Done for a Dime

by David Corbett

  Beyond the low stone wall demarcating the Baymont and St. Martin’s Hill communities, twenty-five acres of vacant navy row houses sat empty. They’d been targeted for condo conversion—a contractor had the plans approved for 250 town houses, model units were due for completion early next year—but then cost overruns for heating and electrical upgrades halted work, or so they said. Meanwhile the project just sat there, inviting the worst.

  To the south along the river, the warehouse district began. Boxcars tagged with graffiti turned to rust in the rail yards. Piles of pumice and concrete powder, heaped along the loading docks, sent gritty dust clouds sailing through town, ruining paint jobs and prompting asthma attacks.

  The night trade down there, among the warehouses, made the action up here on the hill look like church. That’s where you found the lion’s share of meth labs and crack houses and shooting galleries—if you found them. They roamed spot to spot, week by week, to avoid crackdowns, and even with federal HIDTA money, the force had yet to build up the manpower to do much. Bangers ran roughshod, and where they didn’t the bikers did, the two sides negotiating truces only money could explain.

  Beyond that lay Dumpers and the rest of southtown, absentee rentals again, a lot of Section 8. Live there, you inhaled mold through your walls and looked out at the street through metal bars. What you saw, more than likely, day or night, was hookers working twists along the side streets off the truck route. Come morning, if you ventured very far outside, you had to watch your step to avoid the spent rubbers.

  The whole town had started to backslide when the first big wave of parolees came back to town, trying to reclaim what parts of the street trade they’d surrendered when they’d gone inside. Crime rates were ticking upward again. Six murders already this year, first week of February. Six murders and fifteen fires, in an overgrown town. A community in transition, some bow-tied consultant hired by the mayor’s office had called it.

  Turning back to the murder scene, Murchison had to peer over the tall wood fence just to see a rim of roofline. The upper tip of an addition appeared near the back. Raggedy plum trees flanked the yard.

  To either side, beyond the fence and the trees, two Queen Anne Victorians stood dark. The Victorians counted among about two dozen in this part of town, one of the reasons it bore the nickname Heritage Hill. In contrast to Homicide Hill, which it also got called from time to time. The Victorians were impressive despite long neglect—steep-hipped roofs, cross gables, spindlework. One had a veranda in front and a Palladian window on the top floor. The other had a tower and a widow’s walk. More to the point, they both stood empty. There’d be no neighbors on either side coming forward with eyewitness accounts.

  Murchison approached the gate. Stluka, already there, leaned against the fence, trading wisecracks with Truax.

  “Just slammed it down,” Truax said. “This green gunk. Said it had bee droppings in it, I kid you not. Bee droppings, not honey.”

  “There a difference?” Stluka shook his head, leaned down, and spat. “Health food. It’s God’s way of being passive-aggressive.”

  “The two Victorians.” Murchison pointed at one house, then the other. “Anybody check them inside?”

  Truax shook his head. “Inside, no. But they’re secure. Doors all locked. Holmes sent me and Hennessey over to check both out first thing. No windows broke, except those must’ve got broke before. They’re all boarded up tight.”

  “I still want both taped off. They’re part of the scene till I let them go.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Truax flipped to a blank page and wrote it down.

  “And back people farther away, across the street and beyond the Victorians, both directions. Neighbor said she didn’t hear a car, but just in case there’s rubber out here, I want to be able to find it.”

  Truax puffed his cheeks. “Gonna need bodies.”

  “Call it in. Blame me. There’s OT in it if anybody whines.” He pointed again at the Victorians. “You said boarded-up windows. Remind me—we get calls on work site thefts up here? Lumber, tools, paint?”

  Truax shrugged. “Don’t look like much work got started yet.”

  Murchison took out his notepad. “I’ll check. And fires. Unless I’m wrong, there were fires up here.”

  “Been fires everywhere,” Truax said.

  “I realize that.” Murchison kept writing. “Jerry, we’re gonna want to check property rolls, find out who the owners are, bring them in for a talk. See if they had words with the vic.”

  “Yeah,” Stluka said, cracking his back. “Don’t forget to remind me to remember that.” He showed his badge to Truax, so he could log the number. “Let’s bop on in, see what Sherlock’s got.”

  2

  The halogen lights, erected just inside the gate, lit things up like a stripper’s wedding. Five yards in, the body lay sprawled along the gravel path, covered with a plastic drape. The hands and feet stuck out from underneath, already bagged by the evidence tech. The bags made it look like the dead man had washed up in his own front yard, with jellyfish attached.

  Holmes crouched close to the body, as though to defend it. Beyond him, spaced evenly across the yard, three patrolmen in rain slickers walked shoulder to shoulder, one small step at a time. Near the house, two others, one with a metal detector, checked the bushes.

  The house was painted blue, a low squat cinder block structure like the kind used for rest rooms at the beach, except this one had windows and a front door. Flat roof, dry-rotted eaves, cheap metal windows pocked with rust. Behind it, the addition, made of wood plank and with a pitched roof covered in tar paper shingles, stood slightly higher and wider than the front. The effect was that of two completely different structures, trying to mate.

  Seeing Murchison and Stluka, Holmes rose, rubbing his legs to get the blood flow back. At full height, he had three inches on Murchison, towered over Stluka. His slicker barely covered his knees.

  Holmes had played basketball locally, starring in high school, then got lost in the rotation at Fresno State. Murchison, who’d been something of a local star himself fifteen years earlier—football, strong safety—had followed Holmes’s career. He was ugly in the way that paid off for an athlete and a cop. He scared people: bony head, itty-bitty ears, nose like an ax blade. He had thick-lidded eyes that seemed both sleepy and pitiless. Especially when he looked at Stluka.

  “I was going to hoist the tent. Keep all this dry. But the rain?” Holmes glanced up at the low clouds sailing inland. “Soon as I got here, pretty much stopped. Got to work.”

  “Got storms lined up halfway to Hawaii, Sherlock.”

  Murchison flinched at the nickname. Holmes, eyes steady, just nodded.

  “Not the way I heard it,” he said. “All clear.”

  Stluka uttered a throaty laugh. “Got yourself a real future with the weather bureau.”

  Murchison cut in. “Rain starts again, the tent goes up. Till then, we’re here, let’s get it done. Holmesy, take us through it.”

  Rio Mirada had eighty-five police officers. Only fifteen were Black, none were detectives, and only one was on track to change that. Sgt. Marion Holmes. Stluka, a refugee from Newton Precinct in South Central—the infamous Shootin’ Newton—found nothing at all amiss in the numbers. But the current chief was a job hopper, more politician than cop, and he saw elevating Holmes to detective as a way to make his mark here before moving on. Holmes got more latitude at crime scenes than others assigned In-Charge. It rankled some on the force. Stluka, for starters.

  Holmes pointed at the body with his pen. “Victim’s known as Strong Carlisle. Raymond’s his given name. It’s his house here. Musician, headlined an outfit called The Mighty Firefly. Big band R&B, they do dances, Juneteenth, the festival and Shriner circuit. Once upon a time, man played with Ray Charles, King Curtis, Bobby Blue Bland—”

  “Bobby Boo who?” Stluka rocked on his heels, sport jacket open, hands deep in his pockets. “I mean, am I supposed to know who that is?”

 
Murchison said, “We’ll finalize the music appreciation aspect of this later. That all right?”

  “Just a question,” Stluka said.

  “Understood. Holmesy?”

  Holmes drew a line in the air between the gate and the body. “Gunshots from the rear, looks like three hit. Techs’ll test the jacket for powder, but from the entry wounds alone I’d say close-range, probably ten feet or less. Exit wounds are big, real big, maybe hollow-points. Could be we’re talking a .357, a .44—”

  “You don’t guess caliber from exit wounds,” Stluka groaned. “Jesus.”

  Holmes locked eyes again. “I’ll pass that along to the ME, Detective.” Turning back to the body, he went on, “There’s no casings, so revolver most likely. Got the guys here checking for spents.”

  Murchison’s mind began to drift as Holmes crouched down beside the body again and got deeper into the detail, the science of it, the stuff that so impressed outsiders but didn’t change the fact the situation basically reduced to: Old guy got shot in the back by somebody who ran away.

  “What time we looking at?” he asked finally, snapping back to it.

  “Dispatcher got the nine-one-one ’round midnight. Caller was a neighbor, said shots woke her up.”

  “Marcellyne Pathon.”

  “That sounds right. By the time she got to the window, nothing.”

  “Told me the same thing just now.” Murchison glanced toward the gate, wondering whether the crowd outside had grown larger or thinned out, whether anyone had come up to Marcellyne and threatened her, told her everything she didn’t see.

  “EMTs got here inside of twelve but too late regardless. Did a hat dance all over the scene, messed up any chance you had at shoe prints. All that just to confirm Mr. Carlisle’s no Lazarus. He means to stay dead. Lost too much blood and lost it too fast. Probably got a lung clipped, maybe both. Want a look?”

  Murchison nodded, then crouched beside the body and tightened the fit of his gloves while Holmes removed the drape with one quick pull. As the victim appeared to him, revealed in an unintentional flourish like the culmination of a magic act, Murchison suffered an instantaneous series of fleeting regrets, intimations so momentary they could hardly be said to exist in time at all.

  First, he pictured his wife and daughters, and feared for their safety. He’d felt this a lot lately, blamed middle age, the suspicion he’d somehow turned helpless: poor husband, bad father, weak man. Second, he indulged an inkling that life and death shared more in common than anyone knew, more like left and right than before and after. Third and last, he felt a disquieting sort of envy, wondering what it would feel like, to lay down that sword and shield.

  The victim lay faceup, turned at the hip, like someone had tried to roll him over then stopped with the job half done. One arm reached forward, the other lay flung to the side. The feet were splayed a way you never saw in life, no matter how heavy the sleep. The face was long, narrow, with dark freckling across each cheek. A salt-and-pepper goatee. Deep eye sockets. Teeth, lips, and tongue all moiled with blood.

  Murchison pulled up the pant cuff to check lividity. It was strong already, given the blood loss, leaving the skin an ashen purple-gray. The pant leg was mud-spattered, everything was. He drew the cuff back in place, smoothed it down. A little respect.

  The man’s chest was a pulpy mangled knit of fabric and skin. Despite the damage the shots had caused, you could tell from his clothes that this had been a proud man: tailored sport coat, natty red shirt with a black silk vest, gray pleated slacks. A black beret had been knocked off his head; it lay a few inches from his hand, upside down. His hair still wore the crease where the hatband had pressed into it.

  The blood pooled beneath him had begun to dry. Hard to know how much he’d lost. There’d be a lot in his lungs, too, Murchison figured. He checked the gravel to see if a slug lay loose there. “After they take him away,” he told Holmes, “let’s check underneath.” He had to hope the coroner’s people would have the sense to undress the man carefully, check to make sure a spent bullet wasn’t knocking around inside his shirt somewhere.

  “Interesting position,” Murchison said, gesturing to the body. “Paramedics roll him?”

  “No. Found him like that.”

  Murchison glanced up, puzzled.

  “There was a girl here when the patrols first arrived. She was shook up bad, could hardly get her words out. Got the idea she’s the one turned him over, tried mouth-to-mouth. Knees were muddy. Had blood all over, her hands, clothes. Even the eyelashes and hair. Like the vic coughed it up in her face.”

  Murchison winced. “This girl, how old?”

  “Late teens. Twenty tops.” Looking up at Stluka, Holmes added, “Pretty little white girl.”

  The taunt ricocheted around the yard. Cops looked up, Black and white both. Stluka grinned, but his eyes were cold. “Love the one you’re with.”

  Murchison said, “This girl, she’s where now?”

  “ER. Like I said, she was nonresponsive when we arrived. Just sitting up there on the porch, staring at the vic. Like a trance. Clawing at her arm, fingernails bloody. Inside of her arm, skin was tore up in shreds. Paramedics had their hands full just getting her to stand up. Took her off to get treated and tranqued.”

  “She see it go down?”

  “Don’t know. Like I said, I barely got a word—”

  “Barely,” Stluka said. “Come on, what’s ‘barely’ mean? She say something or not?”

  Holmes did a little shoulder roll. The sleepy, pitiless eyes came on. “Yeah. Matter of fact, she did. She said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Said that a lot.”

  Stluka let his jaw sag. “Sorry? Fucking Christ, Holmes, how you know she’s not involved?”

  Murchison said, “You got a man at the hospital with her?”

  Holmes let his stare linger on Stluka. “Not yet. Needed the bodies here.”

  Stluka shook his head. “Ah, Christ.”

  “Get one. Call it in as soon as we wrap up.” For your sake as much as hers, Murchison thought, turning back to the victim. The pant pockets were turned inside out, the contents placed into evidence bags. “What’s missing?”

  “Nothing, looks like,” Holmes said. “This stage, don’t see robbery. Somebody just came, pushed the gate open, pow. Then booked.”

  Stluka dislodged a snarl of phlegm from his throat. “You checked inside, right? Secured the house.”

  “Yeah. First thing. Yeah.”

  “Relax, Sherlock, it’s a fucking question.”

  Murchison snapped his fingers. “Hey, boys and girls?” He gestured for Holmes to cover up the victim. “Back to the pockets.”

  Holmes drew the drape back across the body. “Wallet still in his jacket, fifty-two bucks and change inside. ID, credit cards. Untouched.”

  “Okay.”

  “Paper sack there? Got a pint inside. Sent another patrol unit, Gilroy, to canvas the liquor stores downtown, see what the counter help might remember.”

  “Good. Too bad it’s Gilroy, but good. Anything else?”

  “There’s a son,” Holmes said. “Showed up while I was securing the scene.”

  Stluka shot a glance at Murchison.

  “He didn’t get in here,” Murchison said.

  “No. No. I heard the commotion at the gate, went out. Got a little wild, you know? Son went kinda crazy. But I settled the young man down. Told him he had to stay outside.”

  “Okay, Holmes. Okay. That sounds good.”

  “He’s a musician, too. The son. Coming home from a gig.”

  “He went crazy. How?”

  “Upset, scared. Talked tough a little bit, said we couldn’t keep him out. But I explained it to him. He sorta just caved in on himself then. Went all still, then boom, took a dive.”

  “Look real?”

  “Yeah. Damn good if not. Eyes rolled back, legs went. Had to use smelling salts, bring him around. Came to, shot up, and spewed his supper out front in the gutter.”

  “Anybody el
se with him?”

  Holmes shook his head. “Walked up alone.”

  “Walked—from where?”

  “Never got that far with him. He was still fending off the little blue tweeties when I planted him in a car. He’s down at the station now. All yours.”

  Murchison looked around the yard one last time, collected his thoughts. Older man, dressed sharp, a musician of some note, ho ho. Shot in the back, his own front yard, left to drown in his own blood. And a white girl, trying to save him, failing, perching herself on the doorstep while she clawed at her arm till the skin was gone. A real human-interest story, if anyone bothered to tell it.

  “I’m ready to go inside, check the house.”

  Holmes said, “One last thing? The son, he IDed the girl.” Holmes checked his notes. “Nah-dee-ya … Lah-za-rank-o. Think that’s it. She’s his girlfriend.”

  Murchison took out his pad and pen. “Spell it.”

  Holmes obliged. A little mischief flickered in his eye. “Could be one of your people, Stookles.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “What is it—Po-lock? Slo-vock?”

  “You hear what I just said?”

  “You want, I can call you Cap’n Cracker, like they do around Dumpers in southtown.”

  Murchison couldn’t help himself, he laughed. “Okay, that’s it, enough. We got one body here. My guess is that’s our quota.”

  “Tell you what, Sherlock—”

  “Let it go, Jerry. Holmesy—the son, he say anything else about this girl?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Said she was with the vic earlier tonight, drove him home.”