Crime Song

by David Swinson

  “I didn’t kill anybody, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I say with all optimism. “That’s what matters, right? I just wasn’t thinking straight. Jeffrey, dead in my kitchen. I got information that you might be in danger. I got emotional. I took their shit is all and got in a little fight with one of them. I’m gonna turn it over to Hurley. Face the consequences.” I was telling the truth until then. Why’d I have to go there?

  “Emotional? Took their shit? And why would I be in danger unless you put me there?”

  “I need to clear my head, then I can explain better.”

  “You burglarized someone’s house. Like some vigilante. Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  I want to tell her about the grandma. Bring some humanity into it. She doesn’t give me a chance.

  “You’re not rational. It’s like we’re having the same conversation we had months ago when you brought the kidnapped girl to my office instead of to the police. But this is far worse, Frank. You brought this shit into my house.”

  “I’m going to take it to Hurley. Don’t worry.”

  “I said I don’t want to hear any more. Good God, Frankie.” She cradles her head, and I wonder if she’s going to break down and cry. She looks back at me. No tears. “I’ve noticed a change in your behavior over the past few months. I mean, is it the alcohol or is it something more, like that shit in your backpack? I’ve had my suspicions. I’m not stupid. I mean, cocaine test kits? Why the hell would you need those? You’re retired. You don’t work narcotics anymore.”

  “I’ve had those vials forever.”

  “Really? So why did you feel it was necessary to test that coke?”

  “Force of habit.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I hesitate before saying, “Give me a break.” Which is all those defense-attorney ex-cop eyes have to see. Hesitation. I know it. I know she knows it, but still, I can’t admit that to her. Ever. “Why the hell would you search through my shit anyway?”

  “You said you had clean clothes in the bag. You smelled bad, so I was going to get them out for you. I didn’t expect that kind of laundry.”

  “You might be in danger, Leslie.”

  “That’s bullshit, Frank, and you know it. Right now, you’re the only one who makes me feel threatened. Besides, I can take care of myself, whatever it is you got yourself—and maybe me—into.”

  I know she can, probably better than I could.

  “Damn. I’m sorry, Leslie. Really. I mean it. It’s not what you think, though. Stupid drunk is all. I blacked out. I’m not some low-life criminal. Fuck. I don’t even know if you’re in danger or if I dreamed it.”

  “You need to leave, Frank. Turn that shit over to the police. Dump it. I really don’t care, but you have to take it now and go.”

  “I can’t leave like this, Les. I…” I want to say I love her, but I can’t. But I do. Love her.

  “Get dressed and go. Please.”

  “Can we talk later? When my head is more together and I can explain it better? I can’t even remember all that happened.”

  “No. I don’t see how. You’re not who…you’re dangerous, Frank. Stay away.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask like a paranoid dope. It’s the last thing I should ask her.

  “You don’t have to worry.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Les.”

  “This never happened, Frank, because we never happened.”

  Shit.

  Sixty

  Fuck, is this broken. All of it.

  I don’t know where my car is, so I use the key fob, here it chirp up the street. I drag myself there.

  Ticket on the windshield.

  I see the black bag of money in the backseat. What an opportunity for a theft from an auto. Would have made some fucking mope’s year.

  At home, I can’t dump the shit, much as I want to. Instead I scrape a few grams off the good coke, wrap the big one up again, and stash it along with the money and weed in my stash wall. I have to press all the air out of the garbage bag and tie it tight to get it to fit. I clean the speckles of blood off my leather shoes and wash my tactical gloves. I squirt the white shirt with stain remover and drop it in the washer.

  I know Leslie won’t call the police. That is, she won’t unless she sees something on the news about two young drug dealers who were killed during the course of a home invasion.

  Fuck, I hope I didn’t kill them.

  I check the local news app on my phone. Don’t find anything related to Riggs, so I google it. Nothing. That’s a relief.

  I snort some of the good blow. It makes this body right and fine. But not what’s going on in my head. It can’t be over with Leslie. I convince myself that all she needs is time, but then I realize how naive that sounds, given what she discovered and what I told her.

  Damn fucking damn damn. So stupid.

  I need a drink. Never vodka, though. Never again.

  Sixty-One

  I wake up to the sound of intermittent tapping on my bedroom window. I grab hold of my gun and walk toward it. Listen.

  Another tap. Makes me jump back a little. Just a little. My bedroom is on the second floor, and there’s no way someone can scale up the wall, so I’m thinking someone’s tossing something like acorns at it.

  Another tap.

  Pistol held to my thigh, I move forward and peek out but don’t see anything.

  That is, until a large cicada smacks into my window, making the same sound.

  Blunt-headed dope.

  I let the curtain fall back to a closed position, return to my bed, and set the gun back on the nightstand.

  No sense in trying to fall back asleep, so I go downstairs and make coffee. Take my gun with me.

  Stomach aches raw with emptiness and worry, but I’ll need something more than damn grapefruit to satisfy it. The acidity will tear me apart. I drop a couple pieces of wheat bread in the toaster. I use honey instead of butter. That’ll do me for the remainder of the morning.

  I dress down; lightweight khakis and a T-shirt that’s large enough to conceal my firearm and the magazine pouch attached to my belt.

  I need to do something. I can’t sit around all day and mope, ’cause that’ll just send me on a bad binge.

  After I recover, I get in the car and drive to Riggs Street.

  I pass the alley north of Riggs, rear of Grandma’s house, and notice a marked cruiser parked behind it, blocking the alley. I make the right on Riggs and see another cruiser parked along the curb in front. They’ve secured the residence.

  I slide the passenger window down while pulling out my wallet. So I don’t spook him, I roll up beside him with my wallet extended toward the window, opened to reveal the badge. He takes notice, rolls down his window. I slip my wallet back in my pocket and lean toward the passenger window.

  “Hey, Officer. Frank Marr. I’m a retired DC police detective.”

  “You look too young—”

  “Took an early out. Better opportunities, you know.”

  “I get that. Wait—I heard of you,” he says with a smile.

  “That can’t be good,” I say jokingly, but not really.

  “No. I was in the academy with Joe Hurley.”

  “Hurley. Of course.”

  Why would he talk about me?

  “We were at the FOP a couple of days ago. He mentioned you because of all that went down at your house, and a stolen gun.”

  “Fuck. So now everyone knows?”

  “Naw, it ain’t like that. He was just putting the word out is all. Had some possible suspect named.”

  “Graham Biddy.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You know him?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “They recovered the gun, you know.”

  “That’s a good thing,” the officer says.

  “Not for the guy whose body it was found on.”

  “Shit.”

  “No worries. J
ust another mope. By the way, the reason I stopped is I was passing by on my way to work and noticed the unit in the alley rear of this house, and now you in front. Anything in the neighborhood I need to worry about?”

  “Home invasion gone bad. Drug-related. Back door was pried open, so we have to secure the scene until it gets fixed.”

  “Man, I worked narcotics when I was on the job and never had anything come up for this block on the radar.”

  “Fuck, man, every block in this city’s got something.”

  “You said gone bad, though.”

  “Huh?”

  “You mentioned it was a home invasion gone bad.”

  “Bad enough for the two fucking brothers to get the holy shit kicked outta them. Unfortunately, they’re still breathing.”

  I chuckle.

  “Damn, that is unfortunate,” I say, feeling just the opposite. “So now I suppose they’re in the hospital taking taxpayers’ money ’cause they’re not insured.”

  “Got that right. Fucking waste of my time, too.”

  “Sometimes I think it’d be easier if we just sat back and let them kill themselves off. Save this city a hell of a lot of money.”

  “Hmmph” is his odd way of chuckling.

  “Doesn’t look like a drug house.”

  “It really wasn’t. Some old lady owns it. The house was taken over by her grandsons. Pretty sure it was her grandsons, anyway. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in there now, though. They lived like animals in there. Worst scene I been on in a long time. Poor old lady was forced to live in her own shit. Smells worse than death.”

  “Damn. Well, at least she’s in a better place,” I say, fishing.

  “Well, yeah. The hospital. That is, if you consider Howard Hospital a better place.”

  This time I spit out a “Hmmph.”

  Sixty-Two

  I feel good about the old lady now that she’s getting care. It doesn’t justify what I did—and I mean beating the shit outta those hog-tied brothers, nothing else. I don’t need to defend the things I do because of necessity, especially when the only ones made to suffer are the bad guys. And it’s not like I’ve never beaten the shit—or sometimes, usually by accident, something worse—outta anybody before this. It’s just that I rarely lose control like that. Doesn’t make sense. It has to be the fucking vodka on top of everything else I had. I’ll know soon how bad I made things, and I’m talking for the police.

  That’s enough.

  I ain’t gonna rip myself over this shit anymore. It’s done. Not with Leslie, though. I won’t accept that. I don’t care if she said what she said, that “we never happened.” She didn’t mean it. I know she didn’t. She probably meant it then, but she won’t hold on to it.

  I’ve known Leslie for going on eighteen years. We went through the academy together before she got her law degree and quit the department. We stayed in touch even after that. It took years, but we stepped up to something more than a cozy friendship. We go back. She’d never give me up. And I know that for a fact.

  I grab my phone, hit Leslie’s name in the recent calls. It rings, goes into voice mail.

  I say, “I know there’s nothing I can say right now, but I need you to know I had my reasons and it goes beyond what happened at my house.” I want to tell her about the old lady, but I don’t want something like that recorded.

  Instead I lie. “I’ve already taken care of everything. I turned it over. Lot of explaining to do.” It’s almost as if I expect her to pick up, but this is her cell, and I know she saw my name as the caller and let it ring through. I simply say, “I always run to you, Les. I’m so sorry.” Then I disconnect.

  I gotta get my head right, get back in the game or just give it up altogether. That’s the smart thing to do. Give it up and get the fuck outta town. But I don’t work like that. Never have. I got this far.

  I light a smoke, try to figure my next move. Halfway through the cigarette I remember Younger and Older’s cells. I find them in my pack and hope they have enough power left so I can search their contacts, texts, and whatever else looks good. One’s an iPhone, and the other looks like a prepaid cell. Really simple. Probably their burner. Of course the iPhone is locked. No way I’m gonna find my way through that. Only problem with a burner is that most of the smart guys use them once or twice and then toss them.

  I power it up. Still has some juice left, and it’s not locked. No contact names are saved. Just numbers. I scroll through them. Most have a 202 area code, and a few of them have an area code for Maryland. I count twenty-five numbers, so it’s a relatively new phone.

  I get my notebook and a pen out of my pack, set the notebook on the end table.

  I start at the top and tap the number to call it. Not in service. I continue. The answers I get are either “Yeah” and “Talk to me” or the numbers aren’t in service and there’s no answer. Not looking so good, but maybe I can get my girl Tamie Darling, one of my old CIs and someone I still work with on occasion, to call some of these numbers and try to get in a conversation with whoever answers. Never know. It might lead to something.

  I dial another 202 number. It rings.

  “Jasper,” a familiar voice answers. I hang up in a hurry.

  Fuck. I think I just made my day.

  Sixty-Three

  How the hell do I give all this information up without implicating myself in the home invasion at Riggs Street?

  I can’t. I won’t.

  I decide to go fishing, so I give Hurley a call.

  “What’s up, Frank?” he answers.

  “I met a friend of yours earlier. Didn’t catch his name, but he was sitting on a house on Riggs, and he told me that you talked to him about my case.”

  “Valdez. Good dude. He knows that area well, so I was hoping he might help get Biddy identified. That invasion on Riggs was on a whole other level. What brought you there?”

  “Going south on Thirteenth, headed downtown, and saw a cruiser in back and your boy in front. Thought maybe it was a burglary and maybe they had a suspect. As you know, I only live a few blocks from there.”

  “Yeah, one burglar is usually good for dozens of hits within a few blocks, but unfortunately that was something else. Some sort of retaliation or drug-related home-invasion.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “I ended up with that case, too.”

  “You’re a one-man unit.”

  “Until my body can’t take it anymore.”

  “You have a ways to go. By the way, you and Millhoff get a chance to go clubbing yet?”

  “Clubbing?” He doesn’t get it right away. “Oh, right. Yeah, we’ve been there more than once.”

  “What about Jasper?”

  “You mean we going to turn him in for working his part-time?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Hell, no. I could care less. Neither could Millhoff. Besides, he’s good to have there because of the two decedents who’re connected to that place.”

  “I have a source who said you might want to look into Jasper and that big guy he works there with. Said they had a little something going on the side in that club.”

  “Seriously? Like what?”

  “Like drugs, maybe getting a cut. Maybe more. Could be a connection to the body on Rhode Island and my cousin.”

  “Damn. Can I meet with your source?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “Okay. You hear anything else, you call. You’re still one of us first.”

  “I know that, brother. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

  Okay, now what?

  Sixty-Four

  I pick Tamie Darling up at the usual spot, a vacant lot near Howard University, where I park behind two detached semitrailers. Darling is one of the best CIs I’ve worked with. When I was partnered with Al Luna at Narcotics we signed her up as a special employee. That had to be ten years ago. Doesn’t matter that she smokes crack. That’s something we never talk about, but it’s obvious. The cigarette
s and the crack have a way of sticking to the body like perfume. Biddy ain’t there yet, but he will be. For Tamie, it’s all you can smell.

  She walks toward my car from the front, carrying a large, probably fake Gucci purse and wearing a summer dress with floral patterns that falls to her knees. It’s a larger size than she needs so it’ll hide her narrow, bony figure. She lifts the strap that falls from her shoulder, drops and snuffs out a cigarette before entering the front door and gliding in.

  I greet her with “What’s up, sweetheart?”

  “Same ol’, same ol’,” she says with a sweet voice. That’s why I use her often and pay her so well. She is good on the phone, and I have to do these sort of okeydokes a lot in my line of work. More when I was a cop.

  I light a cigarette. She does the same. We both crack the windows a bit.

  “Stifling out there,” she says.

  “That’s why most of my work is in the car or at home these days.”

  After a deep drag she turns to me, blows the smoke toward the roof of the car. Doesn’t matter. It still bounces off and curves down to hit me in the face. I hold my breath, but in a way so she can’t tell.

  “Why doesn’t your boy Luna call me no more? He find him a new girl?”

  “Seriously doubt that. There’s no one like you.”

  She has a deep-throated smoker’s laugh.

  “Department’s probably got him caught up on quick buy busts, shit like that. I’m sure he’ll get in touch with you, though.”

  “Damn hope so. I need that money. I got expenses.”

  “I understand that. I’ll take care of you well for a short one today.” I realize how that sounds after I say it. So does she.

  “That sounds good, baby,” she says in her sexiest voice.

  It does sound sexy, but she sure doesn’t look the way she sounds. Doesn’t matter if she did. Nothing would ever come of it. I’d never allow myself to carry that kind of extra baggage.

  “You just tell Luna to call me, honey, or I’ll have to start looking other places.”

  “I’ll do that, Tamie.”