by Gregg Bell
The cop was black. A solid man in a gray overcoat, holding his police badge like an adult show and tell. He had a bald head—shaved—and was relatively light-skinned. Maybe forty. Yeah, he had a solid look about him.
“Are you Dennis O’Callaghan?”
Denny swallowed. “Yes,” he said, his voice cracking.
The detective nodded, put his badge away. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your ex-wife, Rashida, was murdered last night.”
Denny cleared his throat. “I know. I heard.”
“I’m really sorry.” The detective put his hands in the overcoat pockets. “Still I do need to ask you some questions.”
Panic slid down Denny’s spine like an oily snake. Why did he need to ask him questions? He remembered his buddy, Jimmy Clarke, was sitting in Cook County Jail for just driving a car someone else sold drugs from. “Uh...yeah.” He pulled down the sleeves of his shirt a touch to make sure the scratches on his arms stayed covered. “Yeah, of course.” He knew from talking to a lawyer after the bar fight fiasco, you should never talk to a cop about a crime without an attorney present, but what could he have said ‘Go away’? “Yeah, come on in.”
“Thanks.” The detective brushed the few remaining snowflakes from his shoulders and wiped his feet on the welcome mat.
“You wanna sit?”
The detective, holding leather gloves, sat on the edge of a blue armchair.
Denny sat across from him on a futon that doubled as a couch. He wanted to drop that he was a fireman—it was instinctive whenever he got in trouble. “I was shocked to hear the news. A fellow fireman called.”
“Oh, so you’re on the fire department?” the detective said with a knowing nod.
“Yeah. The Belmont-Cragin firehouse.”
“Great,” Washington said with a few more nods. “So, Dennis—is it all right if I call you Dennis?”
“Sure.” Denny touched the back of his head. God! His fingertips weren’t bloody but what if they had been!
“We were just going over the evidence at the crime scene and canvassing your wife’s—excuse me, your ex-wife’s—neighborhood. Now we’re questioning those closest to her to see if any information turns up to help find the killer.”
All right, settle down, Denny told himself. The guy seemed friendly enough. Denny didn’t know him. He knew a lot of cops but only a few black ones. Anyway, this was seeming like it might not be too bad. “Yeah, okay.”
One last nod from Washington and then, “So let me ask you: When was the last time you saw Rashida?”
“Oh, wow,” Denny said softly and he looked out the window at the snow, filtering down slow motion-like in a million fine flakes. “I would say it’s got to be at least three months now. I ran into her at the mall.”
“And the last time you spoke with her?”
He really couldn’t remember and his hangover wasn’t helping things. And the pause was making him look bad. Damn it—maybe he should’ve said he wanted a lawyer. “Uh.” He’d called her one night drunk a couple weeks ago maybe. “Two weeks ago, I think.”
“You’re not sure?”
“No, it was about two weeks ago.”
“And when was the last time you were at her residence?”
Oh, he couldn’t say. “Uh, six months ago maybe.” He watched the detective’s reaction. Denny exhaled. Good. So far the cop seemed okay with everything. Denny berated himself for being afraid, but again all he could think of was Jimmy Clarke being railroaded into a jail sentence for giving some guys a ride.
“Dennis, several of Rashida’s relatives said you had a volatile relationship with her.”
Denny shrugged but the fear hit again. He clutched his thighs together. “Volatile?”
The detective nodded.
Denny knew it was probably about the remote-throwing incident. Rashida filed a police report. “Well, we had our lovers’ spats now and then.”
“That was it—lovers’ spats?”
Denny stretched, saw the beginning of a scratch on his wrist and quickly pulled his sleeve down. “One time I suppose you could say things got a little out of hand.”
“Did you hit her?”
“No.”
“All right, Dennis. Fair enough.” The detective moved as if to stand but didn’t. “I’m sure you’ve got things you need to attend to, so I just have one more question for you—what were you doing last night around eleven p.m.?”
Denny inhaled quickly. “What was I doing?”
“Yes.”
Denny crossed his arms and looked away. “Well, I, to tell you the truth...” He pointedly turned back to the detective and caught his eye, hopefully eliciting a little ‘boys will be boys’ solidarity. “...I was out drinking with the guys from the firehouse.”
“All right. Sure. Where at?”
“The Wild Bull Pub.”
“And when?”
Denny hesitated. He had no answer for him. “Just kind of lost track of time. Pretty much all night, I’d say.”
“All night?”
“Well, yeah, we had the next several days off, you know how it is.”
A look on the detective’s face that pretty much could’ve meant anything at all. He stood. “Well, I’m going to leave you be. Appreciate your help.” He put out his hand and the two men shook.
The police officer headed for the door but Denny called, “Detective?”
Washington turned.
“Have any idea who killed her?”
A quick head shake was his answer. “But we should know very soon.”
* * *
Denny needed a drink. That’s what he decided. But he thought better of it. Too much was happening to be getting drunk. Yes, it was his vacation—classic drinking time—but even so. He felt like he’d been pretty much cleared by this Detective Washington, but the fact of the matter was that the scumbag who killed Rashida was still out there. And Denny was determined to help find the guy. Still, he needed to be careful because it was unreal what could happen when cops got involved. Chicago cops were like a club. They did what they wanted and were accountable to no one. And in a court of law who was the judge and jury going to side with?
Whatever. And anyway, what was a person supposed to do in a situation like this? Make a condolence call to the former in-laws? The in-laws who never liked him in the first place and out and out hated him after the divorce. No, that wasn’t going to happen. He got another can of pop, lit a cigarette and made a bologna sandwich, lots of mayonnaise. Maybe he should go to an AA meeting. Nah, that was crazy. What was he going to say—‘my ex-wife got murdered last night.’ Couldn’t get much freakier than that. But he could call his sponsor. At least if he still was his sponsor. He hadn’t talked to George S. in months.
The sandwich was helping. Interspersed with drags on the cigarette and quaffs of the pop. His hangover was lifting—at least a little. But still a beer. A beer would settle things down more than anything.
He thought about checking his phone. Maybe he could reconstruct some of what happened last night. Just damage control, he figured. Hopefully save as much face as he could with the guys from the firehouse and find out what the hell caused the scratches on his arms and the bump on his head.
He pulled up his sleeves. What a mess. Good thing that Detective Washington hadn’t seen the scratches. Washington was built. Must have been a football player in high school, maybe even college. Denny looked at the scratches again. Yeah, you couldn’t miss them. God—he shuddered—what had he done last night?
He checked the sent box on his phone for texts. Empty. He wasn’t surprised. A night out drinking he’d hardly be texting. He checked the in-box. Four texts, all from Orson. He read them slowly one by one, desperately hoping they’d shed light on what happened. Three basically said the same thing—Orson was worried about him being so drunk.
Great, Denny thought, rolling his eyes. That told him what he already knew. Except that he didn’t know he’d been worrying people, well, worrying O
rson anyway. But it was the last text that really got his attention. It just said: Watch out for Brig.
* * *
Denny’s mother had always drummed one saying into his head: ‘It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.’ It was hard to believe that something like that was true, but now, at thirty-four, Denny was finally starting to feel like she was right. It was positively evil how much trouble you could get into hanging with the wrong people. Which made Denny think of Orson’s last text.
Watch out for Brig.
It wouldn’t be the first time Denny had gotten in trouble because of Brig. Brig brought the magic potion, the elixir of trouble, with him everywhere he went. His mere presence seemed to do it. He lived by a different standard. To Brig, drinking and the party life was everything. Denny liked partying too, a lot, but nobody embraced the wild life like Brig.
Three years ago, Denny got together with Brig on the north side of the city to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It was always dangerous to be out drinking with Brig, but drinking with him on St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago was good for at least a couple of stitches in your forehead or a DUI. Anyway, three years ago on St. Patrick’s Day, not long after Rashida left him, Brig and him ended up getting so drunk Denny woke up the next morning in the bushes outside somebody’s house in Lawndale with the falling snow blanketing him.
You would think he’d have learned his lesson from that, but drinking in Chicago was about all there was to do. A bar on every corner. Which was no excuse, after all, he knew, but there it was anyway.
And yeah, he was still craving a few beers because he didn’t know how to deal with all this. Especially Orson’s text. Watch out for Brig.
Denny knew calling Brig opened him up to getting dragged back out to the bars. Which was more dangerous than he could afford to risk. And yet, at the same time he had to know what happened.
Denny sucked it up and made the call. It went to voicemail. Which was strange. Brig and him were on the same days at the firehouse, had their own ringtones and Brig always took his calls. Anyway, he left a message for him to call.
The next best alternative was talking to Orson again. Peculiar Orson. Always trying so hard to be one of the guys—and never succeeding. Oh well, at least Denny could count on Orson to be reliable, especially since he was one of the only firemen on the team to show any restraint when they went out drinking. He tracked down his phone.
“Orson, it’s me again.”
“Denny, you okay?”
“Yeah. Oh, it was a shock for sure, but yeah, I’m settling down.”
“It’s the sort of thing that happens to other people. People on the news. That’s the way it seemed to me.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re all right?”
He keeps asking. Always something about Orson to make you feel uncomfortable. Denny shrugged. “I could probably use a bottle of aspirin but other than that, yeah, I’m okay.”
“I was really worried about you last night. You were going off like I’ve never seen.”
Denny closed his eyes. Now he finds out what humiliating things he did in front of the rest of the world that will shroud him in shame for eternity. He cleared his throat. “Well, what was I doing?”
“You don’t remember anything?”
Here we go again, Denny thought. This was embarrassing enough as it was. He didn’t need Orson to keep drilling him with it. “I told you, doing the tequila shots at The Wild Bull is the last thing I remember.” Denny could practically hear the frown on the other end of the line.
“Okay, then. Well, after that you were ripping on Frank Powell. Good thing he wasn’t there too because he would’ve cold-cocked you.”
“What was I saying?”
“All kinds of crap.”
“Like?”
“Well...mostly you were saying you were going to kill him.”
Oh God. “And...”
“And it seemed to me you were. You kept ripping on him for sleeping with Rashida. You were crazy with rage.”
“All right.”
Silence.
Then Orson said, “You were ripping on Rashida too. She was a slut for sleeping with Powell. She was this. She was that. Denny, I hate to say it.” More silence. “But I half thought you were going to kill her too.”
Denny took some deep breaths, his chest heaving. “Okay, Orson. So who all heard this?”
“Just me and Brig, I think.”
“You think?”
“Well, I was drinking too. But not like you and Brig.”
Yeah, Denny needed a beer. Hell, he needed a twelve pack. He hated Frank Powell, the sleazeball, that much was true, and he hated Rashida for sleeping with him, also true. How she could be so stupid he would never know. He sighed. He was feeling so drained. Yes, his hangover was lifting but what Orson was laying on him was dragging him right back down. “Well, I’m glad you were with me at least.”
“Well, I was until you left.”
Denny looked up at the ceiling. What now? “And where did I go?”
“Honestly, Denny—please don’t take this the wrong way—I thought you were going to kill Powell or Rashida or both of them.”
Denny’s mind overloaded. He couldn’t speak.
Orson again. “I tried to talk you out of leaving but you wouldn’t listen to me. You just wouldn’t.”
“Well...”
“But that wasn’t even the worst of it.”
Denny was getting knocked so low it didn’t matter what Orson said anymore. “Whatever, Orson. What’s the worst of it?”
“Well, that you left with Brig.”
* * *
Denny hung up and within seconds the phone rang. It must be Orson calling back. “Yeah, Orson?”
“Dennis, it’s Sergeant Nemiah Washington with the Chicago Police Department.”
Denny blinked. “Oh...hi. I thought you were someone else.”
“I was hoping you might come in to the station to answer a few more questions.”
Oh God. Here we go again. “Well, sure...I could, but I’m kind of busy right now. Maybe I can answer them over the phone?”
A stretch of silence that hung heavy. “It’ll be much easier if you come in. I can go over the physical evidence with you, that sort of thing.”
Denny didn’t want to go, but how could he say no without looking guilty? “Okay. Yeah. So when—”
“Three this afternoon.”
“Oh, that soon, well—”
“We have to act fast if we’re going to nail this guy, Dennis.”
“Sure, yeah, I can get there by three.”
“You know where the Grand Central station is?”
“Yeah, it’s not far from the firehouse.”
Denny hung up and put Washington’s number into his phone so as not to be caught off guard again. Then he flung the phone across the room.
Chapter Three
This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. Denny plopped face-down on his living room couch. Yes, he wanted to help find Rashida’s killer, but he also knew how easy it was to get into trouble talking to the police. Sure, they were your buddies until you stood in front of a judge, and the D.A. had the detective who interviewed you on the stand, and the detective ripped you to shreds.
But he said he’d go. And how would it have looked if he hadn’t? Worse yet, he still couldn’t remember a damn thing from last night. Even with Orson’s prompting. Okay, he’d been ripping on Frank Powell for sleeping with Rashida and Rashida for sleeping with Powell. Orson thought he’d been going to kill them. Then he’d left with Brig. Great. What a mess.
But now he had to move. It was half past two already. The cop, Washington, at least had sounded friendly. What had he said, he wanted Denny to help him go over evidence? Something along those lines. Yeah, that initial interview must’ve convinced him Denny had nothing to do with Rashida’s murder. But still, dealing with the police was unsettling.
He tried to remember what had happened the nig
ht of the big bar fight at The Roamer Bar. After it, the Deputy District Chief had hooked them up with an Attorney Cimino, but the guy charged two hundred and fifty an hour, and Denny didn’t have enough in his checking account for fifteen minutes. Sure, there was always Aunt Elizabeth but she was a real estate attorney. But there was no time.
He rose from the couch, found his cell, threw on a coat and hurried out the door.
* * *
Still suffering the after-effects of his hangover, Denny drove down Grand Avenue, dirty gray snow on either side of the street. Dirty gray sky. The whole world seemed dirty and gray. Ahead on the right was the police station, looking more like a college campus or auditorium. He knew it better than he would’ve liked because of the bar fight fiasco. Detective Washington. He seemed to be one of those dedicated public servant-type cops. As far as cops went, he seemed all right. Denny checked his watch. A couple of minutes to three. His Camaro crashed through a row of slushy snow a plow had left in front of the police station driveway.
Denny parked and, his brain still sloshing, ran through the lot. Inside, he hurried to the information desk and was told to go to room 273, which was up the stairs and down the hall. The stairs were wet and looked slippery with people walking in with snowy shoes but Denny took them two at a time anyway. He didn’t want to make a bad impression by being late. He caught his breath and knocked on the blonde wood door. Someone called, “Come in.”
It wasn’t a big room but it looked comfortable. Really not what he was expecting at all, pictures on the wall, a stand lamp in the corner, upholstered chairs. Detective Washington sat in a tall chair behind a wooden desk, a notebook and pen on the corner of the desk, a laptop near his right hand, gray light streaming in through a window that looked to be plexiglass.
“Hello, Dennis.” The detective motioned for him to sit. “Thanks for coming in.”
“No problem.” Denny unzipped his coat. As he settled in he could see he was sitting quite a bit lower than the detective.
“So how you holding up? Are you all right?”
Denny shrugged. “Oh, it’s still a shock but yeah I’m okay.”
