Night Songs

by Penny Mickelbury

  Something was swimming around in Gianna’s subconscious seeking to break the surface. What was it?

  “I’ll put it all in my report,” Alice was saying, but Gianna was hearing Sergeant Marx explain how all the boys in the club drove identical cars. The same red Trans Am. The same black Jeep Wrangler?

  “What’s the license number, Alice?” Gianna picked up the phone and, in a rare public display of the authority she possessed, by-passed all of the regular channels of the department and was patched in to a system that immediately gave her the name of the person to whom the Jeep was registered: Thomas Haldane, the junior Senator from Alabama.

  By the time Mimi finished telling Tyler everything that had happened the previous night, he was hopping back and forth from foot to foot as if he had to go to the bathroom. Tyler was like a little kid when he got excited. And, like a little kid, he could go from ecstatic to downtrodden in a heartbeat, which was exactly what occurred when Mimi concluded her narrative with, “There’s just one small problem.”

  Tyler’s face crashed fifteen stories to the ground. “What.”

  “The license number”

  “I thought you made such a big deal of that Baby Doll person giving you the number!”

  “I did, Tyler. But there’s a missing letter.”

  “Jesus, Patterson! Then you don’t have the plate number!”

  “Would you calm down for just a minute? I have the first two letters and the three numbers. Piece of cake for your FBI pal.” Tyler’s lover was an FBI agent who occasionally did small favors for them. Tyler, however, never liked asking and Mimi never minded asking, so she said she’d be happy to call Don if Tyler was too chicken-shit to do it. He snatched the paper from her with the partial license number on it and stalked across the newsroom to his desk.

  Mimi was on the phone to the Medical Examiner’s office, trying to get some information on the murdered prostitute, when Tyler’s shadow crossed her desk. He dropped the paper on which she’d written the license number, and stood waiting. She saw that the missing letter of the number had been added in red ink. Beneath the name and also in red ink the words, THOS. HALDANE, US SENATOR, ALABAMA.

  She looked up at Tyler and couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, but she knew exactly what the sinking feeling in her gut signified. She rushed through her conversation with the deputy ME and hung up. A United States senator. Jesus H. Christ on a raft, where was this story going. She allowed herself a final moment of indecision, then picked up the phone and punched in the familiar numbers.

  “Lieutenant Maglione.”

  “I need to talk to you right away. About the murder last night. Baby saw it.”

  Gianna paused only the briefest second before she said, “Tell me when and where to meet you.”

  “At the gym,” Mimi said, “in an hour.”

  At that time of the day, they had the steam room to themselves. Encompassed by the dark, quiet, soothing heat, Mimi told Gianna everything she’d found out about the murders of the prostitutes, including what Sandra King’s mother said about killing girls being part of some kind of an initiation rite, and concluding with what Baby saw and the license number that, if correct, meant that the junior senator from Alabama or somebody related to him killed a prostitute.

  Gianna was silent for a long moment before she said, “It’s not the senator. It’s his son. And you are one hell of a good investigator, Patterson.” And then she told Mimi everything she knew about the case, including what she’d learned about Todd Haldane, Errol Allyne, Clarke Andrews, and Jerome Wilson from Sergeant Marx in Fairfax County. “You should check with him, and with the Montgomery County people. You can get access to everything but their juvenile records, and that won’t matter, because these boys have been bad for a long time.”

  “And what, Gianna, should I do with all this information?” Mimi asked carefully. They both remembered what had happened the last time Mimi broke a major story in the middle of one of Gianna’s major investigations.

  “Do everything you would normally do to check your facts, confirm your sources, whatever it is you do. I will let you know when we’re ready to make arrests.”

  “It’ll take me at least a week to pull all these pieces together, maybe longer,” Mimi said.

  “And it’ll take us that long to obtain search warrants and arrest warrants.”

  “Then, it’ll take me two days to write the thing,” Mimi whined, because writing a massive investigative story was always the hardest part.

  “So,” Gianna concluded, “I don’t see how anything you’re doing effects or interferes with anything I’m doing.”

  “So,” Mimi said, extending her hand. “Truce?”

  Gianna took her hand, returned the powerful grip, then pulled her fiercely into her arms and into her mouth.

  “I love you, Mimi Patterson,” Gianna whispered, her mouth still claiming Mimi’s.

  “As well you should,” Mimi began with a laugh that was quickly replaced by the sounds of passion.

  *****

  Investigations, Gianna wearily concluded, whether by police or reporters, were comprised largely of activities best described as tedious, monotonous, boring and, quite often, unproductive. Investigations required following dozens of loose threads through hopelessly entangled mazes, often with the result being that they led nowhere. They just came to an end. Sometimes a thread might lead to another thread, which would lead to another maze, which would then lead nowhere. Investigators also relied heavily on hunches. And investigators relied heavily on luck. And when combined—the threads and the hunches and the luck—the investigators were able to reap rewards often enough to keep them from despairing. That combination was what gave Gianna her first real hope of having a case against the boys, because, in truth, all she had was a stack of circumstantial evidence, none of it sufficient to take to a grand jury. Until the report from the police in a little town in Virginia, on the West Virginia border, where the owner of a camping and hunting store remembered selling a dozen six-inch buck knives to a University of Virginia student.

  Gianna re-read the report with a sense of satisfaction. The camping store owner was suspicious of a purchase of twelve knives by one person. His regular customers were people who knew and loved the mountains and forests and streams of that part of Virginia, people who hunted and fished and camped, people for whom a buck knife was an essential tool, a means of survival. The store owner, a man in his seventies, was also resentful of the influx of city people and their city ways into the no longer secluded and remote backwoods hamlets nestled against the Shenandoah Mountains. So the owner had questioned the purchase and was told that the knives were for members of a club called The Head Honchos. Yes, the owner would recognize the purchaser again, and he certainly would recognize his truck again: one of those fancy Jeeps, black with lots of silver and three sets of head lights and license plates from Virginia, the number the store owner just happened to jot down, mostly because he didn’t trust citified boys in fancy trucks who bought knives by the boxful. The Jeep was registered to General Jefferson Davis Andrews of McLean, Virginia.

  Gianna had lost count of how many times during this investigation she had wondered how and why these boys had gone so wrong so early. They’d had the best of everything, beginning with education—which is where the boys had met each other. Even though they lived in different parts of the wealthy Maryland and Virginia suburbs that surrounded Washington, the boys had all attended the same exclusive prep school in D.C., beginning in the first grade. All of them were intelligent, good students, active in social and academic clubs and societies. But the propensity for violence had begun early. Why? Perhaps, Gianna thought, that was a question best left to the Beverly’s of the world; for in truth, Gianna didn’t care why. She only wanted to put Todd Haldane and Clarke Andrews and Jerome Wilson and Errol Allyne in jail for a very long time. Maybe somebody there could find out why the boys thought it was all right to kill women for sport. What she wanted was to place them in T
odd Haldane’s Jeep on the night of October third in an alley between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets in northwest Washington. And do to that she’d need more than Marlene Jefferson, aka Baby Doll.

  She opened the file on Todd Haldane though she knew every word contained there as well as every word in each of the other files. And what she knew was that the Haldane boy was not like the others. He was a follower, a tag-along. Haldane got in trouble because the other boys did, because he wanted to be part of the in-crowd, and nothing in the background information on the Alabama senator suggested that he was the same kind of violent bully as General Andrews. The Haldane boy had not participated in the rape or in any of the other violent incidents. He was present, yes, but usually drunk. So maybe if they leaned on Haldane, really leaned on him and on his senator father.

  Eric was leaning on store and shop owners on Tenth and Eleventh and Twelfth and O and P and Q Streets with absolutely no success. Despite the fact that the Chinese carry-out and the candy and cigarette store and the gas station were open all night, not a single person admitted to having seen or heard anything unusual the night before last. Several even claimed not to have heard the sirens of the police cruisers and ambulances. None was concerned enough or interested enough to investigate the flashing lights. Only one admitted to being too frightened to leave the safety of his store to find out what was going on. But, disgust notwithstanding, Eric continued to methodically criss-cross his way through the area. He must find someone to corroborate what Baby Doll said she saw.

  The bell over the door tinkled when Eric opened it, and he stood there looking around until Alva casually worked her way up to the front of the store.

  “What you want, Mr. P’liceman? And don’ ask me how I know you th’ p’lice. I ain’t stupid, you know.” Eric grinned at her, at the truth of her words as much as at the lovely, lilting sound her voice made, the warmth of the Caribbean resonating in it.

  “A woman was murdered in the alley.”

  “I know. Poor ‘ting.” Alva shook her head and clucked her teeth. “When you people gonna stop such?”

  “When are you people gonna help us? I wasn’t in the alley that night, but somebody was, and our hands are tied until we locate that witness.”

  “Well, I know who was but she ain’t gonna talk to the likes of you.” Alva put her hands on her narrow hips and looked Eric up and down.

  He let her complete her sizing up of him, then asked, “And are you gonna talk to the likes of me?”

  “One of th’ girls run in here to use the phone. Scared white she was. No offense, Mr. P’liceman. Then she waits for a while. Then she leaves. I go out after her, just to make sure she’s okay, you know? ‘Cause she’s a good girl.”

  “Baby Doll?” Eric asked.

  “Ah, so you know ‘bout Baby. Then you know ‘bout them white boys that was after her.”

  “Tell me about them,” Eric asked.

  And Alva told him about the little black truck with the four white men that tried to follow Baby but couldn’t because she kept darting in and out of doorways and alleys. Alva lost sight of her, too, and returned to her store. Then she heard all the sirens and went back out to see what was happening.

  “That’s when I saw that little red car. Baby was in it with another lady—real pretty t’ing she was, and not no workin’ girl neither—and the little black truck was followin’ ‘em.”

  Little red car. Montgomery Patterson. And the little black truck was following the little red car. Which meant that Baby Doll would not be the only target of the boys’ revenge. The Lieutenant would go ballistic when Eric told her.

  But one look at the Lieutenant’s face, and Eric decided to postpone telling her anything resembling bad new. She’d spent the morning at the hospital with Cassie, helping to tell her what had happened to her and why and why she didn’t remember and why it was possible that she would never see from her left eye again. Then Gianna had had the identical conversation with Cassie’s parents. Then she’d held Cassie while the girl wept and wondered what she’d done to deserve such punishment. And by the time Gianna finished convincing the young officer that the sick, evil acts of human beings could in no way be construed to be Divine punishment or retribution—“God doesn’t hurt people, Cassie. People hurt each other—” the superior officer was completely drained. She barely had enough energy remaining to review all the reports that had come in during the last twenty-four hours, including Eric’s on Alva.

  “Good work,” Gianna said. “Will she recognize them again?”

  “The truck for sure—she wrote down the tag number—and maybe the boy in the passenger seat. She said he had red hair like mine, though not as pretty.”

  And Gianna smiled with Eric and the others at the little bit of much needed levity. Eric deliberately omitted what Alva had told him about the boys in the black truck following the red car, and the danger he believed that posed for Montgomery Patterson.

  Mimi had never been so warmly received by a police officer as she was received by Sergeant Danny Marx of the Fairfax County Police when she told him what she wanted. He brightened even more when told him she’d been briefed by Lieutenant Maglione, off the record, of course. Of course, Sergeant Marx responded expansively. And his comments would have to be off the record, as well, but he’d tell her whatever she wanted to know. “I read your stuff in the paper, Miss Patterson, and you do damn fine work.” And when he’d answered her every question with more detail than she’d dared hope for, he’d given her the name of a Montgomery County, Maryland officer who, he assured her, would be just as pleased to talk to her. Mimi thanked Marx and let him know that if she could ever return the favor, he need only call. Cops and reporters co-existed peacefully to the extent that they could help each other. Sometimes it was a news story that broke a case for the cops, a carefully worded, well-planted news story. Mimi knew that and so did Marx—that’s why he was talking to her. The police hadn’t been able to nail Clarke Andrews and his pals, maybe the press could. She gathered up her notes and tape recorder, placed it all in her briefcase, and extended her hand to Marx.

  She was putting on her jacket when he said, “You know the little bastards used to wear jackets that had a serpent emblem—that was their logo—and their name.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Mimi said surprised. “What was their name?”

  “The Head Honchos. Can you believe that?”

  Mimi could believe it, after everything she’d just heard. She was on her way to the door when Marx killed all the good feelings she had for him.

  “That Lieutenant Maglione. I, ah, checked her out, just to know who I was dealing with, you know?”

  Mimi turned a cold, steady gaze on Sergeant Marx. “And?”

  “And, well, I just wondered how well you know her.”

  “I know her,” Mimi said shortly. “Why?”

  “Well, is she married?” Marx finally asked, and Mimi laughed.

  “Yeah, Sergeant, I believe she is,” Mimi said, halfway out of the door, still laughing.

  “Well,” Marx called out after her, “how about you? You married?”

  “Yeah, I believe I am, too.” And Mimi grinned to herself all the way back on the pretty drive out Route 66 to the George Washington Parkway, along the Potomac, and into Washington. She took the long route because fall was in full bloom and the trees were changing clothes for the season, having gotten out their reds and oranges and golds. This beauty could always overcome the ugliness of the lives human beings made for themselves.

  Mimi was politely if not warmly received by Detective John Butler in the Gaithersburg station of the Montgomery County Police. Sergeant Marx had already called him and he’d already spoken to Lieutenant Maglione, whom he knew, and if Lieutenant Maglione would talk to a reporter, so would he. And talk he did, actually divulging more information than had Sergeant Marx, because from Butler Mimi learned that two of the boys—Errol Allyne and one whose name she’d not heard before, Geoffrey Greene—had been arrested and charg
ed just two years ago for killing and dismembering neighborhood cats. They used, Butler said, hunting knives.

  “Who is Geoffrey Greene? I don’t have his name.”

  “That’s because his father is the chief judge of the circuit court,” Butler said sourly. And instead of being elated at the prospect of yet another son of yet another prominent man, Mimi felt only a dull heaviness, and along with it, the realization that she’d feel no thrill when she saw this story on the front page of the paper, topped by her by-line.

  Eric was too tired to be pissed off at Tim’s brusque refusal to meet him, Kenny, and Bobby at Armand’s for pizza and beer. He was busy, Tim said, and stalked off. They’d all been dismayed at Gianna’s description of Cassie’s condition, at the fact that she would not be able to identify her attackers because she didn’t remember the attack. But Tim was acting as if it were their fault. Dammit, didn’t he understand that all of them hurt? He, Eric, and Kenny and Bobby? Tim wasn’t the only one of them to feel the loss of Cassie, not to mention what that loss had done to the other women in the Unit—to the Boss and to Lynda. Nobody talked about it but it was there and they knew it: Not only were they vulnerable as cops, they were vulnerable as women.

  “Shit,” Eric said glumly to his beer. Then he looked up at Bobby and Kenny and told them about Montgomery Patterson’s car being followed by the black Jeep and how he thought it was possible that the reporter was in danger and how he wondered if they were game for an off-the-books surveillance of Patterson’s residence until somebody was busted for the hooker murders.

  “I’m game, but why off-the-books?” Kenny asked.

  Eric answered carefully. “Because I don’t want to cause the Lieutenant any unnecessary worry.”

  “Red Karmann Ghia convertible. Why does that ring a bell?” Bobby asked. “Has that vehicle ever been part of a case file?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Eric answered, still careful.

  “Yeah, sounds familiar to me, too,” Kenny said.