by Jane Graves
The woman crinkled her nose. “And something else. Now, I know I’m a fine one to talk, being as how I buy most of my clothes down at the Wal-Mart, but that woman had a bit of trouble puttin’ a look together, you know?”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“She was wearing this god-awful leopard-print blouse. And these black spandex pants. And white shoes. Big white shoes. That woman had some good-size feet on her.”
Renee wasn’t exactly petite, but her feet weren’t in the gargantuan range, either. Another exaggeration? Probably. If Trudy could make her perpetrator grow six inches in six seconds, how accurate was her shoe-size assessment? Also, Renee’s fashion sense seemed a bit tamer than animal prints, although there was the matter of disguising oneself to commit a robbery. It wasn’t unusual for a robber to dress outlandishly, then dump the disguise somewhere and walk away looking normal to take the heat off.
“And gloves. Black ones. Oh! And her earrings! Huge, dangly things shaped like rainbows. All those gaudy colors with a leopard-print shirt.” Trudy’s face crinkled like a raisin. “Never seen anything so ugly in all my life.”
“You must have a really sharp eye to catch all those details,” he told Trudy.
The old lady cackled again. “Nah. Not really. A blind man in the dark couldn’t have missed that getup.” She leaned toward John and dropped her voice. “Just between you and me, I been having a little problem with cataracts lately. Things are a little blurry around the edges.”
John’s heart skipped. The woman who’d fingered Renee was telling him she couldn’t see? “But the newspaper said you positively identified the woman who robbed you.”
She waved her hand. “That was a piece of cake once I saw them all standing there in that lineup, even though none of them was wearin’ them ugly clothes. All I had to do was pick out the tallest blonde.”
John couldn’t believe it. Even the most brainless defense attorney would have this woman discredited the minute she took the stand.
“Pretty smart, huh?” Ahmed said with a smile of admiration. “She picked right, too.”
“Yeah,” Trudy said. “Found out later that the one I fingered was the one they arrested. They found her with my money and the gun she shot me with. Am I good, or what?”
Suddenly the open-and-shut nature of Renee’s case seemed even fuzzier than before. It had taken him only two minutes of casual conversation to come to the conclusion that this particular eyewitness was loony. Why hadn’t the detective on the case made the same call?
“I have a few cop friends who work around here,” John said. “Do you remember the name of the officer on the case? The one who interviewed you after the robbery?”
Trudy got a thoughtful look on her face. “Started with a B, I think. Borstad, Botsdorf...”
Oh, God. Not him. “Botstein?”
“Yep. That’s the one. Real nice fella. You know him?”
“Yeah. Good old Botstein.”
He knew him, all right. Leo Botstein was a detective out of the South Precinct who’d been counting the days until retirement for approximately the last thirty-two years, and he hadn’t put in an honest day’s work in the last five. And now he’d finally made the leap. If John remembered right, his retirement party had been last night.
“Hey!” Trudy shouted. “You kids over there! Don’t you pick up those magazines unless you’re planning on buying them!”
John turned to see two teenage boys standing at the magazine rack, dripping with streetwise attitude. They wore ragged, oversize jeans that hugged their hips and baseball caps turned backward. The shorter of the two shot Trudy a practiced sneer.
“Aw, go to hell, you old bag! We’ll read whatever we want to!”
Trudy reached a gnarled hand under her coat and pulled something out of the stretchy waistband of her pink polyester pants. Something that looked suspiciously like a semiautomatic pistol. She leveled it directly at the kid in a two-fisted stance.
“Okay, you little bastard,” she said with a snarl. “Just who are you calling an old bag?”
The kid’s eyes widened. Clearly he hadn’t expected a woman who was the approximate size and shape of a troll doll to be packing enough firepower to blow his head off. He slapped his buddy on the shoulder, yanked the door open, and they peeled out of the store. Trudy stuffed the weapon back into the waistband of her pants. Ahmed gave her a big grin and held up his palm, and Trudy high-fived him. Then he turned his grin toward John.
“Mrs. Bunch. She takes no crap.”
John looked at the old lady, still astonished at her dead-on Dirty Harry imitation. “Now, ma’am, you wouldn’t go shooting a couple of kids just for reading the magazines, would you?”
“Aw, heck, no.” She snickered. “Sure scares the daylights out of them, though, don’t it?”
Looking down the barrel of a gun would pretty much scare the daylights out of anyone, particularly when the person holding that gun appeared to have a very large screw loose.
“You know,” Trudy said, “this used to be a really nice neighborhood. Kids had respect. Now they got nothin’ but smart mouths, just like Ahmed here.”
“Ah, but you would never point a gun at me for reading the magazines. It’s what you call a...perk?”
“Perk, my ass. If you stay in the john today as long as you did yesterday, I’m blowing a hole right through the door.” John tossed a five down on the counter to pay for the soda and chips. “You know, Mrs. Bunch, that armed robber almost made a big mistake messing with you. She’s lucky she didn’t get her head blown clean off.”
“You can say that again. If I’d been carrying my gun at the time instead of having it under the counter, there woulda been blond-bimbo brains all over the potato-chip rack.”
John couldn’t wait to dig into those Doritos now. “So what made the robber actually shoot you?”
“I went for my gun. I’m a little slower than I was a few years ago, but I still figured I could take her.” She patted the bulge under her coat. “That’s where my baby stays these days. I’d sooner walk around without my underdrawers.”
John had no desire to dwell on that mental image. “Now, why do you figure someone would want to rob a nice lady like yourself?”
“Probably to get herself some new clothes, considering the ones she was wearing looked like something out of a hooker’s garage sale. Course, I guess now she’ll have all the new clothes she needs, courtesy of the state of Texas.”
Trudy laughed raucously at that, and Ahmed joined in with another high five, and pretty soon all the frivolity was just about more than John could stand.
He left the convenience store and went back out to his Explorer, tossing the 7UP and the Doritos into the backseat. He made a few notes on the pad he’d brought with him, then pulled a notebook out of his glove compartment. He flipped through it, then grabbed his phone and dialed Leo Botstein’s home number. The man answered with a drowsy, hung-over voice.
“Leo. It’s John DeMarco.”
A loud, painful groan. “Man, stop yellin’ into the phone, will you?”
It appeared that John had remembered right about Botstein’s retirement party. Right now even a ticking clock would sound like a jackhammer to him.
“DeMarco,” he said. “What the hell do you want?”
“I need some information. You had a robbery at a convenience store down on Griffin Street. Elderly lady got shot. Perp was a blond woman. How solid is the case?”
“News flash. I retired seventeen hours ago. That means I don’t give a shit.”
“Gee, Leo, that must also mean you don’t give a shit if I tell everyone about the New Year’s Eve incident with the hooker and the Doberman.”
Silence.
“You’re an asshole, DeMarco.”
“Just tell me about the case.”
John heard a heavy, drunken sigh. “It’s rock solid.”
“Who were the other suspects you interviewed?”
“No other suspects. I had the loot fr
om the robbery, an eyewitness, and a smoking gun. I don’t go looking for something I already got.”
“Motive?”
“Why are you asking me all this crap?”
“It’s my aunt Louisa. One of her friends is the daughter of the old lady who got shot. She’s been bugging the hell out of me, wanting me to check up.” He really did have an Aunt Louisa, so at least that part of the story was true. “Who was the case assigned to when you left?”
“Henderson. He’ll take it to court.”
John slumped with disgust. Oh, that was just great. If there was anybody who could beat out Botstein for the Apathetic Cop of the Year award, it was Henderson.
“Assuming somebody finds the suspect,” Botstein added.
“She missed her court date?” John said, feigning surprise.
“Yep. Jumped bail two days ago.” He coughed a little, then burped. “Shoulda been at my party, DeMarco. Farnsworth sprang for a stripper who could pick up a dollar’s worth of quarters with her hoochie.”
“Gee, Leo. Sorry I missed that.”
“Hell of a table dancer, too.”
“And me with all those dollar bills last night, wondering what to do with them.”
“Bullshit. When you worked South, I don’t remember you so much as going out for a drink after work, much less stuffing a stripper’s G-string.”
“Crawl back into the bottle, Botstein.”
“Get a life, DeMarco.”
John disconnected the call. Well, it was pretty clear now that no help would be forthcoming from official sources, even if he could find a way to disguise his real motive for nosing into the case.
He sat there a long time in his car, thinking about Renee’s repeated professions of innocence, about the fact that the victim was half-blind and half-nuts, about how a creep like Botstein had held people’s fates in his hands for the past thirty two years. How many cases had he just tossed off because he was too lazy to dig deeper? How many people had gotten screwed to the wall because he just didn’t give a damn?
Was Renee going to be another one?
Then John thought about some of the arrests he’d made over the years. Were there times when he’d been so intent on putting somebody away for a crime that when a pretty good suspect presented himself, he put the full force of the law behind the arrest without digging any deeper? Had he been responsible for innocent people going to prison?
Maybe he wasn’t so different from Botstein after all.
He told himself that at least his motivation was to see justice done, while Botstein had been trying to do the least amount of work possible and still draw a paycheck. But in the end, the result was the same.
He decided this was one time he was going to make sure that didn’t happen. He decided to check out a couple of other suspects—the two women in Renee’s apartment complex she thought might be hookers.
A few minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of Timberlake Apartments. The place needed a paint job and some landscaping attention, but otherwise it was clean and neat. He parked his car near the building where Renee’s apartment was. As he was getting out, a balding man in a tan windbreaker and brown slacks came from the building across the parking lot and went straight to the late-model Chrysler parked next to him on the left. A cigarette hung out the side of his mouth, the smoke wafting up into his squinty little eyes.
John knew that face. Harold Pinsky, hired heat for a loan shark John had busted in ninety-six. What was he doing here?
John leaned over the Chrysler as Pinsky stuck his key into the lock. The man looked up with surprise, then turned away with disgust.
“Shit. DeMarco. Thought you moved uptown.”
“What are you up to, Pinsky?”
“Just visiting a friend. Last I checked, there was no law against that.”
“There isn’t, unless you break your friend’s legs because he owes you money.”
“You’ve been watching too many cop shows. I’m a businessman. Strictly aboveboard.”
“So who were you here to see?”
“None of your damned business.”
John sighed. “Now, here I ask you such a simple question, and you’re having such a terribly hard time answering it.”
Finally Pinsky shrugged. “Fine. I was here to see the lovely ladies in 317. Would you like the details?”
Three-seventeen. Just where he’d been heading. Only he’d seen Pinsky coming out of another building across the parking lot. “Would those lovely ladies happen to be working girls?”
“Oh, yeah. They work really hard. Funny thing—the more you pay them, the harder they work. And before you get to thinking maybe you’d like to bust a couple of working girls, you might check out their client list. You wouldn’t want to embarrass any of your superior officers.”
“You’re full of shit, Pinsky.”
“Why don’t you go see them, DeMarco? I hear they’ve got a special rate for cops. Maybe they could work the kinks out of that tight ass of yours.”
“The day I have to pay for sex, I’ll consider it.”
Pinsky gave him a “go to hell” look and got into his car, flicking his cigarette butt across the parking lot before closing the door.
Okay. Renee was right. They were hookers. But were they hookers who also robbed convenience stores?
A minute later he was knocking on 317. The door squeaked open and a woman peered through the crack. “Good morning. Do you have an appointment?”
“I hear you take drop-ins.”
“Not generally,” she said, eyeing John up and down. “Harry Pinsky referred me.”
The door closed. John heard the chain rattle, and then the door swung open again. “Come on in, honey. Harry’s one of our best customers.”
John entered the apartment, which was furnished in reds, greens, and golds in an unexpectedly tasteful manner. His blond hostess wore a demure negligee of cream-colored lace, and when the other woman came into the living room, she was similarly dressed.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” he told them.
“Only for two more weeks,” the first woman said. “We’re moving uptown.”
The other one smiled sardonically. “And to think our families said we’d never amount to anything.”
After a few minutes of conversation, John could tell he’d hit a dead end. With the business these women had going, they could probably turn a couple of tricks in a single night and make far more money than had been stolen from that convenience store, which convinced him that this particular pair of blond hookers probably had nothing to do with the robbery. They also appeared to be independent businesswomen without the assistance of a pimp, which meant they were not under the thumb of anyone who might be directing them to do grossly illegal things. He also learned that Harry Pinsky hadn’t been there in over three weeks, which convinced him that there was probably some poor schmuck hobbling around his apartment right now with a broken face or shattered kneecaps.
John gave the women a pair of twenties for their trouble, then left the apartment complex feeling more confused than ever. He’d just eliminated two suspects, which did nothing to help Renee’s case, but there was still the matter of the old lady’s eyesight problems.
He sighed. If he was out to make himself feel better about taking Renee to jail, he’d just failed miserably.
Chapter 11
It astonished Renee that she and Sandy talked for over an hour and there wasn’t a single lull in the conversation. Sandy was responsible for most of the chatter, her dark ponytail bouncing with animation as she treated Renee to tales about her and her brothers as they were growing up. As the minutes went by, Renee started to see John in an entirely new light. Up to now she was sure he’d been born a cop and would die a cop with nothing in between, so it fascinated her to hear that he actually had a normal life. And even though Renee was sure she had criminal stamped on her forehead like a tattoo, not once did Sandy say, and by the way, have you robbed any convenience stores lately?
/> But best of all, Sandy’s chatter was keeping her mind off the fact that if she didn’t go to the bathroom pretty soon, she was going to explode.
Sandy wound down from yet another story and gave Renee a speculative smile. “So tell me. What do you think of my brother?”
I think he’s going to go berserk when he sees me talking to his sister while I’m handcuffed to his bed.
“Well, we haven’t known each other long, but he seems like a nice guy.” Which was at least somewhat true. He hadn’t thrown her in jail. That was pretty nice, wasn’t it?
“Is he someone you’d like to know better?”
“Uh...yeah. Sure.”
“Good. But I gotta tell you that that’s not going to be easy. Like I said, he’s way too wrapped up in his job. He’s got this bad habit of getting right up to the point of actually having a relationship with a woman, and then she complains a little about the hours he works, or that he talks about nothing but his job. He hates that, so then he turns around and does something to piss her off just to get her to leave, or he’ll find fault with petty things she does and break up with her. He once sent a woman packing just because she used his toothbrush. Can you believe that?”
Oh, no. She couldn’t imagine that.
“He’ll pull that nonsense on you, too, if you let him. But if you’ll hold out through all the crap he’s liable to dish out and let him know that he can’t drive you away, he might actually see that a long-term relationship isn’t the heinous thing he’s always made it out to be, and you’ll actually have something together.”
Oh, that sounded like fun. Kind of like crawling on her belly through enemy territory and praying she didn’t hit a land mine. “So it’s as simple as that, huh?”
“Okay, so I made it sound like a descent into hell. But let me tell you something, Alice. He’s worth it. Even he doesn’t know that, but he is. He’s a very good man who’s just far too focused on the wrong things in life. But I promise you that if you hang on to him, you’ll be glad you did.”
A very good man. Renee felt a little tingle down her spine when Sandy said that, because in the past few days, she’d seen little glimmers of that. The fact that she was here and not in the county jail attested to it. Amid all that yelling and cussing and hard-ass cop pronouncements, she’d seen a few chinks in his armor, and Sandy was widening those chinks with every word she spoke.
