The Right Wrong Number: An Ed Earl Burch Novel

by Jim Nesbitt

  “I seen a lot of shit, L.T. — crackheads blowin’ each other up and shit, gangbangers and drive-bys — but lemme tell ya, this is some kinda different, this is some kind of serious,” said Hill, nodding sagely.

  Martinez leaned in — Cider could feel his breath on his cheek: “Thas’ right, L.T. — whoever done this was into some mainline pissoff. Lotta anger workin’ that room. You get on the trail of who done this, you wanna take him out first time you see him.”

  Hill kept nodding, his massive arms folded across his chest.

  “You can’t ever tell with this psycho shit. I mean, wait’ll you see the burn holes in this guy’s chest.”

  “Burn marks — cigarette?”

  “Naw, bigger than that. Now like I was sayin’, you can’t . . .”

  “Holes or tracks?”

  “What?”

  Martinez cut in: “Tracks, L.T. Bigger than holes.”

  “Thanks. Any burn smell as you came in?”

  “Hard to tell. Windows were wide open and the guy shit all over the place. Puked too. That’s what hit you when you walked in. That and the dead smell — the blood, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Hill watched this exchange with impatience.

  “Fuck the smell, L.T. Focus on the fucker who did this. Might be a serial guy. Might be a jealous lover. Might be one of those gay-bob things that got outta hand. I mean, look at that damn rig he’s hangin’ from.”

  Cider flipped his notebook closed and pocketed it, snapping a sharp look that Hill didn’t see. Damned if he’d deal with a dumbass iron pumper like this; sorry the Chicano blue had to, at least for this shift. Wishing he had accepted Horton’s offer of Red Man, he pulled out a small tin of Skoal Wintergreen, popped the top and shoved two fingers of scented black tobacco into the pocket between his molars and his cheek.

  Jes’ a pinch between cheek and gum for reeeeel tobacco pleasure, Walt Garrison used to say. Fuck you, Walt — lost five large on your bowlegged cowboy ass when you couldn’t convert a third-and-two at Cleveland more than a few years back.

  His jaw worked the tobacco absently as he tried to lasso his wandering mind and get it cinched up for the job ahead. He looked at his right hand and saw the tin of snuff, then glanced up and offered it to the two young blues.

  Martinez reached for a pinch, his fingers mincing delicately, like a matron holding a bone china teacup. He sighed a thanks as the tobacco settled in. Cider moved the tin toward Hill, but this blue screwed up his nose like a kid getting a whiff of a fresh dog turd.

  “Thought all you studhoss muscleheads dipped. Goes with the steroids and wearin’ your baseball caps backwards.”

  Martinez laughed. Hill glared.

  “You sayin’ I got this pumped doin’ `roids, L.T.? ’Cause guess again — hate that kind of shortcut. Shows no respect for the body. Hate that stuff too . . .”

  A full-muscled point to the Skoal tin.

  “. . . rips the shit out of your gums, L.T. Man your age should think about that. Think about keepin’ his teeth. Think about crossin’ guys bigger and younger than he is too.”

  Cider concentrated on twisting the top back on the tin, feeling the slow burn flare white across his brain. He pocketed the tin then stepped up close to Hill, close enough for a hoarse whisper.

  “When you got a brain that’s smaller than your balls, son, you don’t tell another man what to think. When you’re too much of a peckerhead to recognize a possible clue, you don’t flap your jaws about what’s important. And when all you got is a bunch of muscle, you don’t throw down on an old fuck like me who can still make you shit through your teeth. Are we reaching a level of communication and understanding here?”

  Hill shrugged: “You got the rank, L.T.”

  “Fuck that too, asshole. Any time you want to make it citizen-to-citizen, drop on by. And let’s drop that L.T. bullshit boys — it’s lieutenant. I didn’t serve in Nam and neither did you. I hate it when everybody and their brother tosses I Corps jargon around like they all did time in country when they didn’t. Cheapens the coinage of respect.”

  Cider stepped back and smiled like a carney barker welcoming a mark into the fat lady’s tent. Hill was rigid with anger. Martinez kept his distance, eyeing both men.

  “Now, I’m gonna tell you why I was so in’ersted in the smell factor — it might tell me whether they did him here or brought him from someplace else.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Too little time between the first call about the noise and your roll up. Maybe that means somethin’, maybe it means the neighbors waited a long time before they called, maybe it just took a while for them to notice the noise.”

  Martinez: “Guy who called it in — Deterling — said he didn’t notice the noise until after he flipped his TV off and went to bed. Said he tried to ignore it and go to sleep but couldn’t.”

  “Neighbors see anything else?”

  “Nah — guy’s kinda isolated back here. Only one livin’ in these new units. Only one they could get to buy after real estate went south, I guess. Deterling said the builder’s gone belly up and folks are worried about bein’ left holdin’ the bag.”

  “No cars seen goin’ in or out?”

  “Nah. There’s a back entrance the builder uses. You can just make it out that way, beyond the lights.”

  Cider followed Martinez’ line of point. He couldn’t see what the blue wanted him to see but he did note the wide gulf of darkness between the rear units and their well-lit walkways and parking slots and the faint line of street lamps that marked the path of a side road that fed into Post Oak. He gauged the distance at a half-mile.

  “Good enough.”

  He could feel Hill’s stare and met it with his own. Hill broke first.

  “Be seein’ ya, boys.”

  His knees creaked as he started up the stairs — reminders of his ancient sacrifice at the god-a-mighty altar of Texas high school football. He ducked under the yellow plastic police line and stepped inside. The techs weren’t here yet either.

  All the lights were blazing -– flipped on by the blues as they came in. Standard condo drywall — white walls and a stippled ceiling, a fan with three fluted lamps curving from its centerline, glowing underneath slowly spinning blades. A Leroy Neiman print, the one of Joe Willie Namath at his gimpy-kneed finest, hung above the mantle of a gas fireplace on his left. On his right, an arched opening above a long pine bar gave a full view of a galley-style kitchen, all brushed stainless, butcher block and oak veneer cabinets. A rack of wine glasses hung above the bar, light winking and bending through the polished clearness.

  His gaze lingered on these few signs of order as he snapped latex gloves over his hands, reluctant to rove over and register the chaos in the center of the room — the ripped cushions of the burgundy-colored sofa, easy chair and ottoman, the grayish stuffing bursting out of ragged slashes in the fake leather; the splintered coffee table and smashed terracotta table lamps, reddish-brown shards scattered over the sharp tines of wood; the long vertical frame holding the matte finished print of a Vargas girl, her impossibly perfect breasts and legs and inner thighs draped and molded by a gauzy Roman toga, her come-hither eyes taking in the full sweep of the upended room as a breeze from the fan flipped the frame back and forth on its hidden wall hinges, covering and uncovering an open wall safe.

  Cider picked his way through the wreckage and peered into the safe. Empty. He turned and spotted a broken and upended Punjabi urn, potting soil pouring from the lip and the largest cracks in its thick casing, one stream of dirt emerging from the mouth of a trumpeting elephant enameled on the side of one of the biggest broken bits. Dirt and wood chips trailed across the floor, pointing toward the roots of a ficus tree — a few hours ago firmly centered in the urn, now just another piece of carnage at the scene of a homicide.

  Something bothered him about the urn and the dirt. The tree had been ripped out and the urn cracked open, but most of the potting soil was sti
ll inside. Not so thorough. A top-shelf pro would have combed through all of the dirt. Which might mean the place was tossed for window dressing. Or it might mean they started on the urn first then found the safe while sifting through the dirt and found what they wanted inside. But the safe was open not blown, meaning they had the combo.

  How?

  Get ahead of the curve, dumbass — either they had it from some insider before they walked in the door or they burned it out of ol’ Hoghead wherever else they put the screws to him.

  Well, hey daddy, wondered when you’d wander into my thoughts.

  The old roughneck sumbitch stood there in the middle of his mind’s eye, rolling a King Edward Imperial in his mouth, oily coveralls and short-rimmed hard hat tilted back on the same coal-black thatch of hair that would never die, just turn pure and shocking white as he rolled into his sixties and on toward death.

  Someplace else, that seems pretty obvious. But why drag his ass back here, wreck the joint, then ice poor pitiful Hoghead?

  Get it in gear, buddyrow — even you ain’t this stupid. This ain’t no murder for the sport of it, this here is a callin’ card deal.

  Too much trouble just to announce a gentleman caller, daddy, these boys are serious and seriously lookin’ for somethin’.

  True enough maybe, son — true enough. And maybe they found it in that there wallbox buddyrow, but they leavin’ sign for somebody too.

  And it ain’t me is it, daddy?

  No, son — they know you’ll see it but this ain’t your mail.

  Good talkin’ to you, daddy, but I gotta get on in there and look at the message these boys left.

  You do that, son — don’t envy you your job. Not ay-tall. And I never could stand watchin’ you stare into their eyes.

  Now daddy, don’t start.

  I know, son — we’ll talk about that some other time.

  The blood trail smeared its way down the narrow hallway with the wood parquet floor that ran from the front room toward the master bedroom, passing the tan-tiled bathroom with the glass brick window, the raised garden tub and the bright splash of vomit and blood that fanned across the doorway. It was as if they were herding Hoghead back toward the bedroom, decided to cut him along the way and Hoghead answered back by puking up his dinner.

  The drywall was badly dented about midway down the hallway, the floor gouged and scarred. A struggle here. Cider pulled a penlight out of his coat pocket and ran it around the dished-in edges of the dent, searching for hair, a scrap of skin or blood.

  Nada. Have the techs check it anyway.

  Near the dent the wall was marked by something black that skidded across the white surface — a belt or black leather coat maybe. He flashed the light along the floor, hunting for a careless footprint in the blood. If there was going to be a slip up, it would be here, where Hoghead tried to make his last stand.

  Nada y no mas.

  He kept the flash on the floor, stepping gingerly on the few clear areas of flooring as he slowly moved forward, like a rookie angler on the slippery rocks of a trout stream.

  A glint on the floor to his left. He had to lean forward, penlight in mouth, one arm bracing the wall to prevent a header into the blood, reaching with the other. He palmed a small, thick, broken circle of silver. Looked like jewelry of some sort. But not the gold that Hoghead favored.

  He flashed a mental image of the last time he saw the man — four or five gold chains nestled in the chest hair curling out of an open silk shirt the color of heavily creamed coffee, complemented by a thick-linked bhat bracelet on one wrist and a Rolex on the other. All gold, gold, gold in the maximum carat range, baby — gunning for that wiseguy chic of overkill cool.

  No silver, baby. Shit no. None of that cheap stuff. Chicks don’t dig it. Like it, Ciderman? Get it for ya’ wholesale, fresh from them kikes on Jewry Row in Nuevo Jerk City. Get it, Ciderman — Jewry Row?

  Got it, Hoghead. But not as bad as you, baby. He dropped the silver into a glassine evidence bag he slipped in his pocket. He flashed the penlight around, searching for shiny mates.

  Nada again. Shit.

  Gotta tell ya’ Hog, not much of a last stand. Won’t go down as no private Alamo Mission kind of thing. Just one broken circle of jeweler’s silver, a black skid mark on the wall and a dent in the drywall.

  He stepped into the bedroom and was hit by the smell of blood and feces. A younger cop, one less scarred and calloused by burnout and experience, might have been blindsided by the gore, might have become addled and unfocused, might even have lost his dinner.

  Not Cider. Not ever. Not at his first homicide scene. Not at his first trip to the morgue. Not since the all-night party during his rookie year on the force that earned him his nickname, when he drank too much applejack and puked enough to last a lifetime in front of most of the Third Precinct dayshift.

  The sights and smells of the crime scene were mere data to him, no matter how grim. He noted their shape, their composition. His mind recorded this fresh input. Smears of red and brown marked the walls, highlighted by a jet of arterial blood that reached the ceiling. The room looked like a pack of wild dogs had ripped through it — smashed picture frames, splintered drawers, a shattered mirror, scattered piles of clothing, an upended mattress and box springs, the foam core yanked through rips in the quilted cover.

  And slowly spinning above it all, like a pig hoisted up on block and tackle for gutting and skinning, Hoghead’s nude body, his gut cascading in triple welts of fat, red and brown streaks drying on his body, burnt circles of flesh spotting his groin, his wattled nipples and the soles of his feet.

  Cider pulled over an upended chair, dragging it to a spot underneath the rotating corpse. The body hung from wide, thick webbing, the kind used to secure packing crates in a moving van. The straps crisscrossed the chest, then intersected in a D-ring just behind the sagging shoulders, then ran up to a heavy and tastefully varnished timber in the bleached blonde wood so favored by the trendy interior decorators. Pickled is what they call it, seemed like, with mirrored ceiling squares edging along the wood.

  Seemed like ol’ Hog had gone to quite a bit of expense to put in this overhead gear just above his bed. The perfect setup for one of those pleasure swings from the Xandria Collection or those wholesale purveyors of sex toys from Carrboro, North Carolina, Adam & Eve. But this was heavy-duty gear, strong enough to handle ol’ Hog without ripping open an unintentional skylight. Maybe ol’ Hog liked ’em just as tons o’ fun as he was. Maybe ol’ Hog liked to sling himself in this bulked-up pleasure rig.

  Standing close to the body, placing a gloved hand on the dangling left arm to stop the spin, Cider checked out the burn marks. Too big to be cigarettes. Not gory or deep enough to be a poker or branding iron. Looked like something electric — a cattle prod or battery-and-cable rig. Something on the wire about that. Something from another case maybe. He couldn’t remember but made a note to check case files back at the office.

  Move on. Move on. Check it all out. Take it all in. Everything was important. Even the tiny moles that dotted the folds of fat in Hog’s neck. Even the sweaty ringlets of hair that rimmed his bald dome and curled down his neck, joining the thick animal pelt that covered his back, matted now with quickly drying blood. Even the two broken fingers on the Hogman’s right hand — the index and middle digits taking a sharp right at the second knuckle and overlapping the last two fingers.

  He picked up the hand and held it close, the penlight’s steady beam locked onto two ripped fingernails. Well, well Hog. Might have to upgrade your last stand a bit. Underneath the ripped nails were ragged strips of flesh and what looked like hair. Something for the techs after all.

  Hoghead’s head and neck hung forward. A glistening sheet of blood, draped over the body’s left shoulder like a Hermes scarf, cascaded from the side of Hog’s neck, its source dead-centered on the carotid. That’s how they finally snuffed his lights. And that would explain the firehose pattern of blood on the wall. But that wasn’t what ca
ught Cider’s attention; what drew his eye was the thick slurry of saliva and blood that rimmed the lips and glossed over the stubble of Hog’s chin. Cider reached up and opened the lifeless mouth, clicking on the penlight to look inside.

  No tongue. Just a neat, surgically cut stub where a tongue should be. And a mouthful of quickly drying blood and saliva. That scratched the certainty that they burned Hog someplace else, then brought him here to kill him. No tongue. No screams. No reason to crank the stereo to max decibels. Until giddy-up time.

  Yep, daddy. Like you said. A calling card. A message for somebody.

  Cider stepped down and straddled the chair, craning his neck so he could look into Hoghead’s dead and clouded eyes.

  Who’s the message for, Hog? What’s all this supposed to say to somebody?

  Cider stared into the dead man’s eyes, losing the minutes and his sense of place. Bubbling through the clouded lenses, floating down from a hanging head to his steady gaze, were the screams that Hoghead Yates couldn’t scream. That and nothing else.

  “Hey — L.T. Loo-ten-ant? Where you at? The techs are here.”

  It was the Chicano blue — Martinez. Cider stood up, his knees crackling.

  “In here, vato. Tell `em to watch the blood in the hallway. And tell `em not to spill their cookies at the smell.”

  He waited for two techs to enter the room, told them to pay particular attention to Hog’s right hand and left them to their business.

  Cider Jones never spilled his cookies.

  NINE

  Nobody ever gave Jason Willard Crowe a nickname. Nobody called him Jace, nobody hung him with that Texas mark of manhood and hailed him by his initials. Nobody ever got that close.

  Not his father or mother. Not his coaches or teammates. Not his wives, including the lovely and ever-volatile Savannah. Not his rich ex-father-in-law, the legendary Lon Quantrell, a man who could make the earth open up and give him sweet crude, a man who could make bankers smile and the financial markets purr, a man who could make a Texas governor bend over and beg to be cornholed again because it was such a pleasure to service such a personable and politically generous businessman.