Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “I’d dearly love that,” Emily said, smiling through her annoyance at Marty’s affectionate twist on “Officer,” which he’d bestowed the first day they met. His uncharacteristic bite was probably the adrenaline flash and crash that was making them all cranky. “But duty calls.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said, handing her a SWAT field towel. “Best to see what the scumbag has to say for himself. We’ll pick this up later.”

  Emily nodded, and sky-hooked the towel into the garbage can.

  Roaches scattered.

  9:42 p.m.

  “Who was on the phone?” Branch said.

  “What phone?” Bloch said.

  “The one you were talking on when we blew your doors.”

  “You were spying on me?” Bloch said, indignant.

  “Of course we were, Einstein. That’s what cops do with robbers.”

  “That’s a total invasion of my personal privacy!”

  “Must have taken law classes up there in Stillwater,” Annie said.

  “When he wasn’t getting boned in the showers,” Branch said, snickering.

  “Up yours,” Bloch said.

  Branch leaned close. “That’s exactly what will happen if you don’t answer my question.”

  “I forget what it was.”

  “Who were you talking to on the phone?”

  Bloch smirked. “Hookers.”

  “You were contacting escort services?”

  “Till you barged in,” Bloch said, settling back.

  Enough dust had smeared away that Emily saw the crude tattoos adorning Bloch’s chest and belly. The largest incorporated “AB,” “666,” and a pale blue shamrock, indicating Bloch was Aryan Brotherhood, the main white gang in American prisons.

  He caught her looking. “Wanna see this one?” he asked, grabbing his crotch.

  “Shut up,” Branch said, bopping Bloch’s foot with the cane.

  “That’s the best you can do, Festus?” Bloch sneered. “You wouldn’t last ten seconds in the showers with me, you limp-dick cripple-”

  “I wouldn’t go there,” Marty said, plopping down next to him. “I was you.”

  His arctic lack of emotion made Emily shiver. Marty used to infiltrate psycho biker gangs for a living. Violence didn’t bother him a whole lot.

  Bloch sensed it, too, she knew, because he didn’t finish the insult. He kept up the sneer, though. For appearances.

  Cops and robbers.

  “So, did you find one?” Branch said.

  “One what?”

  “Someone to wax your wheels.”

  “No,” Bloch said. “You interrupted my, ah, negotiations.”

  “So it wasn’t an accomplice you were talking to?”

  “Accomplice? To what?”

  “We’ll get to that. Let’s finish your phone call first. When I check the dialing log, I’ll find nothing but escort services, right?”

  “Couple pizza places, too.” He patted his crotch. “Rocket needs its fuel.”

  Annie rolled her eyes.

  “What made you start running?” Branch said, switching gears.

  Bloch shrugged. “I saw a lump in the yard. Moved left when the trees moved right. Didn’t know it was cops, though.”

  Annie’s scowl told Emily the team’s after-action debriefing would be noisy.

  “Who’d you think we were?” Branch said. “Invaders from Mars?”

  Bloch shrugged. “Friends.”

  “You have friends that make you dive under attic insulation?”

  “Why you think I’m out of prison, man? Good behavior?”

  “He ratted out fellow inmates in exchange for parole,” Marty said. “And his friends haven’t forgotten.”

  Bloch’s greasy smile said, Yup.

  Branch dragged over a chair and sat in it backward, resting his arms on top. “All right,” he said, caning Bloch’s foot for emphasis. “Tell me about Zabrina Reynolds.”

  Bloch’s eyes darted up and left. His body language said he was lying. “Never heard of her.”

  “That’s funny. You murdered her this morning. Along with a sheriff’s deputy” - he inclined his head at Marty - “who was a close friend of my associate’s.”

  “I didn’t whack anyone!” Bloch said, face flushing. “Who says I did?”

  “Me.”

  “Well, you’re wrong!”

  “Prove it.”

  Bloch turned his palms up. “Man, how I prove I didn’t kill anyone?”

  “Better think of something,” Marty said, scooting closer, heightening Bloch’s discomfort. “You’re on parole. One call to Minnesota and you’re back in Stillwater, doing another dime. This time, with your Nazi pals knowing you sang like a canary. I’m sure they’d be happy to speak with you about that in the showers.”

  “Cops,” Bloch spat. “You’re all the same.”

  “Yes, we are. We live to rub out little grease spots like you,” Branch said. He held up his phone. “Want me to call your parole officer?”

  “Can’t do that without a charge.”

  “How’s assaulting a police officer?”

  Bloch looked incredulous. “I wasn’t fighting her, man. I was trying to escape.”

  “He fought me, Captain,” Emily said. “No question. I was brutalized beyond imagining.”

  “Would you testify to that in court, Detective?” Branch asked.

  “On a stack.” She held up her forearms. “These scrapes are so deep they’ll still be scabby at the trial.” She swanned dramatically. “Oh, the shock I suffered from this animal.”

  Annie held up the evidence camera.

  “Plus it’s all on video,” Emily said. “Perfect visuals for the jury.” She’d actually gotten them flying off the getaway car, but saw no reason to mention that.

  “Assault and battery,” Branch continued. “Resisting arrest. Attempting to escape. Failure to obey a lawful police order. Felony stupid.” Long pause. “Or, you can tell me about Zabrina.”

  “Yeah, awright,” Bloch muttered.

  “Say what, Devlin?” Marty said, cupping his ear.

  “I said awright! I used to know someone named Reynolds. When I lived in Minneapolis.”

  “Where you made a nice buck as an armed robber,” Emily said, thumbing through Bloch’s rap sheet. “Liquor stores, minimarts, pawnshops, fast food. When they didn’t hand it over quick enough, you beat them half to death.”

  Branch rose and limped to the cobwebbed picture window.

  “The last place you robbed was a neighborhood bank,” he said, staring at the overgrown willows in the front yard. “You pulled a gun, hollered ‘stick-em-up.’ But genius that you are, the stocking over your face had a big hole. The teller supervisor got a good look. With his photographic memory, he described you to responding police.” He turned. “Down to those cute little acne pits on your chin.”

  Bloch scratched them, shifting uncomfortably.

  “Cops nailed you a mile from the bank, cash bag between your legs. The teller supervisor testified at your trial, and you got shipped to Stillwater to play patty-cake with people of color. The teller supervisor was Zabrina’s father.”

  “Yeah, all right. I know the guy,” Bloch said. “But I didn’t croak him.”

  “Only because you couldn’t. He’s been in Amsterdam the past month, on business. So you took your payback by nailing his kid,” Marty said, cracking his knuckles in Bloch’s ear. “Soon as you were released, you found out she lived in Naperville, put a knife in her. Then you wasted our cop during your getaway.”

  “I did not!” Bloch howled, so vehemently Emily sensed he was telling the truth. Then again, cons lied as easily as they breathed, just to stay in practice. “I didn’t kill anyone! Not her, not that cop, nobody! Never!”

  “So how do you explain it?” Branch said.

  “It’s a, whaddaya call it, a confucius!”

  “You mean coincidence?”

  “Yeah! It has to be!”

  “We’re not br
ain-dead,” Marty growled, crowding so close Bloch leaned away. “Your sheet’s filthy with violent crimes. One week after your release, Zabrina eats a foot of steel. You expect us to believe that’s coincidence?”

  “Gotta be, man! I came here for the house!” Bloch insisted, stomping the carpet for emphasis. Ants boiled from the seam. Emily made a face, moved back.

  “Explain,” Branch said.

  “Ma croaked when I was in Stillwater. This is her place.

  She left it to me in her will. Ask the warden. He’s the one told me. Go on, ask him.”

  “We will.”

  “When I got released, I didn’t have anywhere to live. I knew people in the Cities, but I couldn’t hardly stay there. Because of my, uh . . .”

  “Friends.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Friends.” Hack and swallow. “I hopped the Greyhound and found Ma’s old house. Figured I’d hang here till things settled down. Then I’d move somewhere warm.” He shivered. “Minnesota’s so cold I crapped ice cubes every February. I’m gonna move down to Mexico. Eat me a taco every day.” He leered at Annie’s crotch. “A pink taco, know what I mean, blondie . . . ow!” He grabbed both feet, whimpering.

  Branch sighed, pulling back the cane. “That is, without a single doubt, the stupidest story I’ve heard in my entire life, Devlin-”

  “It’s true! I swear it is!” Bloch said. “I gave my parole officer this address. Why would I do that if I was coming here to kill someone?”

  “‘Cause you’re an idiot?” Marty said.

  Bloch glared, then turned to Branch. “How’d you find me? Maybe that’ll prove something.”

  Branch shrugged. “Someone told us you and the Reynolds family had history. We entered your name in the National Crime Information Center. Stillwater popped from the registry of prison inmates. We called the warden, who gave us your parole officer. He faxed us this address. We identified you through the window. You know the rest.”

  “See?” Bloch said. “I wasn’t hiding. The warden knew I was here. My parole officer. Your computer, too. If I was gonna whack someone in Naperville, I woulda told everyone I was moving to El Paso. That proves I’m telling the truth.”

  Branch shook his head. “All it proves is you moved here the week before a brutal double homicide. Far as I’m concerned, you’re good for it.”

  “And if you haven’t heard,” Marty said. “We’ve got us an electric chair. With a governor so anxious to use it he wets himself.”

  Bloch looked like he might, too. “Hey! Wait! You got my sheet, right?”

  Emily rattled the printouts.

  “Then you know I never killed no one. Not man, woman, or kid. Sure, I beat ‘em up. Just to get my green, though. I needed my green, and they had it.” He pointed to the rap sheet. “Here’s one you don’t know about because I never got caught,” he said, reeling off a date and name of a convenience store. “A rice-head behind the counter had my green. Wouldn’t give it up. ‘Skloo you, Chollie!’ he hollers. ‘My money! Get ugly face out my store!’“

  He became more animated.

  “I beat that ricer till his undies bled. A gun’s supposed to mean something, you know. He’s not supposed to keep fighting when I put a gun in his face. Just give it up.”

  “But he didn’t,” Branch said.

  “Right!” Bloch said, like agreeing meant they were pals. “So I busted him up.”

  “And you’re telling me this why?”

  “To prove what I been saying - I never kill any of them. I’m very careful about that. Don’t mind risking the can but I don’t want no death penalty. Didn’t kill anyone in Stillwater, neither. Busted up plenty of homeboys, but they had it coming. Being I was AB and they was blacker than the crack of my-”

  “Finish the story about the convenience store clerk,” Branch said.

  “Alive when I left,” Bloch said. “Not one bullet or blade, and I carried both when I did a job. Just to scare the suckers into giving me my green. I never killed no one, no way.” He took a deep breath. “That’s it. Proves my story, right? I hope I get some consideration.”

  “I hope you get dick cancer,” Marty said.

  Branch arched an eyebrow at Emily.

  “I’ll check out his story,” she said.

  Branch nodded, yanked Bloch to his feet.

  “Hey!” Bloch protested. “I thought we had an understanding.”

  “You thought wrong. You’re under arrest.”

  “For what?”

  Branch eyed the mess in the kitchen. “Littering.”

  11:59 p.m.

  The Executioner stared over downtown St. Louis, pleasantly buzzed from bourbon and prime rib. Lightning white-strobed the hotel room, with violet afterglows. The picture window groaned from the cyclonic wind bursts. The Arch, that fusion of art and steel he so admired, had disappeared behind the curtain of rain.

  Not to worry, he told himself. The storm would be gone by morning.

  As would he.

  He slid under the crisp white sheets and immediately fell asleep.

  August 10, 1966

  The potbellied janitor scrubbed for two full minutes, then sliced footwide streaks of clean through the suds. He checked the window for stubbornness, moved on to the next.

  Folks like you made America great, thought Assistant State’s Attorney Wayne Covington. Not greedy punks like Earl Monroe.

  Tanned arms darted around his face and ruffled his Brylcreem.

  “Hey, bro,” Wayne said, laughing as he wriggled away from his kid brother Andrew.

  “Hey yourself,” Andy said, adding a noogie. “You get over there this morning?”

  “Is the pope Catholic?” Wayne said, borrowing Andy’s aluminum comb to slick his thick blond hair into place. Once a week at sunrise, the Covington sons gathered for breakfast at the parental Queen Anne in downtown Naperville. “Don’t worry, though, Ma forgives you.”

  “She always loved me best.”

  Wayne shot him a fake punch. “A pity you couldn’t join us. Ma made griddle cakes and ham. Pineapple upside-down cake, toast, jam from her raspberry patch-”

  “Shaddup,” Andy grumped. “I would have been there except Brendan Stone was whining about a tummy ache. I had to go find him some Bromo-Seltzer.”

  “That guy sure complains a lot,” Wayne said, accepting coffee from the sergeant of the twelve-man detail. The paper cup was so hot he wrapped it with a handkerchief. Better. “They don’t make gangsters like they used to.”

  “That’s for sure,” Andy said. “Last night I told him criminals were supposed to be stoic so shut the hell up. Guess what he said?”

  Wayne arched an eyebrow.

  “He says, ‘How dare you call me stoic, Officer? Everyone knows I’m Irish.’“

  Wayne honked coffee out his nose, making Andy fall to the sidewalk laughing.

  Earl Monroe pulled his fresh-waxed Ford Galaxie onto the gravel shoulder, kitty-corner from the motel. He waited for the dust to settle, then cranked down his window and inspected the scene with binoculars.

  What a dump, he thought, vastly amused. A silk-stocking guy like Brendan’s gotta hate this. A lumpy janitor scraped crud off the windows. A black Plymouth Fury idled nose-out from the door. Eight stocky men lined the sidewalk, jiving and joshing.

  Sears Roebuck suits, Earl noted. Black shoes, white socks, low-slung fedoras, bulging coats. Yup, they’re plainclothes cops. A mixture of Naperville and county. Exactly as his court snitch promised. Good to know the mutt was on the ball.

  In a few minutes, Brendan would emerge from the motel for the ride to the grand jury. When he did, Earl would climb out of the Galaxie and wipe his hound-dog face with a big red rag. Brendan would see it and know his fate was sealed-

  “What the?” he sputtered, jerking the binoculars into his eye sockets.

  “Yes sir, right away,” the janitor answered the sergeant. He grabbed squeegee and bucket and scuttled backward from the motel’s entrance, hat flapping.

  Andy gro
und the Fury into gear, inched backward till Sarge shouted, “Whoa.” He hopped out, leaving the motor rumbling and “Yellow Submarine,” the new Beatles hit, blaring.

  “Awright ya damn hippie, go fetch our witness,” the sergeant said, swatting Andy’s arm. He didn’t know how the kid could stand that cat strangle they called rock-and-roll. Kids liked a lot of crazy things, he supposed. “Rest of you, block the sidewalk with your big fine selves.”

  “Holy cow, Sarge,” Andy said, raising his eyes to the high, thin clouds. “We expecting airborne commandos to kidnap this galoot?”

  The sergeant’s eye roll said he, too, thought the precautions silly, but the big cheeses wanted it that way. “Just do it.”

  Andy saluted, double-timed inside.

  “He’s a good kid, Wayne,” the sergeant said fondly. “Gonna be a fine copper.”

  “He already is,” Wayne said.

  His little brother had wanted to be a police officer since he could go “bang-bang” with finger and thumb. Wayne pinned on the badge himself when the Naperville Police Department swore Andy in. The Polaroid that Pop snapped stood proudly on the Queen Anne’s mantel, next to the one of Wayne graduating law school. “He already is,” he repeated.

  “Yeah. Your folks should be proud. Both sons in law enforcement.”

  “Andy’s the law,” Wayne said. “I’m the order.”

  The sergeant laughed, then laid out the route for his plainclothesmen. “All right, they’re coming out,” he said. “We go the moment Brendan’s butt hits the seat.”

  “See you at the grand jury,” Wayne said.

  “We’ll get there when we get there,” the sergeant said. “Don’t want to use lights and sirens. Earl Monroe still wants to knock this guy off, and I don’t want to give him a target.”

  Wayne turned to leave but felt a twinge in his bladder. He wouldn’t have time to relieve himself at the courthouse. “Where’s the head on this ship, Sarge?”

  “Green door,” he replied, pointing with his chin. “Next to the ice machine. Can’t miss it.”

  Wayne hurried away.

  Earl thumbed the center wheel to sharpen the focus.

  The coot janitor was his kid brother Daniel, brushing suds with one hand and unbuttoning his coveralls with the other. He was sweating a lot harder than August would dictate, and his jaw, carpeted with fake sideburns, moved sideways, something he did only when extremely nervous. His belly was the size of a feather pillow. That made no sense at all - Danny was thin as a whippet. He was hiding something underneath . . .