by Clara Nipper
“You crazy? I can’t tell a pig.”
“No, I understand. You can’t tell a pig. But you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
Everything went silent and still. I heard ice pellets hitting the trailer like buckshot.
“Really?” Bunny’s sudden gullibility made me feel briefly guilty. “You won’t tell?”
“Sure thing, Bunny. You know me. I ain’t one of them. I’m just curious. The chief can go fuck himself. I’m no rat.”
“You wear a goddamn badge! You arrested me. You testified against me and sent me to the looney bin.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?” Bunny waited. I could feel his expectation. The promise of an opening if I said the right thing.
“Listen, Bun,” I said, my voice warm and sweet like cocoa. “Jesus is my Lord and Savior and everything I do every day is for His Glory.” The false words slid out easily from extensive practice. “As a child of the Lord, I am always seeking to do what is right.”
Bunny snorted.
Undaunted, I continued. “I see you, Bunny. Underneath all that,” I felt around for a chair and located a rickety wooden stool and sat, “you’re sweet and tender with a golden heart.”
Bunny laughed, but I could tell this was the right way to go. This strategy never worked on smart suspects, but it worked like magic on the dummies and those riddled with superstition and faith. My fellow detectives called this interrogation routine my “old reliable.”
“You’ve been hurt,” I said. “No one was there to give you the care,” I punched my fist into my palm, “and hell, the justice you deserved.”
Bunny sighed, his breath ragged.
“And I know you’re a righteous man and you want to see justice done when you can help. You can rely on God’s Love, Bunny. Jesus loves you. Yes, he does. No matter what,” I paused for the big finish, making my voice low and kind, “and I love you.”
“The hell you say,” Bunny whispered.
“Of course I do. You’re a beloved child of the Lord and you are hungry for salvation. And you love Jesus. I know that. How could I not love a fellow sinner, searching for righteous truth, just like me?”
Bunny laughed. “Swear. Swear on…” Bunny fumbled in the dark. “My hammer.”
“Your…?” My voice dropped off the edge of the earth.
“Swear, Jill.” I felt Bunny come close. When he found me, he pushed a cold claw hammer into my gut. I tried to take it, but Bunny held it fast. “Swear,” he repeated.
“I swear, Bunny.”
He moved away and I heard him sit in his recliner again. “It was Dwayne and Wayne. They tried to get me to do the job, but I didn’t want to. I just got home. So they did it and made it look like me.”
“Dwayne and Wayne, huh? Think they might still be in town?”
“Why, Jill?” Bunny heaved himself up again and lumbered toward me.
I tripped and fell in a heap on the smelly shag carpeting. I was a goddamned arrogant son of a bitching fool. What was I thinking, coming here by myself like some rogue superhero? I had been disciplined for it in the past. “Bullet vests won’t fix stupid,” I had been told. “Bunny!” I commanded masterfully. “You are under arrest. I will repeat your rights to you.”
“Jill, Jill, Jill…” Bunny whispered. “Didn’t you hear? I’m not going back.” Bunny’s voice was like a spider’s.
“Bun Bun, a gun is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”
“DOC ain’t temporary.”
“You have the right to remain silent.” I crab walked around the floor, bumping into furniture and still seeking my cuffs and phone.
“Cut the shit,” Bunny said. “You promised! So we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“Aw, Bunny, don’t be that guy.” I boomed, faking jocularity and standing up.
“Easy or hard.” I felt a crushing grip around my throat from behind.
“You know me,” I wheezed. “I always go the hard way.” I speared my elbow into his solar plexus and he let go with a gasp. I couldn’t see where he or the door was, but in my stumbling, I kicked my cuffs out of my reach, and with a loud crunch, knew I had killed my phone. “That fucker always needed charging anyway,” I said.
Bunny couldn’t see in the dark any better than I, and I didn’t want to turn on my flashlight and help him find me. I had no phone, no cuffs, and no backup yet. I could shoot him, but I only wanted to do that as a last resort. I felt Bun’s hot, hard hand like an iron knock me in the face in his search. I fell against the door. I reached behind myself and unlatched the door, and just as Bunny lunged, opened the door and we both fell out of the trailer, down the steps, and onto the ice. Bunny was trying to get on top. I rolled and got him in a squirmy and barely contained half nelson. I saw Guido leaning against the limo, staring open-mouthed and frozen at this spectacle. A cigarette smoldered, forgotten, in his hand. I heard sirens approaching. I prayed they were close enough.
“Guido!” I shrieked. “Tell them officer down!” Bunny broke my grip and towered over me. “Officer down!” I screamed, reaching for my Glock. I pointed it at Bunny’s head. “Don’t move, shitbird.”
After turning Bunny over for processing on A & B on a police officer, I returned to the crime scene. There was something missing. Headquarters called. Bunny had both his balls, so this really wasn’t him. I missed something and I needed to get lucky and find whatever that was.
Chapter Twenty
The scene was still lurid with generators and floodlights and police tape and cruisers parked so their headlights shone to light the scene.
They had secured the house and yard and the thousand square yards of field behind the house. I had spoken to the first responders, and they only guessed at taping off the field because there was no evidence to suggest how the killer left. The ice was so thick and hard that footprints and tire prints just didn’t show up.
I left the team to wrap up and I just started walking. I removed my right leather glove so I could light my Zippo, which was key to my detective skills. I began by walking around the outside of the house. I know the team had already looked, but this was a hunch and part of my process, so I inspected windows and shrubbery and sidewalks and garage doors and rooflines. My flashlight was losing power, so I borrowed a fresh one from a rookie. Then I walked the perimeter of the yard, flicking my Zippo with my right hand and sweeping the light beam with my left. The ice underfoot was iron hard, but rough, so it wasn’t slick. I found a pair of luxury dogs shivering in a pile of brush. They had been tied to the fence and their snouts were bound with duct tape.
I knelt, removed my Swiss army knife from my pocket, sliced off the tape, cut the leashes, and gathered the terrified dogs into my coat. They shivered and whined. I was surprised they just hadn’t been shot outright, which is what usually happened to animals at a crime scene.
I carried the dogs to the house where the last officers were overseeing the coroner as he removed the bodies.
“Look what I found.” I presented the dogs by unzipping my coat and their heads, matted with ice, poked out.
“Bichon and Llasa!” Officer Magnuson said, coming close to hold them.
“You know their names?” I asked.
“No, genius, they’re purebred,” Magnuson said as he picked ice balls out of the fur between their toes. “I have some just like this. I’ll take them home.”
“Good man.” I clapped him on the shoulder. Thank goodness there were so many animal lovers because death by accident, homicide, suicide, or natural causes, resulted in a lot of suddenly homeless and frequently traumatized animals that had to be euthanized after spending a sad week at the shelter.
I returned to the spot where I had found the dogs and noticed some fibers on the privacy fence. I called for an investigator to collect that as evidence while I climbed over the fence and dropped to the other side. Even dropping six feet from the top of the fence didn’t break the ice on impact.
I walked
the perimeter of the field, not finding anything further. But my Zippo said to go for the woods. So I chose a likely trail and kept walking. About half a mile in, I saw blood. I radioed for backup and had to put my Zippo back in my pocket so I could approach with my Glock drawn.
It was completely silent. I checked behind trees, under piles of brush and in crevices. Finally, under a rotten log, I found the man.
“Hands where I can see them!” I said.
He was curled in a fetal position and didn’t move. I crept closer until I could prod him with my boot. I reached for the radio on my collar again. “This is Rogers. Cancel the backup. Bring a body bag.”
The man looked like a meth head, which is probably how he vaulted the fence without leaving more evidence. His pants seemed to be stuffed with every towel ever made.
He froze or died of blood loss or both. I waited until the team found me.
“You’re one lucky sumbitch, Rogers. You did it again,” Officer Smith said.
I shrugged and smiled. “I do what I do.” I reholstered my Glock and lit a cigarette and walked back to Guido and the Hummer.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Am I gonna have to put you on desk duty, Detective?” Chief St. John said. We were sitting in his car outside Sophie’s house. The ice had not let up. Every few seconds, the wipers cleared a thick slushy mass from the windshield. Chief was pissed. He called me “detective” when he thought I fucked up. Otherwise, it was Jilldo.
“Got my man, didn’t I?”
“Detective Rogers! Would you like to return to the academy to relearn what never to do?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you need to take remedial cop?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you, in fact, a retard?”
“Maybe, sir.”
“Do you find this funny, ’tard?”
“Little bit.”
“Maybe you need to be suspended until you shake out your sillies.”
“Chief, Bunny is as crazy as a clown’s dick!”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
I held my head, exhausted, discouraged. “I got him,” I said.
“Is this a game to you? Are you indulging the cowboy impulses?”
“No, sir, it just works out that way.”
Chief St. John rubbed his eyes, also exhausted. “He’s asking for you.”
I chuckled. “That Bunny.”
The chief nodded, his head back, his eyes closed.
“Well, let’s go.” I fastened my seat belt.
Chief laughed harshly. “Get in the house and don’t come out until tomorrow.”
“Can I have my gun and badge back?” I reached. “Sir?”
Chief St. John handed them to me as if they weighed fifty pounds. He shook his head. “How are things with Perryman?”
“We’re working together on Goodson.”
“Fine. Stay out of her pants, Jilldo. That’s an official departmental order.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Is there any order at all that you’ll follow?” Chief St. John looked so old.
“I’ll throw you a bone on this. She’s not my type.”
Chief sighed. “Thanks. Now take a day off.”
“Also an order?”
“Does it have to be?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you, Jilldo. If you weren’t so good; I’d fry you.”
“Love you too.” I stepped out of the car and wobbled up to Sophie’s front door. The ice pecked my eyes. I didn’t have my key. I knocked. Marny, in a quilted robe, let me in.
“Any Chinese left?” I stomped into the living room, rubbing and blowing on my hands. “I’m famished.”
Perryman sat next to the fire, holding a tissue to her nose. Marny shrugged. “It’s fucking Grand Central,” she said, her voice hoarse. “All we need is a judge and a PD and we can run court.”
“Where’s Sophie?” I asked.
“She and Alistair are in bed.”
Asleep? I almost asked, still hoping he was her brother. I nodded and knelt in front of the sheriff. “Dana? What happened?”
“It’s Wanda. She’s dead.” She wept softly.
Marny crunched an egg roll. “What’s a Wanda, your dog?” She stirred a martini with her eggroll and ate it.
“My daughter-in-law!” Perryman said.
“How? When?” My spine was touched with an electric wire.
“Gunshot and mutilated. We found part of her tonight. Oh, God, why? Why?”
“Exactly how old is this daughter-in-law? I don’t know anyone named Wanda under sixty,” Marny said, finishing her drink and gathering food containers.
“Do you want me to go with you anywhere?” I asked.
Perryman shook her head. “We’re having her cremated instead of buried because of the ice.”
I nodded. “You want to bed down here?”
“No, I’ve got to be with my son. I just couldn’t reach you by phone, and I thought since we’re working together on Goodson, we can work together on this.”
“Sure, baby, sure thing.” I pulled her to standing and hugged her. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yeah, takes my mind off of it. Call me tomorrow?”
“Can’t. Phone is broken and I won’t have a new one until the thaw.”
“I have to be able to reach you!” Perryman said.
“I know, I know,” I said. Perryman was becoming a sexless girlfriend. All demands and no fun.
“Get a pre-paid.” Marny suggested from under the blankets on the couch.
“Yeah, listen, I’ll do that. First thing.”
“Buy a car,” Marny said.
“Right. Fuck, I need a car. Well, don’t worry. I’ll fix it and we will talk tomorrow. Need a sleep aid?” I held up a bottle of scotch.
“Sure, I’ll take anything.” Perryman took a long swallow from the bottle without flinching and then put the cap back on and marched bravely outside, clutching the scotch like a baby.
I heard Marny’s light snore, and I felt comforted to be in a house full of people. We were all together, seeing this through. I crept down the hall to Sophie’s bedroom. I heard Alistair’s breathing so I opened the door and stared longingly at the small berm in the bed.
I wanted to creep, ice-cold, to that king-sized paradise and ease myself in to be welcomed by a blood-warm coziness. To be embraced by mouth, arms, breasts, belly, hips, and legs. To feel Sophie’s life-warmth join us and spread to me, saving me, healing me. To melt into her parted thighs and to dissolve into her sex. To feel her breath on my neck, reassuring me that everything was okay. To place my hand on her tummy and feel the calm, deep breathing that made me secure. To nest under the blankets in a sacred tangle of limbs. To be held fast—making me whole, grounding me to the beauty of this earth, to feel absolute love, as if we were twins in the womb, swimming in joy and pillows.
Alistair stirred and drew Sophie close to him, nuzzling her and nesting her back against him. She cooed in response. I could almost feel the carved muscle of her back, the heavy weight of breast, the rise of her hip, the plump curve of her buttocks, the relaxed beat of her heart. My eyes stung, and I closed the door quickly, returned to the fire in the living room, and sat up all night, nursing my allergies on bourbon.
Chapter Twenty-two
The next day, I rode in Sophie’s car as she took me to get a phone. I was glad it was a deeply gray day because the sun would’ve made my head explode.
I lit a Camel, and at Sophie’s piercing glance, I lowered the window. She snapped the heat on high.
“Want one?” I held the box out to her. I could see my breath, but no matter how cold it was, I had to smoke. Zippo open, closed, open, closed.
“What do you think, genius?’
“What’s stuck up your vag?” I said.
“Fuck you.”
“What the hell is this chicksand?”
“You’ve driven Alistair away. He’s leaving as soon as the a
irport reopens.”
“What? Me? I like the guy. You did good.” I slugged her on the shoulder.
“Alistair dumped me.” Sophie swerved the bucking car over the deep ice grooves and slammed it into park. She turned the highest volume of fury on me—full face. “We’ll always be friends, thank you.”
“Well, at least you’re a good loser,” I said.
“Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser,” she said.
“When did this happen?”
“Last night.”
I started to protest by saying “when I spied on you, you were happily spooning,” but I stopped myself in time. “What brought this on? You two were fine!”
“Nothing worth noting.” Sophie sniffed, turning to look forward again. “He said that I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Well, are you?”
“Of course!” Sophie said.
“I guess you’re not that convincing.” I shrugged and flicked my butt out the window where it sizzled briefly. “Can we go? I have calls to make.”
“He says I’m in love with someone else.”
My eyes dilated and my heart thumped. I felt the veins in my neck pulsing. I slowly unbuckled my seat belt and turned to Sophie, who clung to the steering wheel and stared miserably at the road. I embraced her, folding her body into mine as much as I could in the car. “Of course you’re in love with someone else,” I whispered huskily. She held on to me tightly. Finally. There was some great click in the universe and inside me. At last, the right, true, and proper thing was happening. “Oh, Sophie, Sophie,” I sighed. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. You’re the only one—”
“Shut up,” she said.
I lowered my mouth onto hers and then jerked away. “Did you hear that?” I looked around.
“What?” Sophie seemed drugged and happy.
“Bells,” I said. Sophie smiled so sweetly that I felt tears tickle the corners of my eyes, and I returned to her mouth for nourishment. “Who cares about a goddamn phone?” I murmured to her lips. In reply, Sophie wrenched herself from me and drove back to her house, her lustful speed making the ride feel like bumper cars.
