No one answered.
She figured the wind had canceled Sandra out. She grabbed the lock and twisted the cold sliver switch and turned the knob. The door swung open and smashed hard into her wrist. A sharp pain shot up her forearm, the pain as though the bone had cracked open. Her body fell backwards and slammed against the hardwood floors, the collision and thud like a basketball player being thrown to the ground after a hard foul. Her eyes popped to the size of golf balls, and her arms and legs kicked and twirled. She opened her mouth and yelled but couldn’t, no words came out, the shock silenced her.
Two thick, calloused hands clamped down and squeezed at her throat. Her windpipe fought the pressure like a rubber band being stretched, ready to snap at any moment. She wheezed and reached up and tried to claw at the man’s face, gasped and gagged, her breath and voice raspy and desperate. He stomped on her forearms with his kneecaps and her head banged against the floor, the impact like a bowling ball dropping to the ground. He clutched her throat with both hands like he was ringing out a washcloth, his grip like the claws of a brown bear around her thin neck. Her breath cut in and out and in and out until it fell mute. Her eyes remained open but her soul seeped from her lifeless body.
The man stood, slapped his hands together and shook them, looked around at the white walls and high ceilings and magazines on the coffee table, snatched something off the table, and left Jeanette Jones for dead.
20
“A
nd for you, sir?”
“The three-pancake, two-eggs special,” Steel said.
The waitress scribbled on a small rectangular pad with green paper and thin red lines, then looked at him. “How’da’ya want your eggs?”
“Scrambled.”
The waitress, a short, stocky middle-aged woman, dark brown hair, big blue eyes as light as the sky on a warm summer’s day, a small, thin smile and a pleasant disposition, reached for both menus at the table and walked off toward the kitchen.
Steel rolled his shoulders and focused the roll on a small knot in the right blade and stretched his neck and rubbed it, grimacing. He circled his eyes across the diner, then to Marisa. “Haven’t been here in a few years…used to come here a lot when I was on patrol in South Philly.”
Marisa made duck-lips and sipped her coffee, her eyes wide and staring up over the cup. She lowered the glass and it banged the saucer in front. The brown liquid shifted in the white mug, and she stared for a moment, viewed it sway, as inhaling the warm scent.
Steel watched her twist her lips to the side of her mouth as she nodded.
“Yeah…I used to come here all the time in high school and college. Everybody in South Philly comes here,” she said.
Steel took a look across the diner again. This small, cozy place had been serving guests for generations and there wasn’t one person in South Philly who hadn’t eaten there or hadn’t heard of it. The atmosphere was old school and had a blue-collar, small-town, neighborhood feel to it. People read silky gray newspapers at the stools at the counter or in the red booths, held conversations without proper grammar and nobody gave a shit, and most of its daily occupants were the salt of the earth, the working middle-class, good, family-oriented people. A strip of booths lined one wall and two separate rows of countertops with stools lined the other. The kitchen was in the center of the restaurant but farther back and mostly out of sight but was visible behind stainless steel shelves that held freshly made steaming hot breakfast, lunch and dinner meals. The place operated 24/7 and served breakfast at all hours. The air was always crisp and steamy with an aroma of the darkest roast of freshly simmering coffee and syrup and spilled orange juice and burned meat of cheeseburgers. Background noise mixed of chatter, utensils tapping plates, the cooks in the kitchen ringing a bell for food pick-ups and yelling back and forth with waitresses and waiters, and casual conversation from the booths or seating at the countertop that covered the Phillies, Eagles, 76ers or Flyers, or old friends or neighbors catching up on life or discussing the weather, or the New Year’s Day parade, or how old their kids were now, or where one kid went to high school or college or where they found a job afterwards, or sports in general, or neighborhood gossip such as a new business that had opened up. The patrons talked about local and national politics, the pothole problem in Philly and how they almost blew out a tire but the city still didn’t fix it, and often discussed how good the food was. The locals, mostly neighbors, ate there often, and handshakes, cross-diner waves, and Philly-hellos of “How ya doin?” and “How ya been?” and “How’s everybody doin’?” and “Tell everybody I was askin’ for ‘em, iight?” got exchanged almost by the minute. And the food was top-notch. They had the best burgers in the city. Steel’s favorite diner, loved to mingle with the South Philadelphians.
Marisa said, “Sooo, now that we’re engaaaaaaaaged,” she smiled, “where we gonna live when we’re married?”
Steel sighed but discreetly, mostly in his mind, and glanced down at his watch: 7:45 AM. Too deep a question for breakfast, he thought. He adjusted his rear end in the seat, dropped both elbows on the cold tabletop, and blanketed his left palm over his right balled up fist. “Don’t know. We can stay at the apartment for a while. Then the money from when I sold my house we’ll use as a down payment somewhere.” He smirked and sipped his coffee.
“Don’t do that, don’t smirk. You never wanna talk about it. I’m not living in a one bedroom apartment in Center City when we have a family. I wanna raise kids in a neighborhood.”
He sighed again, but this time out loud. If this was a taste of married life, he’d better get ready, he knew. Maybe it was a flash of it. After all, he was drinking coffee in a diner with her before 8 AM. In fact, he realized, give him a pair of white sneakers and a gold watch and he was ready to move to Florida for retirement. He laughed to himself at that mental image. But she had just implied that she wanted kids so that made him inwardly smile. They’d discussed having children before but she would always say she wouldn’t get serious about it until they were in a committed relationship or engaged. He guessed he earned his right to talk kids now. They weren’t getting any younger, him thirty-three, her thirty-one.
He picked up his fork and rolled its cold metal tines in his palm, the sharp tips digging into his flesh. “Why you being so dramatic? You think I would wanna raise a family in that small apartment?”
She dropped her stare. “No, and you know I don’t think that, but if we don’t talk about it or plan it, we might just find ourselves still there, juggling pregnancy and home-searching and careers at the same time.” She took a gulp of coffee, shoved her hair behind her left ear with the other hand, her eyes bulging. “I like to be prepared.”
“We’ll talk about it. Not right now.”
“Start thinking about it,” she said.
He nodded, tightened his jaw, and the small muscles in his cheeks twitched as if they were hooked up to a machine that released electrical currents. He’d think about it, he told himself. Why jeopardize this relationship, a once in a lifetime relationship? Procrastination was always a part of him, but way worse when he was single. Marisa at least sparked a little fire under his ass, if only a single match. He always believed his procrastination and laziness stemmed from perfectionism and fear of failure. If he waited, he couldn’t fuck up anything, he had always rationalized in his mind. But he learned his lesson after that terrible case that past summer, that waiting too long to do something, or living in the present based on past mistakes or future worries, or not living fully in the moment, or taking things for granted, could make him miss life’s opportunities. While staring at City Hall on that warm night last summer, after everything had happened, he promised himself that he’d pursue life instead of avoid it. Just being engaged to Marisa was a serious step in his personal evolution as a human being, because just one year prior, commitment to one woman for a lifetime was something he wouldn’t have been able to do. He didn’t have the confidence in himself back then, the belief in himself�
�it was that simple. But Marisa and his personal attempt at self-growth changed all that.
Ten minutes passed and Steel was still lost in his thoughts and distracted.
During that time, Marisa had sipped her coffee and read a magazine. Steel had played a Chess app on his iPhone, scrolled through his Facebook page and read some dopey statuses from his “friends”—how they hated the cold weather, or took a picture of their breakfast, or wrote about how big their shit in the toilet was that morning, or posted a trying-to-be-insightful-quote they’d made up but had spelled the word “their” as “there,” so much for “their” genius-quote, he had thought. Then he had just stared at Marisa for the last minute or so, at her lips and skin on her face without one blemish, as smooth as a ripe, soft peach, and thought how he loved her and that he’d look for a nice house for the two of them, but without telling her that, of course.
Steel turned his gaze off Marisa and focused on the 32” flat-screen on the wall behind her. The morning news was on, flashing scenes from a house that had caught fire, its remains charcoal and the home covered in black residue with deep holes where the windows used to be. A few firemen in full gear sprayed hoses in the background, police officers conducted interviews, and neighbors spoke into news camera.
Then another news story flashed on the screen. The anchorwoman, Jennifer Samson, a blonde in her mid-twenties and new to the station, was in Center City, reporting live from a murder scene.
Steel squinted and leaned forward, tried to read the black strip at the bottom that held subtitles because the TV was muted. He still couldn’t see a clear picture, so he pressed both palms on the table and slid from the booth. He drifted toward the television and watched the screen flickered in and out, popping multiple shots and angles and colors before his eyes, and it appeared to be Desiree Jones’s apartment. His heart expanded the width of his chest, heated the skin around it. A slick sweat seeped through the pores under his armpits. A wave of dread washed over his entire body as if someone had dropped him in a cage filled with hungry lions. Now he broke a full sweat.
Marisa crept up behind him and slid a cool hand across his warm ribcage. “What’s going on?”
He held up a finger, his lips and eyes confused and contorted in disbelief.
The subtitles read Neighbors Identified Victim to our Sources: Jeanette Jones, 58.
He stopped reading, dropped his head in his hands, massaged his temples. Am I dreaming? he thought. Desiree being the victim of a robbery is out as a motive. This case has to be connected.
The waitress gently tapped both of their shoulders and pointed back at the table, steam rising from each plate. “Food’s ready, don’t want it to get cold on ya,” she said.
Steel half-smiled and gestured with a hand as if to say thank you. But he was in a daze, his vision of the diner and TV fuzzy and blurry, his temples pounding and on fire. He knew he wouldn’t be eating. His cell phone vibrated in his right pocket and he fought his hand in and snatched it with his fingertips. The Caller ID read LIEUTENANT WILLIAMS.
Steel knew what this was about and raised his trembling hand to his ear and took the call.
21
M
arisa hopped out of the car before Steel, but both slammed their doors at the same time, and the clicking of the door locks rang out in the wind. Yellow caution tape swayed in the breeze in an uneven circle around the entrance of Desiree Jones’s apartment. At least three police cruisers had stopped and lined up in the middle of the street between parked cars on either side of them, their red, orange and blue lights flashing, spiraling, bouncing off and washing over the exterior of brownstones and modern gray facades of the adjoining and neighboring houses. A news van with the station’s logo along its sides was parked off to the side, the back doors open and a camera crew scrambling for a better angle. Jennifer Samson, the reporter, stood, a microphone in her one hand, her head bobbling, opposite hand pointing at the house, arm out, palm up. The forensics team members and crime scene investigators jogged up and down the apartment’s front steps, blue gloves suffocating their hands, sweeping the place for evidence.
Steel tipped his head at Marisa and she followed him toward the scene. As they reached it, two forensics team members ran down Desiree’s stairs and head-nodded Steel. He returned a downward nod of his own and flared his jaw muscles. He waved a two-fingered hello at a police officer in one of the cruisers in the street and climbed up the steps.
Even more forensics and crime scene investigators scurried around inside, dusting for prints, snapping photos that lit up the apartment, shining flashlight-circles off the hardwood floors and walls, determining cause of death. Then he saw her. Jeanette Jones. Dead. Her body lying face up, arms above her head and curled, and her legs straight, tip of her toes pointed toward the ceiling. Steel had seen many dead bodies over the years but had never seen one with the eyeballs popped from the socket—her eyes could’ve passed for pool cue balls. Next to her lips, on each corner of her mouth, dried blood had lumped and stuck to the mocha skin of her soft cheeks. The blood was hard and brownish-red and carried the wretched stench of death through the air.
Steel turned an eye on Marisa. His eyelids twitched and he bit his bottom lip. She lowered her head, shook hard, and shivered as if a chill had run through her body. Detectives or no detectives, they were human beings first. Dead bodies that were once humans full of life still sank their hearts and almost choked them up, a reminder that the world had its good and bad, love and hate, pure and evil. They were staring at the bad, at the evil, each running their eyes across the purple and red strangulation marks on Jeanette’s neck from the struggle. Steel wanted to vomit, sickened from the scene, sickened at the murder of a daughter and now mother, sickened from the reality that this wasn’t over, sickened that he could have a lunatic on his hands. His heart muscles squeezed at his chest, and the pressure slowed his air intake. Son of a bitch, he thought, then mouthed, “I’d like to strangle the son of a bitch who did this.”
He leaned in close to Marisa. “Head over to the neighbors? See if they heard anything? Check back in here after they’re done with evidence.”
She nodded.
Steel pressed a plastic doorbell to the glittering gray apartment unit next to Desiree’s, and the echoes of the repetitive dings reached the cold steps and hit the soles of his shoes. The lock clicked and the sliver doorknob spun.
A woman stuck out her head, her body hiding behind, and she bent and adjusted her left eyeglass arm, patted her brown hair. “Hey,” she said, her speech quick, and Steel got a sense that she was in a rush or bothered by their presence.
“Hello. I’m Detective Benjamin Steel,” he waved a hand at Marisa, “and this is my partner, Detective Marisa Tulli.”
She curled her lips inward until their pink color disappeared and faded into a thin line of white skin, then nodded her head. She widened her sky blue eyes and they brightened, waiting for Steel to speak and say more.
“May we ask you a few questions regarding your neighbor…ors, excuse me, your neighbors, Desiree Jones and her mother, Jeanette.”
The woman tilted her head and contemplated the question for a moment. “Sure.”
She stepped back, opened the door until it couldn’t stretch any farther, waved a hand, and clapped her palm against her thigh. “Come in.”
Steel and Marisa strolled through the entryway and the enclosed, unheated space ran a chill up their bodies. The walls held a damp scent as if the sheet rock had been recently painted and as though the paint currently mixed with the cold air and created a breeze that blew the thick, oily chemicals through the walkway. The woman cracked open another door that led to the living room.
“Babe,” she called out, waving a hand without looking at Steel and Marisa, implying for them to follow, as if she was used to being the boss. “Can you come down here for a minute?”
“Sure thing, babe,” a male voice said.
Steel noticed this place was just as luxurious as Desiree’s. The
high ceilings reminded him of a high school basketball gym, only difference was, the hardwood floors in this apartment were sparkling and brand new and probably cost more than the entire basketball team’s uniforms and equipment. The television mounted on the wall had to be at least sixty inches. Dim the lights, chuck a bag of popcorn into the microwave and let the heat permeate the air, sit back on the sofa, and you’d probably feel as though you were in a movie theater. The navy leather sofa and navy and white walls and navy dining room table and navy wooden bookcase were trendy, like the setup had been taken right from the display area at IKEA. The leather and plastic even smelled brand new, as if they’d just torn the clear plastic covering off and all the trapped leather, hard plastic and wood breathed out and floated through the entire living room. A fake Christmas tree sat in the corner and silver tinsel and red balls were wrapped around the pointy plastic green branches. Esoteric orange and red abstract paintings lined the walls in glass frames with black borders—the paint slapped and splattered and spread into unrecognizable images. Steel guessed you had to be part of a special intellect, or had to have a superiority complex, or had to just be weird to get the meaning of the art. Yuppies, Steel thought. March to their own beat. On the walls in my old house and living room, the only thing you’d see were thumbtacks dug into old wood-paneling that I never got around to fixing.
The man the woman had called hooked a right behind a wall in the kitchen. He smiled from ear to ear, almost too cheesy, and weighed about a hundred pounds, his chest sunken in and legs toothpicks. He looked about thirty-five. He wore his blonde hair in a comb-over and a navy blue hoodie with University of Penn in white letters across the center, blue khakis, and brown loafers that Steel would’ve gotten beaten up for if he’d worn in his old blue-collar neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia. People really like navy blue, he thought. Guy could have passed for an un-cool version of Zack Morris from the sitcom Saved by the Bell. But he seemed nice and genuine at first glance. He took large strides with his hand out, and his mouth still open, displaying pearls of white.
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