The Girl In the Morgue

by D. D. VanDyke

  Most of the time, this arrangement functioned. There hadn’t been a war among the crime factions in years. Maybe this was because the old mob was centered in Emeryville, across the bay near Oakland, and they had their hands full with the black and Latino street gangs, the bikers, and the Aryan Brotherhood.

  That left the city proper to the Chinese and the Russians, the Ukrainian and Armenian gangsters, plus, Cal heard, a small but extraordinarily effective Jewish-Israeli organization. Her mind wandered to one of her contacts, the neo-Nazi boss called Luger. No wonder he was so careful.

  “Cal?”

  She woke from her musing and blinked at Sergei, who was eyeing her with a frown. “Sorry, just thinking. You have Jenna’s address?”

  “Of course.” He handed Cal a piece of paper filled with his laborious block printing. “Everything I know is here.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Please.” Sergei stood. He breathed vodka fumes into Cal’s face and kissed her cheeks once more. “I’ll be waiting.”

  “I’ll do my best, but these things have a timing all their own.”

  “Okay, okay. Paka-paka.”

  “Bye-bye to you too.”

  Chapter Three

  Cal’s next stop was Pinecrest Diner, an iconic 24-hour joint on the edge of the Tenderloin near Union Square. Bill, the owner, nodded at her as she took a seat at the counter and ordered coffee and a breakfast sandwich to go. The location allowed her to keep her car under observation through the large plate-glass windows.

  The restaurant’s beige walls belied its history, founded in 1969 by the very same now-elderly Greek man who greeted her. It was a place to eat and raucously argue politics and religion, though the clientele that early in the morning remained decidedly subdued.

  There’d been a rather well-known murder committed here in 1997, when a short-order cook shot and killed a waitress, reportedly after a long night of losing at the gambling tables and an argument over poached eggs. Cal hadn’t been assigned to Homicide then.

  A rustle behind her made Cal turn, but she saw no one she recognized. She’d half-expected—half-hoped?—Thomas to be standing there. But the mysterious hitman—sorry, “contractor”—had flushed himself out of her life like a turd in a toilet bowl.

  Perversely, the disgusting metaphor improved her mood. Cal wasn’t feeling charitable toward him. She’d thought that after a week or two, he would at least drop her an anonymous email, but she’d heard nothing.

  Bastard.

  Arrogant, self-congratulatory, supercilious bastard.

  To be fair, Cal had taken that cruise with Tanner Brody and Starlight. Had ever-watchful Thomas decided she’d moved on and acted accordingly? Yet he’d been the one to disappear, with no way for her to contact him, so what was cause and what was effect?

  Despite some tantalizing trysts, Tanner and Cal hadn’t quite hooked up. On the cruise, they were booked in separate rooms. They hung out and talked and necked and shared some good times, but the presence of her mother and knowing that things weren’t settled with Thomas had prevented Cal from moving beyond that. They’d found themselves stuck in the early dating phase: pleasant, yet not going anywhere. They’d decided to leave it at “we’ll see.”

  Cal mentally tried to shrug it off. She had time. If Tanner were truly interested, he’d wait.

  Funny, claiming to be patient. Not her strong suit. So, it felt more like stalling.

  Cal looked over Sergei’s sketchy information. Jenna Duncan, twenty-four. Son, Alan, four years old. Jenna’s address, home and cell phone numbers. Boyfriend: Randy Roubicek, a meat cutter at a plant over in the aptly named Butchertown, West City Processing. No address for him. She should have asked Sergei if he was live-in or casual.

  When her order arrived, Cal tossed a ten on the counter, grabbed the go-box and saluted Bill with her coffee cup. He winked back, and for a moment she saw the face of another Bill she’d known all too briefly.

  She swallowed hard and moved on.

  Cal ate one-handed as she drove. The GPS voice took her south on 101 to the southwest edge of Butchertown, an industrial area bounded by the gentrifying Dogpatch to the north, suburban Bernal Heights to the west, Bayview to the south, and the Bay itself to the east.

  The usual misty drizzle coated her hair as she stepped out of Molly and looked at the ugly three-story walkup of perhaps two dozen units. The one streetlight still functioning made her think the building’s crumbling stucco was beige, but that may have merely reflected the influence of the yellow sodium lamp.

  An unmarked unit shared the street with her at the corner. A female uniform sat in the idling patrol car, filling out paperwork. She glanced up, and then went back to her brow-furrowed scribbling.

  Cal slipped into the building and spotted a couple of civilians talking in worried tones. Residents, by their dress. “What apartment?” she asked in her best official voice. Let them think she was a cop.

  “The…”

  “The crime scene. What apartment? Come on.” Cal snapped her fingers.

  “Number 307,” a long-haired twenty-something replied. “Hey…did Randy really do it?”

  “I can’t comment on an investigation. Sorry.”

  Two flights up, a door stood open, with a single desultory swatch of police tape across it to ward off the curious. The hallway was surprisingly spacious, providing a place for several bicycles and an assortment of extra furniture and junk.

  Many of the residents probably worked in Butchertown at blue-collar industrial jobs. Some of them might be students. City College of San Fran was only a few blocks away. The building lacked that indefinable undertone of genuine corruption that came from entrenched crime or drugs. It smelled pleasantly of incense and dope, not smoked crystal and piss.

  Cal peered into 307, then stepped under the tape and padded in. Bright lights made her squint at the unusual décor. Medieval weapons and shields adorned the walls. What looked like embroidered cloaks were piled on an overstuffed chair next to a matching sofa. Other objects in a similar style—goblets, tapestries, banners—could be seen displayed haphazardly. Many looked homemade. Cal doubted any of it was genuinely antique.

  A rug in the center of the roomy living room was soaked in blood. Opposite the entrance, two big windows overlooked the street below.

  To her right, Cal saw a hallway, also cluttered with strange gear—a battered wooden shield with some kind of heraldry on it, and wooden swords and axes covered with tape—duct, electrical, surgical—in shades of black, grey and dun.

  “Hey! Who the hell are you and what are you doing in here?”

  Cal turned to see a detective of Inspector grade, her shield flopping from her blazer pocket. Mid-thirties, Caucasian, a bit on the meaty side, with a bulldog brow and short, no-nonsense hair. Cal didn’t recognize her, which meant she’d joined Homicide since Cal’s departure. That might just work in Cal’s favor.

  The woman held an evidence bag in her left hand, a bloody knife inside. It was a long, double-edged dagger. Not the kind of knife a person just happened to have on the table or kitchen counter, though it fit with the other objects nearby.

  “Cal Corwin, California Investigations.” Cal showed her license. “I’ve been retained by the victim’s employer to look into her death.”

  “That’s our job, Ms. Corwin. This is a crime scene and you need to leave.”

  “I get it, Inspector…”

  “Macey.”

  “I used to be on the job. SFPD Homicide; three years under Jay Allsop. How about a little professional courtesy? Maybe I could help you.”

  Macey pursed her lips. “I’ve heard your name. You sued the department.”

  “Yeah. I was set up to take a fall by my lieutenant. I proved it, and then I proved it was covered up, and they fired her, but refused to reinstate me.”

  “That’s not the way I heard it.”

  “If you’re a good detective, I’m sure you can uncover the truth. If you actually want t
he truth.”

  Macey glared, but there was a hint of respect in her eyes. “You can look around for a minute, but don’t touch anything.”

  It was as much as Cal could have hoped for. She walked around, taking slow, careful steps, noting photographs of Jenna and her boyfriend hanging on the wall. “What’s with all this weaponry?” Cal leaned closer to look at the blunt edge of a dark-bladed sword.

  “The two of them were into medieval reenactment. Society for Creative Anarchy or some such crap.”

  “Antiquity.” A small, lean, younger black man in a standard off-the-rack cop suit stepped out of a back bedroom and walked up the hall to lean on the corner. His eyes roved from his partner to Cal and back again. “They specialize in medieval stuff.”

  Cal nodded to him. “Cal Corwin, P.I.”

  “Sonny Raymer. Real cop.”

  “Real smartass, you mean. I spent eight years behind a badge, Sonny. You never know what cards life will deal you.” Cal pointed at the evidence bag Macey held. “That what the victim stabbed her boyfriend with?”

  “Yes.” Macey held it in front of her, looking at it. “A dagger. This one’s sharp, not just a prop.”

  “Most of these things don’t look like props. They seem to be usable.” Cal stepped toward the rug. “And this is where she fell after being shot.”

  “Yep.”

  “Eight hollowpoints to the body, and the boyfriend claims self-defense? He had superficial wounds?”

  “You’re remarkably well-informed,” said Macey, her eyes narrow and suspicious.

  “I have my sources.” Cal studied the rug from several angles. “Has CSU been here?”

  Macey shrugged. “Waste of resources. We have a confession. There’s no dispute about what happened. Somebody above my pay grade will decide whether to charge him.”

  “You have the gun?”

  “We have it.” Macey made no move to show it to Cal.

  “You take some pictures?”

  “Sonny did. Got one of those new compact digitals.”

  “Good. You might need them later. Especially if there’s no CSU workup.” Cal hoped she could get a look at those pictures. To do so, she’d have to prove there was something to the case. So far, all she had to go on was too many rounds fired, but panic and the fight-or-flight response might cover that.

  The blood made it hard to see, but it looked as if an object about the size of a fingertip had lodged in the rug’s shaggy fibers. Cal debated keeping what she saw to herself before her sense of fairness took over. Macey had let her stay and have a look around and Cal could use all the friends in the department she could get. “Did you locate all the slugs?”

  “We didn’t notice any, so we figure they’re all in the body. The ME will probably find them. Why?”

  Cal squatted and pointed to the center of the stain. “Looks like one there, deformed and soaked in blood.”

  Macey squinted at it. “Maybe.”

  “Interesting how it ended up there, under the body. If, you know, she was shot in self-defense while upright.”

  “So it almost exited the vic’s torso, got lodged under the skin, and then when she hit the floor, the skin split and it fell out.”

  That farfetched idea didn’t play for Cal. “Maybe. May I?” She reached for the edge of the rug.

  “No,” Macey snapped, and Cal froze. “You’re a civilian. That would be tampering with evidence.”

  Cal withdrew her hand. “You just said the case is closed. No CSU, no evidence, no case. So what’s the harm?”

  “The case is closed.” But Macey couldn’t justify not documenting all of the evidence. “Sonny can take a close-up,” she said. “We’ll put it in the report. The crime scene will stay closed for forty-eight. If someone higher up wants to authorize CSU, it’ll be here waiting.”

  Raymer moved forward, took out a camera, and snapped a couple of pictures.

  “So you think she took all eight before she fell?” Cal asked. “That seem likely?”

  “I’ve seen weirder things,” said Macey. “And there’s nothing in the law that says someone has to be standing to be a threat. That’s for the brass and the courts to decide, not me.”

  “You mind letting me see the shooter’s statement?”

  “A uniform was first on the scene. She took it. It should be on my desk in the morning.” Macey looked at her watch. “Later in the morning, I mean. You can submit a freedom of information request, like anyone else. Give it thirty days, just to be sure.”

  “Thirty days is too long. I just want to know what he claimed happened.”

  “You already know.” Macey gestured as if to herd Cal out the door. “Let’s go, Ms. Corwin. It’s been a long night and we’re already on overtime.”

  Cal backed into the hallway and watched Macey lock the door with a key, presumably volunteered by the bizarrely cooperative Randy. Sonny slapped some more crime scene tape across the doorway.

  Cal hurried downstairs with a sudden thought.

  San Francisco General was only a mile away and Cal made it in ninety seconds flat by running at least one red light, but there was little traffic to worry about. The parking lot was well lit and mostly empty as she hopped out of Molly and hurried into the emergency room. A uniform sat in a chair, reading a magazine, presumably keeping tabs on Randy the shooter, though not very well. What did he care? The shooter confessed and called the police himself. It wasn’t like he was going to run.

  “Randy Roubicek, stab wounds?” Cal said quietly to the receptionist, flashing her ID and PI shield.

  The man waved at the windowed double doors into the treatment area. “They’re stitching him up.”

  Cal slipped in without asking permission, waving her badge in case anyone objected. No one did. The staff all seemed too busy to care.

  In a curtained area, a man with one bandaged forearm sat on a bed. He held his other arm on a rolling medical table. His head was down, chin to chest. A young, short, curvy Latina with a badge that read “Dr. Ortiz” was finishing up, deftly working with suture needle and thick surgical thread.

  Cal nodded and waved her badge again. The doctor returned the nod.

  Though his head was down, the patient appeared to match the pictures in Jenna Duncan’s apartment. Early twenties, medium build, with long dark hair and a beard, Jesus style.

  Cal knew she wouldn’t have much time. Macey and Raymer would be there soon to pick Roubicek up and take him to his interview. “Hello, Mr. Roubicek. You mind answering a few questions?”

  He lifted his head and blinked bleary red eyes. He’d been crying. Cal hoped that whatever they’d given him for pain would mean his guard was down. “Um, sure.”

  “How long did you live with Jenna Duncan?”

  His eyes remained unfocused on the far wall. Between shock and meds, he seemed like a zombie. “Two…” he swallowed and licked his lips and sniffled. “Almost two years.”

  “I was told she had a four-year-old son. He’s not yours?”

  “Alan. No. He’s with his dad.”

  “What’s the father’s name?” Cal dug out her notebook to write down the details.

  “Cruiser.”

  “What?” She gave Roubicek a quizzical stare.

  “That’s what he goes by. Surfer. That’s all I know.”

  “You know where he lives?” Presumably, if they shared custody of the child, Roubicek must have been involved in drop-offs.

  “Beachtown. Duh.”

  Beachtown was a nickname for the Sunset district, an unusually rectangular development dating from just after the 1906 fire and earthquake. A dense square mile of townhouses, it snuggled up to Ocean Beach, making it highly desired by surfers, runners, and cyclists willing to pay the outrageous property prices for a walkable neighborhood and great access to the surf and sand.

  “Corwin!” Cal heard from across the treatment area.

  Damn. She’d hoped for more time. Cal stood and moved.

  “Stay away from my witness!” Mac
ey snapped.

  Cal shrugged at Macey and walked away from the procedure room, and then out into the waiting room. “It’s a free country,” Cal said as Macey followed. “If you want to limit access, arrest him. Which I’m sure you won’t do, because it’s open-and-shut self-defense. You just want to close this case, right? You’re not concerned with finding out what really happened.”

  Macey stepped in front of Cal, nose to nose. Or Cal’s nose to Macey’s chin, had Cal not tilted her face upward. “I’ll go where the evidence takes me, Corwin, and I haven’t seen anything that leads me to believe there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

  “How can you tell? You haven’t even done forensics.”

  Macey scoffed. “The killer confessed! He’s sitting right there. We’ll interview him. If there’s anything funny about his story, we’ll look into it.”

  “You ought to at least do a GSR on his hands.”

  “Why?”

  “It might be interesting.”

  “We know what we’ll find! Gunshot residue! What part of ‘confessed’ don’t you get?”

  “What if you don’t? What if it’s negative? And a GSR is cheap, not like a full workup, if this is a budget thing.”

  Macey glared at her. “I’ll consider it. Now stay out of our way and let us do our jobs. Go play Dashiell Hammett somewhere else.”

  Cal couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Sam Spade. Spade was the PI. Hammett was the author.” With that, she walked out of the ER.

  Chapter Four

  Cal hopped into Molly and drove around the hospital’s several parking lots, circumnavigating the complex slowly enough that when she’d made one full circuit, the detectives’ unmarked unit was gone.

  Warily, Cal parked around the corner and walked back to the ER. At the receptionist again, she asked to see Doctor Ortiz, who’d bandaged Randy. He waved Cal through the doors to find the doctor on her own.