Crime Song

by David Swinson

  She disconnects.

  “Shit.”

  What did she mean by that? My father? I never even knew my father. Or does she mean my stepfather?

  I want to throw the phone but realize I need it. I wanna break something.

  I snort a hefty pile of coke instead.

  Lawyer? Why the hell not?

  I put my latex gloves on, fill a bucket of water with too much bleach mixed in, and pick up a rag from a bunch of old rags I got out of the backyard shed. Never had to clean up blood before. Well, my own on occasion, but never spilled like this.

  My cell’s been ringing off the hook. Mostly from Leslie and Al Luna, but there are a couple other numbers I don’t recognize. Luna was my partner at Narcotics Branch when I was on the job, and he’s about the only one I keep in touch with now and still call a friend.

  I also did a quick fix on the door. It’ll have to be replaced. I boarded it up with two-by-fours I had lying around. It’s more secure now than it was before. Maybe I should leave it that way. I rarely use the back door.

  I toss the soaked rag in a heavyweight trash bag, pick up a clean one, and let it soak up the bleach water and then scrub again. Most of it is soaked up. The grout will have to be scrubbed. I feel sick. All I can see is his face as a five-year-old, a puffy black eye, and a snicker because he was so proud of it.

  My doorbell rings. Startles me.

  I drop the nearly blood-soaked rag in the bucket, peel off the latex gloves, and toss them in the garbage bag. I grab my gun from the kitchen counter.

  Gun tucked to my side, I peek through the peephole. It’s dark out, but my porch light is on. It’s Leslie and Luna. I open the door.

  Leslie is still in her work clothes, light gray pantsuit with flared cuffs. That usually means she was in court. Luna is dressed down, probably straight from work, too.

  “What the hell, Frankie?” Luna belts out.

  “Are you okay?” Leslie asks. “We’ve been calling all day. I finally called Al, and we met up here.”

  “I’m sorry. Come in.”

  I close the door behind them, dead-bolt it.

  They see me holding the gun.

  “You okay?”

  I can only stare back at them.

  “Saw your house on the news,” Luna says. “I drove here earlier, but they wouldn’t let me in.”

  “It’s a mess in here. I need a drink,” I say. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’ll have some of what you’re going to have.” Luna nods his head to the dining room.

  “Have a seat,” I tell them, then set my gun on the end table and walk into the dining room to find a couple of glasses. I pour more than a double in each.

  Leslie is sitting on the middle of the sofa and Luna on the armchair. I hand him his drink, then sit next to Leslie.

  “Obviously Detective Millhoff didn’t talk to you yet.”

  “Millhoff? Why would he want to talk to me?” Leslie asks.

  “Shouldn’t have even said anything, but when he asked if I talked to anyone about a case I was working, I told him you. He’s going to call to confirm information is all.”

  “What case?”

  “The one involving my cousin at GW.”

  “Does he have something to do with this?” she asks with concern.

  “He was found dead on my kitchen floor. Shot.”

  “Oh, my God. What happened?”

  “I don’t have a clue. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Frankie, I’m so sorry,” Leslie says.

  She places her hand gently on my knee.

  “I’m at my wit’s end here. Seems like a burglary gone bad, but I just don’t know. I followed him over the course of several days, sometimes for hours. I don’t believe in coincidence, especially when the odds are a million to one. There has to be a connection. I’m fucking losing my mind trying to figure this out.”

  I know how it looks.

  “I know this doesn’t look good for me,” I say.

  “It’s some fucked-up shit, but Millhoff’s good people. He’ll work it through,” Luna says.

  “Yeah, good people, but it’s a high-profile case that the chief’s going to want a quick closure on. When the pressure’s hot, I’ve seen Homicide take down people on nothin’ but circumstantial evidence before, and that’s sure as hell not about to be me.”

  “Tell me you had nothing to do with this, Frankie,” Leslie says with concern.

  I look at her directly. She’s stunning, even with her face etched with worry.

  “Are you kidding me? Leslie, of course not. I didn’t murder my cousin.”

  “You got an alibi, right?” Luna asks after a sip of whiskey.

  “Shut the fuck up, Luna. I don’t need an alibi, but I got one.”

  It’s a pretty soft alibi, but I don’t want them to panic, especially Leslie.

  “Well, you don’t talk to the police anymore without me being present,” she says.

  “I don’t need a lawyer, Leslie. This is some weird shit here, but I had nothing to do with it. I called his mom earlier. Won’t have anything to do with me, like she thinks I was responsible for his death.”

  Maybe I was.

  “She’s family,” Luna says. “She’ll come around.”

  “I don’t know if there’s any coming around this shit,” I say, more to myself than to her.

  “You need to talk to her face-to-face,” Leslie tells me. “She’ll have to come to DC—you know…the body.”

  I shake my head at the thought of her having to identify his body.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  Luna downs the double shot without any effort.

  He stands, bends toward me, places the palm of his hand on my shoulder. Gives it a friendly squeeze. “Call me tomorrow, Frank. I got to go close shop. I’m acting sergeant this evening.”

  “Chew some gum,” I tell him, because his breath smells of whiskey.

  “Right. I’ll look into this shit on my end, see what I can find out. I’ll get your cousin’s info from my boy. Don’t worry. And you need anything, you call.”

  “Thanks.” I stand up to let him out.

  We walk to the door and do a brotherly shoulder half hug.

  “Thanks, man. Sorry I didn’t get to you earlier.”

  “No worries.”

  I lock the door when he leaves.

  Leslie’s sipping some of my whiskey.

  “You want a glass?”

  “I just wanted a sip.”

  Before I can sit she says, “Let me take you to dinner, then maybe you should come stay with me.”

  Sounds damn good except for the dinner part. I don’t want to be seen anywhere.

  “How about we call for Chinese takeout when we get to your house?” I ask.

  “Even better. I’ll drive. You want to get some things together?”

  “Get out of these clothes is all, but I need to take care of something in the kitchen. You mind waiting here, sip my whiskey?”

  She smiles and takes a delicate sip. I smile back, grab my backpack from the floor, and head to the kitchen to tie up that trash bag and clean up what I can.

  I’m used to seeing all my vinyl and CDs stacked together as I walk out of the living room. Damn. This fucking crime-infested city. I’m gonna catch the fuck who killed Jeffrey, maybe get my shit back in the process. Fucking crackhead burglars. Murderers.

  Eleven

  I hate sitting outside when it’s so hot and humid. Doesn’t bother Leslie a bit.

  “You sure you can handle it?” she asks beside me on her front stoop.

  “I’ll suffer for you.”

  A glass of wine or two will be fine out here, but certainly not hot Chinese food. I might pass the fuck out.

  “Millhoff is treating me like a suspect,” I say outta nowhere.

  “You’re not guilty of anything, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “Leslie. Come on. You know how these things can play.”

  “You can
’t believe that, Frankie, and you know I’m here if you need me.”

  “I know you are.”

  “You need to call your Aunt Linda, try to talk to her again.”

  “Yeah, I know. But like I said, it didn’t go so well the first time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Aunt Linda. She’s much younger than my mom was. Had to be something like nineteen when my mom died, but she was always there for me. Stayed at my stepdad’s house here in DC for a while. Looked after me.”

  I turn to Leslie, not that I expect her to say anything. I just look. She smiles, but it’s not just a smile. It’s like radiating warmth for my insides.

  “I was about five. Linda married much later in life. Funny—when she got divorced Jeffrey was around five. I was there for him, too. Watched over him. I don’t want her to think what she must be thinking. That I’m responsible—or worse.”

  “She’s grieving, but it sounds like there’s a lot of love between the two of you. Good history, too.”

  “I don’t know why I lost touch.”

  Yes, I do.

  “Give her time. It’s a difficult situation for her. For you.”

  “And I can’t make sense of it. My fucking brain’s all tangled up.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t know where you lived?”

  “Yes. No, actually. Even if he did, it still wouldn’t make sense. I mean, he just happened to walk into a burglary in progress? What are the chances of that?”

  She scoots closer and wraps her arm around me. I put my hand on her thigh, gently caress it.

  Jeffrey’s face suddenly pops into my head. For some reason, I see him when he had a black eye and I was the one who gave it to him.

  “What?” Leslie asks.

  I look at her. “What do you mean, ‘What?’”

  “You just smiled.”

  “Didn’t realize.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Just strange. Outta nowhere, this image of Jeffrey pops into my head. It was during that time just after Aunt Linda’s divorce, when he was five years old. I gave him his first black eye. We were playing catch, and the softball tipped off his mitt. Smacked him hard in the right eye. Told him a bit later that it was a nice shiner. Didn’t even cry until he looked in the mirror and saw his puffed-up purplish black eye. Aunt Linda got real pissed, but we laughed about it later, ’cause after all the crying, Jeffrey seemed proud of it. Fuck.”

  Leslie rubs my back.

  “He was a good boy. I shouldn’t have taken the surveillance as far as I did. Once I knew what he was into I shoulda just talked to him.”

  “When was the last time you two talked?”

  “Couple years before I retired, so maybe seven years? Drove there for Thanksgiving. He was fourteen.”

  “It’s not your fault, you know.”

  I can’t reply to that, ’cause I think it is.

  We sit quietly, and her hand caressing my shoulder almost takes me away from these thoughts.

  I notice a guy walking on the other side of the street.

  “Dude walking this way across the street is looking for a car to hit,” I say, trying to keep my mind from going back there.

  “Oh, really? Based on your years of experience or just profiling?”

  “Obviously both.”

  “Looks like a normal man walking home to me.”

  “You’ve lost your cop sense. Watch him.”

  She does while sipping her Pinot.

  “Look how he’s walking close to the curb, head turning ever so slightly to look inside the cars as he passes.”

  When the man gets closer, he notices us on the steps.

  “See? Now it’s blown for him. Not looking in the cars anymore, just trying to walk normally.”

  He passes, but it’s too dark to get a good view, so I can’t make out if he looks like a crackhead.

  “Go on, now, move on outta here, find another block to hit,” I say too low for him to hear.

  Leslie shakes it off.

  “What about that woman over there?” she asks.

  A woman appears at the corner, talking on her phone. She crosses the street to our side, walking our way.

  “Clueless. Not aware of her surroundings. She’s a victim.”

  “I talk on my cell when I’m walking. A lot. I’ve never been robbed.”

  “Two things. You walk like you belong, and you can take care of yourself. Same way I know a bad guy when I see him.”

  The young lady walks past, gives us a nice smile.

  We both smile back, and Leslie adds a wave.

  “Victim,” I say.

  I sip the wine, look at Leslie. Her heavy hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her lips are closed, but she always looks like she has a bit of a smile. Unaffected. So pretty. I want to kiss her on the cheek. I do. She turns, shoots me a real smile, then leans over to give me a quick peck on the lips.

  I notice a marked cruiser turning the corner, slowly driving the block our direction. The driver’s-side window is facing us. Gets closer, and I notice he’s a 10-99 unit. The window down with his arm hanging out like he’s enjoying the thick humidity. He slows down even more as he passes.

  Leslies waves, and I shoot him a thumbs-up.

  He just turns slightly toward us, gives us an odd, flat glare, speeds up, and takes the next right.

  “That’s rude,” Leslie says.

  “Maybe, but you gotta give him a break. It’s tough being a cop now, not knowing who’s out to get you, destroy your life.”

  The delivery guy arrives after a few minutes. We go inside, find a mindless action-adventure movie on cable, eat, and drink more wine.

  I know she’s worried. Hell, I’m worried. I should be more concerned with finding out who killed Jeffrey. But here’s the thing I can’t get my head around: Why was Jeffrey murdered in my house? Someone knows we’re connected. Someone’s pushing a pin into me.

  Sure, Leslie wants to talk about it, but she knows me well enough to know I’m not gonna talk about it now. Right now, I want my focus to be on her. Tomorrow—well, that’s a fucking new day.

  When I wake up beside her in the morning, I realize I didn’t do any blow the whole night. I slept soundly. Her company kept me from craving, kept me from worrying.

  Twelve

  Before stepping out of my car I scan the area, check for newspeople or anything suspicious. When I get to my porch, I stand and listen before unlocking the door, like I’m worried that whoever murdered Jeffrey will come back.

  I lock the door behind me, sit on the sofa, and light a smoke.

  I check the Fox 5 app on my iPhone for the news.

  Jeffrey’s mother is already in town. It’s a top story. I drop the phone on the end table and lean back on the sofa, try to rest my eyes.

  It’s a decent half hour before panic sets in—being hit with the realization that I’ll run out of blow before I can find more. This is not a pleasant place to be. Last thing I wanna do is rush into something and get caught up in a situation I might not be able to talk my way out of or even walk my way out of. Busting into Jeffrey’s apartment like that is a good example of acting without fully thinking it through. Who knows how bad I fucked it for Millhoff? I actually feel sick about it, but what can I do except let it take its crooked course? I’m not worried about the burglary leading to me. In fact that’s the last thing I’m worried about. I’m more worried about the homicide investigation and, even more important, having to fucking re-up. There is too much going on around me, though. I was on the fucking news. I don’t need this, especially now.

  In the kitchen I recoil, thinking I see Jeffrey there again, wrecked on the floor with blood all over him. I did this, somehow. I brought this.

  Thirteen

  I allow myself a very small bump—no thought, no effort. Yes, elevation, and a certain…reassurance. There it is. But it can only feel that way when you know there’s more to come. I have more. But I need more.

  I gotta get my m
ind off this. Think about the case.

  I hop in the car and make my way to a record store I used to frequent. The owner sells some old vinyl and CDs, but mostly new. I hope he’s smart enough, and decent enough, to buy from the right people. He always seemed straight up. But you never know. I could’ve been buying stolen shit from him for all I know. I’m sure Hurley will get around to checking out the record store, too. Maybe he already has, but I need to do something or I’ll just sit around here and burn through my stash. Fucking can’t have that. Where would I be then?

  Probably up to something stupid.

  One thing I know about burglaries—the motivation is mostly crack, sometimes heroin. I know that world well. Worked narcotics most of my career on the department. That’d be about fourteen out of seventeen years. It made me the man I am today. Damn if that doesn’t make me smile, but only for a second. It’s ironic, because that’s when I started using again, and of course eventually got caught. Then coerced into early retirement. The good thing is, only the ones who forced me into early retirement know the backstory. That spared a lot of friendships, like Luna’s, and the relationship I still have with most of the members of the department. And then there’s Leslie, the most important one of all. God help me if I ever lose her.

  It’s not even a five-minute drive from my house. Finding a parking spot takes longer. Would have been quicker if I had walked from home. I eventually find a legal spot about a block away.

  Some of the old row houses along the U Street corridor have been converted into trendy shops. The record store is located in an English basement below one of those spots, a two-story clothing store that caters to the anorexic.

  Down two short flights of stairs, and I open a door to a small rectangular space riddled with bins filled with vinyl and, along the left wall, one large bin stacked with CDs. A song I can’t remember the name of by the Screaming Trees is playing in the background. Reminds me of Leslie for some reason. She likes them. Me, too. The music is at a moderate level, but it’s begging for more volume. Every bit of wall space is taken up by posters and small gig flyers, both current and from back in the eighties, when I was a kid and into the scene.

  There’s a young kid, maybe in his teens, at a bin containing R & B CDs. He’s wearing an overly large T-shirt and baggy jeans. Oscar, the owner, is standing behind a glass counter looking at what appears to be an order sheet. He breaks away from it, turns his spindly body toward me, almost an about-face but a little more lurchlike.