by Baxter Clare
“Hmm,” Frank murmured. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But then it’s also kind of odd if football’s behind him that he’d have a clean uniform hanging in his closet.”
Frank was picking at her antipasto. She froze. “A what?”
“A uniform, like for football,” Kennedy gloated.
“Are you kidding me?” Frank drilled her young colleague.
“Big as life. Red and white. Number eighty-one.”
“No shit?”
“Absolute constipation. I peeked at it when ya’ll were admiring his trophies. It was just cleaned, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“I smelled it. I think Mrs. D. uses Tide.”
“Son of a bitch,” Frank muttered incredulously. “What else?”
Kennedy ticked off a few more things, then she sucked noisily on an ice cube. “What about you?”
Frank waggled her eyebrows, pulling a wadded piece of tissue from her jacket. She dangled it before Kennedy.
“When I got the tissue to blow my nose I swiped the bottom of his shower.”
Frank carefully unfolded the Kleenex and together the two detectives peered by candlelight.
“There you have it,” Frank poked with her nail. “Pubic hairs. We’ll see if we can draw a match on them.”
She folded the tissue, pocketed it, then reached into her pants pocket. “Did you notice how antsy they got when I asked about that locked door in the garage?”
“And that Junior has the only key.”
“Right. And when I spilled that jar of nails on the floor?”
Kennedy chortled, “Yeah, spaz. Like to gave me a heart attack. I was lookin’ at the tools on the wall and I thought Junior’d pulled a gat on you or somethin’.”
Eyes twinkling, Frank opened the palm of her hand. In it sat a hunk of green/gold carpet fiber.
Kennedy stared at it, then at Frank.
Frank deliberately ripped out a piece of note paper and folded it around the yarn. “This was poking out from under the garage door. I dropped the nails so I could yank some out. Agoura and Peterson both had green carpet fibers on them.”
Kennedy’s eyes narrowed admiringly. Frank sat back with a short, satisfied chuckle, unable, or unwilling, to hide her pleasure. Studying Frank, the younger detective shrewdly noted, “You love this, don’t you?”
Frank shrugged, obviously pleased.
Kennedy asked, “How do you feel now that you’ve seen him?”
“Absolutely, 100 percent certain.”
“But you’ve got nothing but circumstantials on him. How can you be so sure?”
Frank smiled oddly and took on a thousand-yard stare. “Oh, I’m sure,” she whispered. “I know it. Seeing him, smelling him, looking at where he sleeps, where he fantasizes…”
Frank’s mysterious smile widened, becoming almost cruel. She whispered reverently, “I know him because I am him.”
She didn’t see the golden hairs rising on Kennedy’s arms.
By the time they finished a long dinner it was after ten o’clock. Both women were exhausted. Since the restaurant was closer to Frank’s house, she invited Kennedy to spend the night. Once there, the younger woman crashed quickly and easily, but Frank was too wired to sleep.
She was elated at how closely Delamore matched her profile. If this were her case, she’d be slapping a search warrant in front of a sleepy judge right now, but as it was her hands were tied. It didn’t matter that she had probable cause and a deep gut instinct. If she told RHD what she had, they’d probably lose or mishandle any solid evidence she found. Plus, once word got out, she’d face disciplinary action for taking on another division’s case. That would raise enough jurisprudence questions for the case to get thrown out of court. Clancey would walk after all.
As much as it frustrated her, she had to go slowly. Frank settled in the den with soft music and a pad of paper, starting a list of things to follow through on. Gradually, her own thoughts and Astrud Gilberto’s wistful yearnings lulled her to sleep.
When she twisted onto her side the clipboard fell against her chin. Frank woke up and saw Kennedy slumped on the floor beside her. She thought she was dreaming, then decided Kennedy’s soft snoring was real. So was the rise and fall of her chest and the slight movement under her eyelids. Frank wondered what the hell she was doing there, then got distracted by the fiery auburn and russet strands gleaming in Kennedy’s hair. Frank wanted to smooth the tousled hair, wondering if it would be as silky as she remembered from the hospital. She reached out, then drew her hand back.
Kennedy jerked awake as the clipboard clattered onto the floor. She gaped at Frank, petrified.
“It’s okay, sport. You’re okay,” Frank soothed. “Everything’s okay. You’re alright.”
“What was that noise?” Kennedy blinked.
“Just me. I dropped the clipboard. It’s okay.”
As Kennedy regained her bearings, Frank whispered, “What are you doing all curled up on the floor?”
Kennedy thought about it for a moment, then mumbled, “I had a dream. I woke up and saw the light on so I came in here. But you were asleep. I didn’t wanna wake you up. But I didn’t wanna go back to bed either. I just sat down next to you for a sec.”
Kennedy’s hair was hanging in her face, and again Frank had the urge to smooth it out of the way. She patted the couch and shifted her feet into the corner.
“Come here.”
Kennedy cuddled up at the other end, and Frank offered part of the afghan she was under. She frowned as she asked, “Did you put this on me?”
“Yeah. You looked like you were cold. You didn’t even move when I covered you.”
Frank felt foolish that Kennedy had crept in and covered her with a blanket like she was a baby.
“Tell me about your dream.”
Kennedy shook her head adamantly. “Uh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“Too scary.”
“Tunnel?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember.”
Frank gently tried to persuade her it would help to talk about it, but Kennedy scoffed, “How would you of all people know that?”
Frank seriously considered the question. “I used to have someone to talk to,” she said finally. “It helped.”
“Your lover?”
“Yeah.”
“What was her name?” Kennedy asked sincerely. When Frank hesitated, Kennedy bargained. “I’ll tell you about my dream if you tell me her name.”
Frank bit her inner lip as Gilberto sang about quiet nights and quiet dreams. “Maggie.”
“It’s a pretty name.” Then, “How long were you two together?”
“Eight years,” Frank said tightly.
“How’d she die?”
Kennedy asked the question gently, but Frank still felt it was none of her business.
“Look,” she snapped coldly, “that’s enough with the twenty questions. Just tell me about your goddamn dream. That was the deal, right?”
Kennedy flinched almost imperceptibly, and a guarded hurt dimmed the light in her eyes. Frank immediately regretted her outburst. She tossed off the afghan and started toward the CD player, then turned back. Kennedy was staring at her like Frank was a dog that might bite. She hated the wariness in Kennedy’s eyes, hated even more that she’d put it there.
“Christ,” she sighed. “You come at me out of left field and get pissed when my first reaction’s to protect myself.”
Kennedy’s armor didn’t budge as Frank sat earnestly on the edge of the couch.
“Look. I don’t know how to do this. You want me to talk to you, but Jesus, it took me years to learn how to talk to Mag, and even then it was half-assed. It’s nothing personal, I just can’t do this as easily as you do. I wish I could. I envy you. It’s like you’ve got an emotional flak jacket you put on when you go to work, then just take it off and leave it by the door at night. My jacket doesn’t come off like
that.”
“I’m sorry,” Kennedy offered. “I should’ve stuck to the bargain.”
“You always have to go for that extra inch,” Frank complained.
“I have to,” Kennedy defended. “You’d never give it, and it’s the only way I can get anything out of you.” She paused, then added, “You want me to tell you all my stuff but then you don’t tell me diddly. Is that fair?”
Frank didn’t answer, and Kennedy continued, “It’s like I’m supposed to trust you, but you can’t trust me. How do you think that makes me feel?”
Frank gnashed at her lip, then shook her head at the floor. “You’re asking a lot, sport. I don’t trust easily. That’s no reflection on you, or how trustworthy you are. It’s just my own twisted make-up.”
Lifting her head and facing Kennedy, Frank said, “And I do trust you. To a point. And when I get to that point it’s hard to cross over. I feel like my back’s to the wall. Hell, you know more about me than almost anyone else. I’d say you’re doing pretty good, but I just can’t move as fast as you. I watch you go from happy to sad, then mad to laughing, and you’re so easy with yourself. I just can’t do that.”
“Won’t,” Kennedy insisted. “I’ve seen you fight with every honest feeling you’ve ever had.”
“Alright then, won’t. Whatever. You just need to back off a little. Don’t be so damn invasive.”
“I don’t think I’m being invasive enough!” Kennedy challenged. “Somebody’s gotta drag you kickin’ and screamin’ outta that shell you’re in.”
“And I suppose you’ve appointed yourself to the task?”
“I seem pretty damn good at it.”
Frank stared at the combative young woman. They stalemated until Frank cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Are all the women in Texas as ornery as you?”
“Worse.”
Kennedy’s lofty smile said she’d concede the battle but not the war. “You wanna hear about my dream or not?”
Frank settled back. “Yeah, I do.”
It was a vague, sketchy dream about Tunnel, and when Kennedy finished she asked, “Have you dreamt about him?”
Frank played with a loose yarn in the afghan, admitting, “A lot,” then she stretched and rose stiffly. “Come on, sport. It’s late. Let’s see if we can get some real sleep.”
Frank switched off the lamp and they made their way through the dim house. Kennedy paused at Frank’s door, her hand on Frank’s arm. Half-teasing, half-serious, she said, “I’m sorry to be such a pain in the ass.”
Frank faced her. The streetlight’s beam spilled in through the living room window, picking up the shine in Kennedy’s eyes. Frank was very aware of the hand still on her arm. She tried to answer, but the thick scent of Kennedy’s hair and skin tripped Frank’s breath in her throat. After what seemed like decades, she whispered, “You’re not.”
Kennedy stood on tiptoe and her lips brushed Frank’s cheek. “Goodnight,” she whispered back.
Long after Kennedy had gone into her room, Frank remained standing in the streetlight’s complicit fraternity.
“Let’s get going, sport. We’ve got a shitload of work to do.”
Frank put a milky cup of coffee on Kennedy’s bedside table and left Kennedy groaning behind her.
They returned to Parker Center and finished running all the names through the computer. Over donuts and more coffee they reprioritized the suspects. It was exasperating work because Frank was sure Delamore was her man. Nevertheless, she was determined to exhaust all her leads before running with Clancey. Even though she had a lot on him, she couldn’t afford to overlook anyone. By noon they had a list of nine men ranked number ten. Kennedy was hungry again.
“Oughta get that tapeworm removed,” Frank advised, pulling into a Taco Bell. She watched Kennedy devour a burrito, three tacos, and a large Coke like she hadn’t eaten in a week. When Frank parked at their first interview, she surveyed Kennedy’s face. Skewing the rearview mirror toward her she noted dryly, “They might take us more seriously if you wipe that salsa off.”
Kennedy grinned, dabbing at herself with a Coke-moistened napkin. Frank shook her head dubiously.
After questioning their best suspect, Frank and Kennedy decided his work schedule was too tight to make him a viable perp. They’d double-check his story, but if it squared, they’d have to eliminate him. The same thing happened with their next guy; another had just come back to L.A. after a year-long absence. They had to cross off their fourth suspect because he’d lost an arm in a car accident. It turned out that he remembered Delamore from their footfall days.
“Yeah, he was a weird dude. Nobody liked him.”
Frank asked why. He scowled. “God, all he could talk about was football. Football this and football that. He was like, obsessed with it or something. And we’d be like changing in the locker room, you know, and Clancey’d take his clothes off and he’d be all like black and blue. It was totally gross.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I don’t know. We figured maybe his old man was beating the shit out of him. He coached us for a while and he was like a total idiot.”
“How do you mean?”
“He was always yelling and screaming if we forgot a play or something. He’d get right in our faces and spit would be flying all over. It was totally gross. He never touched us but he shoved Clancey around a lot. I saw him kick him in the ass once.”
“He’d hit Clancey?”
“Oh, yeah. He was a bastard. Coach finally told him he couldn’t come to practice no more.”
It was dark by the time Frank and Kennedy finished. Frank was driving Kennedy back to her car and Kennedy craned her head out the window, looking at the moon. “Are you going to get some surfing in?” Frank asked.
“That sure is a sweet moon. Maybe I’ll grab my board and see what the water looks like. Why don’t you come with me?”
“Don’t think so. I’m going to make some phone calls, see if I can’t find some of the other boys on our list.”
“You should go home and get a good night’s sleep.”
“I want to nail these other guys. Then tomorrow, if I can get away for a while, I’m going to check out the bakery, talk to Clancey’s supervisor. I want to run the carpet fibers and samples by the lab, too.”
“How’re you gonna do that without a case?”
“There’s a private lab in Claremont that can probably do it for me in a couple of days.”
Kennedy whistled. “That’ll cost you a fortune,” she said.
Frank just shrugged.
“What’ll you do if they match?”
“I’m thinking about that.”
Frank brought her car alongside Kennedy’s and cut the engine. She turned toward her and said, “Hey, I owe you. Big time. I couldn’t have done all this without you.”
“Yeah, you could’ve,” Kennedy disparaged, “it’d just taken longer.”
“No. You were great, sport. Thanks.”
Kennedy waved a hand and opened her door. As she was getting out Frank said, “Be careful driving home, okay?”
“Yes, mother.”
“And you’ll be careful in the water?”
“No, I’m gonna be a reckless idiot so I can wind up back in the hospital again. You gotta learn to relax, Lieutenant.”
Kennedy hopped out, then turned and stuck her head back in. “Will you call me?”
Even as she nodded yes, Frank doubted that she would.
He’d seen her at the park a few times. Always alone, never with anyone else. She looked ragged. Maybe she was a stoner, or a runaway. She was a little older than he liked but she was small, and that was important. And she seemed scared. He liked that too.
He watched her. She always had a Walkman and sang quietly to herself, moving her shoulders slightly to the beat. Sometimes she poked furtively through the garbage cans when she thought no one was watching. But he was watching. He liked that she was here a lot. It was reassuring that there was som
eone he could have. At first he wasn’t interested in her, but the more he saw her, the more he thought she’d do just fine. She’d probably be real quiet, not a screamer. He hated it when they screamed. He didn’t want to hear them. The idiots didn’t realize it only made him angrier, made him want to hit them harder.
And now he figured out she was homeless. She had on the same clothes and was probably in the park because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. That her disappearance would go unnoticed added to her attraction. He was smart. He had taken a lot of precautions to not get caught. He didn’t think the police were on to him, but he had to pace himself. Sometimes, like with that black girl, he’d acted impulsively. He had to guard against that. Had to take his time, play his plays the way he’d called them, not let the defense rush him.
But he was getting antsy.
31
Monday morning Frank was back in the office at 5:00 a.m. A while later she greeted her squad with a grunt and request for updates. Leaning a squeaky chair back as far as it would go, she crossed her natty crimson ankles on the corner of Johnnie’s desk. Her socks matched the red turtleneck under her jacket, a small concession to the building Christmas spirit. Nookey had put up a little tree with blinking lights, and Noah had cutouts from the kids pasted all over. Everyone was flecked with their shedding glitter.
Bobby had a tricky suspect in a botched robbery that ended up a double homicide. Frank wanted to ride with him but had to get her sample out to Claremont. Kennedy was right—the cost out of her own pocket would be considerable, but Frank wasn’t concerned about that. Single, with no dependents or major expenditures except a locked-in mortgage and tailored suits, Frank could afford to splurge. In addition, a private lab would give her a definitive completion time. Plus privacy. She didn’t want her involvement in this case getting leaked.
As it turned out, Frank was swamped and didn’t get out of the office until after three. She fought through traffic and delivered her fibers to the lab ten minutes before they closed. Next she headed to the bakery and talked to the plant foreman, who supplied her with Clancey’s records and supervisor’s name. There were no surprises in Delamore’s thin personnel file. He’d started in 1991 as a packer on the swing shift. He’d settled into the night shift in ‘93 and been promoted to forklift operator two years later. His time cards indicated he worked punctually Wednesday though Sunday, 9:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. , with a half hour lunch at 1:30. Despite being a seemingly decent employee, Delamore was only making three dollars more than when he started.