Reynaldo Francisco parked his black-and-white cruiser in front of the apartment listed on his in-car computer and picked up his car radio to say, "On scene." The ambulance two spaces down had its back doors open, but the metal gurney was sitting unused and unattended. Reynaldo closed and locked his car door, already able to hear the victim's mother screaming inside. Her wail was long and hoarse, clotted by years of tobacco. Reynaldo wouldn't even have to ask. The kid was dead and stiff.
One of the medics opened the front door carrying a heart monitor, trailing a long spool of white tape marked with flat red lines. A dark-haired Colombian mamacita whose rear-end looked like two plump casabas squished together in her tight cargo pants. "Hey, Officer Rey," she said.
"Bonita Marissa," he purred. "How old's the nino?"
"Late twenties," she said, looking down at her chart. "Name of Jessie Pincher."
"Oh," Rey said with a sudden sigh of relief. "I thought it was a little baby. Dispatch just said the caller's child was found unresponsive."
"Mom's in there," Marissa said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "It was all we could do to keep her out of the room while we went through the motions. There was no chance. Rigor had already started to set in. Happened sometime over night. Drogas."
"Heroin?"
"Found the needle in his arm."
"The junkies do not learn. Estupido."
She nodded, "My partner is still in there talking to her. I've got to start my paperwork."
"It can wait. Will you come inside with me while I look at the body. Otherwise I might get scared."
She rolled her eyes, "It's nothing you haven't seen before, papi."
"You never know. I might start having bad dreams and need someone to stay overnight and check on me," he called out as she walked away. He stayed on her as she swung that bountiful ass into the back of the bus and found himself wondering if the other medics ever lured her into spending a few sweaty minutes during a slow night back there. The ambulance bay was also equipped with cots and sofas and a kitchen. He told himself that it might be smart to stop by and say hello on one of his own slow nights. Maybe it wouldn't even take that much convincing.
Some of the neighbor kids circled the area with their bikes, watching his every move. He waved to them and called out, "Everything's all right. Go and play." They didn't listen. Reynaldo nodded at the medic as he walked into the house. H was crouched by the grieving woman, holding her yellowed fingers. She was an alligator of a woman. Early fifties, yesterday's makeup, a face that had seen hard times, Reynaldo thought. Nothing like this, though. Any parent unfortunate enough to see their own child into the grave was cursed by God, he thought. The medic patted her hand delicately as he looked back, "She called her sister. They're driving in from Jersey right away."
"Okay, that's good," Reynaldo said. "How about the … did you call anyone else?"
The medic nodded, "He's on his way, too. I explained to Mrs. Feeley that it's important to not go into the room until after the coroner is done."
The woman nodded, long lines of tears streaming down her face. "He said … he promised that I could see … Jessie one more time before you take him."
"That's right," the medic said. "After the coroner's done, if the officer says it's okay."
"Sure, Mrs. Pincher," Reynaldo said. "But are you sure you want to do that?"
The woman clenched her mouth and nodded, making little squeaking noises deep in her throat.
"Okay. As soon as the coroner is done, I'll let you know and you can have all the time you need."
"Thank you."
Reynaldo walked back out of the house to go to his police car. He popped the trunk and pulled out his digital camera and a handful of brown paper evidence bags. Marissa's ass was no longer at the forefront of his thoughts. It was time to focus on the investigation. When he walked back into the house, the medic pointed to the right and said, "Down there, on your right."
The hallway stunk like piles of cigarette ash. Reynaldo's family owned a bodega in Brooklyn and one of ways he made extra money growing up was to pick through the cigarette buckets outside for butts. He'd walk around the neighborhood selling them to bums and addicts for a quarter each, sometimes getting fifty cents for ones that had more than a half inch of tobacco left in them. The money was good, but he always stunk like an ashtray no matter how much he washed and it made him sick now to smell that same stale foulness in the hallway.
He turned right into the bedroom and saw the body of Jessie Pincher. Jessie's thin form was turned halfway on its side atop a threadbare mattress sitting on the floor. His hands were crumpled to his chest and his mouth fixed slightly open, the blue and red splotches across his marble white skin unmistakable. He was dead. He'd been dead long before they got there. Reynaldo stepped back out of the room and snapped pictures from the doorway, photographing the scene from every angle. He stepped into the room past the door and moved to his right, gaining a different perspective and fired away.
He shot as he moved closer to the body until he was bent over it, focusing the camera on a syringe sunk deep in the victim's left arm. There were other needles scattered on the floor, sitting on the desk, even hidden on the mattress around Jessie where he'd slept. None of them were capped.
Reynaldo looked around the room in disgust, suddenly filled with the revolting idea that every step he took was going to land on something razor sharp and AIDS infected. Increible, Reynaldo thought. How much of a goddamn junkie do you have to be to sleep in bed with a bunch of needles sticking you every time you roll over?
The room was a treasure chest of drug paraphernalia. Discarded spoons caked with white residue. Multiple empty blue wax baggies scattered across the floor like candy wrappers. Reynaldo picked one up and inspected the bright red heart stamped across its surface. Heroin baggies were always stamped with cartoon characters or stupid logos, he thought. Always the same dope, but by changing up the baggies, junkies were always willing to try the newest and latest, always chasing that stronger, better high. Renaldo listened to Mrs. Pincher's weeping in the living room and felt nothing but disgust for her. There was no way she hadn't known of her son's habit, and if anything, she probably shared in it. It serves you right, he thought. It serves him right and it serves you right, so stop blubbering.
He pulled the sheets down and photographed the body from every angle, making sure the bare torso and limbs were in focus. He rolled Pincher over slightly to get a better view of the purpled line of fluids where all the blood in the body had settled to its lowest point.
He put on his black leather gloves and pulled a pair of extra-large rubber ones over them and looked around at all the syringes in the room. There were a dozen more than he had containers for, but he found a two-liter soda bottle in the corner filled with brown water and cigarettes. A ghetto ashtray. That would do. He picked up the bottle and carried it into the hallway bathroom, forced to turn his head and hold his breath as he dumped the sludge into the toilet and flushed repeatedly.
One by one he plunked the dirty syringes into the soda bottle, shaking them out of the bedsheets and pulling them out from under Jessie's pillow. They were tucked along the crevices of the furniture and walls, just waiting to spike someone. The bottle was nearly filled by the time he set it on the dresser and thought, this is the school trip kids should be taking. Come right in boys and girls. Take a good look. This is not your brain on drugs. This is your body rotting on a dirty mattress surrounded by needles while your mother cries.
He searched the scattered junk cluttering the nightstand. A few unpaid traffic tickets. Receipts for cigarettes. Jessie's driver's license, and just under it, a green ACCESS EBT card. This is why we have junkies, Reynoldo thought. The government gives them money instead of food. He'd seen it time and time again in Brooklyn. Pipers came into the store and buy cigarettes and a Slim Jim with their welfare card and then go straight to the ATM to take out as much cash as they could. The ones who made him sick were the ones who couldn't even read
the words printed on the screen. "Can you help me see what this says?" they'd mutter.
"No, I cannot read either," Reynaldo would say.
"That's bullshit, man."
"Sorry," he'd shrug. "Guess we both need to go back to school."
"Papi?" his mother would call out from the back of the store, shaming him into helping the wretched lowlifes get their free cash to go buy crack. "You know we get a percentage of that money they take out, and you know anything they spend on their welfare cards goes into our pockets, so why do you be mean to them?"
"Because they are cochambre," he said in disgust.
"It is not our job to judge them, Papi. Only God can do that." She'd cross herself and head for the back of the store, telling him to restock the shelves but to also keep a careful eye out for whoever walked in.
Something buzzed beneath Jessie's body that vibrated the springs sticking up through the holes in the mattress. Reynaldo rocked him sideways just enough to remove the black phone under his waist as a text message appeared across the screen from someone named Moses that read:
Yo u fuckin nigger u still owe me 4 dat bundle. U sell it yet?
I swear to God if u screw me on this I'm gonna fuck u wit a broomstick. I WANT MY MONEY.
Reynaldo scrolled through the text messages on the phone, following the thread from the earliest message sent to Moses at 4:08 PM the day before.
Sent: I need
From: How much?
Sent: Anythin
From: How much $ u got? That's what I meant
Sent: Broke! LOL
From: Can't help u
Sent: Come on Mos. Please. I'm hurtin so bad.
From: Tits or GTFO
Sent: If I had tits I would
From: Then I guess u gots to GTFO then
Sent: Can u front me a few bags?
From: Naw dawg. It ain't like that
Sent: What if I take a bundle off u an sell it? I'll give u the $ as soon as I get it
From: U just gonna shoot that shit
Sent: I swear to God I won't. I'll just do 2 bags an sell the rest. I'll have the $ 2 u by tonight. Please.
From: This is a dumb idea
Sent: I won't let u down. I promise!!!
From: Come by in an hour. My moms leavin 4 work soon.
The next text was received an hour later.
From: Do not fuck this up, Jessie. I better hear from u tonight.
Sent: Everybody went 2 Philly 2 cop today. I'll sell it tomorrow when they r hurtin if that’s aiight? Unless u want me to bring it all back ova.
From: Do u still have it?
Sent: Yup
From: Just keep it then. Sell it tomorrow an get me dat loot. U do good an we can make this a regular thing.
Sent: Word
Reynaldo snapped the phone shut and dropped it into one of the paper bags, rolling the top down and stuffing it in his pocket as the apartment's front door open and a man said, "Coroner's Office."
Bill Limos was a retired Stygian Falls sergeant who hired on as a Deputy Coroner, trading in his badge and gun for a polo shirt and a station wagon with a cooler big enough for all the bodies he saw on a routine basis. Limos made polite conversation with the mother and headed back toward the bedroom. "Big Rey," he said as he came into the room. "What do we got?"
"Heroin overdose. No signs of anything suspicious."
Limos cocked an eyebrow at him, "Lividity?"
"It's consistent with the body's position. I checked. You know I already checked."
"Just keeping you on your toes, my man. The reason I like coming here is you guys make it easy on me." Limos picked up his large digital camera and snapped several photographs of the body where it lay, then said, "Help me get him on his back."
Reynaldo turned the corpse over and held it down while the coroner bent over it and grabbed it by the wrists, forcing them down from Jessie's face and into a downward position. He always expected to hear things creaking and breaking inside the limbs, or to see them snap back into place, but they never did. Reynaldo curled his nose and looked away, trying not to show his revulsion at the sudden waft of putrid odor coming from the body. A long stream of bloody yellow snot spilled out of the nostrils, streaming down Jessie's face and into his open mouth.
"They sure do get stinky when you move them around," Limos said. "How you holding up?"
"I'm fine," Reynaldo said quickly. "I love this. It's nothing to me."
"Mr. Big Shot Future Detective, yeah?"
"I only wish there was some bug activity. Some skin slippage. That would make my day."
Limos shook his head and chuckled, "I'll make sure I call you the next time we get a ninety-year-old-lady who dies in the summer and nobody finds her for a month. You can be my assistant."
"Please do."
Limos set his camera down in his bag and came up with a small tool kit. He undid the latches and removed an empty syringe, then bent down over the corpse and peeled its eyelids open. "New policy says we leave the body if it's not suspicious, unless the family requests an autopsy. Otherwise we do the toxicology here."
Reynaldo was about to ask him what that meant when the coroner jabbed the tip of the needle deep into the white flesh of Jessie's eyeball and pulled back the stopper. The eye deflated like a wrinkled raisin as the syringe filled up with cloudy fluid. Limos looked back at Reynaldo and winked. "That's one."
He capped the syringe and dropped it into a secure container to seal it. "Time for number two. This one's everybody's favorite. The big finish." He tugged Jessie's underwear down to expose his genitals and drove the needle down hard above the young man's groin. Bright yellow urine filled up the syringe's chamber and Limos said, "That's fresh from the tap, right there."
Reynaldo looked down at the body, thinking that only hours before it was a human being and now nothing more than a slab of rotting meat. "Frank always says there is no dignity in death."
Limos yanked the syringe free and dropped it into a separate container. "Yeah, nothing says dignity like a needle to the dick. Speaking of Frank, where is everybody today?"
"I'm working solo so they can all go pay last respects to Chief Erinnyes."
"Wouldn't you have to have first respects for that fat fuck in order to pay last ones?"
Their eyes met briefly and Reynaldo said, "I wouldn't know. I just work here, sir."
Limos smiled widely and laughed, "That's good, kid. You never know who you're talking to. Keep that up and one day you might be a big shot detective after all."
Pincher's mother shifted nervously on the couch as they exited the bedroom, dragging on a cigarette with at least an inch of ash at the tip that dangled over her fingers like a fishing rod. Reynaldo said, "Mrs. Pincher, I am taking your son's phone. I believe it contains evidence of who delivered the drugs to him."
"Take whatever you want," she said. "But where's his ACCESS card?"
"Sorry?"
"His ACCESS card. Did he have it on him?"
"It's on his dresser," Reynaldo said. "Why do you need it?"
"He owed me money," she said. "He was supposed to take it out today."
And since he's dead, who will know? Reynaldo thought scornfully.
"Can I say goodbye to him now?" she said.
"Be my guest," Limos said. "Also, you'll need to call a funeral director to come pick him up."
Mrs. Pincher ignored him as she lumbered to her feet and slunk past the two of them. Moans bellowed out of her mouth before she even reached the room, turning into guttural things that welled up from the basement of her soul the moment she entered the room. Reynaldo went to lower his head out of respect, only to lift it in horror as Mrs. Pincher wrapped her arms around Jessie's body and rolled into the mattress with him.
She buried her face in his its wet, gooey hair as she cried, arms wrapped around Jessie's stiff, cold body, clamping it tight. Her fingers stroked his snot-smeared face and neck and she kissed him over and over.
Limos leaned in next to Reynaldo an
d whispered, "Now that is some shit I've never seen before."
Reynaldo covered his mouth with his hand and muttered, "God Almighty, it's getting all over her."
"I know. That is freaking awesome!"
The phone rang and rang, but Frank wouldn't answer. Reynaldo hung up and texted him again, telling him to call right away. In a moment of desperation, he scrolled through his phone to find Aprille's number and almost called her, but couldn't bring himself to do it. The only thing she was good for lately was turning things over to her high-and-mighty FBI friends, especially that Special Agent pendejo Dez Dolos. No thanks.
He ran the name Moses and the cellphone number through their computer system every way he could think of, but there was nothing. That was no surprise. Their PD was surrounded by five different police departments all within a few miles of one another, all with different computerized databases that did not share information. To try and find the one that might have had contact with his particular subject was less than futile.
The easy thing to do, of course, would be to text Moses from Jessie Pincher's phone and arrange a meet. That way, he could just bag him on the spot. Unfortunately, that was also illegal. It pissed Reynaldo off to no end that the bad guys were free to make it up as they went along and the good guys had to keep tap dancing around bullshit rules decided by some judge. He looked at Moses' phone number and sighed. He could always just cold call him from a blocked number. "Hello? Is this Moses? You don't know me, but I'd like to purchase a large quantity of your finest heroin. Let's meet around seven, okay? By the way, can you please give me your full name, address, and social security number?" Sure. Why not?
Still, Moses wasn't a common name. Most likely, it was a nickname. Reynaldo logged into the Commonwealth's driver license database and typed MOSES into the search bar and sat back. Just seventeen names popped up in response.
Reynaldo scrolled down through the page, discounting all of the old people and ones who lived out of the area. He found a black male in Philly named Moses, and he looked right. He even had a prior arrest for Possession with Intent to Distribute Narcotics. Reynaldo pressed print and waited for the machine to spit out a freshly inked copy of Avante R. Moses's last mugshot. As he waited for the picture to print, he saw that the last person listed on the driver's license search was a smiling white kid named Paul Moses. The kid in the picture looked Ivy League college bound. He even had a button up shirt with one of those stupid crocodiles embroidered on it. The only thing was, Paul Moses lived on Bluebell Street, less than a mile away from Jessie Pincher's apartment.
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