Crime Song

by David Swinson

  “I have an address for the decedent when you’re ready to copy.”

  “Go on.”

  After he gives it to him, Carlson returns with, “I’ll get some patrol guys down there to secure it.”

  Fuck me.

  But I know they won’t find anything they can connect to me. I’m no amateur.

  “What was the kid into?” Millhoff continues.

  “Jeffrey knew I was a cop here. Maybe he found out where I live, came here for help. Or maybe I fucked up and he made me. Came over and he was followed. But it was just petty shit he was into.”

  “Frank, what was he into?”

  “Um—have you notified his mother yet?” I ask.

  “No. We didn’t even know who he was until you identified him.”

  “No ID on his body?”

  “Nothing. Clean. His mother live in the area?”

  “No. Ohio. I forget the town, but I have numbers.”

  “We’ll have to notify her through their local jurisdiction. Not on the phone, but I’ll still need those numbers. So what was he into?” Millhoff tries again.

  Last thing I want to do is hinder a homicide investigation.

  “GW student pretending to be a player; nothing but low-level shit. Deals small quantities of cocaine, weed. Nothing else. Damn.”

  “And you found all this out how?” Millhoff asks.

  I like Millhoff, but that question pisses me off.

  “You forgetting what I did when I was on the job?”

  “No. You were one of the best narcotics detectives in the city. I still gotta ask, though. There has to be some connection that brought him here.”

  “Yes, and I don’t mean to sound hostile. It just…I don’t…I don’t understand this.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t know you were following him?” Millhoff asks.

  “Right now I’m not sure of anything. But I’ve never been burned before.”

  “Anybody else know about you watching him and what he was up to?”

  “Leslie Costello knew I was watching him but not what he was up to.”

  “Former cop Costello turned defense attorney?”

  “Yes. We go out on occasion. Talk about work.”

  “We’ll need to talk to her.”

  “There’s no connection there, but do what you gotta do.”

  “Anyone else you can think of you may have talked to?”

  “No,” I say. “I was coming home to write it up for his mother and give her a call after.”

  “You were coming straight from the GW area?” he asks.

  “Yeah. His car wasn’t there, so I figured he finally went to a class.”

  “Approximately what time in the morning did you leave your home?” Hurley asks.

  “Maybe oh-seven-hundred. Wanted to try to catch him leaving his place and going to class. Like I said, the car wasn’t there, so I stuck around for a bit. I’m guessing patrol got dispatched for sound of gunshots here.”

  “Yeah,” Millhoff advises.

  “With what I saw outside, including the media and in here, it had to be close to an hour ago, maybe less. Right?”

  “Something like that.” Millhoff is vague.

  “Neighbors see anything?”

  “Got our boys canvassing now.”

  I start thinking like a cop again.

  “The back alley is narrow as shit. Hardly fit in one car. Couple of the homes rear of mine are three stories. Might want to have that street canvassed, too.”

  “We’re on it, Frank.”

  “His car, too,” I say as I pull the notebook out of my back pants pocket.

  Leafing through it, I find the entry I made when I first made his car, including the tag. I hand it over to Millhoff. He copies the information into his notebook. He seems to hesitate before handing it back to me.

  “Can I keep this? Make copies and return it?” he asks.

  “Fuck no. That’s about all the notes I took on him, anyway. It wasn’t the kind of case that involved a lot of note taking.”

  I have nothing to hide in there. I’m not stupid enough to take notes about what I do outside my legit work, so I add, “Go ahead and look through it if you want. I certainly don’t want to impede your investigation, but I’m not giving it up to you.”

  It pisses me off when he takes me up on it and looks through it briefly. Fucking doesn’t trust me. He hands the notebook back. I slip it back in my pocket.

  “Thanks, Frankie,” he says. “Rizzi!” he calls out toward the kitchen.

  “Yeah” from the kitchen, then a young plainclothes officer appears.

  “This is the info on the decedent’s car. Get a couple of patrol guys to canvass the area, all right?”

  “Copy that.”

  After Rizzi writes everything down in his notebook, he exits the front door.

  “Did you identify where he was getting his drugs?” Hurley asks.

  “Huh? No. No, that wasn’t part of it. But I did see him get re-upped a couple of times. A trendy dance club on Connecticut every Thursday night.”

  “Last night, then?” asks Hurley.

  “Yeah, last night.”

  “What trendy club?”

  “Spotlight.”

  “You were there last night?” Now it’s Millhoff asking.

  “Yes. Look in his breast pocket. He should have a baggie of cocaine or something.”

  “He’s clean. Remember I said he was clean. No ID, keys, nothing,” Millhoff says.

  “The kid your cousin met with—you think he could’ve made you?” Hurley asks.

  “No. Too much going on in the club, and it’s not like I was in his face. In fact I was talking to Willy Jasper from 1D.”

  “I know Jasper. He’s a good FTO,” Hurley says.

  “Yeah, and I don’t want to get him fucked up, because he’s got one of those part-times at the club. And you know how Wightman can be.”

  “I could care less about the part-time. Hell, I work one. Does he know your cousin?” Millhoff asks.

  “Why would he know my cousin?”

  “Because he’s working part-time as an officer in the club where your cousin was dealing drugs.”

  “That’s something you’d have to ask Jasper. But I doubt it.”

  “Why were you looking for Jeffrey this morning?” Now Hurley.

  “I told you. His mother wanted to know when he was cutting classes. I know he had one this morning, though.”

  “Obviously he wasn’t there?”

  “What, we repeating questions now?” I say, a bit hyped.

  No answer from either of them.

  “By the way, those look to be the same clothes he was wearing last night,” I add, then “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” like I thought it instead of said it.

  “What?” Millhoff asks.

  “What do you mean, ‘What?’”

  “You just said ‘fuck, fuck, fuck’ like you realized something.”

  “What? No, it’s just…” I try to keep my heart from hammering too loud. “There’s got to be something I’m missing.”

  “Well, let’s work through it, then,” Millhoff advises.

  “Did you follow him out after he re-upped?” Hurley asks.

  “No. I only wanted to see him do that shit, and I was out of there. Can’t stand the music.”

  “Would you be able to recognize the guy who brought him the drugs if you saw him again?”

  “Yeah, pretty sure I can.”

  “Describe him for me.”

  “Medium complexion, early twenties, maybe five eight, dreads down to his shoulders. He was wearing a T-shirt with a marijuana-leaf design on it. There’s a female bartender who was working. She served him a couple of times. Maybe she knows him.”

  “You know her name?”

  “No, but she was the only female bartender working when I was there. First time I was surveilling him, though, he stayed until closing. Left alone.”

  “What times were you there?”

  “Around ni
neteen thirty to around twenty-three hundred hours.”

  My mind, still riding on coke, keeps moving.

  “What was he shot with?” I ask.

  “We don’t have that yet,” Millhoff says, and I know he’s not telling the truth.

  “I have a .38 I keep upstairs in my nightstand drawer. You’ll wanna go check if it’s there.”

  Hurley stands.

  “I’ll check it out. Be right back,” he says.

  “You know how it looks, Frank,” Millhoff says after Hurley leaves. “For all we know you were gone because you were disposing of your own property. You confronted your cousin about what he was doing, and it went real bad.”

  “Fuck you, Tim.”

  “And you made it look like a burglary.”

  “He is my cousin, but if I was the shooter I’d sure as hell do a better job at making it look otherwise. The body certainly wouldn’t be in my kitchen. So again, fuck you.”

  “Take it easy, Frank. You know I had to go there, just like I have to go here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t leave town.”

  “Fuck you twice.”

  He smiles, but it’s the kinda smile you make when you understand.

  “Don’t waste too much time on me or you’ll never solve it, ’cause next time it’ll be more than a ‘fuck you.’”

  “That a threat?”

  “A bitch-slap threat.”

  He smiles again, differently this time.

  Eight

  There’s gotta be an answer.

  I try hard to relax myself on the sofa, take slow, deep breaths, without drawing attention to how high I am.

  “I’ll need an inventory of what’s been stolen,” Hurley tells me. “When we get finished here, I’ll do a walk-through with you.”

  I bow my head, cup my chin in my hand. I feel sick. I never feel this way when working, but this is my home. My own damn family.

  “Frank, we’re going to have to test you for gunpowder residue. Rule you out. And your fingerprints, because they’re obviously going to be all over your house and we need to rule those out, too,” Millhoff tells me.

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” I respond because I knew that was something Millhoff would ask, and they won’t find my fingerprints at Jeffrey’s house. “You have to let me know when you notify his mom so I can call her, all right?”

  “Of course.”

  I stare at the wires hanging out of the wall and the vacant area on the dusty entertainment console where the CDs and my mom’s vinyl collection and turntable used to be. The thought that it is or was all in the possession of some bottom-feeder sets my blood hot. And there’s Jeffrey.

  I kick the coffee table with the sole of my foot, sending it across the room to land legs up ahead of the fireplace, surprising the hell outta Millhoff and a couple officers in the hallway. Two detectives enter from the kitchen, guns drawn at a tucked position.

  Millhoff waves them off.

  “Didn’t mean to do that. Sorry.”

  “Understandable,” Millhoff says. “Understandable. You’ll have to come to VCU. Give a formal statement.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Nine

  A patrol unit located Jeffrey’s car parked on W, about a block away. They got guys in his house, too. I heard it come over Hurley’s radio that it’s a burglary. Shit. I just made the investigation more complicated for these guys.

  My mind is skipping, tripping over itself. I need a Klonopin. I need two, but Hurley and I are doing the walk-through.

  Everything’s a mess. Same way I’d do it if I were the burglar.

  In my bedroom the drawers have been pulled out, dumped on the floor. Clothing, personal items, and papers tossed into a pile.

  I move around the bed to the nightstand. The drawer and its contents also on the floor. No gun. Back downstairs, I sit on the living room sofa with Hurley. Millhoff is now outside, probably getting Jeffrey’s vehicle towed. I have a preliminary list of what I know to be stolen. The revolver’s serial number is on a concealed-carry permit in my wallet; I note the make, model, caliber, and serial number along with my rounds. I also note approximately two hundred assorted vinyl albums and a few of their titles; approximately three hundred assorted music CDs, also with a few of their titles; one old-model Technics turntable (no serial number); two Polk shelf speakers; a sixty-inch Samsung smart TV; a Samsung laptop (serial number unknown). Approximately three years old. I got the main stuff.

  “Might discover more later,” I tell Hurley.

  “Let me know.”

  He hands me a card with his cell on it.

  “I’m usually always working,” he says.

  “I gotta tell you, I don’t like feeling like a victim. What pisses me off most is the turntable and the records. I inherited about sixty percent of the vinyl from my mother. And the turntable. She used to listen to all her records on that thing.”

  He looks at me funny. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks. I was a little kid when she died. Long fucking time ago.”

  Jeffrey’s fallen body pops into my head, like he’s reminding me from beyond that he should be the focus, not the fucking records.

  “But then there’s Jeffrey. There’s gotta be something I missed, something I didn’t see.”

  “We both know Millhoff is one of the best, and personally, I’m pretty good at what I do. We’ll figure it out.”

  “What task force you on?” I ask.

  “We call it narco-fencing. It’s funded by the feds. We have the biggest burglary-closure rate in the nation. It’s all about that one burglar you get, and then working him up the ladder. Damn—crack houses, organized fencing operations, even mom-and-pop ops. Burglary is the nexus to all crimes, really. The .38 might be a tough one, though. It’s in the wind. Doubtful we’ll ever get that back unless we get lucky on a search warrant or find it on a body.”

  “I hope it won’t come to that—the body, I mean.”

  “Used records and CDs are pretty easy. Those items aren’t easily traded for narcotics. Burglars usually go to pawn shops or secondhand dealers and get the cash. That’s easy enough to check on. Their computers are linked to our database so we can monitor them.”

  “I know that.”

  “Yeah. Unless they purchase the stolen items under the table.”

  “But you can still do a spot check—just show up. I’ll make a list of most of the titles, some of them pretty obscure. I can also identify some of them based on the scribbles on the covers. I made those when I was a kid.”

  He looks at the preliminary list I made.

  “Sorry about the handwriting.”

  He looks it over.

  “Yeah. Some of these titles are unique. Your mother listened to Fugazi?”

  “No. That’s me.”

  “Well, I’m more of a classic rock kinda guy, so I don’t know a lot of these bands. But they’re distinctive, so the odds are almost nonexistent that there’d be another collection with the exact titles in it, especially if there’s a place that bought them soon after your burglary. I mean, you have Johnny Cash, the Carpenters mixed with bands I never heard of. Bad Brains…Dropkick Murphys? What are you into, man? And then, damn—Bread?”

  “One of my mother’s, like most of the others, but more sentimental to me. As far as that other shit, what can I say? I grew up in DC back when the 9:30 Club was cool and Fort Reno was the spot.”

  “I gotcha. And I’ll work it in, brother,” he tells me. “Don’t get your hopes up. You know the odds.”

  “I’ll keep the hope, even though I know the odds.”

  Then there’s Jeffrey again.

  “So you’ll work the property side and Millhoff the homicide?”

  “Yeah. That’s why they have me here. And I have to tell you this because I have a feeling you’re not the type of guy who’s going to sit around and wait on us. Don’t get yourself caught up with anything that’ll interfere with a homicide investigation.
”

  “I’m good at what I do, too.”

  “I realize that, and just like I can’t tell a regular victim that he can’t hire a PI, I can’t order you to sit back. So if you do follow through with something, you make sure to keep me posted, especially if you get a lead. You can easily get yourself in trouble on this one. When you see the chief’s outside your door? You know it’s high priority. And Wightman will fuck you to no end, trust me.”

  Trust me when I say I know that, but I don’t say it.

  “No worries.”

  When we finish, Hurley gets a tech to test for gunpowder residue and take my fingerprints. Negative, but that doesn’t mean shit. I know they’re gonna look at me as a possible suspect. They have to.

  Starting to drift. I light another cigarette. Need something more than nicotine.

  “My downstairs bathroom isn’t a crime scene, is it? I wanna wash this shit off my hands.”

  “This whole house is a crime scene, but they’ve already cleared your hallway bathroom.”

  I set the cigarette in the ashtray, grab my pack, and go to the bathroom to get what I need, which is more than washing my hands.

  Ten

  I got back from VCU late. A no-sleep night. Basically the same questions, but they wanted everything recorded. Millhoff got hard on me, asked me about the smell on me. I understand.

  Now I got this here.

  Cleaning up. The only job cops aren’t required to do.

  Before I get to work on the blood-soaked kitchen floor, I grab my cell to call Aunt Linda.

  She answers on the first ring.

  “Yes,” she says, but the way she says it is enough for me to know she’s been crying for a while.

  “Linda, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say except I’m going to find out who’s responsible.”

  “Who’s responsible? Who’s responsible? Frank, you can talk to our lawyer about who is responsible.”

  “What?”

  “I called you because I had no one else to call. How could you not be responsible?”

  “You have to know I—”

  “I should have known better than to trust you,” she sobs. “You’re just like your father.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t call here anymore, Frank.”