“I don’t want him to get away with this,” she sobbed. “Toni deserved better.”
“I understand your frustration, Fatema.” It was the first time he’d called her by her first name. “Believe me. I’m frustrated too.”
“She was having an affair with Lucas Shaw. I found out from—”
“I know,” he spoke calmly. “Mayor Shaw has been thoroughly questioned.”
She stared desperately at him, hoping for answers.
“All I can say is that he’s not immune from this investigation. You’ve got to believe me on that. Hell,” he said sort of smiling, “I didn’t vote for his ass.”
Fatema managed to smile back. “Me either.”
“The deeper I dig into this matter, the more complicated it becomes,” Baldwin explained. “I have reason to believe we’re dealing with more than just a romantic tryst gone bad. I wish it were that simple. If it were, then this case would’ve been solved a long time ago. But I believe there’s more to it than that.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.” Disappointment washed over her. “But solving this case is my top priority and I’m using all this department’s resources to find out who did this. You have to help me by staying out of my way. I don’t need a best friend or even a reporter putting this investigation at risk.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do? I’m only doing what comes naturally. I’m an investigative reporter, and I snoop. I dig. I find out things.”
“So do I, but you don’t see me trying to write a newspaper article.”
Okay, so he had a point. “Touché,” she sniffed.
“When this case breaks,” he reassured her, “—and it will, I’ll stake my career on it—when it breaks, believe me, I won’t leave you in the dark.”
Fatema bit down on her bottom lip, and reached across the table taking his hand in hers. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
Her touch was like a bolt of electricity surging through him. Bruce had perfected the art of keeping the world at bay. Even when he fucked a woman, it was placid and uneventful. But Fatema’s warm hand affected him, and it made him uncomfortable. He pulled away from her, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh,” she sniffed again, and pulled a tissue from her purse. “There’s a man named Lazarus. He’s an old homeless guy . . . kinda crazy, but . . . nice man. I interviewed him a few years ago when I was working on a documentary for PBS about the plight of America’s homeless. Did you see it?” she asked hopefully.
“Afraid not.”
She shrugged, disappointedly. “Anyway, I spent two days with my cameraman and Lazarus underneath that viaduct. He lived there. Had lived there for years, and swore he’d never leave. Anyway, I don’t know if Lazarus is alive or dead, but I’m willing to bet that if he is alive, he probably still lives underneath that bridge. I was thinking about looking for him, and that maybe—I don’t know. Maybe he saw something. It’s a long shot, I know.” She answered the question before he even asked it. “But that place was his home, and he had me convinced that he would never leave.”
She left with a much better mind-set than she had when she walked in. Baldwin watched her leave, and wished he could’ve been a different kind of man who could have gotten a woman like that. It was a short-lived fantasy that he noticed on the faces of half the men in the precinct who also watched her walk out.
Prayers Go Up
Lazarus needed new boots. Sometimes he would find them outside in the alleys and dumpsters. People threw away good boots all the time, wasting good shit because they could. He dug through one of the smaller trashcans and found a half-eaten sandwich, wrapped in tin foil. He smelled it, flipped up the bread on top and examined it closely, and then he covered it back up and slipped it into his pocket.
He kept digging through dirty papers and dumping garbage bags, until he found a nice sneaker. It was worn and dirty, but had a good sole on it. Nobody ever threw away just one shoe, and he searched long and hard for the other.
“She’s been here too long. You’ve been allowed to keep her long enough. I’ve got a buyer.” Ivy sat with her knees drawn to her chest, staring blankly down at her bare feet. She’d never seen this man before, but he talked about her like he knew who she was.
The other man paced back and forth, glancing in her direction. She didn’t have to see him to know when he watched her. She’d been with him long enough to feel it. All the other girls who’d come through here never stayed long. It had been weeks since she’d last seen Alina, and every now and then Ivy let herself wonder if Alina was dead or alive. She’d rather believe that someone had found Alina and saved her, and taken her home to her family where she belonged. And maybe one day Alina would remember Ivy and tell someone where to find her and they’d come take her away, too. But those fantasies were fleeting and reserved for the darkest part of the night or for warding off nightmares.
“I’ve done everything you’ve asked,” the desperate man argued. “He said she could stay . . . as long as I wanted . . . needed her to.”
“Yeah, well, he’s out of the picture, now, and you’re dealing with me. She’ll bring some good money, man. You’ve taken real good care of her.”
“What happened to him?” They were so careful not to say names, or places, or dates, or times. They spoke in code that through the years, she’d learned to recognize. “Is he dead? Did he get arrested?”
“Not relevant. One week,” the other man told him, starting back up the stairs. “I’ll send someone to get her in a week.”
Living in this cold, dank basement was hell, but it was her hell, and had become her home. She’d memorized every nook and cranny, every spider web and mouse. She’d counted the threads on the bedspread. And she knew him. If she had to be a prisoner, then she wanted to be a prisoner here, because here she still had hope that she’d find a way out one day. If they took her someplace else, chances are she’d never get away.
“After they use you up, and there’s barely anything left,” one girl who’d come through this place told her, “they sell what’s left of you overseas. Nobody ever hears from you again. Nobody knows where you are, and you die there. That’s what I’ve heard.”
Hot tears filled her eyes. Ivy couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, but the thought of leaving here terrified her and threatened to steal away the last bit of hope she clung to. If she remembered how, she’d have prayed and begged God to save her. But God didn’t come to basements and He certainly would never hear her small voice when everyone else was shouting to Him from the rooftops.
At first, she thought the noise outside the small window over her head was a rat or a cat or dog until he spoke.
“Good. Good. Where the other one? Don’t nobody throw away one without the other.”
No one ever came down that alley. Cars and the garbage truck drove through it long enough to empty that dumpster, but no one ever stopped by her window before.
“That’s nice. I like that. I like that. I do—for real.”
The light coming from the lamp near her bed wasn’t very bright. She picked it up and held it up so that she could see better out of the window. He must have seen her too, because he stopped, stepped back and stared back at her, and for what seemed like an eternity, their gazes locked and each of them froze.
Lazarus couldn’t tell if she was real or not. Light bounced off dull green eyes and translucent skin. Stringy brown hair framed her thin face, but she had the most beautiful lips he’d ever seen, full, pink—they looked like pillows. White girl. White girl with big lips. He smiled. “Ain’t that some shit,” he muttered. It was the way she stared at him that sent a shiver through his bones. Tears glistened in her eyes and filled them with more sadness than he’d ever seen before. Lazarus caught his breath, and he wanted so badly to turn away but he couldn’t.
“Ahhh!,” he heard himself say. He clutched at his coat, and pulled it tight around him.
His gaze fixed on her pre
tty mouth that was moving, but without sound. He studied her, absorbed this image haunting him from that small window, seeing her narrow fingers spread flat against that dirty glass, and all of a sudden, he realized what she was saying.
Help me. Please. Help me.
Man on Fire
Fatema had been called into her boss’s office as soon as she’d walked in. She hadn’t even put away her purse yet when he commanded her presence and demanded that she close the door behind her.
“So, imagine my chagrin when I get this call from the mayor’s office”—he feigned a quick smile—“asking me when the mayor could expect to see his interview in the paper.” Todd swiveled back and forth in his black, worn leather chair wearing sarcasm like a cheap, wrinkled shirt.
She was definitely in trouble and from the look on his face, for real this time. “Todd, I—”
He held up her hand to interrupt her. “Funny. I don’t remember telling you to interview the mayor. As a matter of fact, the last story I think I assigned to you had to do with food poisoning at a vegetarian restaurant in Cherry Creek or something mundane like that, you know—to help you get back on track and all because I’ve been so concerned about your well-being.”
“I needed to talk with him,” she said desperately. “I have reason to believe that he and Toni—”
“Fatema, I really don’t give a damn what you believe right now.” Todd’s face turned red.
“But—”
“You put my ass and reputation on the line! You put this paper’s reputation on the line!”
“What? All I did was tell him I was a reporter! I never said that I was going to print anything!”
“The man is expecting an article about him! And he believes it’s going to be published in my paper, Fatema! He’s the fucking mayor for crying out loud, and you really put me out there this time.”
“He’s the Mayor of Denver, Colorado, Todd, not Jesus!”
“Do you want to keep your job?” he blurted out.
Fatema was taken aback. “What?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ve got a dozen other reporters out there foaming at the mouth for your job!”
“You firing me?”
“You fucking act like you want to be fired!”
“I don’t want to be fired! My best friend was murdered, Todd. I need to know what happened to her. All I’m doing is trying to put this thing together to find out who did this!”
“Yeah, well, last time I heard, the police department does that very thing. They’re pretty good at it, too, from what I understand.”
“He had an affair with Toni,” she said, gravely. “Todd—if anybody benefited from her death, he certainly did.”
“And you know this—how?”
“I read her e-mails.”
“E-mails signed by Lucas Shaw, Mayor of Denver?”
“No! But it’s him. Nelson told me—”
“Who the hell is Nelson?”
“The guy who runs the homeless shelter. He and Toni were seeing each other after she broke things off with Shaw, and Shaw was pissed.”
Todd sat for a moment, taking it all in. “This isn’t the National Enquirer, Morris.”
“I know that. And I’m not trying to turn this into a Jerry Springer episode. But I needed to meet this guy and get a feel for him, and honestly, he’s shady, Todd.”
“Well . . . duh! He’s a politician. Of course he’s shady.”
“But I mean when it comes to Toni.”
“Did he tell you outright that he and your friend had an affair?”
“Of course not.”
“Then you have nothing, Fatema.”
“I have his e-mails. And the police questioned him too, and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t feel he wasn’t somehow involved in all this.”
“I don’t print speculation,” he explained, sounding more serious than she’d ever heard him sound before. “Shaw is a pisshead, and I don’t need flack from his office.”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“This isn’t about you, dammit!” He slammed his hand down on his desk. “This paper is my baby, Morris. And it’s been in circulation a very long time, mainly because—my father and his father believed in the sanctity of alliances and goodwill and not making unnecessary waves in this city. The Lucas Shaws of the world will come and go, but my integrity, the integrity of this newspaper has to be solid or else you might as well wipe your ass with it.”
“So we should kiss his ass?”
“No. But we shouldn’t lie to get fake meetings with the man and then turn around and print shit we don’t know is one thousand percent true or not.”
“I know this is true. I know he had an affair with Toni while he’s been married and that he’s a snake who probably killed her and may just get away with it because everybody in this damn town is afraid of him!”
He stared at her before asking her again. “There was a time when I believed you were as passionate about this business as I am, Morris,” he said solemnly. “You lived for the next great headline, got high on being the first to break that big story, but lately—”
“Lately, a lot’s been happening in my personal life,” she finished quietly. “My divorce, questioning the real reason I ever wanted to be a reporter in the first place, and now this.”
“You’ve had a lot of distractions this past year.”
“No, Todd. I think this past year I’ve had the misfortune of running into my life and actually having to face it once and for all, instead of ignoring it by pouring my heart and soul into this job.”
“It didn’t used to be just a job to you.”
“You’re right. But maybe that was the problem. I was so into my work that I let everything else slip away from me and reality is just starting to set in and it hurts.”
He leaned back and tapped a pencil against the desk. “Then maybe you need to step back—walk away for awhile and figure out where it is you want to be.”
She never bothered saying goodbye. It seemed a silly thing to say when she wasn’t sure if she was really walking away for good or not. She mentally calculated how much money she had in her savings and 401K, wondering how much she had to live off if she decided not to come back and go running off to find herself once and for all. Fatema quietly gathered her purse and coat and left without any idea as to what she’d do next.
When They Come For You
That Lazarus character was right where she said he’d be, underneath that viaduct where Toni’s body was found. Ever since Fatema Morris told Baldwin about him a few days ago, he’d been obsessed with finding the man. It was a lead. A slim one, but Baldwin had nothing else to go on and he was getting more and more desperate.
“We just want to ask you some questions, man.” Baldwin and two other officers surrounded Lazarus wildly swinging a baseball bat he kept close by for safety. The uniformed officers prepared to remove their weapons, but Baldwin stopped them.
“Back up off me!” Lazarus shouted. “Back up!”
Baldwin motioned for the policemen to take a few steps back away from the old man.
Lazarus’s appearance matched his name. He looked like something biblical with long hair matted and growing in thick clumps long past his shoulders. His dirty gray beard had grown long enough to touch his chest. He was a tall man, dressed in thick layers of clothing he’d probably found in the garbage. Back in his day, he was definitely a man to be reckoned with. But now, Lazarus was a frightened and disillusioned old man, and quite possibly, the missing link Baldwin needed to finally solve this case. If it were true, then the world was truly a fucked up place.
Fifteen minutes later, Baldwin realized that all the reasoning in the world wasn’t going to resolve this situation. The three policemen strategically surrounded Lazarus, confusing him, and throwing him off balance, until one of them lunged at the old man and tackled him to the ground, giving Baldwin and the other cop a chance to subdue Lazarus and handcuff him. It took all three of them to practical
ly drag him to the squad car and load him up in back.
At the station, Baldwin didn’t dare remove the handcuffs from the old man. Lazarus sat on the floor in the interrogation room, staring ahead at nothing with a cold, dark, angry expression on his face. Baldwin counted his blessings that the man was too far gone to know his rights. The old man smelled like raw sewage, and Baldwin tried breathing through his mouth, until he realized that the foul scent tasted just as disgusting. He sucked down black coffee and broke the law and lit up a cigarette. Everyone standing on the other side of that two-way mirror would just have to cut him some slack, or come in here with him to endure this shit.
“You’re not under arrest,” Baldwin told him. “I just need to ask you a few questions, Lazarus, and I’ll let you go.”
Lazarus didn’t respond.
“A woman’s body was found near where you live a while back,” he explained slowly, uncertain as to whether or not the man understood what he was telling him. Looking at him, Baldwin felt himself slowly losing faith in what he’d hoped would be the big break he needed on this case. “Did you see her, Lazarus? Did you see the woman? Young. Pretty.”
Lazarus didn’t move or even blink. From where Baldwin was sitting, he wasn’t even sure if the man was breathing.
“I really need your help on this, man. I need to find out who hurt her. I need to catch that person so that he can’t hurt anybody else. If you saw anything—anything at all—”
Lazarus closed his eyes slowly, then turned his face towards the wall, and never said a word.
A psychologist came in to try and get him to talk, but Lazarus was silent.
“We can’t hold him,” Baldwin’s captain told him. “He hasn’t broken any laws.”
“He’s crazy,” Baldwin interjected.
“We can’t hold him for being crazy, Bruce. Maybe he isn’t talking because he didn’t see anything.”
He hated making the call, especially after his “I know what I’m doing” speech and “You need to back off and let me do my job” tirade.
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