by Matthew Iden
“City councilman gets capped, they call out the cavalry, man.” The little crowd gasped, then started to buzz at his words. “Homicide, Major Narcotics, you name it. Dog catcher’s gonna be here in a minute.”
“Waites actually bought it?”
He motioned me to come through the gate. A collective grumble rose from the crowd outside the fence as they watched me enter the inner sanctum. Patches and I went for a walk along the grass bordering the fence. “I just said that to cheese off the vultures by the gate. Waites is still breathing. At Georgetown ICU as we speak. But he took four in the chest, so the diagnosis is poor, you catch my drift.”
I nodded. “Dods is out of pocket?”
“’Fraid so. I saw you at the gate and came over to give you some grief. But now it sounds like you got an interest in this. You turn into some kind of newspaperman since you retired?”
“No, thank God. But this might be related to something I’m working on,” I said and gave him the quick rundown on what I’d been looking into, emphasizing the fact that Dods and I had been scratching backs, so to speak.
He gave me a sympathetic look. “I hear you. But Davidovitch is up to his asshole in alligators at the moment. I can go ask, you want…”
I waved it off. “He’s got enough to worry about. What can you tell me about the scene?”
“Are you asking an officer of the law to divulge pertinent details regarding the ongoing investigation of the attempted murder of a DC city councilman?”
“I surely am.”
“In that case, what do you want to know?”
“Waites took four?”
“Yep.”
“Handgun?”
“Probably.”
“Where?”
“In the chest, man. I just told you.”
“No,” I said. “I mean where in the house was he shot? The conservatory?”
“Oh. The foyer. Just inside the door.”
“Guards? Security cameras?”
“No guards,” Patches said. “They’re looking at the tape now, but the camera literally starts coverage about five feet inside the door and the shooter was in the doorway, so maybe no dice.”
“Witnesses? Family at home?”
“Nope. Dog running around in the backyard, barking its head off. Wife and daughter in New York City, shopping.”
“Door still open when MPDC got there?
“Yep.”
“Close-range shooting, with an inaccurate sidearm, two steps in front of the victim’s front door. All of the rounds in the guy’s chest.”
“Paint by numbers, ain’t it?”
“Yep,” I said. “Time to check the guy’s Christmas card list. He knew whoever shot him.”
Chapter Thirty
“Nothing?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Singer,” Charlotte said. She sounded as disappointed as I felt. “Mary and I traced it as far back as we could go, but every record was a dead end. Whoever owns that piece of property knows how to cover their tracks. Tax records, charters, business applications…all of it led nowhere.”
“Thorough job, then?”
“Damn near invisible,” she said, then sounded surprised that she’d used a bad word. “Maybe someone with more real estate savvy or more resources could do better. I’m sure you could stake out the P.O. boxes or serve some kind of court summons to get a name to surface, but that would take a good bit of clout.”
“That definitely doesn’t describe me,” I said, then thanked her and ended the call. I leaned back in my chair and put my feet up on the edge of the coroner’s slab of a desk I used at home, thinking. I’d still swing by their office and drop off some Earl Grey and another box of pastries. The two ladies had uncovered more leads chasing paper in a few days than I’d managed to find in a week.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. I’d managed to draw inconclusive and unsubstantiated connections between two previous murders, another murder that I was sure had been misreported as a natural death, and an attempted murder of a prominent DC city councilman, though Waites was hanging on by the skin of his teeth in ICU and might bring the tally to four by sundown. I had the threads for all of the crimes bunched in my fist, but every one of them seemed to lead off in a different direction.
I banged my fist on the desk, making my jar of pens jump. It all came back to the damn spike. It might not be the be-all, end-all of the problem, but knowing who owned it would bring me a hell of a lot closer to something I could grab with both hands.
I picked up my phone and dialed the PoP office.
“Michael Denton, please,” I said when the voice on the other end answered.
“I’m sorry, he’s not here right now.” It sounded like Jerry, Michael’s second in command.
“Gee, I thought I’d been accepted into the inner circle,” I said. “Could you let him know it’s Marty Singer?”
“Michael’s really not here, Mr. Singer,” Jerry said. “He left earlier. He said he wanted to get ready for a special meeting later.”
“Special meeting? Like another protest?”
“I don’t think so. He would’ve taken some of us along in that case. Sometimes he likes to work solo, attend city council meetings, sit in on hearings, that kind of thing. It gives him a feel for how the developers present themselves to the public, before he brings PoP into it formally. It helps with the strategy when he organizes the protests.”
“Huh,” I said. “He didn’t happen to leave any information for me, did he? About some property in the Quarters.”
“Hold on,” the kid said, and I heard the rustling of papers. “Yeah, there’s a note. Okay, he said…to tell you that he doesn’t know, whatever that means.”
“Great.”
“But,” the kid continued, “that you, quote, might find what you need back at the source.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Singer. That’s all he said. Go back to the source.”
Paper bag in one hand, six-pack of Coke in the other, I walked up the same tired street I’d scuffed along a few days before, the shadows of a late-autumn afternoon leaning in front of me. The Southeast Freeway hummed and honked like a grumpy giant half a block to my left. I wondered what it was like living and sleeping beside it all of your days and nights.
The same feeling of displacement settled in as I took the long way through the Quarters, though not as strong as it had been my first time. I had to fish around for it, try to reimagine what I’d felt before. The sense of a living community was already fading away. And if that was being lost, with the homes and buildings still standing, it really would be completely obliterated when the bulldozers plowed over the last pile of bricks.
I rounded a corner and saw the convenience store squatting on the corner just as I’d left it. James and Dennis were still holding down the front stoop. They watched me, as they had a few days ago, every step of the way. Again, I had to be the most interesting thing they’d seen today. Probably since the last time I’d been here.
I stopped in front of them. “Afternoon, fellas.”
James tilted his head. “Herbie still ain’t here, mister.”
“You can check inside, you want,” Dennis said. This broke both of them up something fierce.
I smiled. “Mind if I join you?”
James eyed the bag in my hand. “Depends. If you in a sharing mood…” Dennis looked at me. His eyes behind his glasses looked enormous.
There was a stray plastic chair on its side next to the door to the store. I grabbed it, set it upright at the table, and sat down, then pulled the quart bottle of Virginia Gentleman out of the bag and put it next to the Coke.
“Dang man, not out in the open,” James protested. “What’s wrong with you?”
I gave him a look. “When’s the last time five-oh rolled up in the Quarters, looking for an open container?”
James’s face went blank. Dennis laughed and said, “When Clint
on bombed Iraq.”
“That was Reagan,” James said disdainfully.
“You’re both full of it,” I said, cracking the safety seal on the bourbon and handing it to James. “It was Carter.”
James’s eyes twinkled. “Ain’t he the one that lied to Congress?”
Dennis opened a can of Coke, poured half of it on the ground, then held it out to James for a hit of the bourbon. “I heard tell he traded them hostages for weapons of mass destruction.”
I copied Dennis’s example and held out my can for James to fill. “Can’t trust a politician.”
“Amen to that,” James said and we clinked cans. It was the kind of cocktail that made me want to gag but, when in Rome, you drink bourbon and cola.
My drinking buddies seemed to be okay with it. They each took a long pull, belched quietly, and cradled the cans in their hands. Dennis gently squeezed his, distracted, and it made soft plinking sounds. James leaned back dangerously far in his chair and gave me a long look down his nose. I waited for it.
“So what’s a white boy like you want, sharing your premium liquor with two beat-down homies from the Quarters?”
“James,” Dennis said. “No need to be rude, now.”
“He white,” James protested. “What you want me to say? Motherfucker glows like a light bulb.”
“It’s all right, Dennis,” I said. “I know I’m white. I mean, look at the way I dress.”
Dennis leaned out from the table so he could take a gander at my duds. “You do be lacking any sense of style.”
I hunched forward, putting my elbows on the table. “I need your help. Some people have been hurt, some killed, because of something that’s going on down here.”
“Here? In the Quarters?” James asked. “We told you, ain’t nothing going down here. Dennis and me is it.”
“Just us chickens,” Dennis laughed.
“I understand. What I’m looking for might’ve happened before then, back when the Quarters was really humming.”
“What do you mean?” James asked. “Nothing happen in the Quarters.”
“Tell me about life ten, twenty years ago. What kind of place was it? Was it dangerous?”
“Oh, you mean back in the day?” James asked. “Man, all kind of shit went down. Beatings, stabbings, robberies. Numbers, drugs, hookers.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” Dennis said. “Don’t give the man the wrong impression. Quarters no worse than any other part of the city.”
“Nah, but the man asked what get a person killed. He don’t want to hear about no barbeque or dance party.”
“Let me narrow it down,” I said. “Somebody is real interested in Miss Tonya’s property. The same people that guy Zimmerman was working for. You guys know if there’s anything special about her place?”
They looked at each other, bewildered. James made a face and shrugged. “It just a house.”
“Did she have parties?” I asked, trying to give them a place to start. “Did she keep the place locked tight or did the neighbors walk in whenever they wanted? Kids throw rocks at her house or hang out on her step? Did folks hate her or could she have run for mayor?”
“Them last two ain’t mutually exclusive, you know,” James said. I shrugged, conceding the point.
They were quiet, casting their minds back. I sat still, taking small sips of my drink, listening to the cars in the distance.
“Kids used to play out front her house,” Dennis said, his eyes unfocused as he remembered. “When they wasn’t playing ball down at the Chain Court or over at Garfield. She always real nice to them. Hand out lemonade in the summertime.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” James said, paused, then got the same misty look. “She put the radio on in the window. Old Motown. Kids used to fun with her, holding their hands over their ears.”
Dennis clapped his hands to the side of his head. “Miss Tonya, that music old.”
James chuckled. “She come out and dance with the older boys, make them all bashful. But they stick around for the lemonade and cookies.”
“She married?” I asked.
James took a pull from his can. “Nah. Kept a couple of men around. Nobody for all the time.”
“She a looker,” Dennis said. “She very fine.”
“That she was,” James said. “Right up to the end, in fact.”
“You remember we thought she had some new sweetheart couple years ago?” Dennis asked. “She get a new car, new TV, new clothes. Seem like every year, she’d turn the old car in and get new.”
“Ain’t nobody come around, though,” James reminded him. “Who’s gonna pay for all that and not come calling?”
I had to get this back on track. “Miss Tonya have any family? Sisters, brothers? Kids?”
“She have a sister?” James asked Dennis. “In Baltimore?”
“Yep,” Dennis said, then pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “She have a boy, too.”
“A son?” I asked, perking up.
James nodded. “That’s right. Little boy, running around for a while.”
“A while?” I asked.
Dennis cleared his throat. “Miss Tonya have a health concern.”
I did a quick calculation. Early eighties. “Health concern” in Southeast DC. “This, ah, problem come in a pipe?”
“Maybe,” Dennis said, reluctant. “She kick it, eventually. But the daddy took the boy when he about ten, maybe.”
“He from around here?” I asked.
Dennis shook his head. “Richmond, maybe.”
James looked at Dennis like seeing him for the first time. “How do you remember all this shit?”
“Clean living, I suppose,” Dennis said, taking a long pull of bourbon and Coke.
“He and the boy ever come back?” They both shook their heads. “So, Miss Tonya had a son, but no husband and no family. She develops a habit and the boy’s father comes back and takes the kid away. You know the boy’s name? Or the father’s?”
James gestured at Dennis. “Ask this mofo, here. He the one with the pho-to-graphic memory.”
Dennis stared at the ground, his lips moving silently, then he lifted his head and squinted at James. “Her boy always running everywhere?”
“That’s right,” James said slowly, pointed at Dennis. “That’s right.”
“Even when he could walk, he run. Other kids always yelling for him to slow down. They calling him something…”
A fire engine flew through the streets a few blocks away, its siren ripping the air. Someone wouldn’t move out of the way, and the engine hit the air horn that could make your heart stop. Three blasts and then the way must’ve cleared, as the siren faded east into the distance.
“Shoe!” James said, snapping his fingers.
“Hell, yes,” Dennis said, giving James a high five. “Shoe, slow down. Shoe, quit running.”
“Shoe have a real name?” I asked, pouring more Virginia Gentleman for everyone.
“What the…?” James said, annoyed. “Man, we just reach back thirty damn years and pull some kid’s name out of the back of our heads and you want more?”
“Well, his name wasn’t Shoe Jackson, was it?” I asked.
We all sat, quiet once more. I watched as James and Dennis scratched their memories, digging deep, lifting the rugs and floorboards of their past. What they remembered about the neighborhood and the people in it was colossal. But they might simply not know it.
“Michael,” Dennis said suddenly, raising his head. “Miss Tonya hate calling him Shoe. She always call for him to come in for dinner, that kind of thing.”
“Michael Jackson?” I said, looking at one, then the other. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nah,” Dennis said. “Miss Tonya want him to take his daddy’s name.”
I was taking a pull from my own can when what Dennis said hit me. My hand froze in midair. It was as if I’d been looking in vain for all my answer
s in one direction until someone grabbed my chin, turned my head around one hundred and eighty degrees, and said, There. That’s what you’ve been looking for. All the disparate elements of the case that had been dancing in the air around me—unrelated, unconnected, frustratingly incomplete—floated to the ground and landed in their proper places.
I swallowed and said, “Was his daddy’s name Denton?”
James looked at me like I’d sprouted two heads. “How in the hell? That’s right, ain’t it, Dennis?”
I didn’t wait to see Dennis nod. I was running for my car, cursing that I’d parked so far away.
Chapter Thirty-One
Running and dialing aren’t the easiest things to do under the best of circumstances and it was absolute hell now as I sprinted to my car and speed-dialed Dods’s number. I tripped over a loose chunk of asphalt and nearly went sprawling, but righted myself and jammed the phone to my ear as it started to ring. It bleeped three times on the other end and Dods’s raspy voice told me to leave a message and my number if I wanted to hear back.
I tried three more times, hoping that the rapid calls in succession would jog him into dropping whatever he was doing and answer the phone, but no dice. Either he didn’t have the phone with him or—more likely—he was buried under the avalanche of paperwork, interviews, calls, and meetings caused by Toby Waites’s shooting and he wasn’t going to answer a call—or three or five or ten—from me.
Plan B. I redialed the number for the PoP office as I reached my car. I hopped in, with the phone still pressed to my ear. Two rings, then I heard Jerry’s post-teenage voice come on the line.
“Jerry, it’s Marty Singer again,” I said. “I know Michael isn’t there, but it’s incredibly important for you to tell me where this event is, the one that Michael went to.”
“He might already be gone…” Jerry began.
“I don’t care,” I shouted into the phone. “I need to know where he is.”
Maybe the tone of my voice or the fact that I’d raised it to two hundred decibels must’ve communicated the urgency of my need to him. “I really don’t know for sure, Mr. Singer. But before he left, I did overhear him talking to someone on the phone, something about the Trumble theater, in the Brickyard neighborhood, which I thought was odd when I heard it, because it’s one of the few places we’ve put on our green list.”
