His was voice high and shrill. Izzy narrowed his eyes and watched with some amazement as Osborne began trembling and the guard finally made his way over. Izzy paid the guard no mind, shutting him out of focus, and lunged across the table at Osborne. One hand seized the convict’s jumpsuit while the other curled around his throat. Osborne shouted for help. The guard grabbed Izzy. Izzy tightened his grasp.
“That’s enough,” the guard boomed, pulling Izzy away and tossing him hard on the floor. Izzy landed on his shoulder with a flash of pain. Osborne was spirited away by the other guard, clutching his throat.
“Hey, fuck you, man!” Osborne rasped. “Fuck you, Bishop! I didn’t kill no fucking whore!”
Izzy’s guard planted a knee in the small of his back.
“You gonna be calm now?” he asked. Calmly.
Izzy nodded his head, and the guard released him, helping him up and guiding him for the door.
“Praise the Lord,” Izzy said irritably to the guard, who roughly pushed him out the visitation room. “Good reverend, my ass.”
“That did not go well,” he said, sitting in his car and staring blankly at the main building through his windshield. Onsite police had come while he waited in the lobby for the situation to be assessed. He was lucky, according to the deputy director, that Osborne elected not to press any charges. The little slime-bucket further expressed his intent to pray for Izzy. He punched the steering wheel, wishing it was Osborne’s face. Again he felt helpless, incompetent.
And angry as hell.
Yet, for better or worse, he actually believed the bastard. Not about all the holy roller crap he was pulling, but about Cynthia. He hadn’t known she was dead, and he was much too invested on getting out to pull something off that was almost definitely well above his faculties. Osborne liked to hurt, liked to dominate. But he’d only kill in the moment, and probably hadn’t—yet.
Izzy sneered at the main building of the lockup through his windshield and started the engine. He still had a night shift to look forward to and the vague hope that the knot in his back from that guard’s knee might work itself out by midnight or so.
Thirteen
Doctor Jarvis stopped him at the door and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked somber.
“Could you come into my office a minute, Izzy?”
Shannon Delfry watched from the nurse’s station, worrying the hem of her scrubs.
“Yeah,” Izzy said. “Of course. Everything okay?”
“Just someone who’d like to talk to you,” Jarvis said gravely.
Izzy followed him out of the ER, down the hallway, and into the doctor’s office where he froze at the door and looked down at the police officer from Cynthia’s postmortem. The cop, seated in front of Jarvis’s desk, looked back at him. The doctor edged into the room, sat down behind the desk, and motioned at the other chair.
“Please,” he said to Izzy. “Sit down.”
He hesitated, then sat. Both men stared at him.
Jarvis said, “This is Officer Woorten. I believe you know him.”
“I recognize him,” Izzy clarified.
“I come through here a lot,” Woorten said, weaving his fingers over his belly.
“What’s this about?” Izzy asked.
Woorten cleared his throat.
“Word through the department grapevine is you had a little scuffle today at Travis Correctional. Seems like you assaulted an inmate, Bishop. What was that all about?”
“I don’t understand this,” Izzy said. “It was—it was nothing. A little raised temper. No charges were pressed, I went home. Why are you even here, Woorten?”
“I’m here,” he said, “because the inmate you tried to beat up is the man you testified against in defense of one Cynthia Ramos, with whom you and I have a common connection.”
“We don’t have a connection. You found her and stood around while FNDI Forbes and I examined her body.”
“During which time,” Woorten said, “you made yourself pretty damn clear that your personal interest in Ms. Ramos was conflicting with your view of the pertinent facts of the case.”
Izzy gaped, turned to Jarvis.
“Doctor,” he said.
“Hear him out, Izzy,” Jarvis said. “Frankly, I think this is for your own good. You’re on your way to becoming an FN yourself, and I think that’s great. But everything from the scene to the decedent’s social history to the examiner’s report point to opiate overdose. And it sounds to me like you’re not only letting your personal feelings interfere with your judgment…”
“…but you’re playing detective, too,” Woorten put in. “Now, me? I don’t go in for all this forensic nurse stuff. I think it’s stupid to pretend nurses are law enforcement agents of any kind. Ya’ll do your job, and let us do ours—but hey, that’s just my opinion and worth what you paid for it. What’s relevant here is if you aren’t going to work with us in an acceptable way, provide evidence you may have, or anything germane to the case, then do so. Otherwise, stop pretending you’re a cop, and go read the Medical Examiner’s report your pal Forbes helped put together, which explicitly states that individual died of too much dope in her system, which she did to herself, and accept it. Do you hear me, Bishop?”
The officer grinned broadly, revealing a gold crown that glinted in the fluorescent light of the office. Doctor Jarvis played idly with a silver-plated pen, looking vaguely bored and completely uninvolved. In the silence that ensued, he glanced up at Izzy and said, “Are you going to answer the officer?”
“Loud and clear,” he answered with a sloppy salute. Woorten frowned.
“Look,” said the cop, “you’ve been over everything now. The postmortem, the gas thing, whatever that is—”
Goddamnit, Shannon, Izzy thought.
“—your little attempt at a knock and talk at the county lockup. Are you satisfied now? Or do you need to get arrested next time you assault somebody over this crap? Because I’m trying to help you, kid. Talk some sense into you. Accept it or don’t, but this thing is signed, sealed, and delivered.
“Mourn if you gotta, but move on.”
“You’re cute when you’re all authoritative,” Izzy said. Then, to Jarvis: “Are we done here?”
The doctor put up his hands and said, “Get to work, Izzy.”
“Remember what I told you, Bishop,” Woorten said as Izzy stood and walked out the door. “You want to be a cop, there’s an academy for that.”
“Thanks a lot,” he said to Shannon after logging in and checking charts.
“What?”
“You totally turned me over is what.”
“Hey, a policeman asked me some questions and I answered them. I’m not in the habit of lying to the cops.”
“Everyone else does,” Izzy said sulkily. “You’re just pissed about the ABG.”
“Why are you all over this like you are, anyway? You’ve seen some of the worst of the worst in here, I know you have. A lot of the time it ends up in a less than acceptable way, but it is what it is. But this? You are hound-doggin’, my friend.”
Izzy rubbed his eyes until he saw white flecks, thinking about Woorten and Jarvis, Forbes and now Shannon Delfry, too. All the voices ringing out in unison to tell him to stop making a fool of himself, stop pretending he’s something he isn’t. To leave Cynthia Ramos in peace and simply accept her senseless, heartbreakingly unacceptable loss.
“I’m going to go get some coffee,” he said.
With that, he left the ER.
Fourteen
Of the fliers he’d collected on Guadalupe, only two were within a ten-mile radius of the house where Cynthia’s body was discovered. One was called Waterloo Whomp and featured graphics reminiscent of 1980s video games and tech. It was held at an address just north of downtown Austin off Manor Road, east of the interstate. The other was ominously named Judgment Daze and happened south of the river on Riverside and South Congress.
Like all the other posters, there were no phone numbers. Izzy fol
ded the two in half and took them on his way to Manor.
What he found there was a massive space, basically an empty warehouse, with no signage adorning the building and plentiful parking because there was nothing and no one around apart from an abandoned gas station across the street. The redbrick structure took up most of the block, and when Izzy approached he found part of the same flyer stuck to the steel door in front. Someone had ripped it down and the top third stayed. At the very least, he knew he was in the right place.
The few windows dotting the exterior of the building was covered up with black plastic from the inside. The door was locked. Izzy tried knocking, but was not surprised when it went unanswered. He walked around to the back, where the weeds were in the process of reclaiming the crumbling asphalt. Colorful and occasionally obscene graffiti decorated the back side of the structure. Here too was a door. It was also locked.
Izzy paced for a while, listening to the far off drone of a busy road and the coos of pigeons roosting atop the warehouse. He watched the birds for a while, following the edge of the roof where they perched, until he caught sight of a rusty metal ladder.
“Hmn,” he said.
He went to the ladder, testing the rungs. They were flecked with rust and lichen, but sturdy enough. Izzy climbed.
The pigeons complained and scattered, flapping off and making a mess of feathers in their wake as he neared the top. The rungs up there were covered in dry bird shit, as was the brick periphery of the roof. He climbed over this and onto to the corrugated PVC roofing. He stepped gingerly, unsure if it would hold his weight, but a few paces in decided he was okay. Probably.
Opposite him, nearer to the street-facing side of the building, was what looked like a hatch. Carefully, he made his way across the roof, shielding the sun from his eyes and hoping he wouldn’t go through some weak part in the surface. Once he made it, he sighed with relief and crouched by the hatch. To his delight, it was not locked. Izzy opened it, the hinges groaning loudly.
Beneath him, through the hole in the roof, was a single open area littered with garbage. It looked like when the rave was over, they took everything but the trash, and there was plenty of it. But that was all there was. The place was vacant and silent.
There was another ladder of the drop-down variety to allow him egress to the warehouse proper, but Izzy did not bother. He walked back across the roof and climbed down to earth. He did not expect to find anything useful here.
The Riverside location was a former male strip club that Izzy knew had sat vacant for years. The city shut the place down almost as soon as it opened, arguing it was too close to a school. The logo was still on the side of the building, and for some reason so was the FOR LEASE sign. Why it had never been taken over was anyone’s guess, but it appeared that it had its uses, however temporary. And this time, the front door stood wide open and there were people milling around.
Izzy parked on the street and approached the front. There were flyers tacked up here, as well, but they were slightly different. It was still Judgment Daze, but with a different color scheme and a new date—next Friday. This party wasn’t quite over yet.
A guy with long, curly brown hair and circular hippy shades came up behind Izzy, dragging a dolly loaded up with black crates.
“’Scuse me, bro,” he said. Izzy stepped aside and the guy rolled inside.
Another guy, this one with a black-dyed faux hawk and aviator sunglasses, filled the doorway as soon as the other one was inside. He leaned on the jamb and looked Izzy over.
“You need something?”
He was wearing an artificially faded AC/DC tee shirt and skinny jeans with blocky black boots on his feet and fingerless gloves on his hands. Everything about his look was manufactured, Izzy thought, like he’d Googled “cool” and was in a bit of a hurry. The guy pulled the shades down to the tip of his nose and eyeballed Izzy. He had crow’s feet creasing the corners of his eyes. Izzy pegged him for about forty.
“I do, actually,” Izzy said. “I’m checking up on a friend of mine who I think might have come here last weekend.”
“A lot of people came here last weekend.”
“I realize that. It’s a longshot, I know, but I’d sure like to ask around, see if maybe anybody saw her?”
“Just me and my crew here now, man,” the guy said, drawling his vowels. “Honestly, none of us pay a lot of attention to the kids come in here at night. After a while they all kinda look the same.”
Izzy narrowed one eye and wondered if this guy owned a mirror. He let it go and tried another tactic.
“I can understand that,” he said. “I work in an emergency room and it’s a lot like that, too. Thing is, I’m really trying to help someone out here. It’s pretty life and death, really.”
“Life and death,” the guy repeated, unimpressed.
“How many people were here last time?” Izzy asked.
“Hard to say off hand. Two, maybe three hundred?”
He yawned and brought out a pack of American Spirits from his back pocket. Lighting one, he broke eye contact and watched traffic on Riverside instead.
“And how many folks working for you?”
“Folks,” the guy said, and smiled. “I got about a dozen folks, off and on. So what’s your deal, bro? You don’t look the party type to me.”
“No, I’m not the party type. Born square, I’m afraid. I just want to find out what happened to a good friend of mine.”
“And you think she came to Judgment Daze.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“You’re not even sure? Come on, man. I got work to do.”
“All right,” Izzy said. “How about I just give you my card and a description of the individual? That way you can ask around yourself, and if you hear anything…”
A hand appeared on the guy’s shoulder, and he moved to the side. The long-haired hippy was on his way back out, his dolly empty. Izzy pulled a fresh card from his wallet as the hippy rolled back to the parking lot, and he noticed a dark spot on the wrist of the hippy’s otherwise fish-belly white arm. It was a figure eight.
But no, that wasn’t quite right. He was looking at it wrong. The tattoo was an infinity symbol.
The same as the one Deacon had at the Lost 40 house.
He gave the guy in the doorway the card, said thanks, and followed the hippy at a slow pace. Behind the building was a white box truck, its back rolled open and ramp down. The hippy had the dolly positioned at the bottom of the ramp and had climbed up into the back, knocking around inside.
Izzy approached, hands in his pockets, and waited for the hippy to reemerge. When he did, he was lugging another heavy black crate, sweat rolling down his face.
“Here,” Izzy said. “Let me help you.”
The hippy stood up, the top of his head brushing the ceiling of the truck, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Thanks, dude,” he said. “I’d appreciate that.”
Izzy went up the ramp and squatted at one end, the hippy at the other, and they lifted with a unified grunt.
“Heavy,” Izzy said.
“Speakers and shit. Had to take it out for the week, bring it all back for the weekend. Pain in the ass.”
“I’ll bet.”
Izzy looked around the back of the truck. It was still about half full of boxes and crates.
“That guy I was talking to,” Izzy said between huffing breaths, guiding the crate down to the dolly. “That your boss?”
“Who, Dox? I guess. It’s his show, you know? I’m just picking up some extra scratch.”
“I can dig it,” Izzy said, immediately wishing he hadn’t. The hippy made a face.
“Not really my bag, the house, electronic thing. Help me with another couple?”
“Sure.”
By the time they had four stacked up, Izzy’s shirt was soaked through and he was sore in the shoulders. His back, where the jail guard had kneed him, felt about the same as it had right after it happened. He stretch
ed and grunted, squinting in sunlight. College kids, tourists, and shoppers streamed up either side of South Congress, most of them with bags dangling from their hands.
“Was a time this used to be a slum,” Izzy remarked, watching the people. “Dirty movie theaters, drugs, hookers—you name it. Went from skid row to Rodeo Drive before I noticed.”
“Puttin’ in a big hotel a few blocks up,” the hippy said, pointing. “Lotta money in Austin these days.”
“These raves make a lot of money, you think?”
“I guess so,” the hippy said, half-shrugging. “See what Dox drives?”
He pointed at a gleaming silver Mercedes, parked three spaces over from Izzy’s Mazda.
“Guess that answers my question,” Izzy said.
“Well, thanks for the hand, dude. Namaste.”
He waved with his right hand, moving the tattoo back and forth in front of Izzy’s face, before grabbing the bars and leaning the dolly back.
“That tattoo,” Izzy said. “What’s it mean?”
The hippy smiled.
“Infinity, bro. Life forever, you know?”
“No, I don’t understand.”
“Not many do,” the hippy said, hauling the dolly back to the building. “Not many do.”
Dox was still there in the doorway, watching. He’d moved his sunglasses to the top of his head and had his arms crossed over his thin chest. He let the long-haired help by, then took up the doorway again and fished his phone from his pocket. The phone went up to his head, and he talked too quietly to hear while keeping his eyes fixed on Izzy.
Izzy got back into his car and drove away.
Fifteen
A Mike and the Modifiers single spun on the turntable, eking out “I Found Myself a Brand New Baby” while Izzy sipped hot tea a doodled on a scratchpad. He’d found the 45 at a great place that used to be on South Lamar, but had since turned in a boutique clothing store. More and more he found himself considering the evils of internet shopping, but so far he’d defied the urge. When Austin finally ran out of interesting record stores, he imagined he’d start taking road trips.
The Irish Goodbye (Izzy Bishop Book 1) Page 7
