I lean down and pull it up and then toward me. The floorboard has been cut and replaced with hinges. I lift it.
There are three shoe boxes inside, one bulky kitchen garbage bag more than half full with who knows what, and a 9mm Taurus semiauto with a clip in the butt and two clips resting near it.
I pull out the bag first and open it.
“Okay, my friend. You did good.”
He doesn’t reply, only whimpers.
Inside is a shitload of money, rolled up real tight and secured with a green rubber band looped around several times. I toss the bag to the center of the room near my backpack.
I open the shoe boxes to find more than I bargained for. Everything nicely sealed in extra large freezer ziplock bags. The box containing the cocaine has to be half a kilo, and it’s mostly rock. Doesn’t look stepped on. I almost belt out a laugh. I open it up, take a healthy pinch, and sniff it up my nose. It’s immediate.
I’m alive.
I hear the boy cry, probably having realized “the cop” just sniffed some of the evidence. I zip it back up, make sure it’s sealed tight, and put it back in.
The other two shoe boxes contain heroin and crack. Looks like about two ounces of heroin and even more crack.
I look in the closet again. I notice one duffel bag and one large suitcase on rollers. I pull out the suitcase and open it.
Nothing but dirty clothing.
“You boys never do your laundry?” I ask, but don’t expect an answer.
He’s nothing but a rapist, a little piece of shit who’d probably be the one to put the 9mm I just found against the head of Amanda’s dad and pull the trigger. If he goes to jail, he’ll just come out stronger, smarter. I know I can’t leave him here, let him agonize and slowly boil over to seethe with vengeance. He’ll turn into nothin’ but a weapon, a bomb.
No, I can’t do that, so I drag him off the bed to the middle of the floor near the dirty laundry.
“Pedazo de mierda,” I tell him.
He curls up in a fetal position like he’s expecting a serious beatdown. That’ll happen, but not just yet.
“Roll on your stomach. Facedown,” I command.
“Please,” he begs.
“Now.”
I grab him by the arm and help him roll over, then I tell him, “No te muevas.”
I turn back to the suitcase and empty the contents onto the floor next to the bathroom door. I search through everything to make sure there’s nothing hidden. After that I grab my backpack and stuff the cocaine in the large compartment and zip it closed. I take the 9mm and drop it in the suitcase, but then I remember something. I take the bag of money and put it next to my backpack instead of the suitcase.
That’s when I notice that the limber fuckwad managed to slip his butt under his zip-tied hands and get his legs through so his hands are now in front. He slipped out of his left shoe in the process.
By the time I react he’s already on his feet and hobbling toward the bedroom door. I’m quick to stand and draw my weapon, but I decide not to shoot ’cause it’ll attract too much attention.
He’s making his way around the flimsy banister rails toward the top of the stairs when I get out the bedroom door. I won’t get to him in time so I kick at the top of the rail with force, like I’m kicking open a locked door. The rails split from the floorboard just enough to fall out and hit his shoulder as he’s running down the top of the stairs. It stuns him and he stops, but only for a second. He pushes up at the banister rail with his tied hands, but by that time I’m close behind. Close enough to send him a swift kick to his lower back. He can do nothing but tumble down the stairs to hit the floor, headfirst, and all bent up.
Nine
I make no apologies.
I lift the suitcase, slide it into the back of the Cross Country, and close the hatch. When I open the driver’s side door, I toss the bag of money to the passenger’s side floor and set the backpack stuffed with goodies on the passenger seat.
I remember their vehicle, the one the kid drove back to the house. I turn and see it parked along the curb.
“Damn,” I say to myself.
It doesn’t take me long to mull over all the scenarios and realize nothing will really come of leaving the car here. I’ll give the vehicle information to the police. Once the police roll onto the scene and hopefully snatch up Shiny and the rest of his crew, Shiny will figure his boy Andrés made a run for it after he learns Andrés wasn’t arrested. He’ll figure he made off with the coke, one of the guns, and the money. Obviously, if Shiny is arrested, he’ll get a defense attorney and the police will have to provide discovery, everything that was seized from the home. Those items won’t be on the list.
Another possibility—Shiny manages to elude capture; then he’ll just figure Andrés got himself locked up and all that stuff was seized by the cops. He’ll never know otherwise. It’s a win-win.
Disposing of the vehicle is not an option.
Disposing of Andrés is a necessity. It keeps whoever these boys owe for what I took away from me, because my name will probably be included in that discovery package. After all, I did rescue the girl, as unintentional as that was.
I hop in my car. I power on the cell. I know all too well the number of missed calls from Leslie and Lord knows who else that’ll pop up on the screen.
Eight.
Not as bad as I thought. Seven of them from Leslie and one a number that belongs to DC police; I recognize the prefix.
I call Leslie.
She picks up after the first ring. “What the fuck, Frankie!”
“I’ve got the information you need.”
“The police are still here. Fairfax County is sending a couple of their detectives and the girl’s parents should be here any second, so where in the hell are you?”
“Tell me when you’re ready to copy.”
“Whatever information you have related to this poor girl here you need to give directly to the police, not me.”
“Who are the DC detectives there?”
“I don’t know. They’re Youth Division, and I stay away from juvenile cases.”
“Let me talk to the detective who looks like he’s got the most time on.”
“Frankie,” she says, and I can only imagine how she looks when she says it, “you really put me in a situation here. Hold the line.” Instead of being put on hold, I hear what sounds like the phone receiver hit a desk.
Seconds later: “Detective Davidson here.”
I know Davidson. He’s good people. A fucking hard worker.
“What’s up, Scott? This is Frank Marr.”
“Yeah, I know. Your new boss told me.”
“She ain’t my boss. I do some work for her on the side, ’cause forty percent doesn’t cut it.”
“This one of the cases you did on the side?”
“Not for her, no.”
“You need to come in, Frank, so we can talk and get whatever information you have.”
“I can do that, but not for a couple hours. I’m outta the DC area right now.” And before he can answer I say, “Tell me when you’re ready to copy what I have.”
“Hold on.” A bit of shuffling, then, “Go ahead.”
I give him the address on Kenyon along with the vehicle info.
“I was there not even forty minutes ago,” I say, while looking at the car, but I don’t mention seeing the car. “The house was unoccupied when I was there. Wouldn’t be surprised if you find some drugs in there, too, at least according to a reliable source I have.”
I made sure they will, because I left the crack and the heroin under the bed. Those drugs are useless to me. Don’t want anything to do with that shit. Good blow, some weed, and a few pills are what I care about most. I don’t go and try to make money off this shit.
I also straightened things up a bit so it wouldn’t look like there was a struggle, and I left a little bonus—the .38 I put back in the nightstand’s drawer. I’m sure it’ll be traced back to a shooting or t
wo.
“You might want to get Luna and McGuire in on the hit with you. I’m sure they’ll take the narcotics off your hands, unless it’s something you want to handle.”
“What the heck kinda case you working there, Frank?”
“You know I can’t talk about that, Scott. Needless to say, it got that girl the hell outta there, right?”
“Yeah, amen to that, brother, but we still need to talk. And I mean soon.”
“Understood. You need to act on this right away, though. Get a couple of unmarked units on the house. Oh, I almost forgot. I also have information they might be armed.”
“You have any names for me?”
“Just one. Angelo. His crew works selling their shit in the area of Sixteenth and Park.”
“I’ll get on this right away. You call me first thing when you get back, all right?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“You still have my cell?”
“Of course I do.”
“Frank, seriously, I need you to call me ASAP, right when you get back. I don’t know what you were thinking, because you went about this all wrong. I mean, you should know better, brother.”
“Yeah, I can’t argue with you but I didn’t have a choice at the time. I’ll explain what I can when I get back. Don’t worry yourself.”
“I’m not worried, but you’ll have to if you don’t call me.”
“Don’t start with that kinda talk now. You know better.”
“You need to talk to your boss again?”
“No, not at the moment.”
“I’ll talk to you soon, then.”
“Later,” I say, and disconnect.
I pull the car out and head north, the opposite direction from where the unmarked units should be coming.
Ten
I bought the two-story connected row house on 12th Street Northwest back when a working cop could afford to buy in DC. I had finished my probationary period and figured the minimal investment was worth the risk. It was a fixer-upper in an area that wasn’t quite up-and-coming yet. I gutted most of it. It took several years because I was on the job then and working my ass off.
I’ve always been handy that way, able to fix most everything. Started out working for a landscaping company based out of DC when I was still in high school. They did most of their jobs in Upper Northwest, where the homes had real backyards. I moved from that job to working for a small general contractor. That’s where I learned how to work with drywall, basic electrical and plumbing, and just about everything else you might need to know to get things done yourself.
My home is south of Cardozo High School’s football field. I take Florida Avenue to the narrow alley west of 12th and hang a left, then drive a short distance to the back of my house on the east side of the alley. I squeeze close to the tiny cut at the back of my house and the privacy fence of my backyard. The alley’s so narrow a bicycle would have a tough time getting around me.
It’s quiet around this time of the afternoon. Only a few old-timers live on this block, some new families, too, mostly white, who bought up a lot of the homes in this area. Then you got 12th Place, at the rear of the homes on the east side of this alley. Most of them are good people. Some of the kids in the homes on that block are not so good. I even locked up a few back in the day. It’s all about business, so no hard feelings. As far as they know, I’m still a working cop, so they stay clear. Nowadays, I stay clear of them, too. It’s the furthest thing from my mind to hit one of their homes, even when I am desperate, like before the hit on Kenyon.
This neighborhood is gentrifying, and it’s all good. The young and ignorant and upwardly mobile can take over most of this city as far as I care. I don’t have a problem with that. My property value has gone up a bit.
Before I exit the car I scan the area to make sure there are no prying eyes. When I feel good, I grab my pack and the garbage bag filled with money and step out. I tap the lock button on my key fob and unlatch the gate that leads to a tiny courtyard area at the back of my house. What plant life exists there now mostly consists of overgrown weeds. The autumn ferns and snapdragons managed to survive, growing along the fence line on either side.
I key in the security code on the side of my door, then unlock the door and step into a small mudroom that leads into the kitchen. I drop my backpack and the money and then move quickly back outside to the car, coding and locking the back door again. I take the car around the block, take another left onto 12th, and find a parking spot across from my house. I lock the car door when I exit and then double-tap the key fob so I can hear the horn signaling that it’s secure.
I have to enter the code again at the front door before I enter. Once inside, I make my way to the kitchen, where I retrieve the backpack and money and then return to the living room, opening the blackout curtains just enough so I can easily peer out at my vehicle. It isn’t the first time I’ve had to leave a body, stuffed in a suitcase, in the back of my car.
It won’t be there for long.
I don’t bother to empty the bag of money. I pull out a roll of twenties, pull off the rubber band, and count it.
Seven twenties and a ten.
I pull out another roll with tens and count.
Fifteen of them.
Looks like they wrapped everything in hundred-and-fifty-dollar increments. Probably something that makes it easier for them to distribute later. They’ll owe someone, maybe even Cordell, a lot of money. Who the fuck knows. Just estimating the amount of rolled-up bills in there, I figure it’s gotta be in the neighborhood of fifty grand. I fold the bills I unrolled together and pocket them.
I don’t bother to go through everything I have stuffed in the backpack. I pull out the cocaine. Then I grab a small plastic vial used to test cocaine and crack out of another pocket and uncap it. I flip open my tactical knife and take a tiny sample with the tip of the knife. I tap the powder into the vial and close the vial back up with the cap.
I squeeze the vial between two fingers until a little capsule contained within it breaks open to release the mixture. I shake it up and watch it turn a wonderful fluorescent blue. Exactly what I like to see. In fact, I haven’t seen it turn that bright for some time. I wipe what little is left from the tip of the knife with my index finger and rub it on my gums.
I put about three grams of the powder from the bag into another pill container I carry and then slip that, along with my knife, back into my pocket. I grab the pack and the bag of money and head to the laundry room.
In the hallway before the entrance to the kitchen, there’s a small room with a washer and dryer and my HVAC system for the house. The washer and dryer sit against the back wall between two walls. The wall on the left and the wall on the back are a part of the foundation. The one on the right is drywall. Everything is trimmed with wood molding. The molding that trims the drywall on the right side has a phantom hinge. I slide it open.
Pulling open the molding, I take hold of the edge of drywall and slide it out just like a sliding door to another room. The bottom edge of the drywall has aluminum edge trim, so it doesn’t wear down. When I pull it out, it opens up to a wall from the floor to the ceiling, five feet wide and ten inches deep, with built-in hidden shelves.
It’s where I keep my shit.
I empty the contents of the backpack and place them on the shelves according to category. The shelf where I would normally keep most of my drugs is vacant, so that’s where I set the coke and the prescription meds. The bag of money is a bit tougher. I have a couple thousand banded together on a top shelf, but it’s certainly not deep enough to hold a bag of money like this, so I toss the bag in the washer and cover it with dirty clothes, just until I can unroll the bills and stack them properly. I put the 9mm on a shelf with a few other weapons and then close the wall back up and head to the living room.
I peer through the curtains. The car’s still there. I take out my container of coke and dump a nice pile onto the blue glass top of the end table near the curtains. I c
hop it up with a razor blade and make three long lines, snort one of them with a rolled-up twenty, then light a cigarette. One more look out the window, and then I lean back to finish the cigarette.
I’ll have to get with Davidson today, but first I gotta finish this smoke, a couple more lines, and then dump the body.
Eleven
I used to make time for fishing. Nowadays, it’s not even a passing thought—until now, but that’s because I’m driving along 295 and the Potomac River’s with me. South along 295, it’ll cut a path through Virginia to the west and Maryland to the east. North, which is the direction I’m going, the highway will take a turn to follow the Anacostia, a river that empties into the Potomac at a place known as Buzzard Point. I’ll drive a little farther, toward the Navy Yard and a secluded spot I know near there.
I used to have a jon boat. It had two swivel seats for sitting while fishing. I kept it stored on a trailer at the rear of my house before I had a fence. I’d take it out two, sometimes three times a month back when I was still on the department and before I got myself caught up with all this shit. Good bass fishing along parts of the Potomac. Not where I’m driving, though. The Anacostia is a filthy river.
I take an exit for a road that swerves around and back under 295, then across the Anacostia. A couple more turns and I’m on a gravel road that leads to a wooded area along the river’s banks. No traffic along here. No thugs either, no crackheads or even homeless people, just a trash-ridden landscape that spills into the river.
When I get to the spot, I park and light a cigarette. I scan the area around me and lean back to finish my smoke.
I step out of the car, scrunch the rest of the cigarette into the ground, open the rear hatch, and pull the suitcase out of the back.
I hold the handle with two hands, swing it out, and let go. It tumbles down an incline, bounces a few times, and splashes into the water a couple of feet off the bank.
The Second Girl Page 4