“Shitopia.”
On the far corner, Bettinger noticed a dead cat that had been nailed by its head to a telephone pole. “Christ’s uncle.”
“You gonna object to some music?” inquired Dominic.
“You listen to that shit that glorifies violence, criminality, and misogyny?”
“Rap?”
“That’s what I described.”
The silence that followed this reply was an obvious affirmation. Gordon played rap music at home, claiming that he enjoyed it “for the beats,” but Bettinger would not suffer it at work as well.
Ten quiet blocks later, the big fellow broke the silence. “So we just listen to each other breathe?”
“We can discuss the case.”
Dominic ignored the suggestion, tapping the wheel with his fingers as if he were experiencing some kind of rap music withdrawal.
Bettinger asked, “What do you think about that tattoo on Elaine James’s tongue?”
“Dick.”
“And?”
“And nothin’.” There was a defensive edge to Dominic’s voice, as if he did not want to look stupid.
“What do you think she did for a living?”
“What’d the file say?”
“She’s been collecting unemployment for three years.”
“Glad to see taxes payin’ for things like fake tits and dick tattoos on white girls.” The big fellow guided the car away from a pothole. “America.”
“That obviously wasn’t her only income. Her apartment’s in a decent area—relatively speaking—and she had fifteen nuggets in her safe.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “Fifteen grand?”
“Yeah.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think she made a living with her hide and just collected because she could.”
“She had the equipment.”
“And that tattoo … it’s her only one, it’s vulgar, and it’s in a painful place. Not the kind of ink a girl usually gets the first time.”
“She probably just wanted a little dick to wiggle.”
“Seems like something she might’ve been forced to get,” posited Bettinger. “Maybe something a pimp makes all of his girls get—like a cattle brand. A label that says, ‘This property belongs to me,’ or maybe, ‘This girl is under my protection.’”
Dominic spun the wheel clockwise, guiding the car onto a riven street that ran north. “That’s a big bucket of ‘maybes’ you got.”
“Educated ones.”
“Like you, Detective.” The words were not said with any affinity. “A big, educated maybe.”
“Turning maybes into yesses is what I do.”
“Mr. Humble.”
“Modesty’s a form of dishonesty I don’t subscribe to.”
Applying the brakes and cutting the wheel, Dominic turned onto a dirt road where the pavement was kept in heaps. The silver car rattled, and a moment later, the big fellow flung the vehicle around a bent sign, which read GANSON STREET. Tires ground gravel into grit and pounded that into dust as the automobile rumbled north.
“Shitopia,” announced Dominic.
Bettinger scanned the area. The sidewalks and streets were deserted, and the tenement windows were nothing but black openings, wholly bereft of glass. Vandals had not even bothered to put their initials on these buildings.
The detective’s theory was confirmed by what he saw. “Elaine James—blond, white, pretty, with engineered cleavage and fifteen nuggets in her safe—isn’t working out here.” He tapped his index finger against the window. “This is where her abductor brought her.”
“Then why’re we botherin’?”
“Same reason we’re doing the autopsy.”
“What’s that?”
“Looking for crumbs—things that were missed.”
“’Cause everyone out here’s so incompetent?”
“We don’t have anything solid right now—just a handful of maybes. Going to the crime scene and requesting an autopsy are standard procedures.”
The silver luxury car rolled past a street that was blocked off by an overturned pickup truck, which had been torn open like a zebra on the plain.
Dominic motioned to the wreck. “The procedures are different out here.”
“They’re not different anywhere—that’s why they’re called ‘standard.’”
Snorting derisively, the big fellow flashed his hand.
Bettinger saw a building that had some of an address, and he surmised that the crime scene was on the opposite side of the street and a little to the north. A few moments later, the silver car entered a strip of abandoned shops and landed outside a red market that was adorned with police tape, which had been cut up and turned into celebratory festoons. The big fellow killed the engine, pocketed his keys, and withdrew his gun (which was a semiautomatic with an extended clip), while beside him, the detective armed himself.
Brandishing weaponry, the policemen stepped onto Ganson Street.
Harsh wind seared Bettinger’s face and eyes. Although it was still midday, the temperature seemed to have dropped fifteen degrees since he was last outside.
The policemen surveyed the hundreds of black windows that yawned on either side of the street, any one of which might conceal a crook. Nothing was visible beyond these openings but shadows and ruin.
The detective and the big fellow hastened directly to the store that contained the crime scene. Pressing their shoulders to the façade, they examined the entrance.
The door was ajar.
Bettinger leaned forward and looked through the opening.
Nothing stirred within the dark interior.
The policemen exchanged a nod and attached tactical lights to their weapons.
“Police!” shouted Dominic, loud enough to make his partner’s ears ring. “If anybody’s in there, let us know right fuckin’ now!”
The words echoed and died.
Nobody responded.
Bettinger flashed four fingers at the big fellow, who nodded in response.
“We’ll count to ten,” said the detective. “One.” He let the number echo inside of the store. “Two.” Again, he paused. “Three,” he said, raising his firearm. “Four.”
Dominic slammed an elbow into the door. “Police!”
“Don’t move!” shouted Bettinger, pointing his gun inside. Nothing stirred within the darkness, excepting the dust that swirled like a specter around the beam of his tactical light. A smell like a homeless man’s armpit climbed into his nostrils.
“We’re coming in,” announced the detective. “If you’re hiding, come out. If you’re a rat or dog, learn English.”
Bettinger strode into the market, breathing through his mouth and scanning the aisles, while behind him, Dominic straddled the entryway. Although the detective did not have a high estimation of his partner, it was clear that the guy could shoot things.
Bettinger walked across rotten floorboards toward a battered front counter that had six off-white lumps, each of which was decorated with a series of gray lines and squares. He soon recognized that these masses were moldering newspaper deliveries.
“There’s a guy watchin’ us from down the block,” reported Dominic.
Bettinger glanced at his partner, who stood silhouetted in the doorway. “Doing anything?”
“Just watchin’.”
The detective circumvented the counter and entered the far aisle, where his tactical beam illuminated something that knotted his stomach. Lying on the floor fifteen feet away from him was a severed human head. Tangled brown hair covered most of its face.
Bettinger turned to Dominic and called out, “Where’s the civilian?”
“Stayin’ put.”
“Let me know if the situation changes.”
“Like if he gets a bazooka?”
“Like that.”
Pointing his tactical light at the severed head, Bettinger walked up the aisle. Floorboards groaned beneath his boots, and as he drew nearer, h
e saw that something was wrong with the blood that surrounded the bodiless specimen.
It was the color of ketchup.
The detective stopped and looked over his shoulder.
Nobody was there.
Facing forward, he swept his tactical light across the ground between his boots and the severed head, and in that space, he saw an open newspaper. Unlike the sodden periodicals on the front counter, this one was still white.
Bettinger kneeled beside the newspaper and swept it clear, revealing a shallow hole that contained the sharp, stainless-steel teeth of a bear trap.
“Christ’s uncle.”
“See anything?” inquired Dominic.
Bettinger shone his tactical beam up the aisle, illuminating a dirty rubber mask and a brown wig. Suddenly, the setup was clear: The fake head was there to lure some hapless police investigator into the bear trap.
“They don’t like cops here, do they?” asked the detective.
“Somebody leave a message or somethin’?”
“Something.”
The detective doubted that a necrophile would return to a crime scene to set up what was essentially a very nasty prank. Most likely, this bit of stainless-steel ugliness had been arranged by some civilian who just hated policemen.
Bettinger claimed an unopened can from the shelf and threw it into the hole. Steel teeth flashed, and the tin ruptured, spilling coffee grounds.
“The fuck was that?” asked Dominic.
“A bear trap.”
“Man … haven’t seen that in a while.” The big fellow’s remark sounded nostalgic.
Looking at the device that could have removed his foot, Bettinger knew for the first time how much the people of Victory hated the system and its servants.
Dominic leaned outside. “We saw your bitch-ass bear trap, nigga!”
“Why’re you yelling that?” asked the detective.
“He’s runnin’ off.”
“Is that a strategy?” Bettinger was incredulous. “This thing could’ve taken off my foot, and you—”
“He ain’t the one that set it—the nigga who hangs out never is. But you missin’ the point. He bolted. He’s gone.”
Suddenly, the detective understood. “No more traps?”
“The big, educated maybe just got himself a yes.”
X
Insectile Witness
Bettinger stepped over the frozen puddle of ketchup and walked to the back of the store. Outside the office, he swept his light in every direction, divining rotten boxes, moldering floorboards, and rusty shelves, inspecting everything until he was satisfied that there were no more nasty surprises awaiting him.
The detective seized the doorknob with a gloved hand and twisted it around. Metal squeaked, and the latch clicked. Gently, he nudged the office door forward a fraction of an inch.
Bettinger retreated to a near aisle and picked up a can of coffee, which he then threw. The projectile clanked against the wood, knocking the door wide open.
“Police!”
Employing the tactical light, the detective scanned the office. The room appeared to be uninhabited.
Bettinger strode inside and pointed his weapon at the concrete floor, illuminating a pair of reddish-brown stains. Atop the dried blood were hundreds of pale flecks that had once been the victim’s knees.
“You still alive?” inquired a distant voice that belonged to Dominic.
“I’m at the scene.”
“Keep a eye out for big black footprints. And also a handkerchief with initials.”
Bettinger would have paid fifty dollars for a working lightbulb and ten times as much money for a new partner.
The detective withdrew a knife, thumbed the blade until it clicked into place, and kneeled beside the stains. There, he closely examined the yellow pieces of detritus, which were from the victim’s hypodermis, and the narrow white shards, which were bone splinters. The human debris yielded no new data.
Bettinger stood up, stepped back, and circled the evidence. All of the bloodstains and smears were perfectly parallel, indicating that Elaine James had not struggled during the sex acts that had occurred on the floor of this office. It seemed possible that she had been murdered in some other location and brought here afterward for the acts of necrophilia.
Although the detective loved his twelve-year-old daughter as much as he loved his son (and oftentimes, far more), investigations such as this one made him doubt the wisdom of bringing a woman into the world of hideous men.
“Find anythin’?” The acoustics of the market turned Dominic’s voice into something that came out of a child’s walkie-talkie.
“Looking.”
The detective panned the tactical light along the dark seam that joined the floor to the wall. Something flashed, and he stilled his hand, illuminating a crevice.
Two antennae twitched.
It was then that Bettinger beheld the largest cockroach that he had ever seen, which was remarkable since he had thrice visited Florida with his wife and kids. Slowly, he approached the creature, which boldly held its ground.
“You see what happened here?”
Antennae waggled like the eyebrows of a sage who answered every question that he was asked with a question that made no sense.
Bettinger turned away from the bug and began a slow and systematic inspection of the floor, looking for anything that had not been visible in the shabby (and incomplete) crime scene photos. The cold sneaked under his parka during this tiny activity, and soon, he was shivering.
A glance at the crevice confirmed that the cockroach was still interested.
“I’m gettin’ hungry,” Dominic announced to his partner, the bug, and the entire block.
Bettinger was two strides away from the end of his floor inspection when he saw something. Kneeling, he looked at the anomaly, which was a collection of intersecting scratches. These radiated from a central point that was a little bit deeper, but still quite superficial. No more than two feet away from this asterisk was a second, very similar mark. A glance to his right showed him one more collection of scratches.
Bettinger stood up, stepped back, and looked at the evidence. Together, the three asterisks formed a perfect equilateral triangle.
The realization of what he was looking at hit him a moment before the pang of revulsion.
“A goddamn tripod.”
Disgusted, the detective finished his inspection of the office and returned it to its owner, the cockroach.
* * *
“Nigga made a movie?” Dominic posited as he drove his silver luxury car south on Ganson Street. “Like a snuff movie?”
“I don’t think she was killed in that office.”
“He filmed it when she was dead?” The big fellow turned onto the dirt street where the pavement was kept in piles. “Sounds pretty fuckin’ boring.”
“I might use an adjective other than ‘boring.’”
“‘Adjective.’” Dominic repeated the word as if it might put warts on his tongue.
“If we don’t get anything from the autopsy, we’ll interview prostitutes—try and find another who’s got the same tattoo or who knows something about it.”
“I was doin’ other stuff before you started this here. I got important things t—”
“Now you’re doing this,” interrupted Bettinger.
Dominic tightened his fists on the wheel. His bandages rippled, but he said nothing.
The car proceeded south.
Soon, the policemen exited Shitopia and entered the Toilet, where the twilight sun painted cracked streets and broken civilians the color of urine. Although it was past four o’clock in the afternoon, most of these people looked like they were just waking up.
XI
Disregarding Mauve and White
Wearing jeans and a sweater and weighed down by a warm dinner, Bettinger entered the study that was located in the rear of his Stonesburg home. He traversed the small room in two strides and sat in front of his computer, surrounde
d by mauve, the unfortunate color that the previous (evidently blind) residents had chosen to paint the walls.
Turning on the CPU, Bettinger began his second investigation of the day. This one did not require the assistance of his partner.
He typed the words “Dominic,” “Williams,” “Police,” and “Missouri” into a slot and fingered the Enter key. Over twenty million hunks of ether matched this search criteria. Subsequently, he refined his data, adding quotation marks and the words “Victory” and “Detective.” Again, he fingered the Enter key.
The top line of the screen declared, 3,842 search results.
Bettinger looked at the first listing, which read, “Brutality Charges Against Two Victory Police…”
He stabbed the ellipses with a tiny arrow and clicked a button. A wheel spun and was replaced by a digital article that resembled a real newspaper (including artificial folds and tears, which were silly).
The headline stated, “Brutality Charges Against Two Victory Police Detectives Are Dropped in Sebastian Ramirez Case. Suspect Remains in Critical Condition.” Photographs of Dominic Williams and the short, aquiline fellow with vitiligo were directly below this headline. Beside these images was a grainy picture of a bandaged Hispanic man, the machine that kept him alive, and two unhappy females. The article was from November.
Somebody knocked on the door. The height of the concussion and its volume told Bettinger that it was Alyssa.
“Yes?”
“Can I come in?”
The detective shut off the monitor. “Sure.”
The woman strode into the room, tightening the belt of the green robe that she wore over her pajamas. “Pretty late for your first day.”
“I need to get oriented.”
“Okay.” Alyssa was curious by nature, but rarely pried. “Karen’s upset.”
“I saw that at dinner. She’ll talk when she’s ready to talk.”
“I’m concerned.”
Bettinger was the parent who dealt with Karen when she was troubled, and Alyssa was the one who handled Gordon. For many years, these had been the assignments.
“I’ll talk to her in a few minutes.”
Relief shone upon the painter’s face, as if her husband had already fixed the problem. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Mean Business on North Ganson Street Page 5