Cop Town: A Novel

by Karin Slaughter

  He laughed, seemingly more delighted with the name than Oma. He sat behind his desk. “Now, let’s be serious. What is your question, Officer Murphy?”

  “Would a doctor lie on an autopsy report?”

  His interest was piqued. “I suppose it would depend on what was found.”

  “If a man was homosexual, would there be physical signs?”

  “The short answer is yes.” He leaned back in his chair. “As for your original question, you would likely find traces in the areas you would expect to find traces. If it was ingested within one to two hours of death, it might be found in the stomach. Sperm is high in fat and protein, which takes time for the digestive system to process. Though the caloric value is roughly the same as a can of Tab, which I would like for you to keep in mind.”

  Kate caught herself before she stupidly asked him why. “Let’s say that the coroner found traces where you mentioned, or found evidence in the stomach. Would these findings be noted on the autopsy report? Or is that something that would be left off?”

  “I would leave them off if they didn’t serve a purpose, but then, I am a man of great discretion. Shall I call the coroner for you and find out?”

  “You know the coroner?”

  “One of them—Artie Benowitz?” He noted Kate’s surprise. “Yeah, that putz. Bottom of his class at UGA. Let me give him a call.” He picked up the phone. “Candy, could you get me Dr. Benowitz, please?”

  He winked at Kate.

  She looked at her watch. How had this only taken four minutes? Kate glanced around the office. The couch was longer than Philip was tall. The chairs were so deep that her hamstrings were starting to ache from the effort of keeping herself perched on the edge.

  Philip cupped his hand to the phone. “Do you have names for me?”

  Kate took out her notebook. She flipped to the names of the dead officers. “They were double homicides, so they go together, two and two.”

  “I can’t hear you. Could you please come sit in my lap?”

  Kate slapped the notebook down in front of him.

  Philip silently read the list. “These are the police officers who were executed.”

  “Yes.”

  He held up a finger and spoke into the phone. “Hello, Artie? Yes, Van Zipless here.” He winked at Kate again. She wanted to smack him. “I’ve got some names for you. I need to know if they were faygelehs.” He read the names from the list. At the same time, he reached his hand into his jacket pocket. Kate saw a flash of black silk in his hand.

  She lunged across the desk. He snatched back her underwear.

  He said, “Yes, I’ll hold.”

  “Philip.” Kate struggled to control her voice.

  He moved the receiver away from his mouth. “I found these in my car this morning. Do you know to whom they belong?”

  “Give them to me.”

  “You don’t want them. I wore them on my head as I drove to work.” Kate held out her hand. “Now.”

  “But they’re so silky.” He tucked her underwear down the front of his pants. “I love the way they feel against my—Yes.” He moved the phone back to his mouth. “I’m here, Artie. That’s great. No sign whatsoever. What’s that?” He moved the phone away again, telling Kate, “Artie took the liberty. Don Wesley is an affirmative. The other four are a no. Anything else?”

  Kate grabbed a pen and added Lionel Rosa’s name to the list. “This man was killed yesterday. His mother is trying to get him released. She’s already sitting shivah.”

  Philip sat up in his chair. His voice lost its teasing tone as he relayed the information to Artie Benowitz. There was no more small talk at the end. He simply hung up the phone. “Mr. Rosa will be released this afternoon.”

  “Thank you.” Kate felt relieved. At least that was one good thing she was able to do today. “Now will you give me back my underwear?”

  “Darling, I would like very much for you to come get it.”

  Kate gripped her hands in her lap. “Please try to be serious. I’ve just seen you do it, so I know it’s possible.”

  “But I keep thinking of your hand in my pants. I can’t concentrate.”

  She gave up. “Where is this going?”

  “Why does it have to go anywhere?”

  Kate had had her fill of him always answering her questions with more questions.

  “Listen to me, Kaitlin.” Philip came around his desk and sat in the chair beside her. “Will you let me hold your hands? This really requires me to hold your hands.”

  She reluctantly let him hold her hands.

  He gazed into her eyes. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you in Janice Saddler’s basement. You were the most beautiful girl I had seen in my life. I carried the memory of your kisses to Jerusalem. I begged my parents to let me return. I wrote our names in the back of my notebooks. ‘Mr. Kaitlin Herschel.’ I kissed my hand and pretended it was you.”

  Kate laughed, because this was ridiculous even for Philip. “Then why didn’t you look me up when you came back to America? I was still single then.”

  He held her hands more gently. “Because I have a duty to marry a Jewish woman who will raise my children in our faith, so that they will raise their children in their faith, and so on until our people are made whole again.”

  Kate slid away from his grasp. “And what am I in this equation?”

  “You are my shiksa without the guilt.”

  “I’m as Jewish as you are.”

  “Yeah, but you smell better.” He nuzzled her neck.

  Kate pushed him away. “I’m working. I have to be back downstairs in—” She looked at her watch and wondered if the hands had somehow moved backward. Gail was still in the middle of her test. Kate had lied like a cat in a sunbeam all week, but suddenly, the skill abandoned her. “I only have fifteen minutes.”

  “So, kiss me for fourteen minutes. That leaves you plenty of time to get downstairs.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done that math before?”

  Philip shot his cuffs. He showed Kate his digital watch. He pressed a few buttons and a timer came up showing fourteen minutes.

  “Philip.”

  He started the timer.

  She said, “I should go.”

  “But you’re not.”

  Kate pressed her hands against the seat of the chair. She did not stand.

  “Do you know how perfect your mouth is?” He looked down at her lips. “I think about the color all the time. Is it like roses? Tulips? It drives me mad just wondering.”

  She smiled, but not because he was charming. He talked to her like a pimp. Except he wasn’t tricking her out. He was turning her feral.

  “Here.” Philip took her hand and pressed it to his chest. “Do you feel my pounding heart? Do you understand the effect you have on me?”

  His heart was beating fast. She could feel it through his shirt. Kate moved her hand to his open collar. The skin was hot. She let her fingers travel up to his face. His cheek was rough with stubble. His lips were so soft.

  Kate kissed him because she wanted to. She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck. She pulled him close. All because she wanted to.

  Philip hardly needed encouragement. He took off her belts with a practiced authority. Kate didn’t let herself wonder why he knew how. She concentrated on his mouth, his hands. He went down on his knees in front of her. Kate’s shirt came off. He unhooked her bra. She leaned back in the chair. She pressed her foot against his desk. Her head dropped back as he pulled down her underwear.

  And then he slowed everything down.

  His tongue made soft, lazy circles around her breast, down her stomach. He inched languorously downward until he was gently stroking between her legs. Kate ran her fingers through his thick hair. He was watching her, noting her breathing, her responses, so he could build her pleasure at his own leisurely pace.

  “Philip …” She thought about his goddamn watch. “Come on. Please.”

  He allowed her
to pull him back up. Kate bit his lip. She sucked his tongue. She tried to coax him with her hand but he wouldn’t let her. He would not be rushed. He kept the same languid pace until his mouth had set her body on fire. When he finally eased into her, it was with such exquisite slowness that Kate’s teeth wanted to chatter. He pulled out by degrees. Her body clenched for him. She felt hollow. And then he pushed back inside and she moaned with pleasure.

  “Kaitlin.” His breath was hot in her ear. He kept the same maddening rhythm. “Do you like the way I’m fucking you?”

  Kate dug her fingernails into his skin.

  “Do you want me to go slower?”

  “No.” He was killing her. “Please.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Philip.” She couldn’t stand it anymore. “Just shut up and fuck me.”

  31

  Maggie stood outside Gail’s hospital room listening to the stray calls coming through her radio. The chatter was soothing. No one was looking for her brother anymore. There had been a bank robbery downtown. Two tellers and a guard had been gunned down. All available cars were dispatched to search for the robber.

  Maggie should have been relieved to hear they weren’t looking for Jimmy. Instead, she was disgusted with herself. Why had she believed his letter even for a moment? What was wrong with her?

  When they were little, Jimmy was always tricking Maggie. He pretended he didn’t know where her shoes were. He hid her books or shrugged when she asked if he’d seen her skate key, even though it was in his back pocket. He did that stupid thing in the swimming pool where he squirted water in her face. Every time, Maggie did the same thing she’d done last night: she overrode that nagging in her gut and believed Jimmy not because she was gullible but because part of her could not accept that her brother would ever lie to her.

  Yesterday had been one of the worst days of Maggie’s life. She had been embarassed by Terry and his friends. She had killed a man. Gail had been hurt. Terry had thrown her around like a Frisbee. By the time she’d read Jimmy’s confession, Maggie had been like Kate after she hit that cinder-block wall. Shock had taken over. She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t see straight. Her brain couldn’t grasp reality.

  That was the only explanation for why the words of a grieving transsexual and a gay bartender had turned Maggie’s doubt into certainty. All night, she had struggled against the contents of Jimmy’s letter. Her thoughts kept ping-ponging back and forth. For every yes, there was a but—but he didn’t have to, but he dated so many girls, but he was so dependable and honest even to a fault.

  Two days ago, Maggie had laid it out to Kate outside of the Colonnade: people lie all the time, but if enough people tell the same story, then you have to accept that maybe they are telling the truth.

  Talking to that bartender, hearing him call her brother Jim, watching the way he smiled when he looked at Jimmy’s photo—that was proof of one thing. And if Jimmy was telling the truth about that one thing, then it followed that he was telling the truth about the other.

  Just like that, Maggie had accepted Jimmy for lost. She had given up on her brother just as quickly as Terry had.

  At least Maggie had given up for different reasons. Terry was stricken about Jimmy being gay. Thinking he was a killer was almost incidental. Maggie was the opposite. And now that the worst of all possibilities was removed, the other was one burden too many. Maggie would deal with that later after Jimmy was back home and the real Shooter was caught.

  For now, they had to keep moving forward. Kate was right about that. All they could do was work the case into the ground. Maggie was exhausted, but she couldn’t even think about sleep until she knew that her brother was safe.

  She heard laughter from inside Gail’s room. Bud Deacon, Mack McKay, and Chip Bixby had dropped by for a visit. They were talking football with Trouble, Gail’s husband. The men were joking around like they were all friends. Maggie couldn’t fault them for their hypocrisy. This was what cops did. No matter who you were, no matter how much everybody hated you, if you wound up in the hospital, you were guaranteed to be paid a call by every cop on the force. They had done the same thing for Jimmy the day before.

  And if Terry found him, they would do the same thing at Jimmy’s funeral.

  He wouldn’t listen to Maggie. She had called Terry from the pay phone outside the emergency room. She had told her uncle that she knew for a fact that Jimmy wasn’t the Shooter. When Terry had asked her for proof, Maggie had stuttered like a moron. What proof did she have other than a gut feeling and some secondhand information from the Sheep? It sounded like a bunch of he said/she said. Terry didn’t trust doctors. Other than fingerprints and blood type, he thought forensics was a load of shit. He didn’t deal in nuance. He wanted cold, hard truths. In the end, Maggie’s only fallback was to ask him to trust her.

  Terry was still laughing when he hung up the phone.

  Maggie’s transmitter beeped. “Unit five, Dispatch. What’s your ten-twenty?”

  She pressed her shoulder mic. “Dispatch, unit five. I’m at Grady Hospital.”

  “Ten-four, unit five. You’re requested ten-nineteen.”

  “Ten-four.” Maggie let go of the mic. They wanted her back at the station. She didn’t want to think about what would happen once she got there. Terry couldn’t force her to quit, but he could fabricate a reason to fire her.

  She looked at her watch. Kate was two minutes late. She’d practically begged Maggie to meet her here at twelve-thirty on the dot. Hopefully, she was following up on a solid lead.

  “What’re you doing out here, gal?” Mack was his usual three sheets to the wind. She had to step back so she didn’t get a contact high. “You should be out looking for your brother.”

  Maggie bristled. “If Jimmy wants to be found, somebody will find him.”

  “Listen to tough gal here,” Chip said. He looked a hell of a lot better than Bud and Mack, but that wasn’t saying much. They were all around Terry’s age, but they looked like old men. Too much booze, too many late nights and early mornings. When they first started on the force, that was the only way to do the job. Now that things had changed, they didn’t know how to stop.

  Bud asked, “You ever find out why Mark broke his fingernail?”

  Mack chuckled at the joke, like Mark Porter’s death was inconsequential.

  “Yes, I did.” Maggie talked over their laughter. “We’ve got a lot of leads, actually. Murphy and I have been working the case all morning. We found a witness.”

  “Woo-hoo,” Bud said. He obviously didn’t believe her. “Girlie here found a witness. How about that, Chipper?”

  “Guess we’ll read about it in the newspaper.” Chip smirked at the idea. “Let’s get outta here. We ain’t got all day to wait for that crazy old slit.”

  “No, we ain’t.” Mack took his gloves out of his coat pocket. They were black leather, the same as Terry’s. The same as Jimmy’s. The same as everybody’s.

  “Detective Tits.” Chip gave Maggie a half-assed salute as they walked away.

  Maggie rested her hand on her nightstick. She couldn’t summon her earlier rage. Why had she told them anything? How many more mistakes was she going to make today? She’d already broken down in front of Kate. Now, she’d told Bud, Mack, and Chip a lie that they would probably radio in to Terry as soon as they reached their respective cars. How long before Terry tracked down Maggie and asked her what the hell she was doing? That was all she needed to start her afternoon, to take a beat-down in front of Kate Murphy.

  “Hey, mama!” Gail yelled from down the hallway. A nurse was pushing her in a wheelchair. A large bandage was wrapped around Gail’s head and covered her injured eye. Her hospital gown rode up her legs. She didn’t bother to keep her knees together. “How long you been here?”

  “Not long.” Maggie felt the embarrassing urge to cry. Gail was sitting up. She was talking. She sounded like her old self.

  “Damn, where’d you get them bruises?”

 
Maggie shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak. This was the problem with letting yourself cry: once you gave in, you lost your ability to fight it back the next time.

  Gail told the nurse, “Thanks, doll, I got it.” She took over the chair and rolled herself into the room. “Trouble!”

  Trouble was lying in bed reading a car magazine. “Oh, hey, Maggie. What’s up, babe?”

  “They had me in some damn machine downstairs. Wouldn’t let me smoke for forty-five minutes.”

  He rolled out of bed and handed Gail her purse. “What’d they say?”

  “Jack shit, same as they been saying.” She held her head at an awkward angle so she could see inside her purse. “Did you smoke all my cigarettes, you asshole?”

  “I got bored.”

  Gail leveled him with a look from her remaining eye.

  “There’s a machine downstairs.” Trouble scampered out of the room.

  “He’s driving me batshit.” Gail rolled herself toward the window. “Won’t leave me alone. Keeps fetching me pillows. Filling the pitcher with ice water. You know I don’t drink water. What the hell is he thinking?”

  Maggie knew she didn’t expect an answer.

  “This thing sucks.” Gail meant the bandage. “Can’t look down because my eyeball might fall out.” She laughed at Maggie’s expression. “Shit, gal, I been through worse. Talk to me about work. Nobody will tell me squat.”

  Maggie tried to put her thoughts together. She had come to Gail for a reason. “What do you know about Alex Ballard and Leonard Johnson?”

  “Not a lot. They were good cops. Hated the shit out of each other. Always fighting.”

  Maggie hadn’t read that in their files. “About what?”

  “Who the fuck knows?” Gail concentrated on turning her chair. “Bosses put them together because they’re both married to black chicks. Thought they would have something in common. Typical high-handed bullshit.”

  Maggie guessed both men being married to blacks was some kind of connection. “What about Greg Keen and Mark Porter? Were they married to minorities?”

  “Not that I know of. Keen’s a poonhound, but that comes with the job.” Gail pointed to a folder on the bedside table. “Rick Anderson left that for you. He had to ditch Jake Coffee to run downtown and get it, which he said twice, so I’m assuming he’s expecting you to thank him for it in an off-duty way.”