by Baxter Clare
Frank searched for the exact word.
"Like I was supposed to be there. Like it was my destiny or something. Like I couldn't have been—like I'd never been anywhere else. I didn't want to be there—I was sick and tired of the whole thing—but it was where I belonged. It didn't feel like I had a choice. And it felt like it was just one more battle in a long campaign."
"Sounds creepy," Gail mumbled into Frank's neck.
"Yeah," Frank agreed, but it hadn't been creepy. Just . . . inevitable.
Frank kissed Gail and said, "Go on back to bed."
"When do I get to see you again?"
"Tonight? Dinner?"
"Med-line meeting," Gail said, crinkling her nose.
"Tomorrow then."
Swinging in a locked embrace against Frank, she pouted. "You going out with your children first?"
"Of course," Frank smiled.
"Will you be too drunk to make love to me?"
"Have I ever been?"
Gail considered.
"No-o. But let's not have a first, okay?"
"Deal. I gotta go," Frank said, disentangling herself. "I'm gonna be late."
"Ohh!" Gail gasped in mock horror. "The trains will stop running and the wind will stop blowing!"
"You," Frank said, leaving her with a quick kiss, "who can't even conceive of being anywhere on time, have a lot of nerve. You're gonna be leaving Saint Peter or the Devil waiting twenty minutes for you someday."
"Hey!" Gail cried as Frank grabbed her briefcase and crossed the living room, "I thought you didn't believe in those guys."
"I don't," Frank called back, "but you do."
17
Frank was just about to grab a torta for lunch when a call came in from one of the HUD scattered housing sites. Folks in the Projects didn't much care for the police, so Frank headed out with Darcy, Diego, and two backup units.
Flanked by the uniforms, the nine-three detectives walked behind the apartment manager up bullet splintered, piss-stained stairs. Neighbors huddled outside a door. The one who'd called the station repeated what he'd told Darcy over the phone—the girl across the way had knocked on his door to tell him she'd suffocated her kids. She'd said it as calmly as if she were saying it was going to be a sunny day.
The cops knocked on her door and a small voice said, "Venga."
She was sitting on a stained mattress, two boys and a girl neatly arranged behind her. They looked like they were sleeping. The detectives touched the little bodies. Each was cool and starting to rigor. Darcy knelt in front of the mother while she pulled at a hangnail.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice soothing.
"I kilt 'em all," she confessed, matching his solemnity.
Darcy nodded as if he understood.
"How come?"
"I didn't want 'em to suffer no more. They's always hungry. The little one"—she indicated a baby that couldn't have been more than six months old—"she's crying all the time 'cause I didn't have no more milk."
She assured Darcy, "It's better this way. This way they can't know no more pain. They're happy now."
Darcy studied the girl a long time. Frank wondered if he was going to pull a Sandman on her. The girl tugged at the hangnail while he stared. Ripping the offending flesh from her finger, she watched the long tear start to bleed. So low Frank could barely hear him, Darcy asked, "There's another baby, isn't there?"
The girl looked at him with big, trusting eyes. She nodded.
"Where?"
"The garbage. I wrapped him in a towel. It was too bloody. I couldn't do it that way. I couldn't see him like that no more."
Diego and Darcy went downstairs to look for the boy. While they were gone, the woman confided, "He was my oldest. I kilt him first so he wouldn't see what was happenin' and be scared."
"Very thoughtful," Frank murmured. Behind the greasy, stringy hair, the teenager smiled at Frank's praise. Jack Handley showed up from the coroner's office. He shook his head and went to work on the tiny corpses. Frank went after her detectives. They were coming back into the tenement as she was going out.
"Find him?"
"Right where she said he'd be," Darcy said, dusting his slacks off. Two uniforms were taping off a row of dumpsters. Not to protect evidence, but to keep the curious crowd back.
"Handley's upstairs," she said to Diego. Darcy started to follow, but Frank touched his sleeve. A scraping sound distracted her. She glanced around at the onlookers, sourcing the sound to a bent metal cane sweeping the ground in front of crusted, swollen feet.
"How'd you know there was another kid?" she asked.
The scraping grew louder and Frank jerked her chin, indicating they should back up toward the stairs. Before Darcy could answer, Frank was stunned to feel a hand clamp onto her wrist. She turned to stare into filmy, sightless eyes.
What in the fuck?
The leering pile of rags held her in a death grip. Frank tried to pull away as its mouth gaped wide. Frank almost gagged. She'd smelled the vilest putrefaction, but nothing compared to the stench reeking from this . . . thing. The mouth stretched wider, thick strands of spit connecting the top and bottom lips like jail bars. The cracked lips split. Blood welled from the rents. Behind, in the dark maw, crumbling stumps jutted from puffy gums.
Frank was sickeningly fascinated, but still thought to yank her arm free. The hand only tightened on her wrist. She wanted to punch the reeking mass but it wouldn't do to hit a homeless person in a crowd of witnesses.
The thing cackled softly, staring straight into her eyes even though its own were cauled with cataracts.
"You don't recognize me," it accused in a rough whisper. Frank immediately noticed that the words had no accent, no inflection. It had to be someone she'd sent up, maybe when she was in uniform, coming back now to blame her for how miserable his life turned out. Or hers. Frank scanned the face for a clue to the thing's gender, but it was like studying a strip of rawhide.
The thing laughed again, louder.
"Too long for you to remember. But I remember. I never forget. No," it crooned. "I never forget."
Spit flew into Frank's face. She tumbled back, finally jerking her arm loose. The relic stumbled too. It almost fell against Frank, but she sidestepped the fetid breath and curving, yellow nails. Frank's nemesis recovered itself, rapping its twisted cane on the concrete. The obscene head swiveled toward Frank, the eyes impossibly seeing her. It nodded, acknowledging the ludicrous. Then it turned, leaving as it came, metal rasping against the sidewalk.
"Friend of yours?"
Frank jumped. Darcy's eyes were steady on her. She followed the shuffling bundle until it was well away. Frank wanted a long hot bath to wash the stink off. She shuddered, completely flustered.
"What?" she barked at Darcy, probing her with quiet eyes.
"Nothing."
He retreated into the building and Frank pulled herself together. The usual onlookers, curious and unconcerned. Another kid in a dumpster. No big. Yellow tape. Coroner's van. Black and whites. The peeling Mercury. Beretta snuggled into her ribs. Sun shining. Everything okay. All as it should be.
Frank followed Darcy. The stairway was invisible after the bright sun and Frank tripped on the steps. Darcy turned at the top. Behind him, a lone bulb burned in its wire basket. Frank couldn't see Darcy's face, only the soft glow around his head. She wondered how long it would be before she could get herself into a tub and open a bottle of Scotch.
Back at the office there was a message from Gail. She'd finished Danny Duncan's autopsy and Frank could page her if she wanted. Frank did; it was a good excuse to hear Gail's voice.
"Hey," she answered when the doc called back. "Got your message."
"Hi. Paul did your Colonel. I was busy counting how many times a man stabbed his wife because she served him cauliflower with dinner."
"How many?"
"More than I could count," she yawned. "At least ten on her head and neck, thirty to her chest. Not to mention defensive cuts. I'm b
ushed. Thank God he confessed and I can let it go at that. I've still got to type it up, though. Ick."
"I thought you were gonna be chained to your desk all day."
"We drew coffee stirrers for this guy. I lost."
A thin smile eased the strain on Frank's face; she liked a boss that shared in the grunt work.
"What'd you find out about the Colonel?"
"Probably nothing you don't already know. He exsanguinated due to penetration of the carotids and jugulars."
Frank heard her shuffling papers.
"I don't have his report yet. I'll let you know as soon as I do."
"Who was at the post?"
"Lewis. She's nice. I like her."
"How'd she do?"
"Fine, I think. She seemed all right."
It was common for new detectives to ghost on their first autopsies. The overly ripe, gamey smell of a freshly opened torso; the sound of skin being stretched from fascia; the first glimpse of an exposed brain hunkered like an obscenely large pearl in an oyster— those were only a few of a dozen sensations that could send them spinning from the morgue. If the cutter knew a rookie was watching, they could be excessively gruesome.
"Was Noah there?"
"No. Just Lewis."
"Alive or dead when he was cut?"
"I'm sorry. I forgot to ask. Does it matter?"
"Probably not. Might give us a little more insight into his last couple minutes."
"I'll get Paul to finish his prelim first thing tomorrow. How's your day going?"
Frank was determined to forget the incident at the projects.
"From a civilian's perspective—tragic. From a homicide lieutenant's—productive. Four closed cases. The captain'll be a happy man. You should have gotten them by now. Three boys and a girl."
"Oh, God," Gail groaned.
"Yeah, Mommy pulled a euthanasia. Stabbed the oldest with a steak knife then decided that was too messy. Smothered the rest of diem with a pillow. Thought they'd be better off that way. Maybe she's right."
"Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed today, or what?"
Frank almost snapped something, bit it back.
"You headed out on rounds?"
"Pretty soon."
"Why don't you stop by on your way home? Let me kiss you goodnight."
"How can someone so cynical and so embittered be so romantic?"
Frank rubbed her eyes.
"I'm not embittered. I'm world-weary."
"That's very poetic. I think I'm rubbing off on you."
"Yeah? That'd be awful nice."
When Frank hung up she was an hour closer to that bottle of Scotch.
18
Frank was leaving a note for Darcy when Noah and Lewis strolled in. Noah slid into a chair like he'd just lost all his bones.
"Guess who's back in town," he said.
"Elvis?"
"Not an Anglo."
"Hendrix?"
"Not black."
"Pancho Villa?"
"Not as nice a moustache. Tito Carrillo. Guess the border boys missed him."
"Did you talk to him?"
Contributing to the conversation, Lewis settled her muscled bulk onto a chair that looked like it was about to become kindling.
"Not yet we haven't. I stopped at Hernandez's—"
"She forgot to have him sign his statement," Noah snickered.
Lewis flushed, nostrils flaring like a bull's before a charge. Frank wondered what her blood pressure was like. Mad-dogging her partner, Lewis continued.
"I stopped by Hernandez's place and he told me Carrillo was back in town. He seemed awfully tense and it finally come out that Carrillo still wants to do business with him and Echevarria. I don't know why," Lewis snorted. "There ain't no way I'd want those two backing me. Nuh-uh. But he's determined to go through with his plan, despite what happened to Duncan and despite all the warnings they got. Hernandez said Carrillo said that he ain't scared. That some old lady isn't gonna tell him what to do."
"Find him," Frank said. "Talk to him."
Lewis nodded.
"I went by his crib but he wasn't home. His old lady said she didn't know when he's coming back. I figured I'd drop by again on my way home. But the—"
"Sister Shaft," Noah rode Lewis. "Don't you ever sleep?"
Frank backed her rookie, asking Noah where he'd been while Lewis attended the post.
"Now I knew you'd be pissed about that," Noah defended, "but wait'll you hear this. Oh God," he laughed, clutching his stomach, "You're gonna love this. Johnnie, listen up. This is rich."
That was all the prompting Johnnie needed to sit back and prop his feet on the desk.
"Okay, so I was going through Belizaro's murder book this morning—waiting for Smokin' Joe," he acknowledged his partner, "to do whatever the hell she was doing in the girls room—and I notice he was busted a couple months ago for jackin' that butcher shop on 69th. And it dawns on me, I was talking to Mrs. Belizaro a couple days ago, and she mentioned something about how she never knew she had such wonderful neighbors. Even the butcher."
Noah smiled, rocking his chair back on two legs. A slow grin lit Frank's face and she shook her head. Noah nodded.
Lewis looked puzzled, prodding, "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Johnnie echoed, "for those of us who aren't into that Vulcan mind meld shit like you two."
Noah continued, "Mrs. Belizaro says, 'I never go to him, but he brought me a bag of meat. Isn't that sweet?'"
"Nice," Frank said.
"And," Noah continued, dropping the chair back down, "that cold case of Nook's, 'member, about nine months ago? Male black with his guts emptied out behind the Pik-Rite and chunks carved off of him? Jacked that same carniceria nine days before he was picked off. I called his baby muhvuh and asked if a butcher had come by offering condolences. 'Yeah, she says. He even brought us a bag of meat.'"
"She-et," Lewis said, disgusted, and Johnnie laughed. Noah did too, but managed to say, "No wait. This is the best part. The baby muhvuh says"—Noah laughed, wiping his eyes—"she says, 'He was the nicest man. He knew we were Muslim and he even made it kosher."'
"Ya'll sick mothers," Lewis said, stalking over to her desk. Johnnie was still laughing as Noah said to Frank, "I figured you'd rather I worked on the search warrant."
"What a fucking job," Frank said. "Mrs. Belizaro have any of that meat left?"
"Why, you wanna have a barbeque?" Johnnie choked.
"I already got it. Put it on ice. I'll send it to the lab tomorrow, see what we get."
Frank said to Lewis, "Heard the post went well."
"It was all right, I guess. It didn't tell us much more than we already know. Seems like our boy was still alive when his throat was slit. The doctor didn't find anything unusual."
"Did he say much?"
"Naw, he didn't talk hardly at all. I had to keep asking him things."
Frank glanced at Noah and he lifted his hands in the air, knowing she was peeved Lewis had to work with Paul Seuter alone.
Seuter was a skilled pathologist, but extremely shy. Talking was as comfortable for him as chewing razors. Because of that, and his pasty skin, the detectives called him Boo Radley. Frank wondered what the novice detective had missed and hoped she could spot it in Seuter's prelim report.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah," Noah piped up. "What else did Sister Shaft do today? Close all our opens, catch Jack the Ripper, and still get to soccer practice on time?"
Lewis glared at her partner.
"Do you mind if I finish?"
"A'ight," Noah rapped, "I'ma head for the door, I'ma give you the floor. Y'all wanna speak, then talk to Le Freek."
When it came from anyone other than Noah her nickname had a nasty edge, but Frank applauded his rhyming skills.
"Shit," Lewis whined, "why I gotta work with some crazy-ass O'Malley think he Busta Rhymes?"
"Hey, I ain't no O'Malley. I'm a Jew."
"Jewish, Irish, shit, y'all look the same to me,"
Lewis zinged back. Frank was pleased to see her holding her own, not getting her back up too much.
"Now let me finish," Lewis continued. "We leaned on Hernandez some. Jack Lord here," she said, tilting her head to Noah, "he ran the 'you're the best suspect' number on him again. Hernandez did his crybaby thing then allows as how he was at Carrillo 's the night Duncan's murder went down. Not only was he there," Lewis gloated, "he and Carrillo saw one of the twins get out of Duncan's car after parking it and drive off in another car. Looked like a gray Benzo, sedan model."
"That's the good news," Noah interjected. "Now tell her the bad news."
"Ain't no way he's gonna cop to it in court. He knows Mother Love'll kill him. He messes his pants just thinking about her."
"Well, at least we're on the right track," Frank said. "Keep looking for Carrillo. We need him. I'll check with Fubar, see about some witness protection for Hernandez. Might be more inclined to turn if we can get the Mother off his back."
"I doubt it," Noah said. "He's a punk ass. And besides? Which twin are you gonna pin? Lewis say's they're identical."
Noah's pessimism was his way of venting. Frank knew there wasn't a lead he'd pass up, no matter how improbable. She ignored him, letting Lewis add a few more details, until the phone rang in her office. Frank dashed for it.
"Homicide. Franco."
"Narcotics. Kennedy."
"S'up sport?"
"Got the info you requested. There's a boat load. Want to swing by on your way home?"
"That'd work. Until then, give me the gist of it."
"Gist of it is this lady's got some fat pockets and knows how to keep her ass out of a sling. Twenty-three charges, mostly all related to felony possession, and not one conviction. This Betty knows how to fly below the radar. And who to fly with."