“Yeah, well, I just wish these shoes had some kind of quick-release mechanism.” Fellows looked down at her precarious ankles.
“I’d feel naked not being armed,” said Shepherd.
“Oh, I’m carryin’,” Fellows said, reaching under the dress to the top of a lacy garter on her inside left thigh and drawing out a five-shot pistol.
“Show your badge, Sarge,” Salt said.
Fellows folded back the low-cut V-neck of the red dress to reveal her brass badge pinned to the underside. “I’m ready except for the damn shoes. Where’s my date? I love McPhee. I’m a huge fan. Imagine, me on an actual date with Jarvis McPhee!” She grinned and tapped her feet in a kind of dance.
“Speak of the devil,” Pepper said, coming in the classroom door followed by McPhee ducking under the door frame. “Jeez,” McPhee said, looking around the room, scanning the detectives.
Struck starry-eyed, Fellows wobbled toward McPhee, who reached for her arm just as she began to topple. “Whoa,” he said, catching her elbow.
“Rebound!” said Pepper.
McPhee was handsome. Six foot nine inches of caramel slim. One could sense the muscularity under the dark suit fitted to perfection. “I sure hope you’re my date,” he said as he righted the sergeant. “Jarvis McPhee.” He extended his considerable hand to Fellows, his voice warm and genuine.
“Laurel,” Fellows replied, holding his hand and staring up at his face.
“Hands off the talent,” Pepper said, inserting himself between them, removing Fellows’ hand from McPhee’s. “You two, this is not some romantic TV or movie shit escapade. Where’s the bug?”
“Got it,” Felton said. “The intelligence guys tested it and said it’s ready. Sit.” He pointed Fellows to a chair, where he began fastening the tiny device under a wave of hair.
McPhee turned to acknowledge the rest of the team as they were introduced but kept cutting his eyes back to Fellows. “I thought women police were only good-looking on TV,” he said, shaking hands with Salt. “Golly, this is an honor. I admire what you do. It’s a privilege for me to be able to help you guys.”
“Have a seat,” said Lieutenant Shepherd, getting up from the desk and waving McPhee to a table the right height for him to lean against. “There will be no heroes tonight. This is intelligence gathering only.” Shepherd’s dark features were stern.
“Jarvis has met Stokes before, LT,” said Pepper.
“I don’t really go to the clubs that much,” McPhee said, looking at Fellows again. “But right after my divorce two years ago I went to Magic Girls with some of the guys. It wasn’t my thing and I stopped going after a couple of times.”
“What was it that you didn’t like?” Fellows asked, coming out of her trance.
“Well, for one thing, the manager there—Stokes? He was a creep. Kept asking me how I liked my pussy. Excuse my language. Then he would ask how old I liked it. One night one of my pals got really drunk and went to one of the VIP rooms, where he said he saw some really young-looking girls. Even as drunk as he was, he got the hell out of there.”
“You think Stokes will give you the VIP treatment, even with a chick at your side?” Pepper asked the question on everyone’s mind.
“I’ve seen men with their dates going everywhere in Magic Girls, including up to the VIP rooms,” McPhee said.
“Okay, folks, I’m satisfied,” said Shepherd. “Lock and load. Let’s do this.”
• • •
It was midnight when Pepper stopped the surveillance van in a dark service alley between two old businesses a block from Magic Girls. McPhee drove with Fellows in his Jaguar.
Inside the van, Felton swiveled his chair to the bank of monitoring equipment, switched on the recorder, and turned up the volume on the speaker for the wire Fellows was wearing. Most of what they heard were car noises and little conversation. Fellows would be aware of being monitored, plus she had still seemed starstruck and almost speechless when McPhee had opened the Jag’s door for her. Once they were en route he asked if she’d done this before.
They heard her answer. “Something like this but not so dressed up. I did Vice details—you know—posing as a street prostitute.”
“So what do you do now?” he asked. “What’s your regular assignment?”
“I work Special Victims, crimes against children.”
He didn’t respond.
“That’s usually a conversation stopper,” she said, voice low, like she might have said it to herself or to her colleagues in the van.
The next sound they heard was the crunch of tires on gravel, signaling McPhee’s arrival in the Magic Girls parking lot. With the engine off, they heard McPhee say, “It’s probably because people don’t know how to respond.” The car door opened. “It makes everything else seem frivolous. Hold on to my arm. You don’t want to hurt yourself in those shoes.”
The next thing they heard was music blasting. Felton grabbed at the control to turn down the volume. Then all they could hear was the occasional word shouted over music.
Lieutenant Shepherd, in the van’s driver’s seat, and Salt, in the front passenger seat, turned toward the interior of the van, where Pepper, Felton, and Wills sat in mounted captain’s chairs in front of counters on either wall. Above them was other equipment—headphones, recorders, and receivers lit by low LED track lights that would be invisible from the outside of the van’s dark-tinted, blackout-curtained windows. They concentrated as if watching a movie, only their focus was on the images produced in their mind’s eye by the sounds coming from the speaker.
“. . . Man . . .” Stokes shouted. “Bitches is . . .”
A woman’s voice shouted for drink orders. “G ’n’ T,” said Fellows. “Vodka,” said McPhee. Then for half an hour all they heard was the heavy bass music and glasses clinking.
The cops in the van slumped against their seats, settling in to the familiar boredom of surveillance.
“Party?” It was McPhee’s voice.
Stokes’ voice was mostly unintelligible: “. . . up . . .” he said, “. . . cool . . .”
“I like girls,” said Fellows. From the sound of it she was moving.
A heavy door closed, as if sealing a vacuum, the music becoming only a faint muffled beat.
“Man, this is some VIP setup.” McPhee’s voice was clear.
“Sit there. Take a look at the pictures in the books on the table. G ’n’ T and vodka coming up.” Stokes’ voice was from across a large room.
After a stretch of small sounds, Fellows said, “This one here. She available?”
“Which one?” Stokes’ voice was close. Ice clinked in glasses. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, Jarvis, your girl like some tight puss, huh?”
“Sure,” said McPhee, his voice lower, flat.
“What’s the matter, man?” Stokes asked. “Girls like to have some fresh, too!”
“Ah, um. Yeah,” McPhee stammered.
“But she in her crib tonight—that one. But look here . . .” Stokes paused. “This one. She waitin’ on somebody.” There was a grin in his voice, a greasy smacking of words.
“I want her,” said Fellows. “Hello, baby! How old?”
“Get ’em before the first bleed I always say . . .” Stokes’ voice drifted from the bug. A door sucked open and muffled closed.
“Shush,” Fellows whispered, probably in McPhee’s ear, warning him not to talk. Even though they were alone, Fellows would be aware the room was likely bugged.
The door opened again. “Glad to see you weren’t waiting.” Stokes was back. “This is May May.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Fellows. “Come over here, baby.”
McPhee seemed dangerously quiet, too quiet. “Say something,” Salt whispered. Wills cut his eyes to her.
“Smile at the people, May May,” said Stokes.
“No, no, no,”
said McPhee.
“No,” said Fellows, jumping in. “We like to see them dressed first—little girl dresses.”
“Git,” said Stokes, after which was the sound of the door opening and closing again.
Pepper dialed McPhee’s phone. They heard him answer over the monitor. “Yeah.”
“Say ‘Naw,’” Pepper told him.
“Naw,” repeated McPhee.
“Mad like, Naw!”
“Naw!”
“Repeat ‘The fuck!’”
“The fuck!”
“Now hang up and tell Stokes your other bitch comin’ in the club. Then you and Fellows get up and leave.”
• • •
“Sorry,” McPhee said into his coffee cup.
Back at the Narcotics office at four o’clock in the a.m. they all held their coffees tight.
“I am not cut out for this kind of thing. You see stuff on TV and think you could be a detective.” He shook his head. “I could hardly hold myself from shaking. Horrible,” he said.
“You were fine,” Fellows reassured him.
But McPhee didn’t look at her.
“We got what we need,” said Lieutenant Shepherd. “Thank you, Jarvis.”
“Come on, man,” said Pepper. “I’ll see you out. These guys have the boring paperwork left to do and a warrant to draw up.”
McPhee stood. “I don’t understand how you do it, be so . . .” he said in Fellows’ direction, his voice weak. He turned and left with Pepper.
Once they left, Fellows shrugged. “My shot, my one shot.” Her shoes were off and lay on their sides, the straps tangled. Hair wilting, she stripped the Velcro closure for the pistol on her thigh.
But by morning the warrant was signed by the judge.
LAWYERED UP
How hard could it be to include “Sisterhood” in the name? Salt thought as she drove to the offices of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the IBPO. The stand-alone three-story cinder-block building was surrounded by vacant lots, businesses on all sides having been torn down. Parking was in the open so that even in this very sketchy cheap-rent part of town it would be hard to perpetrate without being seen. And after all, the staff and patrons were mostly cops or former cops. The front door of reinforced glass led to a vestibule with no access to anything but an elevator. There were cinder blocks of a different texture where doors to the first-floor offices had been.
Salt pushed the button for the elevator and waggled her fingers at the dark lens of an overhead camera trained on the spot where she stood. The elevator pinged as the doors opened. When the doors reopened on the third floor, she was met by the union lawyer. She’d seen him around the department but never had reason to meet him. “Jack Lawson,” he said, grabbing her hand, pumping it. “Come on back.” He waved her down the narrow hall. “I knew we’d see you around here sooner or later. I just thought it would be sooner.” He grinned. “Don’t take that the wrong way.” Small offices on either side were crowded with old desks, file cabinets, and computer components, some working and some obviously not, giving the space a hoarder’s feel. Spares of everything were stacked on top of and under all surfaces.
“Welcome to our fortress.” Lawson stopped at the open door to a glass-front office and held his arm out for her to go in. “I just got our copy of the surveillance video yesterday.” He turned the monitor on his desk toward two chairs. There was little legroom. “I’ve watched it a couple of times. You okay? You haven’t said anything.” He smiled, a lot, his mouth full of long teeth and missing molars. There was a Gulf War ball cap hanging on a wall hook.
“This must be how perps feel,” she said, hoping not to sound ungrateful.
“Oh, come now. You don’t have to worry.” He leaned over, maneuvering the computer mouse. “Here we go. Say stop at any time.”
It was the same footage that had been played over and over on the news: Salt kneeling over Stone; Lil D coming out of the shoe store, box under his arm; she stands; Lil D bumps into her and drops the box; she kneels over Stone again and hands the box to Lil D, who pauses a half second and then runs out of camera view.
Lawson pressed the stop. “Now, this is only a preliminary hearing and, as I’m sure you know, is only to determine if there is probable cause to charge you. And while the video does seem prima facie sufficient, if we can prove a lack of intent, which I think we can, then the judge will have to dismiss.”
“I don’t know how you can prove what I was thinking, my intent.” Salt sounded like her own prosecutor.
“The first question the prosecutor is likely to ask is did you or do you know Darrell Mobley.”
“I’ve known him, Lil D, for more than ten years.”
Lawson’s lips closed over his teeth. “Oh.”
“He lived in The Homes. It was my beat for years. His mother was murdered and I caught the recent murder of his sister. The reason he was downtown that day was because I had asked him to provide DNA to establish the identity of his sister’s body.”
“Whoa, hold on.” He got up from the chair beside her and went to sit behind the desk. “Salt, you’ve been charged with party to the crime of theft. Now a case could be more likely made for lack of intent if you didn’t know Mobley or if we could establish that you had no reason to give him shoes you knew to be stolen. Did you intentionally give him the shoes?”
“I was in the middle of a riot. I was trying to prevent further injury to a mentally ill man I’d just pepper sprayed and taken into custody. I didn’t take time to develop an intention. I needed to get the shoes out of my way.” Her knees bumped the metal desk, a sound like a kick drum.
Lawson flinched. “Hey, it’s not me that’s accused you. I’m on your side.”
Salt stood, stepped over to the closed door, and looked out the glass to the empty hall. “I don’t know how you stand being this closed in. There’s hardly room to move.”
Lawson was leaning back in his chair as far as it would swivel and looking up at her. “They brought Mobley in. I don’t know if he was arrested or has come forward voluntarily as a witness.”
“Really?” She leaned forward. “I get it. They want Lil D to testify that he thought I was giving him the shoes. If he says that on the stand, he won’t be charged. If he says I was distracted attending to Stone . . .” She shrugged.
Lawson stood and looked like he was trying to smile again. “I think we’ll be all right.” He came out from behind the desk and reached for the doorknob. “I always thought you’d be tough.”
Halfway through the door she looked at him. “And?”
Lawson followed her through the door. “You are. But in a different way than I expected.”
“Not what you’d hoped for?”
“You got some scary about you.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“See you in court.” He waved as she turned to call the elevator.
COURT
Normally cops sat on the other side of the courtroom gallery. But when Salt came in with Lawson, they stood as one, led by Wills, Pepper, Felton, and Big Fuzzy dressed in their dark navy uniforms, and moved to the other side behind the defendant’s table.
“Impressive,” grumbled Judge Barrett sarcastically into the microphone on the bench.
Salt had decided not to wear her uniform in case the judge ruled for sufficient probable cause and she had to be processed through the jail. So she wore her navy wool jacket over a white shirt and navy slacks. It was as close to the uniform as she could get, but the waistband of her slacks put an uncomfortable pressure at the most sensitive place; she was sick to her stomach, as if she might throw up at the slightest turn. She sipped a bottle of water, afraid to drink more than her stomach could handle.
The press was confined to the right side of the room, closer to the prosecutor’s table. A video screen had been pulled down on the left front wall; a
projector was on a stand in the center of the bar area, halfway between the prosecutor’s and the defendant’s tables, toward the screen.
The courtroom was in full hum. Clerks came and went, addressing the mechanics of justice, papers being signed, dockets being approved, and rolls being checked for the necessary parties. Chatter from the spectators rose to a din, muffled slightly by the sound panels and industrial-grade royal crimson carpet.
Ruddy complexioned with white flyaway hair, Judge Barrett placed his hand on the microphone, his ring clinking loudly, accompanied by feedback, as he leaned toward this or that clerk vying for his attention. Salt had presented cases before him and had always found him affable, if diffident, but generally no-nonsense. He would occasionally get a bee in his bonnet over some seemingly arcane issue driving both the prosecutors and defense lawyers to scratch their heads.
Salt also knew the prosecutor, Lyndon Smith. Usually she and Smith would be conferring, heads together at the other table. He was thin, almost gaunt, his skin bordering on gray-brown depending on the kind of day he was having. He sat at the prosecutor’s table adjusting a laptop that Salt presumed would transmit the video. Smith kept glancing over his shoulder toward the gallery, as did Salt, looking for Lil D.
“I’m going to ask Pepper to testify first,” Lawson said to her as he sat down at the table beside her. “He’ll set the scene, describe the traffic nightmare and the looting.”
“Is Lil D here?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t know him. The judge seems to be waiting for something.”
The screen on the wall bloomed to an image of the computer desktop. News cameras whirred. Photographers focused their cameras. Smith turned again to the back of the room and nodded as Lil D, ever-present towel around his neck, carrying a small gym bag, came up the courtroom aisle to the front row of seats behind Smith. Lil D lifted his chin in an upward nod to Salt.
She nodded in return, but he was bending to sit down and she wasn’t sure he’d seen her acknowledgment. Their karma, their fates—her Calvinist ancestors might have used the word “predestined”—were bound by threads, such that when a thread was pulled by one, the other was moved.
Old Bones Page 25
