’s had a complete sex change and prefers to be called Susie, not Shane.”

  She remained posed, relaxed, comfortable in the shorts and loose-fitting t-shirt. No concern, worry, or deceit, or so it seemed.

  I asked, “When did you return?”

  “Just got home a few hours ago.”

  “Do you mind saying who you went with?”

  “Is there something going on?” she asked, now showing some concern, maybe irritation at the questioning. “Am I suspected of something?”

  “No ma’am,” I told her, “something’s happened to Susie.”

  She didn’t show the emotion I would expect if this were a surprise. “What’s happened?”

  “She’s been killed, Donna, last weekend.”

  “Oh my God!” she said, her hand rising to cover her mouth.

  She looked at Floyd, then back at me, shaking her head and fighting back tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I studied her to see if anything in her response seemed inappropriate for the emotion she displayed. There was nothing that concerned me. Although her initial reaction had puzzled me slightly, I dismissed it as she probably never dreamed the news would be this bad. People reacted differently when they learned that a friend or loved one had been killed.

  Donna took her time, stifling emotions as she dabbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “What happened?”

  “She was murdered,” I said.

  “Oh, my God! Does the man in that house have something to do with this?” she asked, nodding across the street.

  Floyd said, “Why do you ask?”

  “It only makes sense, everything going on over there, the cops out front and all, you guys here . . . What else could it be?”

  “Do you know the man who owns it?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t know him. I know who he is, what he looks like. He seemed nice enough, but I’ve never spoken with him. Waved to him once in a while is all. His wife—”

  “His wife?” I interrupted.

  “Well, I assume she’s his wife, they’re an older couple, you know. Anyway, she seems pleasant enough, says hello when she sees me, always has a smile.”

  Floyd and I exchanged glances. “When’s the last time you saw her?” I asked.

  “Month or so, maybe. Him, too. I think they went on vacation or something. The guy in the van started staying there, let the lawn die, made the place look trashy.”

  “Is that who you meant, when you asked earlier if this was about the crazy man across the street?”

  “Yeah, he seems crazy to me. Just stares at everyone, frowns all the time. The night Susie left—she had a friend with her—they were getting in their car and he said something nasty to them.”

  “You heard this?”

  “I heard him say something, but I couldn’t hear what he said. You could tell it was mean, or nasty or something.”

  “Did they say anything back?”

  “Susie’s friend—I think her name is Stephanie—she’s kind of obnoxious, you know the type? She smarted off, told him something. I don’t know what she said, but he didn’t look happy.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “They had just got into the car as he started walking that way, like going toward them, so they drove off real quick. You could hear them laughing at him. After they were gone, he glared over here at me. It was real creepy, to be honest. So, he does have something to do with this?”

  I turned to Floyd. “I need to get the case file out of my car, get that photo. You want to entertain Donna for a minute?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” he said.

  I stood and excused myself, stepping across Donna’s thin, bare legs on my way to the door.

  When I returned, Floyd was saying to her, “. . . never to Cabo, but I’ve been to Cozumel and Cancun.”

  “Oh,” she replied, both of them smiling now, “I’d love to go to Cozumel.”

  Floyd glanced at me but disregarded my presence, looking back at Donna now, batting his eyes as he talked to her.

  “I actually like Mexico more than Hawaii, you get a lot more bang for your buck. But I like them both, really. Hawaii you have the nicest beaches, great snorkeling—”

  “You two planning a vacation now?” I asked as I sat back down on the couch.

  “What?” Floyd asked.

  “Just asking if you were planning a vacation with Donna.”

  “We were talking about something other than work. You wouldn’t be interested.”

  I shrugged.

  “You should lighten up a bit, Dickie, think about something other than police work for a change. Take a vacation some time, go suck up some rays, enjoy life, you know? Did you get the photo?”

  I sat down and opened the file, thumbing through it until I found the Wanted Poster with the photo of Elmer Fudd. I put it in front of her. “Is this the guy you’re talking about, the guy who’s been staying across the street?”

  She studied it for a moment before answering. “No, this is the man who owns the house. He’s gone.”

  Floyd and I exchanged glances.

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I’m sure.”

  Floyd said, “Not the asshole with the van, the guy who yelled at Susie and her friend?”

  “No,” Donna Edwards said, her back arched as she posed on the edge of her seat, “though they do look similar, in some ways.”

  Floyd and I stood on the edge of Donna’s driveway taking in the action across the street on a warm spring night. There were SWAT vehicles now, an armored transport, four black and white patrol cars, and the tactical van that folds out to create a mini-command post. The sound of helicopter blades chopping through the air faded in and out as the bird circled above us, its spotlight illuminating the house across the street.

  “So I wonder what happened to James Scott?”

  Floyd stuffed a pinch of Copenhagen behind his lower lip, brushed his hand on his jeans, and spit a stream of brown fluid toward the gutter. Putting the can back in his pocket before he responded, “And the lovely Mrs. Scott.”

  “The little woman.”

  He packed the snuff with his tongue and spat again, leaving a brown stain on the driveway. “I sure hope he’s in there, and I hope SWAT lights that place up like it’s Independence Day. Dead or alive, I don’t care at this point. This is nuts.”

  “We’re off somewhere on this, partner,” I said,
“I feel we’re missing something big.”

  16

  THE PAGER WENT off, piercing my deep slumber beneath an open window, the cool nighttime breeze a welcome change from the daytime heat. The alarm clock displayed 3:22, and the code in my pager told me to call the office.

  My house phone rang before I could make the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Did you talk to the office yet?” Floyd asked, his voice sounding wide awake, excited.

  “No, I was just getting ready to call. What’s up?”

  Floyd said, “The fugitive task force has a lead on James Scott.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve tracked his credit card. Looks like he is alive and well, spending plastic money on a daily basis.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s the best part, Dickie, we’re headed to Texas!”

  “Great.”

  “They love us there,” Floyd said.

  We walked briskly through Terminal 4, past the coffee shop, past the newsstand, past a stand of cinnamon rolls that filled the halls with the smell of pastry and sugar and spice. We might have stopped but we were running late, thanks to the trainee at the ticketing counter, the kid who had stood with a blank stare when Floyd badged him saying, We’re LEO’s . . .

  LEO’s? he had asked, and that was the beginning of a long morning at the Los Angeles International Airport.

  “Law Enforcement Officers,” I had said, shrugging my carry-on bag from my shoulder and dropping it to the floor, “means we have lots of paperwork to complete. You might want to ask for some help, if you’re new at this.”

  The young man with strawberry-blond hair and an American Airlines ID with a photograph of his freckled face, the name John Walker beneath it, turned to the lady next to him and asked for help. She didn’t help much, as it turned out, but not because she was new and inexperienced like the kid. She came with an attitude and a look on her face that said she was unappreciated and underpaid, and the last thing she needed was to have to help the freckle-faced kid fill out all those damn forms, the ones we needed to get on the plane with our guns. She took a deep breath, rolled her eyes and pursed her lips, just enough to show her disgust. As if we were doing this to her.