The Flower Girl

by Ronald Watkins

  "Because we don't talk shop?" he offered.

  Laughter.

  "You know, what's really hard is my social life. No one really wants to be friends to a cop and most men don't want to date one or if they do its only to screw me so they can say they once had a cop. We're isolated and either associate with other cops or stay alone. How do you handle it?" she asked.

  "I lie. I tell new associates I'm in real estate. I don't socialize with other cops." Her eyebrows rose. "I've cultivated friends in other professions, a C.P.A., a teacher, a salesman. I avoid talking shop off duty."

  "So why see me?"

  "The truth?" he asked.

  "Yes, I don't hear it very often."

  "Because that first day I saw you, standing at the substation in full uniform, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I thought, any woman who can look that good in a uniform is a rare gem."

  He kissed her softly before she hurried back to the kitchen. They talked plants, movies, wine, food. The roast was perfect, Killian's salad not bad, the frozen vegetables predictable, the company just right.

  "Time!" she called as they started jointly on the dishes, each a little high from the bottle of wine they had polished off during dinner. They went into the living.

  "I want to talk shop,” she said. "Today I responded to a report of a child molest. A paper boy reported that a man with a gun took him to a church and molested him. As soon as I got the description I drove around the neighborhood and spotted this dude standing on a street corner only two blocks from the church. It had been a good forty minutes since the assault. He fit the description exactly. I went up to him just to check him out. You know what he said?"

  "Yes," Killian said.

  Rachel was surprised. "Alright wise guy, what did he say?"

  "'I'm the one you're after,'" he guessed.

  "Wrong! He said, 'I'm the one you want'. So how come you knew?"

  "It happens that way. It's like they do it to get caught than hang around to guarantee it. There's something else you'll notice too. A large number of sex crimes take place at churches."

  "Why's that?"

  "I can guess but I don't want to. It just seems to be true. Like this guy I'm checking into now. His first serious trouble was for mauling a minister's secretary at a church." Killian went on to explain how he came to be involved in investigating Jared Pratt.

  "So you think if the dead girl checks out to have been a flower girl he did it?"

  "No, nothing that definite. It would certainly make him a major suspect. In fact, the only one the department would have. Graff probably used to be a good cop but isn't anymore. He's got no imagination and does everything by the numbers. I have depended on him to do all of the routine required procedure and he has as near as I can tell."

  "So now what?" They were back in the kitchen. She began rinsing the dinner dishes while Killian dried and stacked.

  "I'm not sure."

  "Do you want some advice?" she asked.

  "Yes, I could use some."

  "You've gone this far on a case that's not even yours so at least take it the rest of the way. Bud wasn't leveling with you. You know it and I know it. Maybe he's just the kind that always lies to cops and he's not covering anything of use to you, but then again maybe you hit a sore spot with him. It's worth checking into further, especially since it looks like without some break the case will go unsolved. If you don't finish it, you'll always wish you had. And it’s not something you can go back and do later."

  She was right, of course. Some part of him had known all along that he would see Bud again. Only the next time they spoke, Killian would be dealing from strength, not weakness. He would see to it. "You're right. That's one thing I like about you," he said as he put down the dish towel.

  "What's the other?"

  Killian said nothing as he pulled her to him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Good morning, Mr. Pratt." Doris looked up at her employer and decided he was in no mood for further social amenities. Herbert Pratt stalked passed his secretary. He entered his gaudy office and closed the door firmly behind him as though to shut out all his troubles.

  Pratt Enterprises occupied a reasonably sized, inverted, glass pyramid, situated beside a flowing canal which was straddled by usually green banks and full-bodied cottonwood trees. The building had been Herbert's child, birthed in his unimaginative mind and opened in a drunken fete. Gazing down from his office on its topmost floor he was convinced that his serious business reverses originated that day.

  Late into the night of the grand opening, Herbert had led youthful, eager and thoroughly intoxicated Gladis Fischer down to the cool canal bank and in a feverish rush of desire he had taken her before she had so much as removed her skirt. The joining had been as erotic an experience as he had ever consummated and afterwards when he had lain spent upon the grass and seen Raymond Fischer, red faced, enraged, glaring down in anger at the two of them, it had taken all his will power to pull himself from the euphoria.

  Raymond had not taken his bride's infidelity lightly nor had he taken her companion's role any less seriously. He had known Gladis to be promiscuous, had known it before he wed her, but he had ignored his usually sound judgment.

  A dainty somewhat effeminate man, Raymond had merely stormed away from the canal bank and away from his wife's adultery rather than risk a physical altercation. But over the next few weeks he made Herbert wish a hundred times over that Raymond had instead beaten him within an inch of his life that night.

  Gladis had been forgiven and returned to her husband all teary eyed and remorseful while Herbert had died a thousand deaths. Raymond Fischer and he had been expedient business partners. The richest deal of Herbert's career had been nearing completion the night of the party and Herbert, impatient as always, had overcommitted it’s as yet unseen though potentially lucrative proceeds to other endeavors, enterprises which would be free of meddlesome, suspicious partners like Raymond.

  Herbert had been panic stricken as he watched Gladis chase after her elderly husband, pleading drunkenness. But in the cold light of the following dawn he had convinced himself that there was simply no means by which Raymond Fischer could get at him without screwing himself. Herbert had worked out all of the permutations and possibilities and knew that he would not only survive the lost friendship but would escape with most of his profits intact. His offended partner would have to screw himself to get revenge and there was, Herbert concluded, no way he would do that.

  Which was precisely what Gladis' husband had done.

  Raymond had refused to co-sign notes due for renewal or to endorse checks. Then he'd called an I.R.S. audit down on them and opened the books to all their irregular and semi-honest dealings. In advance he had negotiated a guarantee against criminal prosecution and in the end each of them had suffered horrendous financial losses and tax penalties. Raymond Fischer had his revenge but at considerable cost to himself. But unlike Herbert he had been wealthy enough to easily survive it.

  Yes, it had all begun that night, Herbert thought, standing beside the window, a sharp pain in his stomach. God, I hate this building. Impossible to heat or cool properly. Wasted space. A miserable place in which to work. God, I hate it. His secretary entered just then.

  Doris Richey had worked for Herbert less than four months but it had taken her less than four days to realize the loud, foul mouthed man was going broke. She had no regrets for him, although she liked his wife well enough and was sorry for her sake. Doris had no doubts that she would find a pleasant enough job once this one ended. For now she enjoyed the luxury of doing very little each day. She greeted Herbert's increasingly frequent visits much as she did her weekly cleaning of toilet bowls.

  "Your messages, Mr. Pratt," she said approaching his desk. Doris was not especially attractive and knew it. But as far as she was concerned the saving grace about her looks was that her husband found them irresistible and in the end, he was the only one who counted.

&
nbsp; "I don’t want 'em."

  "Yes sir, but Paul Atkinson keeps calling and calling. He really is most insistent."

  Paul Atkinson. Shit, that's the last mother fucker I need to talk to right now, Herbert thought. Atkinson. Oh, shit. "Yeah, well, I'll take care of him."

  Doris looked skeptical but said nothing. The repeated calls from people demanding payment were taking a lot of the fun out of the job for her.

  Herbert ignored the messages after his secretary left. He knew that he must turn his attention to business matters soon, if not with any optimistic hope of eventual recovery, than at least to stave off disaster as long as possible. Something would turn up. It had to.

  Damn that Gladis Fischer. Damn her to hell, he muttered. The intercom buzzed.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr. Atkinson here to see you, Mr. Pratt."

  Oh shit. Pause. "Send him in."

  Herbert Pratt fixed a grin on his face and summoned his very best disposition to mind. Atkinson, shit.

  ~

  For three days Killian bought flowers and conversed with every flower girl he could locate. Bit by bit he pieced together a personality profile of their employer, Bud, and of his city wide operation. The detective found most interesting the girl's comments concerning the Ranch.

  Two of the flower girls Killian had spoken with reported they were sixteen and seventeen years old. Each of them lived at the Ranch. The girls talked as candidly as could be expected to someone considerably older than they. Killian had not mentioned he was a police officer.

  It sounded as though the youthful girls and the vulnerable operation might be the key to unlocking Mr. Everhart. On the Thursday following his brief interview with Bud, Killian cornered a city council aid he knew casually just as the bookish attorney was returning from lunch.

  "The flower girls?" he replied looking up at Killian through a pair of the thickest glasses the detective had ever seen. "Sure, I remember the council action."

  "What was it about?" Killian asked.

  "Not much really. This guy, what’s his name...?"

  "Everhart?" Killian offered.

  "No, not Everhart, the other one... Campbell. Campbell saw Everhart had a good deal going and tried to cut in on the business. We got involved because both Everhart and Campbell were planting their girls all over town. Some of the aggressive ones were even in the streets during rush hour pushing flowers. It just got out of hand."

  "So how did it end?"

  "Well, we passed an ordinance restricting the vendor locations. We required the operators get a city license and written consent for each location. Everhart was already set up, better than Campbell and he tied up all the corners that counted. As far as I know, he's the only operator in the city now." The man turned to go.

  "One last question," Killian said. "When is Everhart's license due for renewal?"

  "December. All city licenses are renewed in December."

  “Thanks." The attorney hurried down the corridor.

  A short distance away Killian located Commercial Licensing where he examined Bud's application, taking note of his address. The detective returned to his desk and dialed the County Sheriff's Substation for southwestern Maricopa County. Within a few minutes he was speaking to Deputy Sheriff Scott Lamprich.

  "This is Detective Bob Killian, Phoenix P.D."

  "How you doing?" Lamprich replied.

  "Not bad. I'm looking into Bud Everhart, Martin Joseph Everhart. His girls sell flowers."

  "Everhart. Let’s see. Oh yeah, the hippy with the van. What do you want to know?"

  "Have you or any of the deputies had dealings with him?"

  "Not much. He keeps a low profile. He's always got underage girls out there but anytime we’ve had occasion to talk to them they clam up and usually clear out. Everhart's clever but not too bright. He's a survivor. A cat. Always lands on his feet, knows which way the wind is blowing. Makes out like he's twenty but he's closer to forty."

  "Anything else?"

  "Not really. They probably smoke a little but I've never had cause for a warrant. You know how closed-mouth kids are even when protecting a barracuda like Everhart. He likes young girls, obviously, but he's pretty careful. It’s easy to assume statutory rape but none of the girls has come forward so there it sits. I can't think of anything else that would be of help."

  Killian thanked the deputy. He leaned back thoughtfully in his chair. A slow smile spread across his face.

  ~

  It was eleven-thirty one in the morning when Robert Killian at last located the Ranch. It was a search complicated by the lack of road signs and by the recurring crisscrossing graveled roads. Killian finally spotted the weathered wood-framed house, Tamarisk trees bordering one side could be seen when he was still a mile or more away. The directions of an aging grocer had finally sent him here.

  Before turning down the driveway, Killian stopped to compose his thoughts and admire the clean lines of an abandoned brick cotton mill. There had been a time when these buildings had dotted the sea of green surrounding the growing Phoenix metropolis. In leaps and bounds the developers had seized the vast stretches of cotton fields and erected box-like houses close enough together to hear the neighbor's flushing toilet.

  The farmers had taken the money and purchased virgin desert near Yuma in southwestern Arizona, converting the land to even larger, more mechanized farms. The consequences around Phoenix had been an end to the local cotton mills and the loss of thousands of labor jobs. Killian remembered the hand pickers he had seen as a boy. Their cotton sacks strung out ten, fifteen feet behind them as they worked their way down the rows under the torrid autumn sun. They had been gone from the fields for so long Killian couldn't remember when he first missed them.

  A bi-plane zoomed out of nowhere, skimming a scarce fifteen feet above the fields, spraying a billowing mist of pesticide behind it. He's working pretty late in the day, Killian thought. Crop dusters usually worked at dawn before the heat effected the air currents. The old plane nosed up sharply, nearly standing on its tail before it cartwheeled to the right and plunged toward the field again, leveling off precisely as intended. It zoomed across the green expanse, this time away from Killian.

  When the fine mist had settled down on his car Killian had quickly raised his window. As a youngster he had lived beside cotton fields. He and his brother, every summer, would run, thrilled and excited, clad only in cut-off levies, brown as the Mexican friends they played with, run to the fence to watch the old planes spray the fields. Day after day, the two of them had watched the planes, grateful for the cooling mist that settled on their near naked bodies. They would hold their noses because the pesticide smelled so bad.

  The detective restarted the car, turned the air conditioner to high and headed down the graveled driveway to the Ranch. He approached it slowly. Beside the house he saw the same van he had seen a few days before. He parked in front and when he got out of the car he stretched mildly and scrutinized the place in a single, practiced look. Nothing out of the ordinary. Bud couldn't be seen.

  A girl came out of the house slamming the screen door behind her. She was the same fifteen year old Killian had seen four days before, sitting in the front passenger seat when he first contacted Bud. Short blond hair, lovely blue eyes, oddly old and today slightly glazed. The budding body of a little girl growing too quickly into womanhood. Sensual lips, slightly petulant, small, white, even teeth. The girls stood in questioning silence.

  "Hello," Killian offered. So many young ones are aliens, he thought. For all they have in common with people over twenty-five they could just as easily have been dropped here from another planet. She had that look.

  "Hi. You're the cop, right?" She smiled, a thin smile that meant nothing.

  Killian moved forward, up a step or two onto the porch and out of the sun. "That's right. I'm the cop." Killian didn’t ask for Bud because he was in no hurry. This girl, hardly more than a child, might have something.

  "You're better looking than mos
t cops," she allowed.

  "How do most cops look?"

  "Fat, big guts, beady black eyes. Dirty old men, you know?" She looked him over like she was going to bid on him at an auction.

  "What's your name?” he asked.

  "Chris."

  "You sell flowers too, Chris?"

  "No, I don't need to."

  Killian thought about that a moment. "Have you been here long?" he asked. Silence. The girl shifted the weight of her body to her left hip. "Where's Bud?" he tried.

  "Asleep."

  Killian tried waiting. He stood still and listened to the rattle of the overhead evaporative cooler and to the distant hum of ties on asphalt. She waited him out. "Maybe you should wake him up," he suggested finally.