As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  Segal yelled and clapped with renewed pride in his partner, reminded of how good she was. That one little push of provocation she gave the other jammer, in the beginning, set off a whole chain of events, and since she was the instigator, she was one step ahead the whole way. Not a bad plan, if you can pull it off, he thought.

  The second jam began. This time, Dinah skated a more traditional strategy. Problem was, the opposing team had a better idea now of what it was up against. One of the big girls, in particular, seemed to have it in for her, throwing increasingly aggressive blocks. After Dinah passed her a couple of times, the girl got frustrated and threw an elbow that connected squarely with Dinah’s jaw and sent her skidding onto the track. The referee somehow missed this blatant infraction, so the big girl got away with it. And to make matters worse, one of Dinah’s teammates, a girl from West Asheville, sought revenge with a major hit, which did draw a penalty. The crowd erupted in booing and whistling. By this time, Dinah had regained her feet. She put her hands on her hips to bring the second jam to a close. The action was rough around the edges, but her team still extended its lead.

  It was then, during the break in the action, that Segal noticed that the Naval Intelligence guy, Guilford, was gone. He looked up to the mezzanine and saw him walking toward the exit with a cell phone to his ear. Segal assumed he had taken a call and was getting out where he could hear well enough to have a conversation.

  Segal swiveled around when something else caught his eye. The street singer, Mattie, was standing at the edge of the mezzanine with her elbows on the railing. Next to her was another familiar silhouette, Emily Elah. Segal did a double-take. After all, Emily Elah was not the only Goth woman in Asheville with straight-cut black bangs. But it was Emily. She was talking earnestly to Mattie, who looked straight ahead and nodded almost rhythmically, a serious look on her face. Mattie had a cup of beer. Not so Emily. Her hands were free to gesture, which they did.

  Segal studied the scene, trying to read body language. He paused, sipped his beer, thought hard about Mattie and Emily. It probably didn’t mean anything, at least not anything to do with the case. This was Asheville, and he shouldn’t be surprised when two women turned out to know each other. And why shouldn’t Emily Elah come to a roller derby match, especially since it took place almost on her doorstep? He wondered who was watching the little girl. Probably no one. The girl was likely okay on her own, especially in a place as secure as the Grove Arcade.

  Then the whistle blew for the beginning of another jam. Lucile held his arm in excitement. He admired her profile. She seemed to be having a great time. A moment ago, he was totally into the match, but now he was distracted. He scanned for Guilford and saw him walking across the mezzanine level. Guilford apparently was ending a conversation because he said a couple of words into this phone, then slipped it into a pocket. Halfway down the stairs, the phone must have buzzed again because with a look of irritation he answered, spun around, and headed up the steps.

  Segal wondered what was going on, then told himself there was no reason the phone calls had anything to do with his case. At that point, his own phone vibrated. He saw it was the department dispatcher. The crowd erupted as Dinah sailed through the opposing pack, and he had to ask the woman on the other end to repeat herself. He listened for a moment and said, “On my way.”

  The match was only a few minutes from its end. Segal apologized to Lucile. Lucile said she understood, said she would be fine.

  Segal saw a shadow of disappointment cross her face.

  As the first jammer to clear the pack, Dinah could have given the sign to end the last jam at any point simply by putting her hands on her hips. However, that is not what she wanted. She was feeling the joy of the action and had no wish for it to end. More importantly, she knew the crowd didn’t want it to end, so she let the jam clock go until time was called.

  When the final whistle blew, she and the rest of the team raised their fists in the universal sign of victory. They waved to the fans as they took a couple of leisurely laps. On the last lap, Dinah noticed that Segal was gone but Guilford was present, standing and clapping with the rest of the crowd. He said something to Lucile. She tucked her hair behind her ear and seemed to be doing her best to ignore him. The last thing Dinah wanted was to be alone with that jackass after the match. She felt a twinge of irritation with Segal for putting her in that situation, but she was feeling too good to give any energy to the emotion. One of the big blockers clapped her on the shoulder, and she skated off to the locker room with the rest of the team.

  The locker room was a mess of uniforms, skates, fishnet stockings, and women in every phase of dress and undress. The noise level was higher than normal, which, given the nature of this team and the echo in the room, was saying something. Dinah headed for the showers wrapped in a towel, after packing the locker with her gear, street clothes, and her uniform, damp with sweat.

  When she returned, she checked her phone by habit as she dried her body. She saw two messages. One was a missed call from dispatch. Second was a text message from Segal: Murder at Creatures 2.0. Get here ASAP.

  CHAPTER 15

  Tobacco and Mint

  Suzie sat alone in the darkened apartment in the Grove Arcade. She had declined her mother’s offer to go to the roller derby. She liked it, but tonight the civic center would be too loud and crowded for the way she was feeling. Anyway, sometimes she wanted to be alone.

  Her mother left an hour ago, after making her a bowl of spaghetti. Suzie ate half of it, selectively mining out the little meatballs and subsequently sucking noodles one by one through pursed lips and licking the sauce off her mouth. It took her a long time to eat this way, but she savored every bite and felt each of the ingredients, the way her father had shown her. It was what he called “conscious eating,” a form of meditation, opening up to the experience with gratitude for the food and the people who prepared it. The recipe was his, and her mother made it for her from time to time, knowing it made her feel close to him now. She stopped eating when she felt satisfied and left the unfinished bowl on the table.

  Her eyes were tired from the activities of the day. She had spent too much time in strong light and looking at a computer screen. It made her head hurt, as it often did. She wheeled into the bathroom, held a washcloth under the faucet, soaked it with warm water, and wrung out the excess.

  She wheeled down the hall, past the kitchen area, and into the big living room. From outside the door, she heard activity in the arcade below, as she always could this time of day—people talking, children’s voices, a trace of music, sometimes a strange noise like the clang of dishes being stacked. This was her home, and the sounds were a reassuring and familiar background. Now, to get rid of the headache, she wanted to relax, to let go. She found her iPhone, plugged in the headset, selected music, and put the warm cloth on her eyes. Her current favorite was a Celtic mix put together by one of the best street musicians in Asheville, a big girl named Mattie. When she thought of Mattie—her size, her strength, the sweetness and power of her voice—she imagined being like her and could feel some of the strength flowing in her own body.

  She took three cleansing breaths, then settled and let the music take her away. She felt she could almost understand the weird Celtic words, as if through some inherited memory passed on by her ancestors. By and by, her breathing slowed and her mind entered a deep state of relaxation and renewal. Soon, at the edge of this waking dream, she became aware of a sensation. It was a smell, so delicate at first that she dared not move or alter her mind in any way, lest it disappear. Even before she knew what it was, she understood it was something she very much wanted. And the smell began to form itself into recognizable components: a trace of mint, a sweet undertone of tobacco, the warmth and moisture of perspiration. It was the smell of her father when she pressed her cheek to his chest, before he left on this project and before that, going into her past as far as she could remember.

  As the recognition registered fully, she tho
ught she felt a gentle touch from behind her chair. She felt his arms wrap around her. She felt him nudge the earphone aside and whisper, “I’m with you, baby girl, we have to wait a little longer.” She thought he hugged her in silence for a time, and she put a hand on his arm. There was no need to say anything else. He held her for a moment, and then it was time for him to go.

  CHAPTER 16

  Second Crime Scene

  On the dark and quiet street, rotating blue lights of police cars were visible from blocks away. To Segal, it evoked the memory of many such scenes before his injuries: the moist night air, the cluster of neighbors standing a respectful distance, wondering what was going on, police radios snapping on and off, sounding like a foreign language. It brought back his early days on the force. It brought back his early days as a detective, being the central actor in scenes like this, the one who stepped into the void, who took charge and made sense of things and resolved the wrong and restored the peace so badly disturbed. Back then, he felt pride in his role—not a boastful pride, but a kind that centered him and focused him on his task. Now, it was different. He felt the excitement, also the exposure. He had to be up to the challenge. More than anything, he felt apprehension and was keenly aware that it had been his decision not to put a more robust guard on this building to protect the people inside.

  Only one officer was posted outside Creatures 2.0 when he walked up. He nodded to the guy as he hurried past, then stopped and turned to him. “Who called this in?” he asked.

  “We did,” the guy said, which Segal understood to mean him and his partner. “We got this neighborhood on our patrol route, and this place was on the worksheet to keep an eye on. We were cruising the block and saw flashes from inside the building.”

  “Flashes?”

  “Yeah. The building was mostly dark. I didn’t think about it at the time. Now it seems kind of strange. I mean, no security lights on outside. Anyway, I think that’s why the flashes got our attention. They weren’t all that bright. We both thought gunshots—you know, muzzle flashes.”

  “Did you hear gunshots?” Segal asked.

  “No, we didn’t hear anything,” the officer said.

  Segal considered this. From up the block, with the building closed, maybe gunshots would be audible, maybe not. Also, there was no security alarm reported. He would have to check on that.

  He went on in. Plenty of lights were on. By the receptionist’s desk, another officer stood stock still, arms across his chest as two people from the medical examiner’s team fussed around. He saw legs. His heart sank in his chest. At the far end of the desk, Gloria’s body lay on the floor. Segal’s first thought, when he came around to where he could see was, How small she looks in death. That’s what he wrote in his notebook: Small in death. She was dressed in a white blouse and a short, dark skirt, sheer hose on her legs. She had no shoes on her feet. Segal ducked his head and saw a pair of dark flats under the desk. It looked to him as though she’d been working, had stood and come around the side of the desk, and been shot twice, once through the heart, once a little lower, the blood showing dark red against the white blouse.

  He looked at her face. A beautiful young flower, he thought. He wrote that in his book, too. Segal filed away such unbidden thoughts. Sometimes the immediate reaction held meaning, sometimes not. The enormity of the death seeped into his core. His heart raced and his face felt flushed. He wished he had not brought The Great Gatsby with him that night. Anything else.

  “Two entry wounds, one exit wound,” the tech closest to him said. Segal struggled to concentrate on what the man said. “We’ll have at least one bullet.”

  Segal nodded. The comment brought him to practical matters. He saw another tech across the room examining a mark on the wall, probably the impact of the bullet that passed through.

  Two more officers came in from the hallway that led to the rear of the building. “We did a preliminary search to see if the perpetrator was still on the premises,” the second of the original officers said. “We found nothing and saw nothing disturbed.”

  “Good,” Segal said. These guys had done things by the book and by good common sense. The first two would have called in right away and waited for backup before making a search. Too dangerous to do otherwise. “How long between seeing the flashes and you entering the building with backup?” Segal asked.

  The cop thought for a moment. “Five minutes, probably a little less,” he said.

  Segal thought, Reasonable response time, but plenty of opportunity for the shooter to get away.

  He walked down the hall and into the laboratory where he had met with Lewis and where he had first seen Richard. He flipped on the lights and stood in the doorway. There was a door on the opposite side of the room, easy egress out the back of the building, as he expected. Behind that was a sizable stand of trees that would make it easy for the killer to slip away into the neighborhood and beyond.

  He walked slowly around the room, trying to remember how things were arranged before. It was tough. Most of the equipment was strange to him. He went over and sat on the same stool he had used when Lewis showed him the crow cams, the one the government originally came up with as well as the redesigned one. He opened the drawer and did not see either one. He opened a couple of others in case he was not remembering correctly. Nothing.

  He went to the lobby and out the front door without examining the body again. He pulled out his phone, called the station, and asked for dispatch. “I want two more cars if you can spare them. I want them cruising the neighborhood around the crime scene.”

  “We’ll clear the ones from the civic center,” the dispatcher said.

  It reminded Segal that half an hour ago he had been there himself, along with half of Asheville and Jerome Guilford and Lucile Devroe. He pulled out his notebook and found the number for Lewis Abraham. “I need you to send a car to pick this guy up,” he said and gave the dispatcher the name and number. “Has Dinah checked in yet?” There was a pause. “Never mind, here she is.” She was coming up the walk. Her wild shock of hair was pulled out of the way, still wet.

  “How bad is it?” she asked without preamble.

  “Gloria, the receptionist,” Segal said.

  Dinah closed her eyes. “Oh, no.”

  He noticed Guilford. “I see you brought our buddy.”

  Dinah turned to see Jerome Guilford talking outside the tape with two other men, one burly and one slender. Then he ducked under and came striding up. He grinned, extending his hand to Dinah. “Congratulations on your victory tonight,” he said.

  Dinah gave him a stone face.

  “We can talk roller derby some other time. We have a homicide here,” Segal said.

  One of the crime scene techs came up to Segal. “We checked the security cameras and alarms. Both disabled. Either it was a professional job or someone who knew the system.”

  “Yes, I believe the last time we talked, you explained how you were not convinced Francis Elah was much of a threat to anyone,” Guilford said, shifting his grinning countenance to Segal. “I guess he would have known how to disable the security system in his own lab.”

  Segal decided not to rise to the bait. He led them into the building, where they could observe for themselves.

  Guilford brushed past him and began visually scouring the room before stopping at the body on the floor. “Any bullets recovered?” he asked the tech.

  The tech twitched his nose as if wondering who the hell he was. Segal nodded that it was okay to talk to this guy. The tech held up an evidence bag with the bullet recovered from the wall.

  Guilford asked Segal, “Anything missing?”

  Segal hesitated, deciding not to share his suspicion that the crow cameras might be gone. After all, he was not supposed to know about the cameras in the first place. “We’re not sure yet. We’ve got one of the staff coming in to check for what’s missing. Or not missing.”

  “Let me know,” Guilford said. “And try to take better care of this one. Th
is place is running out of people.” He scratched his hair, finger-combed it into place.

  Segal thought about the two men he had seen Jerome Guilford talking to when he came in. “Guilford, were any of your people watching this place?”

  “What?” Guilford paused with his hair.

  “You’ve been searching for Francis Elah. I thought maybe you’d have this building under surveillance. Maybe your guys might have seen something useful,” Segal said.

  Guilford stood up straighter. “We are not in the habit of disclosing the whereabouts of federal agents.”

  Segal watched him walk away, brown shoes shining as good in the car lights as they had in the office.

  “How’s that for a non-denial denial?” Dinah asked.

  “Did you tell him about this?”

  “No,” Dinah said.

  “Me neither. That means someone else told him. Like maybe one of his own guys. Either that or they’re monitoring the dispatch calls. They probably monitor everything.”

  “I don’t like him,” Dinah said.

  “I don’t like him either,” Segal said.

  They continued to watch as Guilford ducked under the police tape like a boxer leaving the ring. As he did this, they saw a woman approach. It was Lucile Devroe. She was stopped at the tape barricade by a uniformed officer, who spoke to her. Segal caught his eye and motioned for him to let her through. Dinah raised her eyebrows.

  “Back at the civic center, I might have mentioned I was coming here,” he said. He let the statement, in all its lameness, go at that.

  “No one will tell me what’s going on,” Lucile said when she reached them. She surprised Segal by putting her arms around him and laying her head on his shoulder.

  Segal returned the embrace.

  Dinah was astute where Segal was concerned. She saw something working in his eyes, a smoky intelligence few else could read. The smoke was low. He was troubled, or tired; a sign that she had better take over. “Miss Devroe? Did you know Gloria Harden?” she asked.