by Lynn Kostoff
One of them turned on the television to Sports Center very loud. Jay passed out some beers. Three of them were playing catch with a jumbo bag of Cheetos. A couple of others moved onto the balcony and were yelling things at girls.
“You can chill here a while if you want,” Roy told him and then went to watch Sports Center.
Croy thought about the wallets in the room.
That’s what he’d been doing ever since he killed Jamie and Missy, hanging out with the students on their break and then stealing their wallets. At night he slept in his car or on the beach. He counted the money he already had in his head and figured he’d have enough soon to get away.
The problem with that though was Croy wasn’t sure where he was going to get away to. He’d bought a map of the United States and studied it, but every place seemed like every other place except for the weather, and the weather was just what it was, like a big piece of wallpaper that had been put up on the day.
Croy wouldn’t have minded going to a place if someone told him that’s where he was supposed to go, but the only person who would have done something like that was Jamie, who had taken all Croy’s money and who was also dead.
Croy considered asking Jay and then changed his mind to no.
Jay and all the other ones wearing caps might start asking questions back at him.
Croy wondered if the policewoman he threw into the window was alive. He was very happy to have a gun again. The other one had burned up in the fire at Jamie and Missy’s.
The policewoman had been very nervous, and even with the gun pointed at him, she’d stood too close. The policewoman didn’t know Croy or how fast he could make his hands.
When she went through the window, it sounded like a big handful of quarters tossed into an empty sink.
Afterwards there were a lot of people shouting things and screaming, and Croy had looked around for the tall policeman who’d been following him. Croy kept remembering his eyes. They were dark and the kind that didn’t miss things. He’d seen those eyes on some of the men in shelters, eyes that were somehow sad and scary-looking at the same time, and Croy had always made it a point to steer clear of them.
Croy had looked around and started to run again, north and west, away from the beach.
That’s where he met Jay and the other students who weren’t wearing shirts. They were on the sidewalk in front of a little grocery store and asked him to buy them some beer. Croy made a quick idea in his head and told them there were a lot of policemen around, so it would be better if they went somewhere else.
Jay high-fived him for that and put his cap on Croy’s head, and then Croy got in the middle of the group and took his shirt off too. He made sure to tie the T-shirt so its front hung over the back of his jeans like the others. That way, it hid the gun he’d taken off the policewoman.
Croy and the students were clustered together, and they walked back towards Atlantic Avenue. The tall policeman with the dark eyes and another one had run right by them to get to the people screaming at the restaurant.
Jay and the others didn’t even seem to notice the screaming. They were very happy about the beer in their futures.
Croy got the beer, and they invited him back to their motel room to drink some. Croy knew there would be more than the two policemen looking for him now, so he did.
Jay and the others were lying around and talking about what they were watching on Sports Center and about sexing girls. Croy nodded every so often but didn’t say much because he didn’t know sports and he didn’t sex.
Croy got up from the chair and went into the bathroom and emptied his beer down the sink. When he walked back into the room, Jay handed him another before Croy could say anything about it.
Croy knew he had to do something. He couldn’t sit in the motel room pretending to drink beer forever.
Croy said some rhymes in his head. Then he did some numbers.
He imagined the world filling up with policemen.
He ate some Cheetos.
Jay let him use his cell phone. The battery in Croy’s cell phone had died right in the middle of their words when Croy and Mr. Balen had been talking before, and Croy had not called back because Mr. Balen had been very upset and mad because Croy shot Jamie and Missy, and when Mr. Balen got upset and mad, it made Croy very nervous and jumpy inside, so Croy didn’t call Mr. Balen and took wallets from the students instead.
Right now though, Croy was thinking about the tall policeman and his eyes and all the other policemen looking for him, so he took Jay’s cell phone into the bathroom and dialed the number Mr. Balen made him remember. Croy waited for Mr. Balen to be mad at him for shooting Jamie and Missy, but Mr. Balen didn’t say anything about that. He just asked where Croy was and then told him not to move or do anything until he got there.
Croy didn’t.
FORTY-SIX
DETECTIVE JACKSON TOWNE was uncharacteristically on time for work when Ben Decovic stopped by the Homicide division before starting his shift. Towne was turned toward his computer and surfing the net for discount plane fares. He kept Ben waiting while he clicked on a couple more links, then swiveled his chair away from the screen, stretching his arms above his head.
Ben told him who he was.
Jackson Towne held up an index finger and frowned slightly. “Give me a minute,” he said, “it’ll come to me.” He snapped his fingers and said, “Blake and Newton, the ballistics report, your Glock.”
Ben nodded. It looked like Towne spent more on his wardrobe than Ben did on rent. He was wearing a light tan suit meticulously cut to fit the frame of the athlete he’d been at NC State fourteen years ago when he’d played power forward and led them to a division championship. Towne had blown out his knee the next year.
“Got the file right here,” Towne said. It looked pitifully thin.
“I was going to pull the other one, you getting jumped, later today, do some cross-checking, and then get in touch with you.” Towne leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Now you can save me a little time.”
Ben waited a second, expecting Towne to take out a pen, and when he didn’t, Ben went on and filled him in on the assault at the Passion Palace, one man vandalizing Sonny Gramm’s Mustang, the other taking out the bouncer and then ambushing Ben with a sock full of heavy-gauge washers, Ben losing his gun, the two men getting away on foot.
Towne nodded in the right places, but as Ben finished, talking about the difficulties and dead-ends with the follow-up, Sonny Gramm’s refusal to cooperate and entrenched belief that Wayne LaVell was behind the vandalism, Ben had the distinct impression that Towne had quit listening some time ago.
That impression reinforced everything Ben had heard around the department about Towne. He was the first African-American to get his gold shield under the new restructuring of the force, and there’d been no little amount of resentment from certain quarters about the promotion. At one time, Towne had been a good cop, but somewhere along the line, he’d become more interested in exploiting affirmative-action quotas than in field work. He cut corners everywhere except in paperwork; he knew that’s what ultimately counted for the higher-ups, and Towne had become a master at paper-trailing and padding out reports. He gave no sign he cared what any of his fellow officers of equal or lesser rank thought of him. He dressed sharp and looked good in PR photo shoots. There were any number of division heads looking over their shoulders and worrying about the status of their jobs within the next couple years.
“The two at the Palace,” Towne asked. “What’d they look like?”
“They were wearing masks, and some of the lights in the lot were out,” Ben said. “They were Caucasian though. The one with the crowbar was about six feet and thin. The one that jumped me was short, his chest and arms out of proportion to the rest of him. He had short gray hair.”
“I had people out canvassing right after the shootings,” Towne said, “but you know how things go on Sentinel. You got to assume 99 percent of what you get is 1
00 percent bullshit.” He paused and glanced down at the file. “A neighbor, one Marilyn Keane, said there was a guy hanging out all the time at Jamison Blake’s. She said he was a white man. Nothing about short or gray hair though.”
Towne turned a page. “Blake’s house is pretty much a total loss. The fire department did what it could, but the place went up quick. We’re not going to find a lot to help us there.”
“No other leads on the shooter?” Ben asked.
“To repeat, we’re talking Sentinel Avenue here and all that entails about cooperating with the police,” Towne said. “Right now, the only thing we know for sure is it was your gun used in the shootings.”
“What about Blake and Newton?” Ben asked. “Any priors that might point at something?”
Towne glanced down at the file. “Jamison Blake, a string of assaults and B&Es. Melissa Newton, shoplifting, disturbing the peace, one resisting arrest. We’re not talking master criminals here.”
“Are you going recanvas?” Ben asked.
Towne’s tie was pale blue and the same color as his shirt. He carefully smoothed the front of both and said, “We did a solid sweep the first time. I’m not sure a second is warranted. A case like this, you know how it usually works.”
Ben did. Down the road, someone gets picked up on something unrelated and ends up confessing to the Blake and Newton murders or cuts a deal and snitches out the one who did. Wait and see. The case closes itself.
“Still,” Ben said, “another look might kick something loose about the gray-haired guy.”
“There’s that,” Towne said and nodded. “Of course, the odds are equally good that the guy sold your Glock right after he took it from you and has nothing to do with who eventually used it on Blake and Newton.” Towne sat back and smoothed his tie again.
“He threw Talbert through a window,” Ben said.
“How do you even know it was the same guy?” Towne said. “What, there’s only one short white man with gray hair who’s committed a crime?” Towne paused and shook his head. “You’re on patrol, a gray-haired guy spots you and starts running. Because he’s guilty. But not necessarily of ambushing you at the Passion Palace. You said yourself, the guy and his partner were wearing Halloween masks. You can’t be sure he’s the same one.”
Towne tapped his pen against the desk top in a miniature drumroll. “Like I said, someone more than likely unloaded the piece on the street and then somebody else used it on Blake and Newton. Remember, we’re talking Sentinel. You don’t need much of a reason, pull a trigger there.” Towne got up from behind the desk and straightened the lines of his suit.
“I’ll keep you posted,” he said, “anything turns up.”
A dress rehearsal, Ben thought. That’s what this session with Jackson Towne had been, a dress rehearsal, Ben giving him the opportunity to practice his lines, work out the scenario that would eventually end up in the paperwork. Sentinel Avenue, after all. Wait and see. The case will close itself.
Ben went back to Atlantic Avenue. Foot patrol, the weather continuing to confound the meteorologists, the hottest April in fifty-plus years, the driest on record, and the students on break going native under that sun, getting more than a little restless, and by the end of Ben’s shift, the holding cells were full, and Ben was awash in paperwork, and Mommy and Daddy and their lawyers were calling in or showing up at the station.
Ben was in the late stages of the day’s paperwork when a sergeant from Booking waylaid him.
“We got a real noise-maker in Holding,” he said, “keeps asking for you. Name of Leon Douglas.”
Ben checked his watch and walked quickly to the north wing of the complex and with enough badgering managed to get Leon released from the cell packed bar to bar with students and into an empty interrogation room.
Leon’s nose was angled in a new direction and one eye nearly swollen shut, and there were freckles of dried blood across the front of his shirt.
Ben asked what he got popped for and by whom.
“Receiving Stolen,” Leon said, “and Resisting. But neither one be the case. I’m in my car, couple guys ask can I give them a ride, I’m ok with that, then a blue and white pull up behind us at a light, the guys out of the car and running, leave all their shit in my back seat, and I’m the one get brace on account I give those two brother a ride.”
Ben knew Leon was probably the wheelman and let his version by, asking once again who the arresting officer was.
“Carl Adkin. That man, he could take a patent on mean.” Leon paused, looking around the room. “He come up my car, I put my hands on the top of the steering wheel so he can see both of them, and then he hollering to his backup and pulling his gun, saying I’m attempting to flee the scene. See, I got my hands where they suppose to be, but I forget to turn off the engine, and I’m trying tell Adkin ‘whoa’ and get out the car, but he’s not listening, and when he go to cuff me, Adkin claim I start with the resisting, and next thing I know my face is making friends with the pavement and my nose is broke.”
“Ok,” Ben said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I be trying to tell Adkin over and over that I’m your Ear, and he need to talk to you,” Leon said.
Ben repeated what he’d said and then told Leon he’d have to take him back to the holding cell.
“Those college boys, they whiners,” Leon said. “Puke and whine all the day long.”
Ben repeated, once again, he’d do what he could.
“You need some motivation keep me in your thoughts,” Leon said, “I heard something from my second cousin about Wayne LaVell.” He paused, looking over at Ben. “My cousin, he work at the Palmer as a busboy there, and he say Wayne LaVell eating lunch and in walk Corrine Tedros and LaVell get all agitated and call out her name, only he don’t call her Corrine, he keep saying April Rayne instead.”
“You sure about this?”
Leon nodded. “My cousin say Corrine Tedros say Wayne LaVell mistaking her for someone else, but LaVell don’t stop calling her that name until the lawyer guy Raychard Balen that LaVell eating with call him down. Mean time, Corrine Tedros looking scared, like a big dog chasing after her.”
“Ok,” Ben said. “One other thing, Leon. You have any relatives out of town?”
“I got an auntie in Raleigh.”
“Good. I think it might be time to pay her a visit.
After signing out, Ben stopped by the hospital to check on Ginger Talbert. Her condition was stable, but she wasn’t seeing visitors. A nurse told him that it was too soon to tell about the extent of the damage on the facial lacerations.
The waiting room on Talbert’s floor was empty. Ben ducked in. He put in a call to his old partner, Andy Calucci.
“A favor,” Ben said. “Your buddy Joey Romatta is still working Phoenix PD, right?”
Andy Calucci said he was.
“A favor,” Ben repeated.
“Who and why?” Calucci asked.
Ben explained what he needed.
“Oh man,” Calucci said. “You got any idea where this is headed?”
“Just a hunch,” Ben said. “Nothing more.”
After leaving the hospital, Ben doubled back to Queensland Highway, following it west and skirting the edge of the old downtown district. The radio was full of old love songs and used car commercials. He cut south and passed the site for the new high school, stopping three blocks later for the light where two men in black suits were working the traffic, each proffering a wicker basket and asking for an End Times offering. On the other side of the intersection, Reverend Redd Benton had set up a large tan revival tent. A streetside sign proclaimed: EXPOSURE TO THE SON WILL PREVENT BURNING.
Ben took Old Market Boulevard and continued south toward the regional airport, moving through a long cluttered stretch of fast food restaurants, motels, and small businesses. He passed the exit for the new mall and cut east again and drove through a large residential area comprised primarily of clusters of small subdivisions until he found
the entrance to Delmar Woods.
As far as subdivisions went, Delmar Woods was your basic lock-and-load ranch houses and its layout an exercise in repetition and variation. All the streets were named after trees. He parked in front of 1228 Chestnut Lane.
Carl Adkin’s place was not out of range of a patrolman’s salary, but there was a lot of conspicuous icing.
A generous lot, the lawn wide and at least three shades deeper than any of the surrounding ones, the grass thick and putting-green quality, the surrounding landscape a carefully choreographed sequence of mimosa and crepe myrtle and palmetto, beds of verbena and marigolds and petunias, and borders of rhododendron and azalea and gardenia, all of them lush and thriving as if they’d cut a deal with the drought conditions that were leaning on everyone else.
There was a new black Dodge pickup maxed out on detail work parked in front of the two-car garage, the rear end of a late-model SUV framed in the opposite bay. Next to the garage were a john-boat, two jet skis, and a Bayliner speedboat setting on a trailer.
Ben was almost to the front door when he heard voices out back.
Carl Adkin was on a pine deck that opened on two sliding glass doors at the rear of the house. He stood, wreathed in smoke, over a black barbecue grill. He glanced down at Ben.
“How’s foot patrol? Heard Talbert kissed the glass,” he said. “Tough break. She never was one you’d want as primary on the scene. She’s nervous, and it shows.”
Ben walked up three steps to the deck. In the middle of the backyard was a large pecan tree. Two women, one blonde, the other red-haired, sat in webbed lawn chairs at the edge of its shade. There was a white Styrofoam cooler between them. The red-haired woman held and tried to quiet a persistently crying infant. The blonde watched two boys chase each other on ATVs around the yard.
Carl Adkin looked at Ben and then went back to flipping burgers that were the size of flattened softballs. “Angus,” he said. “Prime cut.” He smiled and slapped a belly softening at the waistline of his jeans.