New Hope for the Dead

by Charles Willeford

  “A week isn’t enough. I need a place for at least a month or two.”

  “I’ll call you. But you should’ve told me you didn’t like dogs. It would’ve saved a trip out to Mr. Ferguson’s house.”

  “Until I met Rex, I didn’t know I didn’t like dogs. But please call me soon, because I need a place before the end of the week.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  But from the cool tone of her voice, Hoke had a hunch, as he headed downtown on Dixie Highway, that it would be a damned cold day in Miami before she called him again.

  3

  Hoke shared a small office at the Homicide Division with Ellita Sanchez. The upper half of the wall that faced the squad room was glass, and there were several wanted posters affixed to the glass with Scotch tape. Most of the space in the little office was taken up by a large double desk, the kind favored by small real-estate firms. There was a D-ring bolted to the desk so that suspects could be handcuffed to it. A glass top covered the desk, and lists of telephone numbers and various business cards were scattered beneath the glass for easy reference. As a consequence, even when the desk was cleared, it looked messy. The desk was rarely cleared, however. There was a two-drawer filing cabinet, two metal swivel chairs, and one customer’s straight chair that was usually piled high with copies of the two daily Miami newspapers. The IBM Selectric typewriter was, of course, on Ellita’s side of the desk.

  On the wall facing Hoke’s side was an unframed poster of a masked man pointing a pistol. Beneath the picture, in large boldface, was the current Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce slogan: MIAMI’S FOR ME! Technically, this small office, the only enclosed office in the division other than Major Willie Brownley’s much larger glass-walled office, belonged to Lieutenant Fred Slater, the executive officer and number-two man for Major Brownley. But Lieutenant Slater, who preferred a desk in one corner of the bull pen, where it was easier to keep an eye on everybody, had given the small office to Hoke Moseley and Bill Henderson to use. A few weeks earlier, when Major Brownley had broken up their partnership, Hoke had been assigned Ellita Sanchez as his new partner, and Sergeant Bill Henderson had been moved to the bull pen. Sergeant Henderson’s new partner, Teodoro “Teddy” Gonzalez, was the newest investigator in the division, and Henderson was supposed to break him in to homicide work, as Hoke was supposed to break in Ellita Sanchez. Bill and Hoke had worked together as partners, even after Henderson had been promoted to sergeant, for more than three years. They had worked well together, but because neither of them spoke Spanish, and both refused to learn the language, Major Brownley had broken them up and assigned them bilingual partners. Hoke, being senior to Henderson, had kept the little office, and Henderson and Gonzalez now occupied two beat-up metal desks next to the men’s room. There was no women’s room; Ellita had to take the elevator down to the second floor.

  With more than half of Miami’s population a mixture of various Latins, but mostly Cubans, and with more Salvadoran and Nicaraguan refugees coming in daily, the change in partners had been inevitable. Bill and Hoke hadn’t been happy about the switch, but they had accepted it without complaint because there was nothing they could do about it. Altogether, there were forty-seven detectives in Homicide, and, thanks to Affirmative Action, the balance was about even between Anglo and Latin officers. Not counting Major Brownley, who was black, there were three black detectives, and one of these was a Haitian. The Haitian detective, a Sorbonne graduate, spoke French fluently, as well as Creole and English, but he had less work to do than any of the others. The Miami Haitian population, about 25,000, was the most peaceful ethnic group in town. The occasional homicides in Little Haiti usually involved somebody from outside their district shooting one of them for fun from a passing car.

  When Hoke came into the office, Ellita Sanchez, with the help of a small hand mirror, was applying a coat of American Dream to her lips. Except for this vividly red and wet-looking lipstick, Ellita used no other makeup. Because the corners of her mouth turned down slightly, unless she was smiling the two tiny red lines that tugged at the corners of her lips sometimes made it seem, at first glance, as though her mouth were dribbling blood. Hoke wondered if anyone had ever told her about this effect.

  “How’d it go?” Hoke said.

  “We’ll know more later. The assistant M.E. said he thought it was an OD, not a suicide, but not for the record. I sent for Hickey’s file. According to the computer, he’s got a record, so I asked for a printout.”

  Hoke handed her the Baggie with the items he had picked up in Hickey’s room. “Send the tinfoil balls and the bags of powder to the lab to be checked out. Send the roach, too, if you want—or take it home and smoke it.”

  “I don’t smoke pot, Sergeant.” Ellita put the roach into her purse.

  Hoke went through Hickey’s wallet, a well-worn cowhide fold-over type, and removed a driver’s license, expired; a slip of paper with a telephone number, written in pencil; a cracked black-and-white snapshot of a mongrel with a ball in its mouth; a folded gift coupon for a McDonald’s quarter-pounder, expired; a Visa credit card in Gerald Hickey’s name, expired; and a tightly folded twenty-dollar bill that had been hidden behind the lining of the wallet.

  “Not much here.” Hoke passed the twenty across the desk. “Put this bill with the others.”

  “I’ve already sealed the money in an envelope.”

  “In that case, you’ll have to unseal it, won’t you?”

  Ellita cut the flap of the brown envelope with the small blade of her Swiss army knife, took out the money, flattened the twenty, and added it to the other bills. She placed the money in a new brown envelope, threw the mutilated envelope into the wastepaper basket, and then sealed the money inside. She wrote “Gerald Hickey” and “$1,070” on the outside of the envelope before passing it to Hoke across the desk. Hoke put the envelope in the side pocket of his leisure jacket, and shook his head.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you. But I had a weird experience this afternoon, and I still haven’t found a new place to live. Why do you think, Sanchez, that Hickey would carry a picture of a mongrel dog in his wallet?”

  Ellita stood up, leaned over the desk, and frowned at the items on the desk. “Everything else is expired, so I’d say the dog is probably dead, too. Maybe it was once his dog, and it died, so he wanted to keep the picture as a memento mori.”

  “A memento mori is a human skull, not a picture of a dog. But you may be right. There was no indication of a dog living at the Hickey house. Pass me the phone.”

  Hoke dialed the number on the slip of paper.

  “Hello.”

  “I’d like to speak to Jerry Hickey,” Hoke said.

  “Who?”

  “Jerry Hickey.”

  “He don’t live here no mo’.” It was a black woman’s voice.

  “Who is this, please?”

  “Who is you?”

  “I want to buy Jerry’s dog. When he left, did he leave his dog with you?”

  “He didn’t have no dog. I don’t ’low no dogs here. Who is this?”

  “When did Jerry move?”

  The woman hung up the phone.

  “You’re probably right about the dog, Sanchez.” Hoke handed her the slip of paper. “Get the address of this number from the phone company. It doesn’t mean anything to us, but I can pass it on to Narcotics. It might be a lead for them. Jerry had to get the heroin somewhere. He hadn’t been living at home long. I’ll find out how long this evening when I talk to his mother.”

  Ellita nodded. “You want some coffee, Sergeant?”

  “Do you?”

  “We’ve got a half hour before we meet with Major Brownley.”

  “I know that. I asked if you wanted some coffee.”

  Ellita nodded.

  “In that case,” Hoke said, “I’ll go. You’ve gone the last three times, and it isn’t supposed to work that way. Bill and I always took turns. I’ve been taking advantage of you. How many sugars?” Hoke got to hi
s feet.

  “None. I keep Sweet ‘n’ Low here in my desk.”

  Hoke took the elevator downstairs to the basement cafeteria. For some reason, he thought, Ellita seemed to be afraid of him. Several times lately he had noticed her staring at him, and she looked frightened. He couldn’t understand it, because he had been leaning over backward to be friendly with her. Maybe it was the meeting coming up with Major Brownley. Most of the detectives in the division were afraid of the major. As a rule, Brownley kept his distance, either by communicating with his detectives through Lieutenant Slater or by sending out memos. It was unusual for Brownley to call a special meeting this way. As he filled two Styrofoam cups with coffee, Hoke wondered vaguely what the old fart wanted.

  4

  Major Willie Brownley, the first black ever to be appointed to that rank in the department, leaned back in his padded leather chair and got his cigar drawing well before he said anything. His face, the color of an eggplant, but not as shiny, was lined with tiny wrinkles. His cropped hair was gray at the temples, but his well-trimmed mustache was still black. The whites of his eyes were the color of a legal pad. He looked of indeterminate age, but Hoke knew that Willie Brownley was fifty-five, because Hoke had worked for the major when he had been a captain in charge of Traffic. The major wore his navy-blue gabardine uniform even on the hottest days, with the jacket always buttoned, and his trim military appearance made him look younger than his age.

  The three detectives sat facing Brownley’s desk, with Henderson on the right. Henderson was a large, paunchy man who almost always wore a striped seersucker jacket with poplin wash pants. Although he was officially six feet, two inches tall, he appeared six-four because he wore Adler’s elevator shoes. Henderson thought the extra two inches made him look slimmer. They didn’t, really, but the extra height did make him look more formidable. Henderson was an affable man, but his front teeth, both uppers and lowers, were laced with a tangle of silver wire and gold caps. When he smiled, these brutal metal-studded teeth were more than a little frightening, particularly when he questioned a suspect. But his smile rarely changed, whether he was interrogating someone or eating a bowl of chili.

  Hoke and Ellita sat closer together on the left of the desk, facing the major. Ellita had a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen. Before they went to Brownley’s office, Hoke told her it might be a good idea to take a few notes.

  Brownley dropped the burnt match into an ashtray made from a motorcycle piston, looked at Hoke, shook his head, and smiled. “Hoke, you must be the last man in Miami wearing a leisure suit. Where’d you find it, anyway?”

  “There was a close-out in the fashion district. I got this blue poplin and a yellow one just like it for only fifty bucks on a two-for-one sale. I like the extra pockets, and with a leisure suit you don’t have to wear a tie.”

  “You don’t wear a leisure suit to court, do you?”

  “No. I’ve got an old blue serge suit I wear to court. Is that what this meeting’s about, Willie? My taste in plain clothes?”

  “In a way. What I’m doing is what they suggested in the Dale Carnegie course I took last year. I’m putting you all at ease by developing a relaxed atmosphere. You all relaxed now?”

  Hoke shook his head, Henderson smiled, and Ellita said, “Yes, sir.” Hoke took the butt of the Kool from his shirt pocket, lit it, and dropped the match into Brownley’s piston ashtray. He took two drags and then put out the butt.

  “Until I tell you different,” Brownley said, “consider this meeting as confidential. It’ll probably get out in a few days, about what you’re doing, simply because of what you’re doing, but I don’t want the press to get wind of it. If anyone in the department asks you what you’re doing, just say you’re on a special assignment and let it go at that. Until we see where we’re going, I think we can get away with that much, anyway.”

  Brownley puffed on his cigar before he continued. “You’ve all heard the rumors about the new colonelcies the chief’s passing out, haven’t you?”

  Henderson shook his head. “Colonelcies? There aren’t any colonels in the department. Except for assistant chief—and we got three already—major’s as high as we go.”

  “I heard something about it the other day,” Hoke said, “but I didn’t pay any attention to it.”

  “It isn’t official yet, but it’s no longer a rumor. The chief’s found a sneaky way around the no-raise budget this year. He’s creating a new rank of colonel, and there’ll be eight of them passed out. The new rank’ll mean an extra eighteen hundred bucks a year for those promoted. It’ll also mean eight major and captain vacancies. So although there’s no money in the new budget for raises, a good many deserving officers will be getting more money when these promotions are okayed by the city manager.”

  “What about the cop on the street?” Henderson said. “What’ll he get?”

  “He’ll get zip. On the other hand, with more supervisors, it’ll mean more vacancies for him, too, if he passes his exams high enough.”

  “It stinks,” Henderson said. “I was in the infantry, and we only had one colonel, the regimental commander, for a fifteen-hundred-man regiment. We’ve got way less than a thousand cops, and we’ve already got a highly paid chief, three overpaid assistant chiefs, and now he wants eight new colonels. What we’re gonna look like is a damned Mexican army, all generals and no privates.”

  “A police department’s not a rifle regiment, Bill,” Brownley said. “You can’t equate a professional police officer with a grunt private. Most of our officers have got at least a junior college degree of some kind.”

  “I know, I know.” Henderson scowled. “But what we need’s more men on the street, not more brass sitting on their ass.”

  “You and Hoke both should take the exam for lieutenant. I’ve told you that before. Promotions are going to break wide open for qualified people. But that’s your problem. What I want is one of the colonelcies. And I’ve come up with a way for you two”—he looked at Ellita, and smiled—”and you, too, Sanchez, to get it for me.”

  There were four stacks of rust-colored accordion files on the table against the wall. The major pointed at them. “I’ve been going through the old files. These are fifty old unsolved homicides. All of them go back a few years, some much longer than others. Some of these, I know, could’ve been solved at the time. But they weren’t solved, or resolved in some way, because there wasn’t enough time. There’s never enough time. Most breaks, as you know, come in the first twenty-four hours. After three or four days, something else comes up, and after two weeks, unless you get a break accidentally, you’re on a new case, or even three new cases. After six months, the homicide’s so far back in pending, it’s colder than the victim.

  “I’m not telling you something you don’t know already. I didn’t become the Homicide chief because I was a detective. I’m an administrator, and I was promoted for my administrative ability. It didn’t hurt that I was black, either, but I wouldn’t have kept my rank if I couldn’t do the work. It seems to me, if we can solve some of these cold cases, it’ll make our division and the entire department look even better than it is. And if that happens, they’ll have to make at least one of those new colonels a black man. What I want is one of those silver eagles and another gold stripe on my sleeve.”

  “Time’s always been the problem, Willie,” Hoke said. “When we get a chance we work on old cases, but a new dead body is found damned near every day in a car trunk, a tomato field, an apartment—”

  “I’m not finished, Hoke. Time is what I’m going to give you. You rank Bill, so you’re in charge. But the three of you are going to get two full months to do nothing else but work on these fifty cold cases I picked out.”

  “What about the cases we’re on now?” Henderson said. “We’ve got, me and Gonzalez, a triple murder in Liberty City, and no leads at all. Tomorrow we’re supposed to—”

  “Gonzalez will have to handle that one by himself. Hoke, you can give your current cases to
Gonzalez, too. I know he lacks experience, but he’ll report directly to Lieutenant Slater, and he’ll get all the help from Slater he needs. I can’t spare four men for this assignment, but the three of you, in two months’ time, should get some positive results.”

  “Three months,” Henderson said, “would be better.”

  “I know.” Brownley smiled. “And six months would be better than three months, but you’ve got two. I’ve already gone through the old files and picked out these fifty. Take them with you, go through ’em again, and decide which cases to work first. You know more about the possibilities than I do. Any questions?”

  “That office we’ve got,” Hoke said. “It’s too small for the three of us. Can we have one of the interrogation rooms to work in on a permanent basis?”

  “Take Room Three. There’s a table and some folding chairs in there already. It’s yours for as long’s you need it. I’ll inform Lieutenant Slater. Anything else?”

  “When Hoke and I turn all our cases over to Gonzalez, he’ll shit his pants,” Henderson said.

  “He’ll be all right with Slater. Just fill Slater in on what’s been done so far. Slater knows what you all will be doing, but Gonzalez doesn’t. Just tell him you’re on a special assignment, Bill, and to do the best he can. You have any questions, Sanchez?”

  “No, sir. I think it’s a good idea, that’s all.”

  “It would be a better idea if we had three months,” Henderson said.

  “Solve at least ten of these cases in two months, and I’ll give you the extra month,” Brownley said.

  “Fair enough.” Henderson picked up an armload of files and left the office.

  After the cold cases were stacked in piles on Hoke’s desk, he looked at them and shook his head. “It’s five-thirty. We’ll start going through them tomorrow morning in the interrogation room.”