by Matthew Iden
“Nope.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “Because all I seem to hear is how J.D. hung out with a bunch of losers. And the reason they let him is because they thought he owned some big-city drug connections they thought they might be able to use.”
“That so?” Will said. Tank shifted in place. Jay was very still.
“Yeah. But what he didn’t know was that they were even bigger losers than he was.”
“You thought you’d come down and set him straight?”
“Yeah. But I’m not from around here, see, and I didn’t know where to start. So I just tried to find the shittiest bar with the biggest losers in it.”
“Think you found it?” Will asked, his smile getting wider. But not friendlier.
“To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure,” I said. “Until you showed.”
Slowly, Will stubbed out his cigarette against the wall, then leaned over and plucked the cue stick from Tank’s hand. With a sharp twist, he unscrewed the two halves, then tossed the lighter end on the pool table. He stood and tapped the butt end in his hand a few times, watching me. The smile hadn’t left his face.
I cursed my big mouth silently. Things had gone south, fast. I straightened up so I could reach the butt of the SIG. Four against one were not good odds and, with his reach, one step was all I could give Will Brower before he planted the cue stick upside my skull.
Then we froze as a voice with a deep Southern twang said, “You’re not about to put holes in my favorite bar, are you?”
Chapter Sixteen
I’d been handcuffed before during “sensitivity” trainings when the brass wanted us to understand what it was like. The idea was to make sure you didn’t overdo it. Containment was the idea, not punishment. It was never really something I enjoyed, even when it was done kind of jokingly, like at the Academy, but I especially didn’t like it now, when it had been done to me for real.
Warren had gone through the entire protocol—putting me against the car, frisking me, confiscating the SIG with a grunt, and slapping the cuffs on me before stuffing me in the backseat of the cruiser that was parked—with lights flashing—in Jackie’s cinder lot. He left at a sedate pace, giving the locals who had piled out of the bar to watch a real nice view of me hunched over like any old crook. Tank and Buck Brower hooted and pointed me out to each other while Will looked on impassively, still smoking his cigarette. It was a novel experience and I liked it even less than being cuffed.
We drove for fifteen minutes in silence, heading back towards the center of town. Warren took a few lefts and rights, though, until I was thoroughly lost, finally stopping in another dusty cinder parking lot. He shut the car off and turned around to look at me, with one arm flung over the seat. He didn’t say anything for a minute, just stared at me with a sour expression, like he was rolling a lemon seed around his mouth.
“You’re a goddamned idiot, you know that?” he said, finally. “There were only two ways that was going to end. Either I’d be trying to get someone to identify your body ’cause no one would recognize you after the beating you were about to take. Or I’d be hauling you in for a quadruple homicide after you got done ventilating an entire generation of Browers.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d come to the same conclusion. Not my finest hour.
“What is it about ‘not getting involved’ you failed to understand?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said. “But I’m coming around to your way of thinking.”
He shook his head. “You’re not a cop anymore, Singer. This ain’t your town and it ain’t your place to go around trying to right wrongs or wrong rights or whatever the hell it is you’re trying to do. You had your shot in DC and that was it.”
“I’m not saying the way I handled things back there was all that bright,” I said. “But there are still questions that need to be asked, Warren.”
“No, there ain’t,” he said, exasperated. “Don’t you get it? J.D. Hope got exactly what was coming to him. And the world is a better place for it. No one gives a good goddamn if he got whacked by some hit man from DC or Will Brower or the Tooth Fairy.”
“His family does.”
Warren groaned. “Dorothea Hope was so sick of him herself that she’s probably the one who done it. And Mary Beth will forget the whole thing as soon as she gets back on the highway and points her car north. Hope was a waste of space and I’d shake the hand of the man who did him in if I didn’t think it was useless trying to find the fucker.”
“So, what happens now?”
He rolled out of the car instead of answering, then opened my door and helped me to my feet. He made a spinning motion with his hand. I turned around and he unlocked the cuffs. It was cliché, but I rubbed my wrists. I couldn’t help it.
“Here it comes,” he said. “You ready?”
“The speech?”
He nodded. “You’re goddamned right. Stop the amateur-hour bullshit or I’ll run you in. This one’s a courtesy. After tonight, you’re out of aces.”
“Why not dig up some answers, instead, Warren? Why not give the family what it wants?”
“They already got their answers, dumbass. Just like you.” He handed me back my SIG and climbed back in his car, leaving me standing there.
“Where are we?”
He pointed. “The Mosby is three miles that way.”
“Don’t want to give me a lift?”
“Why the hell do you think I drove out here?” he said. “This way I know you ain’t heading back to Jackie’s. It’s gonna take you an hour to get back to your hotel.”
“Great.”
He shot me a look. “I’m not bullshitting you, Singer. If I see you around town, I’m slapping you with jaywalking, loitering, swearing in public, whatever it takes. Don’t think I won’t throw your ass in the can.”
“How would I leave town, then?” I said. But he’d already pulled away.
Chapter Seventeen
The phone woke me at six the next morning. I answered without opening my eyes. “Singer.”
“Hope I’m not waking you.” It was Chick Reyes.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I had to get up to answer the phone, anyway.”
“Well, you might want to rise and shine for real,” he said. “Ginny Decker’s trailer got firebombed this morning.”
My eyes snapped open. “Tell me.”
“S’all I know, compadre. I got a tip ten minutes ago.”
“She alive?”
“Dunno,” Chick said. “No one’s been admitted to any local hospital for burns, I know that.”
“I have to get out there,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Then stopped as I remembered something. “Shit. You’re on your way, right? Can you give me a ride? Or, uh, get me out to Jackie’s bar?”
“Leave something behind, Singer?” Amusement colored his voice.
“You could say that.”
“I’ll pick you up in front of the Mosby in ten minutes.”
A shower would have to wait. I stood, winced at the pain in my feet—three miles was a long way to walk—and did what I had to do in the bathroom. A change of clothes later and I felt just above subhuman, but that’s as good as it was going to get, so I left the room and headed downstairs.
Chick was already in front of the Mosby as promised, idling a canary-yellow Camaro. A pair of fuzzy dice hung from the rearview mirror. His head was bent over some papers and one hand dangled outside the driver’s-side window, as though still holding a cigarette. It wasn’t six-thirty yet, so the breeze was cool and the sun lit storefronts and windows in a cheerful light, but already I could tell it was going to be 99 in the shade.
He raised a hand in greeting as I got close. I hopped in and he handed me a small coffee in a paper cup. I nodded my thanks, took the top off, and blew the steam away.
“Anything more over the scanner?” I asked, nodding to a little box that squawked and hissed. “Bodies? Arrests?”
He shook his head as he put the Camaro in gear and we took off, the muscle car’s engine growling. “Not that I’ve heard. Cain’s Crossing doesn’t have a forensics or arson team, so they might be waiting for help to come over from Warrenton or from Richmond before they go tramping around.”
“From what I’ve heard, there’s one group that’s good for it,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chick said, taking a turn smoothly. “Who’s that?”
I glanced over. “The Brower brothers. Seems like they’re the main force for evil in the area. Surprised you haven’t heard of them.”
“Oh, I know about those boys. They stir up trouble, make life miserable for some folks. But firebomb some lady’s trailer?” He made a face, shook his head. “No way. They’re just a bunch of local fuckups.”
“That’s all, huh?”
Chick glanced my way. “Someone get into a little trouble last night?”
“Sort of.”
“Care to share? I like to hear about Anglos getting in trouble at bars.”
I gave him the abbreviated version of my night on the town. He was quiet, listening intently as I spoke. His driving was precise and economical.
When I got to the point about provoking the three brothers, he laughed. “So, that’s why you asked about the Browers. Some criminal syndicate, huh? A bunch of redneck brothers looking to kick some ass at a dive bar.”
“Ginny Decker thought they were more than that and now her trailer’s gone up in smoke.”
He waved that away. “We don’t know anything yet. By the way, I like your investigative style. Don’t know anything? No problem. Just go to Jackie’s and start calling people names.”
I made a face. “I wanted to rattle some cages and see what fell out. Which was fine, while it lasted. We were just calling each other bad names until Will showed.”
“He’s hard-core, man,” Chick said. “The only one of them who did real time.”
“I figured as much from the prison ink,” I said. “Who’s this Jay-bone guy with them?”
Chick shrugged. “Regulation-grade ass-kisser. Hit the scene maybe a year ago and started hanging around the brothers. He’s just their kind of loser, though he doesn’t have their reputation for busting skulls for fun. Oh, and he and J.D. got into a scrap when Hope came back from DC.”
“He’s the one J.D. hit with a bottle?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ginny tell you? They made their peace after that since they were both working for the Browers. Jay’d only been in good for a couple months when that all happened.”
I nodded, but was quiet. Something Chick had said tickled the back of my brain, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Whatever it was sank back into the muck, however, as we pulled into Woodland Corner. The stink of burnt rubber and vinyl hung in the air and a blue haze sat over top of the trailer park like a dark cloud. There were no sirens, but the flash of lights from fire trucks and police cruisers showed us the way.
We parked next to a white-sided mobile home a half dozen lots away that was succumbing to algae or moss or something green working its way up the walls. A middle-aged Latina was half in, half out of the door watching the action. She started to disappear inside when she saw us, but then Chick called to her in Spanish. She shook her head and slipped inside, shutting the door behind her.
“What was that about?” I asked.
He shrugged. “She’s the one who phoned me about the fire. Guess she doesn’t want to talk anymore.”
“Hard to argue with that,” I said, “when the reasons for not talking are floating in the air around you.”
He grunted and we walked towards the blackened rubble that had been Ginny Decker’s home. Hoses led from the fire trucks to the edge of a charred circle that still popped and hissed. Two cops and three firemen stood a discreet distance away, hands on hips, talking and occasionally shaking their head. Warren was one of the cops and I slowed, giving myself a chance to check the scene before I went toe-to-toe with him. Judging by what he was wearing—the same clothes I’d seen him in when he’d dropped me off the night before, now rumpled and askew—he’d clearly worked a double, at least. He’d be tired and angry and ready to blame me for all kinds of things. And maybe he’d be right.
There were none of the witnesses or bystanders you’d expect to see hanging around the scene, though maybe they’d come and gone since there was very little to see that wasn’t charred, stinking, and over two feet tall. None of it was recognizable, though a slightly larger lump might’ve been a refrigerator and some twisted metal that looked like a snake’s nest might’ve been what was left of a set of box springs. The fire, though obviously intense enough to have melted almost the entire trailer, had been contained. So, by some miracle, the propane tank that had probably heated the trailer hadn’t blown. In fact, the black smear that marked the fire didn’t spread more than a few feet away from the plot in any direction and none of the other mobile homes had been touched.
I felt a lump twisting in my gut. Ginny Decker had been alive this time yesterday, hoping to go unnoticed by me, by the Browers, by whoever had killed her husband. I’d told her I’d be able to do something about the people or person who had killed J.D., with the implication that I could keep them from doing the same to her. Not only had that not been the case, there was no way to escape the fact that it was probably my visit that had caused her death.
I didn’t have long to think about it, though. One of the cops nudged Warren, whose expression turned nearly as black as the smudge on the ground when he saw me. He stomped over to the two of us, then let me have it.
“Happy, you son of a bitch?” His face was flushed and blotchy and a line of perspiration dotted his upper lip. “Anything else you want to cross off your list? Want to blow up a hospital, maybe shoot a couple of orphans on the way?”
“Was Ginny in there?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Was she in there?”
“What the hell do you think?” he asked. “Lady’s trailer goes up in smoke at six in the morning, she’s probably in there.”
“So you don’t know,” I said, feeling the first stirring of relief. Even if it was faint.
“When we find her body—if we can tell it apart from all that—your ass is mine,” he said, putting a finger in my face.
“I didn’t set this fire, Warren.”
“You might as well have,” he said. “In twenty-four hours you’ve done more to wreck this town than anyone since the goddamn Civil War.”
“You find a body, Detective?” Chick asked.
“You go to hell, Reyes,” Warren said, his eyes flicking over to the reporter. “Singer wouldn’t have had a clue to come here except for you.”
“What you mean is, the Brower brothers wouldn’t have had a reason to torch Ginny Decker’s trailer except I had the guts to talk to her about J.D.,” I said. “Still, it’s a pretty important question, Warren. If there’s no body, we’re talking destruction of property. But if Ginny’s at the bottom of that pile of ash, then we’re talking homicide. Even the Cain’s Crossing PD could make a case from that, I hope.”
Warren’s face purpled and I was pretty sure he was going to take a swing. And, if he did, I’d just have to take it, because I’d be lucky to avoid a night in jail with what I’d said already. But instead of smacking me in the mouth, he stomped away, jerking a thumb for me to follow him. Chick started to follow, too, but Warren barked, “Not you.”
Thirty feet away from the scene, Warren stopped and rounded on me. “You dumbass. We know damn well the Browers did this. And loads more over the years. We’re not all hayseed morons, no matter what you think after your thirty years in Wash-ing-ton Dee-See.”
“So, prove it,” I said. “I’m asking questions that a freshman in Criminology would want answers to. What’s the big deal?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t you been listening? Remember that little bit about how we don’t have the luxury of a twenty-man department to take this on? That ring a bell? We ha
ve to go slow and do things right.”
“This isn’t enough to get you started? You’ve got a clear case of arson. I mean, that’s smoke I’m smelling, right?”
He poked a finger at me. “This ain’t a case we can make a mistake on. If we put Buck away but not Will or Will and not Tank, then whoever’s left is going to burn down this town like they did Ginny Decker’s trailer. If one goes, we gotta make sure they all go.”
“So start the process. Nail them for J.D., trace this fire back to them, start racking up charges,” I said, confused. Warren was making excuses. And not very good ones. “You know they’re good for some of it, probably all of it. Do your damn job.”
“You want to eat your teeth, boy, you keep telling me how to do my work.”
I took a breath. “Fine. How about showing a little bit of effort, then?
“Who said some of us ain’t trying, Singer?” he said. Close up, I could see bags under his eyes and a slackness to his face that spoke of sleepless nights. “Maybe some of us are trying to do it the right way.”
“What do you mean, ‘some of us’?”
Warren started to lay into me, then caught himself. “If it was any of your damn business, I’d tell you. If you’ve got a brain in your head, you’ll drop it.”
“So, you’re not going to lock me up?” I asked.
He sighed and took his hat off to wipe his brow. Some of his anger seemed to have fizzled away. “You know as well as I do there’s nothing to lock you up for. You start any more trouble and I’ll find something. But I would appreciate the hell out of it if you would just go home, Singer. I can tell you that going around pissing people off don’t make it any easier for us. And now a good woman is dead, thanks to you.”
Warren turned away and headed back to the site. Chick had gotten statements from the firefighters and remaining cop while Warren and I had our come-to-Jesus moment, so it seemed like a good time to make an exit. I retreated to the far side of the burn site, staring at the grotesque pile of slag. The air still wobbled and curved from the heat rising from the fire, a testament to how intense the blaze had been. It was hard to believe that the body of the woman I’d talked to yesterday was intertwined with the industrial mess in front of me.