Some Die Nameless

by Wallace Stroby

  The keys to his Ranchero hung on a peg by the sink. He got them down, went up the steps and onto the deck. The uniforms moved out of his way. The tech looked down at the bag, but no one stopped him.

  He checked into a Days Inn on Blue Heron, just off I-95. In the room, he lay atop the covers, running it all through his head again. He saw the gun coming through the door, remembered the moment’s pause before Bell squeezed the trigger. Long enough for Devlin to recognize the threat, react. The Bell he’d known back then wouldn’t have hesitated. Was it reluctance? Or a last mercy? Bell giving him a second’s advantage before the kill shot.

  A tractor-trailer rolled by on the interstate, rattled his window. He’d try to reach Karen in the morning. He didn’t know her new phone number. The only contact they’d had in the last year had been through her lawyer, the one she’d used for the divorce.

  He closed his eyes, let sleep take him. When he woke, the luminous dial of his watch read 3 a.m.

  He got both sets of keys and left the room.

  He parked the Ranchero outside a shuttered swimsuit store, walked the last three blocks to the marina. The boat was dark now, but he could see police tape strung across the closed cabin door.

  He moved out of the glow of the vapor lights, into the shadows alongside the empty marina office. The only sounds were the creak of lines and the scrape of bumpers, the hum of the soda machine nearby. He looked up at the security camera mounted under the eaves. The lens was cracked, and there was a bird’s nest behind the mechanism. The camera probably hadn’t worked in years. Bell would have seen that too, known there was no risk there.

  He took out Bell’s keys, thumbed the Unlock button. In one of the visitor’s spots, a silver Buick flashed its parking lights.

  He waited to see if the lights attracted anyone, then went to the car, used a handkerchief to open the driver’s-side door. He knelt on the seat, opened the glove box. Inside was a rental contract in Bell’s name with his Atlanta address. Nothing else.

  He closed the glove box, went around and opened the trunk. Inside were a canvas overnight bag and a brown leather briefcase. He unzipped the bag, saw neatly folded clothes. Beneath them were a Browning 9-millimeter automatic and a carton of shells. A lot more gun than the .25, but too loud to use on the boat.

  The briefcase was locked. No time to fool with it here. He took it out, used the handkerchief to shut the trunk.

  He wiped down everything he’d touched, locked the car again. Walking back to the street, he slung the keys out into the water, heard them splash.

  At the motel, he put the night latch on the door, set the briefcase on the table. Combination locks, but the latches were thin metal. He pried them open with a pocketknife.

  Inside were a small spiral notebook, a leather billfold, a U.S. passport, and another cellphone, still in its packaging. The passport had Bell’s photo, but the name Eldon Daniels, this time with a Wilmington, Delaware, address. It had been issued only six months before. There were no stamps on the pages.

  Fixed inside the billfold was a gold badge lettered SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR. Under a flap were a half-dozen embossed business cards with the Daniels name and CORE-TECH SECURITY below it, with a logo of crossed arrows and a lightning bolt. No phone number or address.

  The front pages of the notebook had been ripped out, shreds of paper still clinging to the spiral. The first intact page was filled with small, neat handwriting. A series of phone numbers and addresses, all his at one point, all struck through. Bell on his trail. At the bottom of the page, the marina address and the name of his boat.

  On the second page, two street addresses, with no town listed. A single phone number, with a 215 area code. The rest of the book was blank.

  He opened the passport again, looked at the photo, the face of a friend. He came to kill you, Devlin thought. Don’t forget that. If it had gone a different way, you’d be on a slab—or in the ocean—and Bell would be headed back to Atlanta or Wilmington or wherever, in his rental car, job done.

  He’d keep the contents, toss the briefcase into the Dumpster behind the motel. He wondered if he should have taken the Browning and the shells, against whatever else might be coming.

  He thought of the boat, strung with crime scene tape. It had been his world. It wouldn’t be the same now. Bell had taken that from him. He would never feel safe there again.

  Four

  There was a Philly PD car blocking the street when Tracy arrived, parked at an angle across the cobblestones. She’d heard the call go out over her mobile scanner—a 5292 on Bainbridge. She’d punched the address into her GPS, turned the Toyota around in the middle of the street.

  Beyond the cruiser was a crime scene van and a detective’s car she knew belonged to Dwight Malloy. This part of the block was brick rowhouses, most already gutted, some with plywood over the windows. Halfway up the street, the door to one of the rowhouses was open. Above it, a banner read ON THIS SITE: CONDOS STARTING AT $200,000, with a phone number below it.

  A uniformed cop she didn’t recognize was standing out on the stoop, smoking a cigarette. Crime scene tape had been stretched between two light poles and a drainpipe, blocking off the entrance.

  She parked on the other side of the street, put on the lanyard with her Observer ID, then took a reporter’s notebook and pen from the glove box. She got out, crossed the cobblestones, tucked the notebook into her back pocket.

  The uniform was in short sleeves despite the morning chill and had thick, tatted-up arms. When she got closer, she turned the ID around so her picture faced outward.

  “Is Detective Malloy here?” she said.

  He gave her the once-over, said, “He’s busy right now.”

  “You’re new in the district, aren’t you? I’m Tracy Quinn? From the Observer? I cover Philly PD.”

  He flicked the cigarette butt away, shrugged. “Can’t help you.”

  She saw a camera flash in an uncovered second-floor window. Techs documenting the scene.

  “Just tell Dwight I’m here, will you?”

  “Dwight?”

  Another uniform came out onto the stoop, a patrolman named Sallas. He saw her. “Hey, Trace.”

  “Sally, how’s it going? What’ve you got?”

  The tattooed cop said, “She’s a reporter.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Is Dwight in there?” she said. “I thought I recognized his car.”

  “Someone call you?” Sallas said.

  “Heard it on the scanner. Wasn’t far away, figured I’d fall by, see what was up.”

  “Should have figured,” he said. “Hold on, let me see what he wants.”

  He went back inside. The other cop stayed in front of her, the tape between them, as if worried she’d try to get by him.

  Dwight came out onto the stoop. He looked tired. She lifted her chin at him.

  To the tattooed cop, he said, “It’s okay, Swede. I know her.”

  “She’s a reporter.”

  “I know. Let her through.”

  Swede shrugged. “You say so.” He lifted the tape. She ducked beneath.

  “That was quick,” Dwight said to her. “What do you do, just drive around the city all day, looking for a story?”

  “That’s me. Total dedication to the job.”

  “Might as well come in, then. It’s not pretty, though.”

  She followed him inside. On one side of the narrow foyer, sagging stairs led up. The smell hit her almost immediately, a mix of rotten fruit and ashes. She’d smelled it before.

  “Watch your step,” he said.

  They went up, the stairs creaking beneath them. The second floor was an open space with exposed brick walls. There were chunks missing from the plaster ceiling, white dust on the floor.

  The smell was overpowering here. On the far side of the room, beneath a grimy window, lay what looked like a bundle of clothes. Two uniformed crime scene techs stood around it, one holding a heavy camera. It was Al Donovan. He’d been a photographer at
the Observer, had taken a buyout two years before and gone to work for the city.

  “Hey, Tracy,” he said. “Ear to the ground, as always.”

  “Hi, Al. How have you been?”

  He shrugged. “Why kick? No one cares.”

  To Dwight, she said, “How long’s it been there?”

  “Hard to say. It’s pretty far gone. Rats have been at it.”

  “Hazard a guess?”

  “I’ll let the ME’s office do that. We’re off the record now, right? Only reason I’m letting you up here.”

  She moved closer to the body. Donovan said, “Watch where you stand.”

  It was a man, as far as she could tell. But the body had tightened into a fetal position, and all the skin she saw was black. The face was swollen, deformed. The jeans he wore were dark and stained, but she could see the North Face logo on the quilted jacket. Where the tail rose up in back, she saw the butt of a pistol.

  “Not a gang thing,” she said. “Or they would have taken the gun. Probably the jacket too.”

  “Good guess,” Donovan said. “I always said you thought like a cop.”

  She moved around the body for another angle. “What is he?”

  “Hispanic male is my best guess at the moment.”

  “Wounds?”

  “None obvious, but we haven’t turned him yet. You can see what we’re dealing with. Lots of organic matter on the floor. It was dripping down into the room below.”

  “Who found him?”

  “Construction crew,” Dwight said. “There’s a courtyard in back. Plywood was torn off the rear door. Likely how he got in.”

  “Was he shooting up? Any works with him?”

  “None we could find.”

  “Lousy place to die,” she said.

  “It is.”

  “ID?”

  “Looks like there’s a wallet in his back pocket. We’ll have a look when we turn him. ME will print him, and we’ll try to get a rough Identikit sketch. You can run it online. Maybe somebody recognizes him.”

  “Worth a try,” she said.

  “Seen enough? Let’s get some fresh air.”

  He led her back downstairs and out onto the stoop. Swede had another cigarette going. Sallas was in the cruiser, typing on the console-mounted laptop.

  Dwight held the tape up, and they went under. He looked at her car. “That thing’s still running?”

  “So far.”

  He peeled off his latex gloves, and she saw he was wearing his wedding ring again. He’d gone back to her after all.

  They walked toward the car, Swede watching them from the stoop. It seemed colder now.

  “How are things at the paper?” Dwight said.

  “Same old. Everyone’s nervous, waiting for the next shoe to drop.”

  “I heard.”

  “Too much work, too few people. I’m staying busy.”

  “You never had a problem doing that,” he said. “How’s everything otherwise? Seeing anyone?”

  She looked at him. “I need to call this in, Dwight. Let me know if you get an ID. If the techs do a sketch, e-mail it to me, and I’ll see about getting it in the paper and on the site.”

  “I will, thanks. I was thinking, maybe we can grab a drink one of these nights, talk about some things. I still don’t like the way we left it.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She took her cellphone from her belt. “I need to make that call now.”

  “You haven’t changed much, have you?”

  “Neither have you,” she said.

  Five

  Back at the office there was a Post-it note on her desk blotter that read “See me,” with an H under it. Across the aisle, Alysha Bennett turned away from her computer and said, “He was looking for you.”

  “I see. Any idea why?”

  “Didn’t say. Not that he’d tell me anyway.”

  “What are the chances it’s something good?”

  “Slim to none,” Alysha said. “News desk told me you called in a decomp. Get anything more?”

  “No. Still waiting on ID and cause. Male Hispanic is all they’ve got so far.”

  “Another O.D.?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Any idea how long he’d been there?”

  “From the smell, a while. I’ll check with Rick, see if he wants me to write a short for Metro.”

  She tossed her notebook on her desk, walked back to Harris’s office along the corridor that once housed the art department. There were empty spaces where cubicles had been dismantled, desks removed. Loose cables coming out of the floor, connected to nothing, were the only reminders of the people who’d worked there.

  Harris was typing on his computer, his back to the door, when she went in. A set of golf clubs was propped in a corner.

  “You wanted to see me, R.J.?”

  “Yes, Tracy. A minute. Let me send this.”

  She took one of the chairs across from his desk. Through the window, she could see the spires of City Hall in the distance. Above them, a ghost moon hung in the afternoon sky. She thought of the views from other newsrooms she’d worked in. Newark, Raleigh. Raleigh had trees, at least, restaurants nearby. Newark had been a fortress, armed guards and a razor-wire fence around the parking lot. A downtown choked with traffic until 5 p.m., then deserted until the next morning’s rush hour.

  He hit a final key, turned to her. His smile showed perfect teeth. Like many women in the office, she’d found him vaguely attractive when he’d first arrived at the paper, taken over as AME of Enterprise. But that had worn off long ago.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” He got up, shut the door.

  She felt the first bloom of dread. Was this it? Her seven years here ended with a Post-it note as her only warning?

  She shifted in her chair. “Sorry I missed you earlier. Just got back from a crime scene. Body in a rowhouse they’re renovating down on Bainbridge. I was going to tell Metro.”

  He sat back down, steepled his fingers. “That can wait.”

  Her uneasiness grew.

  “These are tough times, as you know,” he said. “And we have to think about the best way to utilize our resources. You agree?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the only way we really have of gauging customer response is the amount of unique hits we get online. Ultimately, that comes down to each individual writer and his or her story count.”

  “Readers,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You call them ‘customers,’ but they’re still just readers, right? They still come to us to know what’s going on.”

  “True, but we can’t ignore the realities of the situation. As you know, performance evaluations are coming up next month. These days a big part of those are story count and reader engagement. That’s how we tell if we’re serving our community.”

  Here it comes, she thought.

  “Irv has asked all the AMEs to audit their staff’s productivity, so we can identify any problems. We want everyone to be on the same page, going forward. And we want everyone to know what’s expected of them.”

  “I do,” she said.

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll be honest, Tracy. Your story count over the last quarter isn’t where it should be, where it needs to be. And the hits…they’re not exactly setting the web on fire either.”

  “You’re talking strictly online, where all we’re doing is chasing clicks. You’re not counting the people who buy a physical paper every day.”

  “I’ve seen those numbers too,” he said. “And they’re getting smaller as we speak, subscription and single copy both. That demographic’s dying off.”

  “I usually produce at least three stories and one enterprise a week, unless I’m working on a project that—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “I’m not here to micromanage.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  His smile faded.

  “My job—our job—is to consid
er how to best serve our readership,” he said. “Whether it’s online or in the paper. You’re a good police reporter, Tracy. But I wonder if that’s the best use of your time. I think we need to question whether we should be bothering with every North Philly shooting or drug arrest that comes down the pike.”

  “We let those stories go, the Inquirer will pick up every reader we lose.”

  “We don’t work for the Inquirer,” he said. “We work for the Observer. And the Observer’s goals are what I care about.”

  “Sometimes I wonder what those goals are.”

  “Right now? To stay in business. We sell ads based on hits and market share. Without those, it’s not a question of what we should be covering, because we won’t be covering anything at all.”

  “The paper’s still profitable. I’ve seen the quarterlies.” Shut up, she thought. You’re only making it worse.

  “This isn’t a debate, Tracy. Think of it as a reminder, an encouragement.”

  “Consider me encouraged.”

  He frowned. “There’s only so many ways to say this. You need to pick up the pace. I can’t afford to have you sitting in court or chasing down stories all week that nobody cares about, with nothing else getting done. I’d also like to see you in the office more, so I have a better sense of what you’re working on.”

  “We miss a lot when we don’t staff the courthouse.”

  “That’s what press releases are for. And the police are still sending us their reports, right?”

  “When we ask for them. But we have to know they exist first. And the reports only tell us what they want us to know. It’s what we do with them that’s important, the follow-up, talking to sources. That’s where the stories are.”

  He sat back, crossed his arms. “I’m not unaware of how a newspaper functions.”