Slow Burn

by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

  “Kim McDowell’s still an open investigation,” he said, when we were back in his office.

  “I know that,” I said. “I’m just trying to find out how she died.”

  “That’s in the coroner’s report. Which is a public record.”

  “‘Blunt force trauma.’ Yes, I know. Which could mean just about anything.”

  “I can’t show you the file. Not on this one.”

  “Anything more specific? About the blunt part?”

  “Why the sudden interest? I thought you were busy springing triple arson-murderers.”

  “It’s possible they’re related.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “Just looking at some loose strings.”

  “To hang me with.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Cops know about this? About Kim and the fire?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You going to tell them?”

  “Soon enough. Quicker I know how Kim died, quicker I can make that happen.”

  He wrestled with my request for a minute, rubbing his goatee several times. Then he got up, walked around his desk, closed the door to his office, sat down, and typed furiously at his keyboard.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Can I see?”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  “A little.”

  “What’d she die of?”

  Some typing and scrolling.

  “Interesting,” he said. “Looks like she had a subdural hematoma.”

  “And in English, that’s?”

  “Buildup of blood between the brain and skull. The hematoma presses on the brain and starts to affect heart rate and breathing and temperature, things like that. Pretty easily treated if you catch it in time. Obviously not in this case.”

  “Obviously,” I said. “Because she would have been unconscious.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What?”

  “Your blunt force trauma is what initiates the bleeding that causes the hematoma. But it’s pretty common for people to seem fine, at least to be conscious, at first. Then the headaches and the nausea start and temperatures spike. Once that happens it’s usually lights out.”

  “You’re saying McDowell didn’t die right away?”

  “I’m telling you what she died of. I’m saying it’s possible, based on the hematoma, she could have been awake for a while first.”

  “Why didn’t she call 911? Or go to the hospital? I mean, wouldn’t there be a lot of blood?”

  “Not always, if it was all internal,” he said. “It’s a deceptive injury. Possible she thought an ice pack would do it.” He consulted the computer. “She was found in bed, so maybe she lay down first.”

  “In bed, like for the night?”

  He tapped a couple of keys. “On top of the covers, in regular clothes. Sounds like a nap to me.”

  “Lying down to take a nap is not consistent with someone who was just attacked by a burglar.”

  “No,” he said. “No, it’s not.”

  “Wouldn’t the police think the same thing?”

  “Possibly, except that sometimes people do conk out immediately after they’re hit. It’s hard to correlate the time of attack with time of death in cases like this. You factor in Keeler’s prints in her apartment and her stuff in his possession and it’s a logical leap: he hit her over the head in her bedroom while robbing her place and left her lying there.”

  “But why the bedroom? Why not the living room?”

  “Maybe she ran in there, trying to get away.”

  “Which is it?” I said. “In your opinion? Conked out or awake for a while?”

  Huntington scrolled up and down several screens and rubbed his goatee over and over.

  “Awake,” he said finally. “I’d have to say she was awake.”

  Back outside, I got in my rental and called Karen Feinberg.

  “Don’t tell me you lost Gabby’s number,” she whispered.

  “Gimme two minutes,” I said. I explained what Huntington had told me.

  “I’m not getting it,” she said.

  “If Kim McDowell got hit on the head and was knocked unconscious right away, then Keeler’s looking pretty good for it. But if she were awake for a while, and then died, it couldn’t have been him. What victim of a stranger assault in her own apartment takes a nap first without calling police?”

  “But if that’s true, how’d she get the injury?”

  “She either had a bad household accident,” I said, “or she knew whoever hit her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, like a domestic incident gone bad. Tempers cool, they kiss and make up, injury doesn’t seem so bad at first.”

  “I never heard anything about a boyfriend.”

  “You wouldn’t have.”

  “And you did?”

  I told her my suspicions. When I was finished, the line was quiet for so long I thought she’d dropped the phone. Then she said, “I’ve got to go. I’m in contempt of court in thirty seconds. I’ll call you back.”

  Mohawk was free of silver Hummers when I pulled up in front of my house a few minutes later. Mixed blessing, I thought, since it meant I didn’t know what Peirce was up to.

  I had done more listening than eating during breakfast with Melissa, and to ward off famine I made myself a couple of slices of toast. I was adding jelly to one and peanut butter to the second when Chambers called.

  “Falco,” he said. “I got your text. What’s going on?”

  I could hear voices in the background, and what sounded like a series of beeps.

  “Are you at work?”

  “Every day, man. Moving those Happy Meals. Took a break to call you.”

  I explained about the van fire and what Henderson had told me about Richard “Run-Run” Ronnell. He didn’t respond right away.

  “You there?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Everything OK?”

  “Except for the fact you’re pissing me off a little bit, sure.”

  “Pissing you off? How?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “You think because I’m an east side dude with a record that I know all the ‘inner workings’ of a drug gang?”

  “No,” I said. “I just thought—”

  “I know what you thought. And I don’t appreciate it. I like talking to you. I wish I saw more that night. But like I already told you, all I did was call 911.”

  “Listen,” I tried to say.

  “This ‘Run-Run,’ guy,” he went on. “That ain’t no state secret your U.S. marshal or whoever is floating around you. That guy’s been in the news before. All those guys have. Everyone knows. It’s no secret what they do.”

  “All right,” I said. “Sorry I asked.”

  “I don’t mean to get upset. But I’m trying to make my way. You know?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Who’s telling you all this about Ryan or Run-Run anyway? That kid’s grandmother? The one who set the fire?”

  “One of the survivors. Look, I’m sorry. Again. How about I come by, take you out, make things right? We’ll go to White Castle; my treat.”

  That got a laugh. “All right, Falco. Break’s almost over. Gotta get back to work.”

  “All right.”

  “But Falco?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I told you Run-Run’s been in the news, right?”

  “Right.”

  “If the news is right, he’s nobody to be messing around with. Just keep that in mind.”

  I assured him I would.

  “Guys like that?” Chambers said. “Reason why I moved over to Happy Meals.”

  38

  I would have preferred spending the next couple of hours leaping tall buildings in a single bound or warning the bad guys of Gotham City to clear out once and for all. Or maybe, if I were
lucky, giving Dorothy Custer something besides a status quo update. Instead, I found myself sitting in the waiting room at Merion Place Veterinary Clinic on South High staring at charts of heartworms and cursing the person or persons who’d smashed a beer bottle at the park two months earlier that was continuing to cost me a small fortune in bills for Hopalong.

  I spent most of my time at the vet’s engrossed in World War Z and so hadn’t checked my phone regularly. It wasn’t until I got home, late in the afternoon, that I plowed through my e-mails, deleting them left and right—the electronic message equivalent of zombie killing, come to think of it—until I paused above a return address I didn’t recognize. Aaron. From the prison e-mail system.

  i might have remember something. maybe i said that about the posse i don know. i cant remember a lot from that night. i’m also the boss that’s my nickname. One thing i remember is i heard Jacob might be into selling smack. not smart.

  I wrote a quick response, telling him about Richard Ronnell, asking if the name rang any bells. Next I called and left a message for Henderson, telling him what Aaron had recalled. And then, deciding to go out on a limb, way out, I hit “Forward,” typed in Suzanne’s address, threw a host of capitalized caveats in my message, starting with “OFF THE RECORD FOR NOW,” and sent her the e-mail.

  When Mellencamp’s guitar riffs emitted from my phone five minutes later, I was disappointed to see it wasn’t Suzanne on the line. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hi. It’s Freddie.”

  Freddie. Short for Frederica.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I found your can fairy.”

  “What?”

  “He says he saw you the other night.”

  “You found him?”

  “Saw him on the street. Got to chatting.”

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “He was out in the daytime?”

  “He’s a can fairy, not a vampire.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “He’s an interesting guy.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “He mentioned the other night. I put two and two together, you know? Figured that was you?”

  “Where is he now?”

  “With me. On my porch.”

  I parked the rental in a campus garage on North High near the Wexner arts center. I didn’t think anyone would try to torch it in the remaining hour or so of daylight, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I crossed the street with a pack of students, then started jogging toward Orton Avenue. For a moment I wondered if Freddie short for Frederica was putting me on. Then, at a house across the street and two down from the boarded-up site of the blaze, I spied a girl with rainbow streaks in her hair talking to the man I’d seen the previous Sunday.

  “Woody,” the man said as I arrived, out of breath. “Where’d you go the other night?”

  His name was Willie Smith. He was a little shorter than me, compact. He was not homeless. I know because he told me that three times. We sat on the porch at Freddie’s house, drinking cups of herbal tea she made for us. She sat and listened, wide-eyed.

  He said, “You’re the only Big Ten player ever shaved a couple of points, I’ll eat my hat.” He took a drink of tea, made a face. “Just think you was robbed.”

  “Water under the bridge,” I said. “And just because other people did it doesn’t make it less of a crime.” Then I added, “But thank you. I guess.”

  “Private detective, huh?” he said.

  “Investigator. Same difference.”

  “That what you majored in? At OSU?”

  “I majored in girls, with a minor in trouble,” I said. “Got into this a little bit later.”

  He smiled. Winked at Freddie. He said, “You want to know about the fire.”

  “That’s right. Looking for anyone who saw something.”

  “Why?”

  I told him.

  “Kind of crazy,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He ignored the question and posed one of his own. “If somebody did see it, what then?”

  “Guess I’d try to talk to them. See what they know.”

  “But after, I mean. They gonna get arrested?”

  “Arrested?”

  “For not saying anything. Obstructing justice. Whatever.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” I said. “Would guess the police would be more interested in what they knew. And if they’d never talked to them before, it wouldn’t really be obstructing justice.”

  “Reward?”

  I shook my head. “Officially, the crime’s solved, so there’s no reward out there.”

  “What about the grandmother. Lady you mentioned. Would she pay?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, thinking about my conversation with Crenshaw and my follow-up request to Gabby, Karen Feinberg’s probate lawyer fiancée. “Guess I could ask her.”

  “You ask her. Then we’ll talk.”

  “You know something?”

  “I know you need to ask her about a reward. That’s all I’m saying for now.”

  I left Smith on Freddie’s porch, thanked her for my tea, walked over to High Street, retrieved my car, and called Dorothy. She said it wasn’t a problem to come by.

  “He’s the witness?” she said, seated on the couch a few minutes later.

  “Looks like.”

  “And he wants a reward.”

  “He wants to know about one.”

  “Did he say how much?”

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t he go to the police?” she said.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy or anything. But maybe he didn’t want to get involved. Or maybe he didn’t realize what he saw, maybe thought Aaron was the guy. Only realized later on. Hard to say.”

  “Should I meet him?”

  “I could arrange something. I think right now he just wants to know about money.”

  “I’d rather know an exact amount,” she said. “But of course I can pay. For Aaron.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course. Why would you ask?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The check,” she said. “That was a one-time thing.”

  “The thing is,” I said. “Old Hickory.”

  “What about it?”

  I thought about what Crenshaw had told me.

  “You haven’t been getting any royalties for a few years, have you? Since your husband died.”

  “That would be none of your business.”

  “Sales dried up.”

  “It’s simply not your concern.”

  “I don’t mean to pry. But if things are tight for you, financially, we need to look at this another way.”

  “Things are fine.”

  “The reward. We could negotiate.”

  “Get the amount,” she said.

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “I recognize that. And you’ve done a lot so far. What I paid you to do, finding this Smith fellow.”

  “We’re close,” I said.

  “Not until we have his story. Tell him I’ll pay. Let me worry about the details.”

  Smith didn’t have a phone, so I had to drive back to his apartment on Ninth Avenue to find him. It took him a minute to answer the door after I’d knocked.

  “Didn’t think I’d see you again,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Thought you might be making the whole thing up.”

  “Wish I were.”

  I explained that Dorothy had approved a reward, but she needed to know a number.

  “I don’t know,” Smith said.

  “Ballpark it,” I said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not for me, Woody. It’s for the person who saw what happened.”

  I sat on the couch in his living room, which would also have been his kitchen but for a counter separating th
e two. The air smelled of fried food and coffee. A woman he introduced as his mother dozed in an armchair, an oxygen machine clicking and chuffing beside her.

  “I met Eddie Miller on the streets one day,” Smith said. “He tried to rob me. Junkie, you know.”

  “I know. Him and his sister.”

  “Told him I couldn’t give him anything. Needed everything to take care of her.” He nodded at his mother. “She’s eighty-seven. Emphysema and bladder cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Offered him something else. Information. Name of somebody who knew about the fire. It was all I could think to do. Couldn’t afford to have something happen to me, because of her.”

  “It wasn’t you who saw what happened. You knew somebody.”

  “That’s right.”

  “This person knew about Aaron. And the baseball cap. Which nobody else knew about.”

  “That’s what they told me.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Lady that’s homeless.”

  “A lady?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Aaron’s grandmother,” he said. “She’ll pay?”

  “She said she would.”

  “Not for me. For this lady. She can use the money.”

  “The name,” I said. “I need the name of this witness.”

  “She goes by Sam.”

  “Sam?”

  “That’s right.”

  Sam. Samantha.

  I described Samantha to Smith.

  “That’s her,” he said. “Bit feisty. Not all there, either, if you know what I mean.”

  Samantha Parks. Lady from the homeless camp. The one who’d once chased a bunch of rabble-rousers all the way to High Street.

  All the way up to the neighborhood around Orton Avenue?

  I punched Roy’s number into my phone as quickly as I could.

  39

  The sky was just beginning to lighten the next morning when Roy and I got out of the van parked beside the Olentangy Trail and hiked into the camp.

  Samantha wasn’t there and no one had seen her.

  “Where could she be?” I said as we sipped coffee in Roy’s van a few minutes later. “I thought she lived here.”

  “She tends to wander. Has some demons that keep her up at night.”

  “But what if something happened to her?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I don’t know. What if someone found her? Someone who knew she was a witness.”