County Line

by Bill Cameron

  I want to know what’s causing the smell.

  RJ’s apartment is a single oversized room, the bare concrete floor covered by big braided rugs, the high ceiling an expanse of exposed girders and foam insulation. I can’t see anything, not the bed on its platform at the far end of the room, not the regulation basketball hoop opposite the kitchen, not the bookcases or plush sofas. From where I stand, the passage leading up front is to my right through a door. The kitchenette is to the left, separated from the room by an island counter with a butcher block top. Past the refrigerator, I know a couple of doors open onto the bathroom, a closet and a small utility room. The main space is straight ahead, a looming cavern. I take a single, tentative step forward. The short hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the touch of open air.

  A faint red light burns from the vicinity of the stove, an indicator of some type, providing no illumination. The dim glow shining through the high frosted windows on either side of the room is a little better. As my eyes adjust further, I make out the shape of RJ’s four-poster bed, and the sitting area with its two sofas facing each other across the broad coffee table. A basketball rests on the floor below the hoop. I’ve seen RJ drain three-pointers from any spot in the room, nothing but net.

  I take a few more jittery steps, wishing I’d brought a damn flashlight. An echoing droplet falls again—plop—into water. The sound comes from the center of the room. I see the clawfoot bathtub I know is there less as an object than a formless shadow. Before Ruby Jane moved in, the tub had been a lone, modest luxury in what was an otherwise dreary studio apartment. Ruby Jane liked it so much she left it in place. I have no idea how often she uses it, though she’s boasted of hot baths, candlelight, and loud music after a hard day’s work. The tub has always been empty during my visits.

  Not tonight.

  As I ease closer, the tub takes shape, the pale porcelain catching what little illumination steals through the translucent glass. I make out a shadow next to the tub, a pile of clothes or maybe a blanket. Inside the tub, the water’s surface is broken by a pair of dark humps at the midline and a round lump at the far end. Plop. Something is in the water, a figure, unmoving. I suck air through my nose and catch the stench of urine amidst the spoiled milk smell.

  I turn and stumble toward the wall, emit an involuntary keen. The one unconsidered, intolerable reason for Ruby Jane’s silence surges through my mind. The silence, the darkness, the still water in the tub all testify to my growing fear. I search for a light switch by touch, hands shaking—nothing—push along the cool wall until I pitch up against the refrigerator. Without thought I fling the door open. It crashes against the wall with a rattle of condiment bottles. A jar of pickles hits the floor and rolls to a stop against the island, trailing a thread of brine. The sudden light sears my retinas. I close my eyes and sag against the counter beside the fridge. I’m afraid to turn. Until I look, it’s not real—isn’t that how it works? As long as I hide behind Ruby Jane’s butcher block, eyes closed, the form in the tub remains but a faint, visual echo of my own fear.

  If I learned anything during my twenty-five years as a cop, it’s that the body can’t be wished away. Schrödinger’s cat only lives and dies in the symbols of an equation. I push myself off the counter, flex my hands against a burning tingle in my palms. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. The fridge casts stark, leaping shadows as I edge toward the tub. Most of the room remains dark, but there’s enough light to show me what I need to see. I draw a ragged breath and look down into the still water.

  Plop.

  The hair is a grey mat on the head, the body emaciated, the face a relief map of more years than my own five-plus decades. A man. It’s an old man.

  Relief floods through me like falling tears. I sag to the floor. It’s not my Ruby Jane. But now I’m left with a new question to go with the one I came with. Where is she, and who’s the old guy, naked and dead, in her bathtub?

  - 3 -

  Suspicious Circs

  After a moment, old instincts take over. I get up off the cold, bare floor and scan the walls. At the end of the kitchen counter, there’s a switch plate I skidded over moments before in the dark. I flick the switch and a cluster of emerald-shaded pendants cast a warm, yellow glow over the kitchen island. I put the pickle jar back and close the fridge, then cross the floor and turn on a couple standing floor lamps at either end of the couch.

  I’ve seen a corpse or two in my time, but it’s been a while since one gave me the squirrelies. I leave it for the moment and walk the grid. Nothing formal, it’s not my job anymore. Just checking things out. I don’t know who this old fellow is, but I assume he didn’t come only for a bath. As I move through the room, I see signs he’s been around for a while. Throw pillows on the floor and a old, ratty sleeping bag spread across one of the soft sofas. A squadron of empty soup cans and dirty spoons on the coffee table, a spilled tomato crust dried onto the cover of a volume of Sharon Doubiago poetry. A dead bag of blue corn tortilla chips on the floor among the pillows. Ruby Jane must have been out of salsa.

  Nothing else appears to be out-of-place. Ruby Jane’s not one for a lot of expensive gadgetry. The TV is a CRT model sitting atop a combo DVD/VHS player, both intact on their wooden stand. The small console stereo is on the sideboard. Books stand untouched in the pair of bookcases against the wall. Her microwave oven is still on the kitchen counter, her clock radio still on the bed stand. Behind the curtains of the four-poster, the bed is made. I wonder why the dead guy camped on the couch when he had a big comfortable queen-sized bed twenty feet away. Same reason he ate cold soup out of the can in sight of a stove maybe. The bathroom is a disaster, toilet seat up. He hadn’t bothered to flush. If it’s yellow let it mellow, maybe, but when it’s brown, flush that bad boy down.

  Plop.

  The body remains. A voice in the back of my head tells me it’s not my problem. I’ve been retired for nearly two years. Even if I wasn’t, it would be verboten to investigate a death so close to home. But nobody’s giving me orders anymore, no policy directives rule my life. I rub the bridge of my nose and turn my attention to the tub.

  No one looks their best after they stop breathing, but I’m guessing the last time this guy looked good Carter was still president. His dark, mottled eyelids are at half-mast, but I can see that post-mortem corneal clouding competes with ante-mortem cataracts. His skin is blotchy and yellow, and livid lesions streak his chest. An old scar below his left nipple reminds me of my own healed gunshot wound. Even after an untold period soaking, he looks filthy, from his greasy, dandruff-flecked hair to his gnarled fingers and toes. I place his age in the upper sixties, though I won’t be surprised if I’ve underestimated by a decade. The bath water seems to be cool, but I’m not dipping my hand in to find out for sure. His clothes heaped on the floor next to the tub emit the piss smell; the spoiled milk is all bathtub.

  I don’t touch anything. I’ve been Ruby Jane’s guest often enough my prints could be anywhere. Doesn’t mean I want them on some dead squatter’s heap of shit. I turn away from the tub, swipe my arm across my forehead. There’s more to see, but I don’t feel like I can delay the call to 911 any longer. Just because I didn’t see anyone on my way in doesn’t mean no one saw me. Some witness turning up with a suggestion I spent a suspiciously long time alone in a house with a dead body is the last thing I need. I pull out my cell. I tell the dispatcher there’s no rush.

  Even if the cavalry charges, I’ve got a few minutes. I head into the old shop through a short corridor with a unisex bathroom on one side and a nook on the other, home to the dish sterilizer during the coffee house days. Both are dark and empty. Up front, industrial shelves stacked with beans and miscellaneous inventory. I got through the office door beyond the roaster.

  Dust drifts in air tangy with the scent of raw coffee beans. The fluorescent light overhead hums. Ruby Jane’s desktop is clear, a rare sight. The message light blinks on the office phone. Pens and pencils poke out of an old coffee mug. Her laptop is
gone, but her cell phone is plugged into its charger next to the office phone. I move around behind the desk and slump into her squeaky old chair. A spring prods my ass. I pick up the cell phone, turn it over in my hands. Its presence troubles me more than anything else I’ve seen tonight, including the dead bastard in the tub. For reasons I can’t fathom, she wants to be not merely out of touch, but out of reach. She could have avoided unwanted calls by not picking up. Leaving the phone behind suggests a more radical need.

  I don’t like the hollow anxiety tightening my chest, the sense of helplessness I feel. No note, no call. Nothing. I shake my head. The chair squeals as I stand up again. I pocket RJ’s phone, then glance through the desk drawers, at the notes on the cork board behind the desk. Ordinary shop stuff, schedules, invoices, payroll. Nothing which tells me why Ruby Jane has vanished.

  I turn off the lights, return to the apartment. The cops still haven’t arrived, but they won’t be long. I exit through the foyer and pull the door shut without latching it. The street is wet, but overhead I can see stars through shreds of cloud. The breeze smells fresh and clean after the stale, funky air inside. Across the street, a moving shadow catches my eye and I look up to see a figure moving away from me. Tallish, hoodie under a jacket. Familiar. I step off the curb as a patrol car rounds the corner from Sandy, light bar flashing. I turn back to the figure, but he’s gone. The car rolls to a stop a foot from my knees and a uniformed cop pops out.

  “You the one who called?” His hand rests on his weapon, a reflex gesture I hope. His expression is alert, without undue tension.

  “Yeah. I’m Kadash. The body’s inside.” I wave a hand over my shoulder toward the door behind me.

  “Anyone else in there?” A second unit pulls up behind the first and another uniform climbs out, cover for the first. He points a flashlight at the closed door.

  “No one.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I cleared the place.”

  “Cleared.” The covering uniform aims his light at my eyes.

  “I’m an ex-cop, retired.” You never lose the lingo. “Go through into the big room. You can’t miss him.”

  “All right. Please wait out here.”

  Half an hour later, the street is crawling. There’s more people than necessary for what I’m guessing will turn out to be a pretty routine D.B. I prop my ass against the hood of a patrol car, nannied by the first responders. They try to make small talk. I’m not feeling talkative, but they carry the conversation fine without me. One of them found some dope in his kid’s room. The other wonders if he’ll ever get another blow job. Maybe if you ask the chief real nice, I suggest. They laugh, but it’s uneasy. As an ex-cop, they’ll grant me permission to listen, but I’m not welcome to participate.

  The only surprise, such as it is, is the appearance of Susan Mulvaney—my former partner, now lieutenant in charge of Person Crimes. Slender and self-possessed in jeans, t-shirt, and a tailored jacket, Susan looks like she stepped away from a casual brunch with friends. She nods to me, then stops in RJ’s doorway to chat with the medical examiner as he rolls the gurney out. They talk quietly for a couple of minutes, then Susan approaches me.

  “Skin, if you have a moment, we’ve got a few questions.”

  No hello, no how are ya. I’m not surprised. Under normal circumstances Susan wouldn’t even get a phone call over a random stiff found in an empty apartment. She’s here as a courtesy to me, as is pretty much everyone else, but that doesn’t make it a social call. She guides me through the door and back into Ruby Jane’s apartment. A couple of homicide dicks I knew back in the day are waiting next to the tub. Empty now. The spoilt scent lingers.

  “What do you know, guys?”

  Moose Davisson doesn’t like me much and I guess the feeling is mutual, though the tension has never broken out into open hostilities. He glances at me from atop his mountainous frame then turns his attention to the girders and ductwork overhead. Frannie Stein, his partner, is less familiar, an up-and-comer as I was downward-spiraling. She regards me expressionlessly. Susan stops beside me. For a moment, no one answers her question, then Moose clears his throat.

  “Not much to know, Loo.”

  “What are your thoughts? Any reason to think homicide?”

  “Not yet, no. Probably not at all. The M.E. is leaning toward a natural manner of death, but we’ll know more in a couple of days. He’s not too backed up.”

  “Okay. Good.” Susan turns to me. “Skin, what brought you here tonight?” There’s a slight edge to her voice, and I wonder what the subtext is. If any. We haven’t been on the best of terms for some time now. I could be detecting nothing more than generalized Skin antipathy.

  “I was checking on the place for Ruby Jane.”

  “Bet the stiff was a surprise.”

  “I’d rather find a hundred dollar bill in my sock drawer.”

  “And you used your own key.”

  “We traded keys a while back.”

  “Where’s Ruby Jane now?”

  “She’s away.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  A bolus of heat gathers in my belly. “What’s the story here, Susan? Do you know who this guy is or what?”

  She sniffs, then tilts her head toward Moose. He looks from Susan to Frannie, at last to me. I’m sure he’s wondering what he’s doing out in the middle of the night for this ticky-tack bullshit, and I can’t say as I blame him. He fishes his notebook out of his jacket pocket.

  “He had an expired Washington State driver’s license in his wallet. Name, Chase Fairweather. Picture matches, but we’ll confirm.” He eyes me. “Name mean anything to you?”

  I shake my head.

  “There were a couple of bucks in his wallet, no credit cards. Sixty-two years old. No evidence of trauma. We found a bottle of baby aspirin and some insulin in his cargo pants pocket, no needles. Homeless, from the looks of him.”

  “You thinking he knew the place was empty and broke in to get out of the weather?”

  “We’ll check at St. Francis tomorrow, see if any one remembers him. But, yeah, I’d guess he broke in, fixed himself a warm bath, and died of shock at being clean for the first time since he grew pubes.”

  I blink, trying to shake the sudden image of the body in the water. “How’d he get in?”

  “No obvious sign of forced entry, but you saw the security panel.”

  “Slick work, don’t you think?”

  “Not bad, no. Not like the system is state-of-the-art or anything, but he knew what he was about. There are scratches on the dead bolt too, though I can’t tell if they’re fresh or not.”

  “That old wreck was a lock-pick and an electronics wiz?”

  “This ain’t Fort Knox, Skin.”

  I chew on that for a moment, but I don’t know what to make of it. Susan lifts her chin. “Do we have an estimated time-of-death, Moose?”

  “The bath water confuses matters, but based on lividity and onset of rigor, the M.E. guessed between six and eight this evening.”

  I almost came over about then. I wonder if I could have done anything for the old bastard if I’d stopped by. Or how I’d have reacted if I found him in Ruby Jane’s place still breathing. Not with warmth and hospitality, I don’t imagine.

  “In the end, nothing to see here.”

  “Old homeless guys die all the time. Not usually in someone’s bath tub, but shit happens.”

  “How long do you think he was in here?”

  “Hard to say. Not long enough to make off with the TV. Do you know if anything has been stolen?”

  “Besides a half dozen cans of Progresso?” I suppose if she had a secret envelope stuffed with used, non-sequential hundreds, I wouldn’t know if it was missing. “I didn’t see her laptop.”

  “Wouldn’t she have taken it with her?”

  “Probably. Or, hell, it might be at one of the shops.”

  Susan studies me, her gaze pensive. “The cell phone charger in her office is emp
ty. But she’d have that with her too.” I can feel the pressure of the phone in my pocket. “You never did say where she is.”

  “It’s a personal matter. She’ll be back soon.” I wonder if I manage to sound even remotely convincing.

  “Do you know how to reach her? We’d like to talk to her.”

  Most likely the M.E. will come back in a day or two with a final report—natural death, no suspicious circs—and the file will close. No need to pursue the break-in, since they have the perpetrator dead to rights.

  I look Susan in the eye. “Try her cell.”

  - 4 -

  Cartopia

  Moose and Frannie are gone before Susan and I finish talking. She stands at the foot of the tub with her hands in her pockets, casual and oblivious to the scent memory of Chase Fairweather’s passing. I lean against the butcher block. Ten foot buffer of dead air between us, we exchange the kind of congenial chatter you share with someone you’ve long since lost any significant link to. She asks how I’m doing in a way which makes clear she expects bad news. In the last two years, I’ve been brained with a flower pot, fought cancer to a standstill, and survived a bullet in my belly. Susan can’t be the only one who wonders how I manage to remain vertical. I assure her I’m as good as you might expect. She offers that her husband Eric is a law partner now, her daughter Leah anxious to finish middle school. About the time she’s ready to call it a night, I clear my throat.

  “I’ll be seeing what I can find out about this guy.”

  The year before, she’d offered me a job reviewing open case files. Not a sworn position, a stipend deal intended to take some pressure off her cold case squad. I hadn’t taken her up on it, but I knew she was still short of man hours.