Crime Song

by David Swinson

  I also have a shelf where I store several large baggies of weed; four pill containers, the labels torn off, containing Oxy, Vicodin, Valium, and Klonopin, none of which is prescribed for me; another shelf that holds a little more than twenty grand in cash, stacked and secured with rubber bands; and a baggie that contains around an ounce of good powder. That’s what’s left—an ounce.

  Who knows if I’ll get anything out of Jeffrey’s apartment? So I gotta slow down a bit on what blow I have left. My body says I gotta slow down, too. Just have to start cutting back to certain times of the day, never while working. Unless it’s an emergency. Most of the time it is. That’s why I have to do the quick hit on my little cousin’s place and have a plan for what comes after. Planning these ops and then executing them can often take up more of my time than my real job as a PI. But that, along with my scanty pension and whatever work Leslie Costello throws my way, pays the bills.

  I’m not getting much work from Leslie, though. It’s taken a while, ’cause I’ve known her for a long time, but we’ve finally settled into a relationship of sorts. It’s something cozy and fun for now. But I don’t think she feels comfortable with bossing me or having to pay me for my PI services. I don’t mind. I actually like it.

  After I’ve had my time with the bank, I slide the wall back, secure it.

  Upstairs, I grab two 1mg Klonopin pills out of a container I keep in my pocket and down them with a nice shot of Jameson.

  I set my iPhone on the coffee table in case Leslie calls, think about putting an old Johnny Cash record or maybe the Cowboy Junkies’ The Trinity Session on the turntable. I light up a smoke instead and bide my time reclining on the sofa. After a bit, the Klonopin flows. It helps ease the tension and my cravings with it.

  Four

  Daylight is sudden. Trying to surprise me by creeping behind the top edge of the curtains. Pretty sure I found sleep. Unusual because of the amount of blow I put through my system. I check the time on my phone: 7:00 a.m. Damn!

  No time for a shower, just a quick change of clothing. I throw on a newly pressed shirt and the suit from last night, but no tie. I snort up a couple of lines. Almost feel human again. I check the vial to make sure I’m supplied, then secure my holster and the pouch holding two magazines to my belt, grab my backpack containing my essential items, and head out the front door. I lock it, check it, then check it again.

  I have a little time to kill before Jeffrey goes to his class, so I head to the diner on 18th Street in Adams Morgan for a couple cups of coffee and a quick bite.

  When I’m done, I drive to Jeffrey’s little English-basement apartment on N Street. Don’t see his car. I drive around twice looking for a legal parking spot. Find one around the corner on 22nd. He’ll have left for classes by now.

  It ain’t cheap renting in this area. GW ain’t cheap, either. Aunt Linda must’ve done well for herself, especially after the divorce. It’s too bad about Jeffrey, but I’ll snatch him up eventually. Try to talk some sense into him. But first I’m sure he’ll be good for at least a couple of ounces, maybe more. That’s only pocket shit for me, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

  He’s too easy, really. All these expensive homes, with their heavy landscaping, make for perfect targets. I have to wonder how many of these spots have already been hit. One more won’t matter. Doubtful if Jeffrey will even report it. After I get done in there I’m sure that’ll be the last thing on his mind.

  I walk down the steps to his front door like I got a reason for being there. I take the tactical gloves out of a side pocket of the backpack and slip them on. Ring the doorbell. After a minute, ring it again, followed by a couple of knocks on one of the door’s square glass panes. I look behind me and up the steps. Clear. The brick walls on either side of me are concealment enough. The front door looks simple—probably just need a screwdriver to pry it open, or, better yet, I could smash out one of the door’s glass panes.

  I grab a hand towel and a screwdriver out of the middle compartment of my pack, fold up the towel, and cover a corner pane on the door. Using the butt end of the screwdriver, I hit the towel toward the bottom, smashing the glass inward. Only sound comes from inside when the glass breaks on the floor. I reach in and unlatch the door, open it, step in, and lock it behind me. I stand still by the front door for a moment to survey the scene. To listen.

  Looks like it was furnished by the owners, not a kid Jeffrey’s age. The small living room opens to a tiny kitchen separated from the living room by a wooden breakfast counter and three stools. A love seat flanked by two mission-style end tables is against the wall ahead of me. There’s a coffee table in front of it and an armchair to the side. A sixty-inch flat-screen television, along with an Xbox and several stacks of Xbox games, sits on another coffee table across from the sofa. A short hallway to the right of the kitchen leads to two doors on the left and one at the end of the hall, which is probably his bedroom. I scan the ceiling and the walls, including the entryway where I’m standing. Nothing that looks like surveillance. Don’t expect it, but you never know, especially when the occupant is a rich white kid dealing drugs. My little cousin: damn.

  It’s messy, but the kind of messiness you’d expect from a kid his age living on his own—worn clothing hanging over the sofa; sneakers everywhere; couple of empty containers of Chinese takeout with plastic forks still in them; microbrew beer bottles on the coffee table and breakfast counter. Not close to looking or even smelling like some of the spots I’ve hit over the years, both in my current position and when I was on the job executing actual search warrants.

  When I’ve taken in enough I walk down the hall toward his bedroom. I always start in the bedroom. That’s where I usually find what I’m looking for. Most of these boys like to keep the shit close.

  The bedroom is messier than the living room. No family photos. Something happened there; probably the divorce. I look under the bed, lift the mattress, but don’t find anything. Find a couple of joints in an ashtray on the nightstand beside his bed. I put them in my shirt pocket. I search the drawers, then go to the closet. After a thorough search of the bedroom I return to the living room area and the small kitchen. I find some paraphernalia in a cabinet beside the stove—little Ziploc bags for quarter and half grams, a scale with residue on it, cutting agents, and that’s fucking about it. It pisses me off. I mean, who am I to judge? But shit, I don’t deal, and I certainly wouldn’t want to put my lifestyle on someone else, especially Jeffrey. It ain’t for everyone.

  The apartment is so small it doesn’t take long. I’ve spent too much time in here already. He either took the shit with him or hooked up at the club and didn’t come home at all. Fucking waste of my time. Fuck.

  I roll out. Figure I’ll go back home and write this thing up for Aunt Linda. I got what she wants—or, rather, what she doesn’t want. I’ll give her some comfort and say I’ll talk to him, scare him, even. I know how to use fear, and with any luck Jeffrey’s not so far gone that it won’t work.

  Five

  When I make the turn onto 12th I see several marked and unmarked units as well as an ambulance. Couple of local news media vans, too, with cameras already set up on tripods. Looks like a bad scene, and it’s near my house. Shit, I’m high. Now I have to take an illegal spot at the corner. And fuck, I gotta walk through all that to get to my house. If I can get to my house. They got the yellow tape up, connected to a fence a couple homes down from mine and stretching across the sidewalk to a utility pole. One of the cruisers, I notice, is cruiser 1.

  The damn chief.

  A few neighbors are out. Worried faces all around.

  When I get half a block up I’m more than startled to see the house they’re moving through is mine.

  Fuck!

  I got my pack full with shit I don’t want to be found, and I probably smell like weed.

  I light a cigarette. Puff the smoke down so it folds around my clothes.

  What good is that?

  Did they finally hit me,
and that’s a search warrant?

  I think about going back to my car, taking off. At the least drop the pack off in my car. Taking off sounds better, though.

  I’m frozen. I never freeze.

  One of the officers notices me. I know him. Hal Lloyd. He’s an old-timer outta 3D. He waves me toward him, then signals a detective close by and points me out to him.

  I think I just got fucked.

  Cameras pan toward me.

  So much for taking off.

  I acknowledge him, and after a couple more puffs of the cigarette I slowly make my way over there, still considering the possibility of running.

  How stupid is that? Fucking cameras got me on the local news now.

  “That’s my house. What the hell’s going on here, Lloyd?” I ask.

  “Hey, Frankie. I’ll let the detective here advise you about that,” he says while lifting the tape so I can duck under and enter.

  The young detective is there to greet me. No cuffs out, so maybe…

  “Detective Joe Hurley.” He introduces himself and extends his hand to shake.

  I accept.

  “What happened?” I ask with more than a bit of trepidation.

  “Let’s talk at your house. Let me get the detective on the scene.”

  When they don’t answer, then it’s not gonna be good.

  “You’re a detective,” I tell him.

  “I’m on a burglary-fencing task force downtown. I’m not the lead on this.”

  “My house was burglarized?”

  “Let’s find Detective Millhoff.”

  When they don’t answer…

  “Millhoff? I know him. He’s Homicide.”

  “He’s inside your house” is all he says.

  The chief is standing beside his number two man, Deputy Chief Garrett Wightman, who is on his cell. I have a history with Wightman, and it’s not good. What the fuck is going on? Am I done? They got something on me and hit my house?

  The chief turns to take notice of me, but there’s no reaction. He just lets the detective walk me to my stoop.

  I snuff my cigarette out on the sidewalk. Heart’s racing. I need a drink.

  I notice Wightman again. He’s off his cell. Looks at me hard. Not with the Wightman half smile that he likes to give to those who are about to get fucked, so maybe…

  Six

  My house is a crime scene.

  I’m in the hallway but can see to my living room. It’s been ransacked. Sofa cushions are turned over; end-table drawers are open and the contents spilled out.

  Search warrant or burglary?

  Hurley steps away toward my kitchen to find Millhoff. He walks past the laundry room, where my stash wall is. Doesn’t look that way when he passes. A good sign? It’s a small room, so even from here I’d notice movement inside. But maybe they already cleared it. Can’t take not knowing.

  I’m not in handcuffs, but a rookie in uniform is stationed at the front door behind me. Seems at ease as I stand there alone.

  Millhoff walks out of the kitchen, followed by Hurley. He doesn’t gaze in the laundry room, either. Millhoff has latex gloves on. He’s wearing khakis and an untucked navy-blue polo shirt with MPDC HOMICIDE BRANCH embroidered in gold on the breast. I go back with Millhoff. He’s good people. Handled a drive-by shooting I got caught up in about a year back when I was working a missing-girl case. A patrol officer got killed on that one. I was damn lucky. Most of that crew they arrested will be lucky if they ever see the light of day. The cop who got killed was found to be dirty. Of course that was based on information I leaked to a certain FBI agent. Didn’t hear much about that part on the news. Go figure. You didn’t hear anything about my early retirement on the news, either.

  “Frank” is how he greets me.

  Doesn’t take off the latex gloves to shake.

  “What the hell is going on here, Timmy?” I ask.

  I look in my living room.

  “That wasn’t us,” he says like he knows I’m worried.

  “You saying my house got hit?” I ask Millhoff.

  “It looks that way. Where you been?”

  “Working a job early this morning, then breakfast. So why the hell you here? And for that matter, why the two chiefs outside just for a burglary?”

  My stash wall.

  “Can we talk in your living room?”

  That was a question.

  “Yeah.”

  They follow me into the living room.

  Wires are hanging out of a hole in the wall where the flat-screen once was. Worst of all, the stereo equipment, including the old turntable and vinyl collection, most of which belonged to my mother, gone, along with my CD collection. Who’d steal vinyl? The laptop’s also missing from the coffee table.

  “Shit,” I say.

  Lot of activity in the kitchen. I try to get a glimpse. I got a strong feeling about what’s in there. The air has a nauseating sweet odor to it. I’m all too familiar with that smell.

  Hurley lifts a couple of the cushions off the floor and places them back on the sofa. I sit on the edge so I can look toward the kitchen. Millhoff takes the armchair.

  I light a smoke, offer one to Millhoff and Hurley.

  Shake their heads.

  “You have a roommate, Frankie?”

  What kinda question is that?

  “No, of course not. I live alone. You got a body in my kitchen,” I say, not ask.

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Police-involved shooting? The burglar?” I ask, assuming it was a burglary in progress that went bad.

  “Not police-involved,” Millhoff says.

  What the hell, then?

  I feel uncomfortable as shit sitting there, high as I am. Racing heart and negative adrenalin is making it worse. My head like a hare trying to outrace a pack of wolves.

  “You were working these last couple of hours?” Millhoff asks again.

  “What?”

  “What the fuck, Frank? I gotta ask. You know that.”

  “What you gotta do is tell me what happened in my house.”

  “All right. Was going to have to do this part anyway. May as well now.” He stands. “I’m going to need to see if you can identify the body.”

  “Fuck,” I say more like an exhale of air.

  Please, not my stash wall.

  I need to know.

  I snuff out my smoke and follow Millhoff through the dining room and into the kitchen. Another detective is there, but I don’t know him.

  A body on the floor.

  My back door busted inward, splintered frame.

  A white male.

  On his back.

  It’s Jeffrey. My cousin. My legs buckle a bit, feeling like I’m about to fall out.

  “Frank?” Millhoff sounds concerned.

  Holy fuck!

  His shirt’s rich with blood. A fresh color at the chest with an area near his waist that has pooled. Looks like strawberry Jell-O without the film coating. And this was the smell in my home—a lingering, disagreeably sweet odor. My cousin’s.

  I drop to my knee.

  “You okay, Frank?” Millhoff asks.

  I don’t respond.

  Death is in his dull eyes—a frozen, forsaken stare, as if taken by surprise. He’s wearing the same clothes he wore last night at the club. Jacket’s still on. Same V-neck T-shirt, but his blood has turned it a darker shade of gray. I wanna put my hand on his head, feel him. He can’t be dead.

  “What in the fuck—”

  “Frank, you know this guy?”

  But still—my stash wall.

  Seven

  He’s my cousin. Jeffrey Baldwin,” I say. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  His face an older version of the five-year-old kid’s. I wanna take his hand.

  “I thought you said you didn’t have anyone staying with you,” Millhoff says.

  “I don’t. That’s why this doesn’t make sense.”

  “Did he have a key?”

  I don’t answer. I jus
t shake my head, like I’m starting to lose it. Fading away. I have to turn away from him. Can’t look at him like this.

  “Let’s talk in the living room,” Millhoff says.

  Still have enough sense to be worried about my stash.

  How could I think about that right now?

  I purposefully walk toward the hall. They don’t stop me. I watch my steps, though, make sure I don’t trample evidence that might be on the kitchen floor.

  When I enter the narrow hallway I casually look in the laundry room as I pass.

  It’s all good.

  Wall still intact.

  Fuck. I’m so relieved I even get the chills. For a brief moment I feel fine, but then reality slaps me in the face.

  Jeffrey. Dead. On my kitchen floor.

  I light another cigarette when I get back to the sofa.

  This time Hurley sits at the other end. Millhoff on the armchair again. I’m having a tough time. Feeling a bit sick to my stomach, even.

  “Did he have a key to your house?” Millhoff asks again.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Why ‘of course not’?”

  “’Cause he’s the case I’ve been working. For his mother. My aunt. He didn’t know.”

  Did he know?

  “Last time he saw me he was about fourteen years old.”

  “So where exactly have you been the past couple of hours?” Millhoff asks.

  “Driving around the GW campus looking for him.”

  “He was missing?”

  “No. His mother wanted me to watch him. That’s all. Report back if he was up to no good. He was. Why the fuck is he dead in my house? It makes no sense. We never met after he moved here. Never even talked. Everything was surveillance. Nothing close. I don’t understand this shit.”

  “But aren’t they on summer break?” Millhoff asks.

  “He was in summer school.”

  “What’s his address?” Millhoff asks.

  I give it to him, and he writes it in his notebook. He goes on his radio.

  “Carlson, you on?”

  Carlson’s response is filtered through the radio. “Go ahead, Timmy.”