They Called Her Indigo

by Sam Lee Jackson

  William S. Hesse was sitting, sprawled on the floor, back against the bed. He had his hand to his mouth, which was bleeding badly. Officer Jane Marie Landers was standing over him with a mark over her eye that would be a dandy shiner tomorrow. In her hand was an iron bookend. When Blackhawk had come in, she had spun, ready to throw the bookend at him. The shoulder strap on her little black dress was broken. There was a scratch across her throat and shoulder.

  Boyce followed me in. She walked over to Jane Marie. “You okay?”

  Jane Marie nodded.

  Boyce turned to us. “Give me your weapons.” She held her hand out. Blackhawk didn’t move, and I didn’t know if he was going to comply. I handed her mine.

  “SWAT is coming up the stairs. Give me your weapon,” she said again.

  Blackhawk handed it to her. She tossed the pistols on the bed, and SWAT burst into the room.

  “Put your hands on your head!” they were screaming. “Put your hands on your head.” Blackhawk and I complied. Boyce ignored them. They grabbed us roughly and pushed us against the wall. They cuffed us both.

  Boyce watched this calmly. I think she liked it. She reached to her back pocket and pulled a badge. She tossed it to Jane Marie, who caught it deftly with one hand.

  “This belongs to you. This guy is yours, you do the honors,” Boyce said.

  Jane Marie squatted down to Hesse’s eye level. She held the badge in front of him. “Okay, ass wipe. You are under arrest for a number of things, not the least of which is assaulting a police officer. Other charges will be outlined for you downtown. In the meantime, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney.” She read him his rights.

  When she finished, Boyce handed her some cuffs and Jane Marie snapped them on one wrist. She deftly turned him onto his stomach, put her knee in his back and cuffed the other one. He was bleeding all over his nice carpeting. In the meantime, I was being frisked. Not gently.

  56

  It was Labor Day and the marina was a giant, festering party. Everyone in Phoenix had gone to the lake. It was warm, but a strong breeze came from the west, so in the shade it was not unpleasant. No pun intended. Get it? Lake Pleasant, unpleasant? Never mind.

  The way we had decided to protect ourselves from all the interlopers was to gather on Pete’s boat with heavily stocked coolers, a full bar and good friends. Red meat was in Pete’s locker and the charcoal grill was banked, ready for the match. Blackhawk and Elena were working. In the night club business, you took advantage of every holiday.

  However, Lindy and Ashley had joined us, along with Eddie, Captain Rand and some of his friends. Some I had met, some I hadn’t. My goal was to get a small, non-invasive but effective buzz going, and maintain it as long as possible.

  Lindy had brought a fella she had met at Ashley’s school. He had a daughter in Ashley’s class and was a single parent also. The two girls were decked out in life jackets and, with prolonged shrieks, were jumping off of Pete’s stern, climbing back up the ladder and doing it again. They had been at it for two hours. Lindy and her friend were nursing Coronas, sitting under the over-hang watching the girls. I was pretty sure that at least one of them was also watching the bikinied young things that were draped over the ski boats that putted by.

  Pete was heavily involved in a backgammon game with one of Captain Rand’s young lady friends. Two guys and their wives were at the galley table playing poker. The women were pretending to not know how to play, but earlier, when I went to the head, I noticed they had the chips. Eddie, Captain Rand and I were content to snuggle into Pete’s deck chairs on the bow and watch the world go by.

  When Lindy and Ashley had arrived, Ashley took great delight in explaining to her friend that I had been the poopy head three times running. This meant I had to explain to Lindy’s friend how you played poopy head. Ashley insisted we do it before they could leave.

  As the sun began its dive behind the far blue mountains, Pete fired the grill and I helped in the galley. We served up everything on the galley counter and we ate like kings. The kids topped it off with bowls of ice cream, and that about did them in.

  Unfortunately, my ambitions to be poopy head four times running were thwarted by time getting by. Lindy firmly explained it was a school night and they took their leave as the sun was down.

  Slowly, one by one and couple by couple, the group began to dissipate until finally it was Captain Rand, Eddie, Pete and me up top watching the stars come out. Pete brought a bottle of Glenlivet and a bowl of ice up and we sipped it in that way when you take just enough into the mouth and let it saturate your whole body. You swallow slowly, and sometimes smack your lips and you close your eyes and look inward. When the Glenlivet showed up the conversation tailed off. We sat in mellowed contemplation.

  I was trying to rouse myself enough to take my leave, when we heard someone on the dock. Pete struggled his way out of his chair and went to the bow to look.

  He came back. He looked at me. “Couple of friends,” he said.

  I pulled myself up and went to look. Blackhawk and Nacho came walking up. Blackhawk looked up at me, and then looked at the glass in my hand.

  “You got more of that?”

  “If Pete doesn’t, I do,” I said.

  They joined us. Pete, the consummate host, pulled chaise lounge chairs for them and fixed them each a drink. Once they settled, Pete raised his glass and we all toasted.

  “One thing you haven’t told me,” Pete said. We all looked at him. “How come you guys aren’t in jail?” He looked at Blackhawk. “You shot that guy right in front of God, cops and everybody.”

  Blackhawk looked at his drink.

  “They took us downtown,” I said. “But after Detective Boyce and Mendoza had the DA look at the video, they could see the guy on the porch clearly point a weapon at Blackhawk before Blackhawk shot him.” I shrugged. “Self-defense. And it didn’t hurt there was a cop upstairs being assaulted.”

  “So,” Pete said, “would you still have shot him if he hadn’t pointed his gun at you?”

  Blackhawk was still looking at his drink. I looked at mine.

  “When I bought this boat,” Pete said, “I thought it was going to be all peace and quiet and secluded. Next time I’ll vet the neighbors a little better.”

  “Ain’t this a lot more fun,” Eddie said.

  I raised my glass.

  After a while, Blackhawk looked at me. “Indigo left,” he said.

  “Left?”

  “The colonel,” he said. That was all he had to say.

  Nacho looked at me. “She said once she wanted to see New York City. This colonel guy is he in New York?”

  I shook my head. Finally, I said, “You okay?”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” he said. “I liked her, a lot, but she could have an edge to her. And she wore me out.”

  “Ain’t met a woman yet that couldn’t do that,” Captain Rand said.

  Blackhawk put his mouth into his glass to get the best reverb. “They called her Indigo,” he said in his movie trailer voice.

  “Now they call her Indigone,” Nacho said.

  Following is an excerpt from

  number five in the acclaimed Jackson Blackhawk series.

  Coming Soon

  THE DARKER HOURS

  a Detective Boyce mystery

  by Sam Lee Jackson

  THE DARKER HOURS

  Boyce was dreaming. In one of those places where you are eighty percent asleep, but aware of the other twenty. She was irritated because Jackson was in the dream. They were trying to fit bolts on the bottom of something and the bolts wouldn’t thread right. And then Jackson was grinning at her and making a weird noise, and it pissed her off.

  She said, “Shut up Jackson,” and woke up. Her phone was buzzing. She looked at the clock. It was three thirty-four in the morning. She slid over to the side and sat up. She picked up her phone. She was a Detective of the Phoenix police department and you answer the phone.

  “Boyce,�
�� she said.

  “Detective, sorry to bother you at this hour,” she recognized the voice of Lieutenant Hicks. He was the late show watch commander.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, resisting the urge to tell him she had to get up to answer the phone anyway.

  “We have a situation here that, I think, needs your attention.”

  “A situation?”

  “A homicide.”

  “I thought Grennel was on duty, I’m assigned to gangs.”

  “He is. He’s here, but I think you need to come down. I know, you have fifty questions. I don’t want to get into them on the phone. I’d just like for you to come down.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Give me the address.”

  He did.

  It took her a half an hour.

  The location was a quiet residential neighborhood west of 32nd Street and north of Shea Boulevard. A normal neighborhood. Close to the high school, moderately priced homes, safe, secure, a family place. People here had kids that went to that school. There were block watches, PTA meetings. A great neighborhood to trick or treat. Now full of black and whites, with lights flashing eerily against the modest ranch style homes, with the street blocked off.

  Boyce pulled up to the black and white and flashed her badge at the patrol officer blocking the street. He waved her through and she pulled up as near as she could to the PPD Homicide wagon. She pulled cross-wise in a drive way and got out. She knew the civilian who owned the driveway would be screaming about having to go to work in about an hour. She hoped she wouldn’t be here that long.

  There were teenagers and parents huddled in groups. Strangely quiet. Some were crying. Two ambulances were being loaded by EMTs. These kids were the lucky ones. There were two not-so-lucky on the front lawn, covered by army green tarps. Hicks was standing next to one of them. She walked over to him.

  She took her time. She looked all around. Looking at nothing and looking at everything. She noted a bullet starred window behind the bodies. Chunks of plaster dug out of the stucco. The home was just as ordinary looking as the others. Common for this neighborhood. Hicks was making notes on his phone. The crime scene team were taking pictures. When Boyce reached him, Hicks held a finger up to ward her off while he finished his notes.

  She waited.

  Finally, he put the phone away. He pulled another phone from his jacket. It had one of those cases that holds your credit card and your driver’s license, so you don’t have a lot of baggage. He slipped his finger in the sleeve and worked a folded photograph out. He unfolded it and handed it to Boyce.

  There were two women in the photo. She was one of them. They were in a potato sack race and laughing hysterically.

  “Oh shit,” Boyce said. She squatted down and slipped the tarp back. The girl was seventeen. Dark hair, a real beauty. Her torso was soaked with dark blood. She was face down, her face turned slightly. A strand of her hair was across her face. She wore a striped green top with no sleeves and faded maroon shorts. One foot still had a flip-flop on it. The other was bare.

  Boyce stayed beside the girl for a very long time. Using one finger, she moved the hair off the girl’s face. She finally stood.

  She looked at Hicks. He was watching her.

  “You know who this is?” Boyce asked him.

  “I know what her driver’s license says, but no, I don’t,” he said. “But, it appears you do. That’s why I called.”

  Boyce took a long breath and let it out, ever so slowly. “Her name is Olivia Cromwell.”

  “She related?”

  Boyce shook her head. “Not by blood. But she’s family. Livvy is the eldest daughter of Dorotea Cromwell.” Boyce looked at Henderson. “Dorotea is Captain Mendoza’s youngest sister.”

  “Well, shit,” Henderson said.

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