In Self-Defense

by A. W. Gray

  There was a sudden clank and rattle, a meshing of gears, and the door leading from the jail innards slid sideways on oiled rollers. Deborah North uttered a sob. Sharon stiffened her posture as Midge entered the booth, blinking, her round shoulders slumped. The teenager moved forward to sink into a chair, and gaped dully at her mother. Sharon searched Midge’s face for a sign of recognition, but found none.

  Deb said, “Darling?” Her voice had lost all quality, her tone tinny and nasal.

  Midge’s eyes widened. “Mama?”

  Sharon held her breath.

  Deb nodded slowly. “Yes, honey. It’s me.”

  Don’t reject her, Midge, Sharon thought, she’s all you’ve got left.

  Midge reached out to clutch the bars. “Where have you been, Mama? They’re trying to hurt me in here.”

  Wilfred Donello dictated his statement to a county stenographer, implicating Bradford Brie in Howard Saw’s murder and further outlining Brie’s plan to harm Sharon Hays. Donello executed the statement in front of a notary a few minutes after noon. Assistant DA Edward Teeter then prepared a probable cause warrant for Brie’s arrest, and cooled his heels outside Judge Ralph Briscoe’s office for the better part of an hour while the jurist met with his campaign secretary before getting Briscoe’s signature on the warrant shortly after one-thirty. Mission accomplished, Teeter dispatched a courier three miles east to Main Dallas Police Headquarters. The courier, an efficient young female deputy with a no-nonsense attitude, delivered the papers to the city warrants desk in short order, and duly noted the time of her arrival at 2:07 p.m. She returned to the Crowley Courts Building and reported to ADA Teeter that the process for expediting Bradford Brie’s capture was now in motion.

  The police warrants secretary, who was involved in reporting three earlier arrests to the Burglary Division, mistakenly attached Bradford Brie’s warrant to her reports and routed the entire mess upstairs. Once in Burglary, the warrant went to an evening shift detective’s in basket, where it remained for several hours because the detective’s wife was ill and he was late reporting for duty. Brie’s warrant, of course, wound up on the bottom of the detective’s stack, so that it was nearly seven in the evening before the officer discovered the warrant’s presence on his desk, and was quarter after seven before he figured out that the warrant wasn’t intended for him. The discovery prompted a thirty-foot stroll into the shift lieutenant’s office, where the detective said to the loo, “How’s come we’re supposed to be doin’ work for the fuckin’ Warrants Division?”

  A telephone conversation ensued between the Burglary lieutenant and the Warrants shift boss, the culmination of which was that Burglary advised Warrants that if they weren’t upstairs after their piece of paper in fifteen minutes, the Burglary lieutenant would see to it that the warrant became a toilet tissue substitute. The lieutenant from Warrants did indeed make an appearance in Burglary shortly thereafter, bringing with him the evening shift captain, who held an hour-long meeting with both irate lieutenants in an attempt to determine exactly who was responsible for the fuckup. The meeting adjourned without a resolution to the problem, and the warrant finally made its way to the proper police division at quarter past nine. The Warrants Division then jumped into action.

  At ten minutes until ten, two unmarked vehicles barreled out of the police basement garage, wound their way through downtown to the Cadiz Street viaduct, and sped across the bridge toward Oak Cliff. One car was a Chevy, the other a Plymouth, both four-doors with dark paint jobs, overhead street lamps reflecting globes of light from roofs and hoods as the Chevy led the way. Far below, the Trinity River’s surface was black as midnight. Flame danced in occasional shoreline fires as downtown street people retired for the night, heating canned beans or melting heroin in rusty spoons.

  The Chevrolet carried four plainclothes detectives; in the Plymouth sat three tactical forces officers, two male and one female, all wearing dark blue uniforms and flak jackets and all armed with riot guns. The car’s noses slanted downward as they left the bridge, then moved along Zangs Boulevard to turn west on Jefferson.

  Detective Martin Ray sat in the front passenger seat of the Chevy. He was worried about the validity of the warrant, and said so. Paper rattled as he held the official document in the dim glow from the dash light and squinted at the signature. “The judge must have been drunk when he signed this sonofabitch.” Ray was a fireplug of a man with a thick neck and square chin. He had twenty-one years on the force under his belt, fifteen of those years in Homicide, and he’d seen enough warrants thrown out in court to be suspicious.

  Detective Gregory Gomez was even stockier than Detective Ray, and wore sideburns which extended below his earlobes. The sergeant raised hell every night at shift muster about Gomez’s hair, which bothered Gregory Gomez not one iota. He was driving the Chevy, had made detective only six months earlier after two years as a patrolman, and subscribed to the kickin’ ass and takin’ names theory of law enforcement. “Not our problem,” Gomez said. “We got a warrant, so we pick the guy up. So what?”

  Detective Ray scooted down in the seat, propped his leg against the dash, and relaxed his neck against the headrest. “I’ll tell you so what, sonny, not that you’re going to listen. It doesn’t make any difference who screwed the warrant up; if we have to shoot the guy or something, they’ll throw us to the dogs. They’ll claim we didn’t follow instructions. Our fine politician bastard of a chief will suspend us and call the investigators in. I’ve seen it before. I tell you something else, too. We got some worry, because this guy we’re going after is somebody we might have to shoot.”

  Gomez slowed, reading passing street signs. There were one-story rundown shops on both sides of the street; a half block ahead on the left was the marquee at Texas Theater, the place where, nearly thirty years earlier, Dallas’ finest had taken Lee Harvey Oswald into custody. “You mean the suspect? He’s a badass, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Ray said. “Bradford Brie. Ten years ago when we handled this guy, he’d killed two liquor store clerks in a holdup. Poor bastards were begging for their lives, down on their knees. The warrant was a piece of shit like this one, and I’ll never forget this guy. Skinny guy looks like he couldn’t bust an egg, but don’t let it fool you.

  “We had this half-assed warrant based on what some snitch told the DA, and go busting in on old Brie like gangbusters. There’s this whore in there with him, and Brie tries to use her as a shield. None of you guys”—Ray turned his head to include the two young detectives in the backseat in the conversation—“remember Ricky Mills, this patrolman, he’s long retired. But this Brie shot Ricky in the shoulder, and was damn sure ready to blow the hooker away when we tackle the guy from all sides. Beat the shit out of him, okay?”

  “Sounds like he had it coming,” Gomez said.

  “Yeah, sounds like,” Ray said. “Him and Ricky both wound up at Parkland Hospital, Ricky with a gunshot wound and this Brie asshole with a broken jaw and two busted ribs. Tough fucker, I’ll give that to him. Busted jaw and ribs, it still took four of us to handcuff the guy.

  “And guess what,” Ray said. “Right, we wound up getting sued over this lousy warrant we had. The court threw out any evidence we found at Brie’s place, which happened to include the murder weapon from the liquor store job. Adios to the murder conviction, and it was a combination between the plea bargain on the robbery and the lawsuit settlement that Brie gets any time at all on the deal. Two of the four officers that jumped the guy wound up with thirty-day suspensions, and I was lucky I didn’t get suspended myself. Sorry fucking system.”

  The veteran detective swept the car’s interior with his gaze, looking over the fresh-faced youngsters in back, Gomez holding the steering wheel and yanking nervously on his right sideburn. Overhead street lamps sent parallelograms of brightness moving through the car’s interior. “So I’m telling you guys,” Ray said, “if we do find this man, be on your toes. This guy
ain’t some dildo. Mr. Bradford Brie knows the ropes, and he’ll be looking to get something on us. Plus he’ll blow you away without batting an eye. One mean bastard we’re talking. Guys like this, they should reinstate the lynch mob.”

  Detective Ray paused near the curb to wave the tactical people on, directing two SWATs around the north side of the ramshackle house and one to skirt the south side, lithe officers running in crouches with riot guns extended in the moonlight. Once they were all behind the shack, a couple of the tacticals would take the windows and the other would train gun sights directly on the back door; then they’d await the signal to charge in and go to Bullet City. After the SWATs had disappeared from view, Ray checked right and left. Everything seemed all systems go, one young plainclothes cop hanging loose near the front porch; another crouched, pistol drawn, behind the unmarked Chevy at the curb. Ray now concentrated on the house itself, sagging roof and worm-eaten wooden porch, black tarpaper showing on the walls in places where termites had eaten the wood away. Finally the veteran detective glanced at Gomez on his right, the round Hispanic face screwed into a scowl of readiness. Ray breathed a silent prayer, a good Presbyterian man hoping the fuck that his own jiveass partner didn’t blow him away in the confusion. A single faint light glowed within the house.

  Ray touched Gomez’s shoulder, and the two policemen walked side by side across the barren yard, twin fireplugs with bull necks, each clad in a brown suit, picking their way among broken bottles, mashed Budweiser and Lone Star cans, and an occasional mound of dog manure. Halfway to the house, Gomez stepped in a depression, stumbled, then righted himself. He murmured, “Shit.”

  Once up on the porch, the detectives flattened against the wall on either side of the door frame, pistols drawn. Ray knocked on the wall with big round knuckles, three loud thumps. They waited, their breath hissing faintly, their gazes meeting across three feet of door frame. In the distance crickets chirruped. In a house a half block up the street, a light went out. Ray knocked again. Rotting wood vibrated dully.

  Ray paused. He still wasn’t certain that the warrant in his pocket gave him probable cause to enter. He chewed his lower lip.

  Detective Gregory Gomez, who didn’t give a rat’s ass about probable cause and never would, backed away, lifted a size ten double-soled shoe, and kicked the door right beside the handle. The wood crumpled like cellophane, sagging inward and twisting, and the door swung open on broken hinges. Gomez grinned at Ray, winked, and went inside.

  Either they get me away from this pissant, Ray thought, or I’m asking for a transfer. Five seconds passed before Ray crossed the threshold and stood in stifling darkness. His nose wrinkled with the odor of burner-singed grease.

  As Ray’s eyes became accustomed to the darkness, shapes appeared and clarified. Gomez hulked stock still, ten feet ahead and to the right. Directly in front of Ray was a hall extending to the back of the house, and directly beyond the hallway was a screen door leading outside. As Ray watched, the female SWAT officer came in through the screen, riot gun ready. Ray said loudly, “It’s just us up here.” The girl nodded, stepped sideways and out of his line of sight.

  Ray stepped back to the entry, felt for a switch, and flicked on the overhead. Sudden unshaded light filled the room. Ray stood on wrinkled blue linoleum in a sitting area occupied by one sagging vinyl-topped table and one grease-stained brown sofa. On the table was a Kentucky Fried Chicken box, and inside the box was a pinkish leg bone, stripped of meat, and a half-eaten thigh. Beside the chicken box was a Coke can, which Ray gingerly lifted using his handkerchief. The can was half full and lukewarm. The detective shook the can with his ear close to the ring-tab hole. The drink was flat as maple syrup. Ray stepped to the door and yelled for the other two plainclothes men to come inside.

  “Guy don’t seem to be here,” Detective Gomez said.

  “You go busting in like that without waiting for a signal again,” Detective Ray said, “and you won’t have to worry about the guy. What you’ll have to worry about is me.”

  In the hallway, beside the bathroom, they found a closet converted into a darkroom. Throughout the rest of the house, clothes lay in jumbled piles on the floor and furniture and filthy plates and dirty silverware were scattered about, but the darkroom was immaculate. Bottles of processing fluid were clean and neatly labeled, and precisely typed development procedures were thumb tacked to a bulletin board. Hundreds of pictures were stuck on the wall, all of naked kids, some alone, some in twosomes or threesomes. The children appeared terrified. A row of brand-new photos hung by clothespins from a drying line. In the fresh pictures a teenage Hispanic couple performed sex on a ragged mattress, in every position known to man.

  “What a sicko, huh?” Detective Gomez said.

  “Likely we can’t use any of this,” Ray said, “thanks to you busting in.”

  One of the SWAT officers said, “Hey. I’ve seen her before.” He indicated a picture on the table, beside the developing pan.

  Ray stepped nearer the table. In the picture was a pretty young woman carrying a box up the steps of a downtown office building. “Me, too,” Ray said. “She’s a prosecutor. Or was. Let’s see, what the hell is her name?”

  20

  Sharon stopped in the justice center parking lot to tell Deborah North, “I think you’ve come a million miles today.”

  Deb’s features literally glowed in the overhead floodlights. “I took up so much time just getting to know her,” Deb said, “that you didn’t get a chance to ask her a thing about the case.” The two women stood to one side of the attendants’ shed, where a thin black youngster sat on a stool and collected parking fees. Out on near-deserted West Commerce Street, an old car with one flickering headlamp rattled by. Jail visiting hours ended at ten, and the trip down the elevator and into the asphalt lot had taken twenty minutes.

  “That’s exactly how we wanted it,” Sharon said. “I think now that we’ve cracked her armor, the rest will come. We’ll take our time with her. Tomorrow night we’ll see her again, okay?”

  “I can’t wait,” Deb said. “Listen, I’m checked into the Adolphus Hotel. Care to join me for a drink?”

  Sharon wanted a drink, and wanted to visit with Deborah North even more. She was dying to see what made this woman tick, that she’d give up her children and live with the loss for all this time. But it had been a long day, and Melanie had been with Sheila every since school had let out. “Definite rain check, Deb,” Sharon said. “I’ve got my little girl.”

  “Sure you do.” Deb’s gaze cast downward, then back up. She smiled. “Sure you do. See you tomorrow.” Then she was gone, walking briskly away, head down. Three parking rows from the shed, she stopped beside a Lincoln Town Car, jingled keys, lit a cigarette, climbed in, and started the engine. She backed up, reversed directions, and cruised slowly past the shed and out onto Commerce.

  Open mouth, insert foot, Sharon thought. “I’ve got my little girl,” she’d said, while Deb had left her own child in jail and was headed for a dreary hotel room. Tonight before Melanie went to bed, Sharon would give her daughter an extra hug.

  She had left her Volvo near the back of the lot, and now threaded her way in between the parked cars, her heels clicking mutedly on asphalt as she left the artificial light and moved in moonlit darkness. The sounds of her footsteps rebounded from the nearby jail wall and hung for seconds before dying slowly away like mountain echoes. She’d reached the side of the Volvo and had inserted her key in the doorlock when the coldness hit her.

  It was the same icy sensation she’d felt in the Six Flags parking lot on Sunday evening, the same creepy-crawly eeriness she’d experienced on Saturday across the street from the law library, and she now backed up a step and looked around, seeing no one. It’s the creeps, she thought, nothing more. Silly. Silly as hell. Then she dived in behind the wheel like a rabbit into its hole, and hit the electric switch to thunk the locks into place. It was a full
minute before her pulse slowed to near normal.

  The crawling creeps imbedded their fangs into Sharon’s consciousness so deeply that by the time she’d made the trek to her own East Dallas neighborhood, she was practically a basket case. When halted at traffic lights, she gripped the wheel until her fingers stung. It seemed to her that the bogeyman drove every other car on the road, and that behind each glowing set of headlights sat a hunchback with wrinkled skin and a wart on his nose, cackling, Heh, heh, heh, my pretty, biding his time until he could get his talons on her soft …

  She scooted into Sheila’s driveway with her nerves in ragged threads, and practically sprinted from the car up on the porch and rang the bell. She thought she heard scuttling noises on the lawn behind her, and squinched her eyes tightly shut and pounded the door with her fist. Sheila answered with her features wreathed in alarm. “Is something wrong?” she said, peering past Sharon into the night.

  Sharon looked fearfully across the lawn. There was no one there, or course, only the rustling warm wind. She breathed a sigh that was part exasperation and part fear. “Look, Sheila,” she finally said. “You wouldn’t have any brandy, would you?”

  Two ounces of apricot liqueur sat in Sharon’s belly like a warm lead golf ball as she learned that Melanie had reached the third level of Nestor’s Quest on the Nintendo game while Trish’s guy had died while still in level two. “That’s nice, honey,” Sharon said. “How much homework did you get done?” They were a block from home. The headlamps shined on reflector buttons as they bounced through the intersection where Sharon caught the bus when the Volvo was in the shop. Been a couple of months, she thought, it’s about time for something in the old heap to go haywire. As if reading her thoughts, the Volvo’s engine skipped a beat, then chugged dutifully on.