by Tracy Clark
“Thanks, Bea—” That’s as far as I got. She’d hung up.
I checked my phone. No messages from Mrs. Luna. She’d vowed never to speak to Hector again, so it was likely he was having a hard time getting her to set up a meet. It was also possible Hector was full of crap and had nothing to offer. I wasn’t sure what Hector’s game was or what he wanted with me, but I didn’t like the idea of him popping up when I least expected it. And I wasn’t that hyped about seeing Ignacio again.
* * *
I plucked one of Bear’s biscuits from the brown paper bag sitting on my passenger seat. I was starving, which was inexcusable seeing as I’d spent most of the night in my kitchen. The flaky biscuit, still warm from Bear’s oven, melted into glorified nothingness as soon as it hit my mouth, the taste and smell of the palm-size medallion sublime. By the time I pulled up in front of the Arms, I’d eaten two without one single pang of guilt. I’d dropped a crisp fifty dollar bill into Bear’s donation box. I should have left more. Her biscuits were a bona fide religious experience.
From the curb, the Angel Arms looked like a fairly new, one-story building. It sat on a double lot at Sixty-Third and Woodlawn. A storefront Baptist church—the Church of the Blessed Heavenly Gate—sat just to the left of it; a popcorn/ candy/hoagie place sat to its right. Before getting out of the car, I grabbed the biscuits. They were too good not to share.
The Arms was a men’s-only shelter, and I found a good number of them milling around inside, playing checkers in a corner, lounging on folding cots, or sitting transfixed in front of a large television set whose picture sputtered and rolled without anyone seeming to notice or care. I looked around for an office or a desk with somebody official sitting at it, but there wasn’t anything like that here. I managed to politely snag a passing arm. “Excuse me,” I said. “Where would I find Rashid?”
The distrustful eyes peering back at me cut toward the back. “Kitchen,” their owner offered before he skittered away.
Double swinging doors with portholes in them led to the kitchen, where two black men bustled about, stirring huge pots and ladling some sort of stew into smaller pots before moving them to a counter to be served. I cleared my throat loudly then opened my mouth to ask for Rashid, and quickly found I needn’t have bothered. The man stirring the big pot looked up. “You the one looking for GI? Friend of Bear’s?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Cass Raines. Rashid?”
“Nah, Chester,” he said. He pointed a sloppy ladle at the man at one of the smaller pots. “That’s Rashid.”
Chester was average height, average build; Rashid, wearing a pair of half glasses, was a little shorter and older by a couple of decades. Rashid waved me over, watching me closely. “You a cop?”
“Used to be,” I said. “But I’m sure Bear told you that already.”
He nodded approvingly, as though I’d passed some kind of test, and smiled. “She did. But I like to make sure. Cops and homeless kinda got a love-hate thing going.”
Chester chimed in. “Yeah, they love to hate us!”
Rashid glowered at Chester. “Don’t you have a pot to stir?”
“Stirring it, ain’t I?” Chester said. He eyed the bag I was carrying. “You bring your lunch?”
I held it up. “A gift from Bear.”
“Biscuits?!” Chester exclaimed.
I handed the bag to Rashid. “Biscuits.”
Rashid pulled a stool up to the counter for me, then he and Chester each plucked a biscuit from the bag. Rashid emitted a blissed-out sigh, his eyes shut, a smile on his face as he bit into flaky perfection. “God, that woman can bake a biscuit, can’t she?”
“She sure can,” Chester said as he popped the last bit into his mouth. “I wonder how she does it.”
“Don’t matter how,” Rashid said. “Only that she keeps them coming.”
When they were done, Chester went back to his pot, a little happier than before, and Rashid went back to his in much the same way.
“Any friend of Bear’s is a friend of mine,” Rashid said. “And them biscuits just got you unlimited access to all I know about GI.”
“Goes for me, too,” added Chester. “I’m an open book.”
Rashid cut a look his way. “That’s gotta be one small book, you ask me.”
Chester flipped him the bird. “Don’t recall anyone asking you.”
I chuckled at their friendly banter as the pots got stirred. I wondered briefly what had landed them both in a homeless shelter, but that was their business, not mine. I just hoped they were getting what they needed. “So, what can you tell me?”
“GI ain’t been around here for a good while,” Rashid said. “Don’t even come in for the stew no more. He likes the stew. Right, Chester?”
“I know that ain’t you asking me to talk, is it?”
“Man, shut up,” Rashid said. “Quit playing the fool.”
Chester held up a ladle. “All right, the man liked the stew!”
Rashid peered over the top of his glasses. “What did GI do to get you looking for him?”
“I heard he hung around St. Brendan’s church. There was some trouble there that he might know something about. Someone else I talked to said he also goes by the name Old Sarge.”
“You can’t go by names with street folk,” Rashid said. “What folks call you, or what you go by yourself, ain’t always the name your mama gave you. This trouble you’re talking about. You think GI’s the cause of it?”
“I don’t know, but I’d like to ask him.”
“GI ain’t really the talking kind.”
Chester chuckled. “Yeah, he’s king of the antisocial.”
“When’s the last time he came in here?”
Rashid tapped his ladle on the side of the pot and gave my question some thought. “Maybe two, three weeks.”
Chester shook his head. “Longer than that. More like a month, I’d say.”
“But he came in pretty regularly before that?”
“Regular enough,” Rashid said. “Not like you can forget some big dude marching and chanting. But he wasn’t an everyday fella. GI would come and go when the mood struck, I guess, and that’s all there was to it. We come in regular, Chester and me. Shower up. Get our feed on. Then work in here fixing meals for the other guys. Even trade.”
“GI ever tell you anything about himself? Maybe he had a friend here at the shelter?”
“No and no,” Rashid said. “The man ain’t never dropped a hint of personal information. Sometimes he bunks at the beach at Sixty-Third. I know because I bunk there sometimes myself. It’s peaceful, and the cops leave you be, for the most part.”
“Guess he likes the sound of the water,” added Chester. “It’s too loud for me. All that in and out. But GI squats under the trees over there. He swoops an old funky blanket over the top of a big crate, making himself a cabin. Whittles sticks like a son of a—” He stopped, went back to the pot. “Almost forgot it was mixed company. Anyway, don’t know what he’s gonna use all them sticks for.” He chuckled. “Maybe he’s making a picket fence to go ’round his property line.”
“When’s the last time either of you saw him there?”
“Been a good while for me. Rashid?”
“About two weeks for me. I found a different spot.” He shook his head at Chester. “Got nothing to do with the loud water, though.”
“Anything else either of you can think of that might help me find him?”
I watched as both men stopped to consider the question.
“He’s on meds,” Rashid said. “Don’t know what kind. He’s almost okay when he’s on his pills. You got to keep your distance when he’s off them. That’s like a lot of the guys in here.”
I stood, pushed the stool back where it’d been.
“Thanks for talking to me. I appreciate your taking the time.”
“You going over there looking for him by yourself?” said Chester.
I nodded. “Sure.”
Rashid readjus
ted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “It looks like you can handle yourself all right. But watch your back.”
Chester went back to his stirring. “Better watch your front and sides, too,”
Chapter 23
I headed to the beach house to find GI, but I couldn’t get my car anywhere near the park. Flashing blue lights, the sound of sirens, and traffic cops shooing cars away from the lot entrance told a story I knew wouldn’t have a happy ending. I did a U-turn, parked in the lot across the street, and walked toward the lights. There was no great sense of urgency, only dread. Blue wooden barricades blocked off the parking lot. I stopped there. Inside the cordon, squad cars, unmarked units, evidence vans, and a CFD ambulance and fire truck, their lights flashing, clogged the lot as cops moved about in antsy cliques waiting for their call to action. No one had to tell me. Someone was dead. I hoped it wasn’t my guy.
News crews had fallen back to the old beach house, and reporters readied themselves in front of high-def cameras. Above them, on the balconies of the old structure, a few intrepid photographers craned themselves out over the stone railings, zooming long lenses past the crime scene tape in search of money shots.
A young black cop stood at the line, as did a handful of hearty onlookers pulled from the bike and jogging paths, lured by the promise of someone else’s tragedy. Everyone stood bundled up tight against the cold wind blowing off the lake. I searched the faces of the cops, hoping to find one I knew. I waited stoically, my fingers stiffening in the cold, my mind on a different line, a different death. It grew colder while I waited. Bitter wind skimmed off the water, and iron-handed gusts bit at my cheeks and seeped into bone, forcing my hands into my pockets. Time moved slowly. I watched the onlookers, one by one, tire and move along. I watched the reporters and photographers get what they needed and then do the same. Finally, it was just the rookie and me at the barricade.
The cop yanked up the zipper on his jacket, eyed me. “Down to two.”
I looked around. “Looks like it.”
“Cold,” the cop said.
I nodded. “A little bit.”
“You can’t get any closer.”
I eyed the barricade, then the cop. “Not without climbing over or under.” The rookie turned. He scanned the lot, probably looking for his training officer, then looked at me, right in the face, as he assessed my threat level.
“Not that I’m planning to do either. Who’d they find over there?” I said.
His eyes narrowed. I could almost feel his defenses go up. He wasn’t supposed to disseminate information, only hold the line. He was a patrol officer, low rung on the totem pole. And he was new to the job, so that put him two rungs below the bottom rung. I could almost hear him tick through his academy training for the takedown of a persistent civilian at a police line. He stared at me. I stared back, then glanced down at his name plate on his right breast pocket. His name was Billings.
Billings adjusted his belt, checking the positions of his gun, radio, cuffs, and Mace, just in case. “I’m going to need you to back up, ma’am.”
“Your cuffs are in the wrong position. That’ll cost you a few critical seconds when the chips are down.” I held my hands up and out. “Just a tip. Take it or leave it.” I could tell he wanted to stare down at his belt, but didn’t dare. He was a rookie, but he wasn’t stupid. I burrowed into my jacket, but left my hands free. “I used to be on the job.”
He squeezed his lips tight, his eyes distrustful. Despite the cold, sweat formed on his forehead. “That so?”
I rattled off my star number and watched his face go from scared shitless to thank God I won’t die today. “They’ve got a body. I don’t see any witnesses warming up in the squads. Were there any?”
Maybe he was bored, maybe curious, maybe just trying to stay warm by keeping his mouth moving and his brain alert. Barricade duty was grunt work. Right up there with Dumpster diving for body parts and walking a line looking for spent shell casings.
Billings nodded. “You said ‘used to.’”
“I went private.” Billings blanched, but didn’t respond. Cops and PIs had a weird dynamic. “Any idea what time the call came in?”
“Probie!” A gruff voice called from across the lot. I watched as a cop who must have weighed three hundred pounds labored toward us, the buttons on his uniform blouse straining to do their job, his red pie face twisted into an unpleasant scowl, part anger, I assumed, part distress from the physical exertion needed to make the trek. “Billings, you got time to shoot the breeze? I told you to observe and hold the line, and by observe I meant the crime scene, not the thrill junkies that side of the barricade.”
Billings drew himself up to his full height, his back straight. “Yes, sir. I’m holding the line, sir.”
He surveyed me. “Then tell your girlfriend here you’ll catch up with her when your tour’s over, and get back to it.”
“Yes, sir,” Billings responded, his feet already moving him toward the opposite end of the barricade.
The fat cop stood blocking my view. I stared at the knit cap on his head longer than I should have; it barely covered the crown of his head. No way could he pursue or apprehend a fleeing suspect without keeling over from a heart attack. “Unless you got business here, young lady, I suggest you move it along. Nothing here that concerns you. Police business.” He turned to leave, certain that his warning was all that would be needed to get me on my way.
“How do you know?”
He turned around, surprised. “What’s that?”
“How do you know nothing here concerns me?”
He positioned his massive arms akimbo, straining the threads on his bulletproof vest. “You trying to crack wise?” His jowls wobbled like a turkey’s.
I glanced at the rookie, but he kept his eyes trained forward, his back straight. Little fish up against big fish? Big fish always won. The name plate on the fat guy’s chest read TOMLINSON. He looked to be about forty, but he’d never make it to retirement age in his current condition. I doubted he could even reach around his sizable waist to put chubby hands to his own handcuffs, not that I planned on taking it to that level.
“I’m a PI working a case.” I resigned myself to the snarky retort coming. I didn’t have to wait long.
“That’s supposed to impress me, Magnum?”
I shrugged. “Not trying to impress you. I was hoping to get a little information about the victim you found under those trees there. What happened? Are there any witnesses?”
Tomlinson chortled. “Your best bet would be to catch it all on the news tonight. Now move it!”
“Who’s the detective in charge?”
“Lady, you don’t listen too good, do you?”
My cellphone rang in my pocket. I answered it.
“What are you doing here? And what are you doing talking to Two-Ton Tomlinson?”
It was Ben.
I reeled around, searching for him. “Where are you?”
“I’m looking right at you standing behind the barricade talking to that twelve-year-old and Two-Ton. Look eleven o’clock.” I followed his direction and spotted him standing off to the side of the trees, pointed in my direction. I wondered how I’d missed him. He waved. “Do not force him to exert himself in any way. He will surely die.”
I sneered in Ben’s direction, then stepped away from the barricade and turned my back to Tomlinson. “He’s the one getting excited. If I took off running toward you right now, he’d never catch me.”
“He could shoot you.”
I slid a furtive glance at Tomlinson, who stood now plastered to the barricade as though I might actually try to wrestle him for it. “I’d bet good money it’d take him five minutes to get his gun out of his holster. Who’s dead?”
“Me first.”
“I’m following a lead,” I said. “Who’s dead?”
Ben stepped away from a knot of detectives. “I’m going to need more than that. Start talking,” he whispered into the phone.
“The homeless man I chased out of the rectory? He beds down near that stand of trees you’re looking at.” Ben said nothing. Apparently, he wanted more. “He bunks in a makeshift tent? Likes to whittle sticks? He wears an old Army jacket. Goes by the name of Old Sarge, or GI, depending on who you talk to.” Our eyes held across the lot. Still, Ben said nothing. “I can ID him,” I said, growing a bit impatient. “I got a pretty good look while he was trying to strangle the life out of me.”
“You keep trying to connect the church to this,” Ben said. “You don’t have the evidence, just a theory.”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Looking for evidence? Will you at least give me the benefit of the doubt?”
Ben paused. “Put Tomlinson on the phone.”
I walked back to the barricade and handed my cellphone to Tomlinson. “Detective Ben Mickerson. He’d like to speak with you.” I pointed to Ben across the lot. He waved at Tomlinson, pointed to his cellphone. Tomlinson sucked in a wheezy breath and raised the phone to his ear. He listened for a time, glared at me, grunted twice, then handed the phone back. Slowly, he eased away from the barricade, taking the rookie with him. I watched them go, waiting to see if Two-Ton would make it before I eased the phone back up to my ear.
“What’d you tell him?”
“I told him there were doughnuts in the tech van. Wait right there. Do not cross that line.”
I took it as a dare, but probably shouldn’t have. I stepped over the line, just a shoe length, but stayed behind the barricade. . . for Ben.
* * *
They finally loaded up the body and drove it away. When the lot cleared, Ben walked over to me and held up his phone for me to take a look at it. He’d taken a picture of the dead man. “That him?”
I exhaled a sigh of relief. “No. Too old, too thin.”
“You sure?”
I nodded my head. “I’m sure. Not him. What happened?”
