The Irish Goodbye (Izzy Bishop Book 1)

by Kaspar Totmann

  Izzy glanced at the price tag on the shelf for the portable tanks: $49.99. Affordable.

  “Do you keep any kinds of records for sales of these things?” he asked. “I mean, one could pay cash and just waltz right out with a few?”

  The employee, who Izzy surmised was a manager, laughed nervously.

  “It’s a party supply, sir,” he said, “not an assault rifle.”

  “Right,” Izzy said, faking a laugh himself. “What about kids? You have any issue with them wanting to huff the stuff, anything like that? Maybe for parties?”

  “Helium doesn’t get you high like some gasses,” the manager said, his face registering something like annoyance or concern. “All it does is make your voice funny.”

  “Or make you brain dead,” Izzy said.

  “If you inhale enough of it, sure, but like I said, there’s no reason to do that. You’d never get anything like a rush out of it, you’d just pass out. And they’re safer than they used to be.”

  “Safer?” Izzy said. “Safer how?”

  The manager sighed, and he walked over to the display, where he roughly turned one of the boxes and pointed to a red bubble on the back. On the bubble, 80/20 helium/air ratio was printed.

  “Believe it or not, there’s a global helium shortage,” he said. “That and the safety concerns, the manufacturers started diluting these things in 2015. Now, is there something I can help you with?”

  “Just these small ones, or—?”

  “Bigger ones, too.”

  “What about rentals for the bigger tanks? You keep records for that stuff, I’d assume.”

  “Of course, but—hey, are you with the police or something?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  The manager stiffened, pursing his mouth.

  “We don’t just show private records to anyone who asks,” he said. “If you’ve got a problem like that, you need to talk to the police, and they can get a court order. You need balloons and party favors, then I help you out. See how that works?”

  “Thanks for clearing that up for me,” Izzy said. “I was confused.”

  “Clearly,” said the manager, and he wandered off, shaking his head.

  Izzy walked back to the front, paused near the girl at her cashier’s station, and said, “Want to make an easy fifty bucks?”

  She said, “Fuck off, pervert.”

  “Wait, no—that’s not…”

  “I said, fuck. Off.”

  Still, she managed to keep her eyes on the phone the entire time.

  Izzy said, “For all your festive needs.” And left the store.

  Outside, he said, “Court order,” and stared at the traffic on the loop around bridge from Loop 1 to Research. “Maybe not.”

  He crawled into the Mazda, brought the engine back to life and cranked the A/C, and he flipped through the contents of his billfold until he found what he was looking for.

  Detective Sergeant César Esperanza, Homicide Unit, Austin Police Department.

  Izzy headed south, to downtown. On the way, he phoned Forbes.

  “I know what the heroin was for,” Izzy said, following the ramp onto Loop 1.

  “It generally has just the one application,” said Forbes.

  “No, listen. Helium manufacturers dilute the tanks now—it’s only 80 percent pure anymore. If an inert gas like that is considered a preferable method for suicide, or for a murder made to look like one, it needs to be pure.”

  “Hmm,” said Forbes. She smacked her lips, mulling it over. “Probably you’d still get the euphoria and pass out, but the extra air in there might not prevent the hypercapnic alarm response.”

  “Exactly,” Izzy said. “And if hypercapnia doesn’t kick in, then even unconscious or semiconscious the body’s going to instinctively fight it. It’s not suitable to the purpose.”

  “Shit,” she hissed. “I don’t know how verifiable this is, but it could make sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense. The dope, either taken willingly or forced, counteracts the fresh air quotient in the tank to keep the alarm response at bay and encourage comfortable asphyxiation the same as though the tank was a hundred percent. Heroin overdoses typically affect the respiratory system, anyway. Plus there’s the additional benefit of the drug’s cover—inert gas asphyxiation is hard to detect as it is, but this way it looks just like an OD. Even enough to fool the experts.”

  “I’ll let that one pass, Bishop,” she growled. “And I’ll learn to forgive you for the extra legwork you just made for me. The stiff you tripped over the other day is in Marty’s cooler downtown. Another one of us experts.”

  “Get your hands on that ABG, Forbes,” Izzy said. “Get a gas chromatography analysis if you have to. If Deacon’s got the same or close helium levels…”

  “It could still be suicide, kiddo.”

  “But not a heroin OD.”

  “How the hell did you sort all this out, anyway?”

  Izzy smiled and wished she could see it.

  He said, “A little clown told me.”

  Twenty-Five

  The APD headquarters building rose sharply between 7th and 8th Streets, right on the west side of the I-35 overpass. Squeezed in among the Federal Courthouse and Mexican Consulate, it was a massive, angular monolith of drab brown brick and multilayered ultra-modern design that was new enough to demand attention and big enough to instill intimidation. Izzy parked under the overpass where ample lighting and constant video surveillance had been installed in recent years, and made his way to the steps behind the orange-and-white blockades shutting down 8th. The façade facing the interstate service road still showed pockmarks from a highly publicized shooting a couple years earlier, not yet repaired.

  Beyond the spotless glass doors, he listened to the echo of his footsteps and crossed a wide, open lobby to the desk sergeant, who waited impassively for Izzy’s imminent arrival.

  “I’d like to speak to Sergeant Esperanza in homicide,” he said.

  “Do you wish to report a crime, sir.”

  “I just want to talk to the sergeant if possible.”

  The desk cop frowned and picked up the phone. He stabbed a beefy finger at a series of numbers, waited some more, then mumbled, “What’s your name?”

  “Izzy Bishop. He’ll remember me from the OD on Cesar Chavez the other day.”

  “The what now?”

  “Just tell him that. He’ll know me.”

  “Okay,” said the desk sergeant. “Siddown. I’ll call you over if he can’t see you.”

  People seemed to wander around the place more or less aimlessly, like lost souls. Izzy went straight for a row of gray chairs and parked himself on one, from where he watched the desk cop hang the phone up and start talking to an older woman with a shower cap on her head. Elsewhere a young man leaned against a chair, his hands in plastic ties behind his back, mumbling to a pair of uniformed officers, too quietly for Izzy to make out. Men and women in uniforms, suits, and business casual dress came in went in pairs and threesomes and foursomes, some with badges clipped to their belts like in the movies. Izzy glimpsed at the magazines available on a nearby table and, finding nothing of interest, looked up again at the desk sergeant, who was now talking much more dynamically with the shower cap woman. Izzy couldn’t tell if they were arguing or not.

  It took another ten minutes for Esperanza to appear, by which time Izzy had begun to think about lunch and about whether Noah would be available to join him—or even want to. The sergeant was dressed down from the other day, in khakis and a dark blue polo shirt with a yellow APD badge sewn into the top left breast. On his right side was strapped a blocky service pistol. He walked briskly from the elevator, his burgundy shoes clopping loudly on the tiles as he approached.

  “Mr. Bishop,” he said, extending his hand. Izzy rose to accept it. “Can’t say I expected to see you today. What brings you by?”

  “Questions,” Izzy said. “Maybe some spitballing, if you’re up to it.”

  “Is this a
bout the deceased individual you found the other morning?”

  “In part.”

  “Well, it’s just about my lunch time,” the sergeant said, directing Izzy back toward the glass doors. “Hope food trucks are your thing.”

  The three trucks formed a semi-circle at the corner of Red River and 6th, just a couple blocks away from the department HQ, where Izzy and Esperanza were faced with the choice between Tex-Mex, pizza, and Greek gyros. The sergeant opted for a lamb gyro, while Izzy veered off to the Mexican truck to get a paper plate of enchiladas and refried beans. They reconvened at one of the rickety little picnic tables arranged beside the sidewalk.

  “A lot of the guys I work with make fun of all the food trucks that’ve popped up everywhere,” Esperanza said. “Say it’s all a bunch of trendy hipster shit, or whatever. But some of them are the real deal, I’ll tell you. These gyros are the real deal, Bishop.”

  He took a substantial bite and cucumber sauce dribbled down his chin. Izzy poked at his enchiladas with a plastic fork and pretended not to notice.

  “Okay, I’ll shut up,” Esperanza said after swallowing. “I’m all ears.”

  “That’s a nice change of pace,” Izzy said. “I haven’t got many listeners these days.”

  “You did the autopsy on the first girl they found out there, am I right?”

  “I assisted in the postmortem examination,” Izzy said. “There wasn’t an autopsy at all. Not even a virtopsy. The medical examiner vetoed it, but the exam and tests did bring up a few questions.”

  “What we’re looking at right now is a couple of ODs in a dope house,” Esperanza said. “Probably not the first—I’m not sure about that—and probably not the last. But you think what? Something different?”

  “I knew the first one and spoke with the second a couple days before I found him. I have reason to believe neither of them was into heroin at all, for one thing. Also a blood gas test showed a high level of helium in the first decedent’s arteries, which is very unusual.”

  “How’d that happen, do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but it got glossed right over as circumstantial, and I want to know if maybe it’s not. At the very least, I think it’s very possible Cynthia Ramos committed suicide, but the second body throws that theory into serious doubt for me. The FDNI is checking on the same report for the body we found, which if the same could very well mean the heroin was a cover for the helium, which was the actual agent in both causes of death.”

  “So what are you bringing me? Or asking me to do?”

  “I’d sure like to see rental records on helium tanks around town,” Izzy said. “See if I recognize any of the names on them. Sales aren’t recorded the same, but the big industrial tanks get rented out all the time. Maybe Cynthia rented one, or Deacon did. Or somebody else connected to the two.”

  “Who’s Deacon?”

  “Twillig.”

  “Oh—right. Was there a blood gas whatsit done on Twillig?”

  “It’s a matter of course,” Izzy said. “And like I said, there’s someone checking on that. Turns out the way these tanks are made nowadays, they’re not a sure bet for the old dirt nap. Dope would help.”

  “That’s real interesting, Bishop. Might be circumstantial after all, but maybe not.”

  The sergeant took another bite, and this time the sauce ran down the other side of his chin. Izzy grabbed a paper napkin and handed it to him.

  Esperanza wiped his face and said, “I can find out what Dr. Dalecki’s got on the body easy enough. A court order on those tank rentals is another thing.”

  “At least keep in mind,” Izzy pleaded. “It’s been suggested to me that helium is used for homemade assisted suicides in the U.S..”

  “That a fact?”

  “I knew Ramos personally, Sergeant. She didn’t scuba dive and she wasn’t the type to try for a cartoon voice. She was an abuse and assault survivor with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of self-harm and self-destructive behavior. Based on all of that, you tell me why she had helium in her arterial blood at time of death.”

  “You’re saying it was an intentional suicide.”

  “No,” Izzy said. “I’m not saying that. I think there’s more to it than that, and this Twillig is involved in some way. But I’d still take suicide over accidental heroin overdose any day of the week. That’s just not what went down, and the evidence doesn’t support it.”

  “Can you get me a copy of that blood report, whatever it was?”

  “I think so.”

  “My fax number is on the card I gave you. Maybe with that I can talk to my lieutenant about that court order. It’s a little flimsy, to be honest, but I don’t mean to shut you down. It’s a matter of what we have on the table that’s solid and we can look at, you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “How many places rent those things in Austin, do you think?”

  Izzy made a face.

  “Dozens,” he said. “Maybe more. And they’re easily available on the Internet, too.”

  “Jesus,” said Esperanza, stuffing the last of the gyro into his mouth. He washed it down with his soda and said, “And that’s assuming anybody did rent one instead of buy it or boost it, and that they did it in Austin. Maybe Round Rock, or Buda, or Pflugerville—who knows?”

  “I don’t have much more to go on just yet,” Izzy said. “I know both of them lived at some point at the Lost Forty squat house on Rosewood, and that Cynthia went to some kind of party the night she died, probably a rave at Riverside and South Congress. She may have had a boyfriend, but I don’t know who. And that I met a guy at that rave spot that had the same tattoo on his wrist that Deacon—Twillig—had. They gave different reasons for why they got them. Might not mean anything.”

  “Just hang tight,” Esperanza said. “Get that thing faxed over to me, and put it into layman’s terms so I know what I’m looking at. We’ll go from there, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t go running off searching more derelict houses for corpses or anything crazy like that. You do what you’re trained to do, and I’ll do what I do, and maybe together we can shed a little light on this thing.”

  “No,” Izzy said. “Of course not.”

  Twenty-Six

  There was no yellow police tape awaiting him when he returned to the apartment, and though the window had not been repaired, someone had gone to the trouble of nailing it shut. A quick inventory revealed nothing missing, though the records remained on the floor where they’d fallen, including the ones the intruder trampled and shattered. Izzy knelt down to pick up the pieces, devastated to identify some of the losses: Jimmy Ruffin, Mary Wells, even the Marvelletes’ “Please Mr. Postman.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Izzy grumbled. He got the dustpan and broom from the kitchen closet and swept up the carnage. After he dumped it all in the trash, he wrote down the titles he’d now have to replace at some point in the future.

  Izzy then checked his schedule, verified he was working that night, and resolved to take a nap on the couch. It felt wrong to him to sleep in the bed when the sheets hadn’t even been washed since last he shared it with Trish—and now he’d already been with someone else. He hadn’t expected that to happen, it barely crossed his mind as a possibility or even a desire, and though she’d been the one to walk out on him, Izzy felt a strange sense of guilt. It seemed to him there existed an unwritten rule about waiting periods in these types of situations, but since he’d never been in one of these types of situations he was hesitant to throw his weight behind it. The truth was Izzy always dropped into relationships by accident, usually resulting from a vague inherent need to turn a one-night stand into something more substantial. Something less embarrassing.

  He liked Noah, but he’d liked Trish, and inside a month Izzy knew that was never going to work out. Still he kept at it, forcing the relationship to live by whatever life support systems he could muster, even as he avoided meeting her mom and stepdad and veere
d wide around discussions of co-habitation. She wasn’t often particularly nice and appeared to work hard at not understanding anyone else’s point of view, but he couldn’t lie to himself and place the entirety of the blame at her feet. Izzy Bishop was a difficult enigma in this department. He drew people toward him with one hand while pushing them away with the other. He did not understand it all that well himself.

  He’d spent a lot of time over the years assuring others that they were survivors, that they were not the sum of their bad experiences or others’ predatory actions. Yet privately, when he looked into the mirror, all Izzy could normally see was a broken person.

  Izzy flipped on the television, found a quiet show about birdwatching on some obscure channel, and turned the volume down low and he stretched out on the couch. It was a tactic that occasionally worked when his mind was in overdrive—he not only managed to sleep, but what he subconsciously heard on the TV dictated generally innocuous dreams.

  Today, it didn’t work.

  He slept, but he dreamed of abandoned houses and scattered needles, fresh tattoos still bleeding and Cynthia Ramos—cold and naked in a metal drawer, her muscles rigid and immovable, her face sinking deeper into decomposition while the tiniest spark of life remained somewhere inside, screaming for Izzy, demanding to know why he’d failed to keep her safe…

  A cool, clammy sheen of sweat clung to his skin when he jumped awake at dusk, the television providing the room’s only light. His heart beat rapidly and his breath came fast and ragged. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the glow of the flatscreen and he saw an old man in flannels giving a tour of what looked like a horse farm. Izzy’s old trick had a questionable success rate.

  He toweled off in the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face. He’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep, and he looked it. After he shaved, he ran a cold shower and stood under it for five solid minutes before doing anything else. Gradually his body came more and more awake, his mind lagging a little ways behind it. He shampooed and washed, rinsed and stood under the cold water a little longer. The nice thing about a cold shower, he thought, was you never had to worry about it running out.