But on this night, in this dream, there was something new. This night, there was a bobbing laughter that Jace immediately recognized.
Laimo. Laughing at a man’s degradation, and even though Jace’s eyes popped open and she was fully awake and sweating and fearful, Laimo kept laughing a laugh that sounded like a train skidding to a stop on the rusted rails that cleaved Zachary City in half.
What surprised Dream-Jace about the laughter was that she heard it at all. She realized, in that split second when she recognized it, that part of what had been scaring her all these months was when she dreamed of the house, she dreamed silently. Her dreams had always been full of music and conversation and sound. But this dream, of this place, was as silent as an empty stage.
Would it be less scary with Clifford Brown? With the Yellow-jackets or Jazz Crusaders? Maybe with the hard bop of Sonny Rollins or Wayne Shorter? Or was there simply no way to make that house any less scary?
When she woke, the taste of Laimo’s laugh still in her throat, the early-afternoon daylight fighting valiantly with Jace’s thick curtains, she was unsure if Laimo was laughing at Mercer or at her.
CHAPTER 10
Later that night, after the debrief and roll call, Jace stood at the doorway to the detectives’ bureau, what everyone called The Pulpit. She swallowed down a throat full of burning nerves and entered.
There were four or five desks in the room and all of them were drowning beneath paper and pictures and color-coded file folders. It made the already small room feel even more cluttered and overworked. The far wall was hidden behind memos and Wanted posters and parolee update sheets and an endless ream of random bits of paper. When she’d been here last time, there had been a five-dollar bill pinned to the wall with a note beneath it asking if anyone could identify the bill. Now the bill was a twenty and Jace still thought the joke was weak.
It was almost 11:30 p.m. and the street outside the two windows was surprisingly quiet, though bathed in saturated colors burning from neon signs: blues and reds, purples, greens, the occasional orange. Usually, people and cars filled those streets, from squad cars and cops to work release inmates coming or going to drunks from the bars that lined the street opposite the jail. There were also inmates freshly released and shaking off the dirt of custody as well as free people sucking down a last cigarette before reporting to spend a few days or weeks or months at the county-run hotel.
“Deputy,” Major Jakob said. “Thanks for coming down.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jace hadn’t expected to see Jakob and it ratcheted her nerves up.
Next to the major sat Von Holton. That man, though Jace hadn’t known his name, had been the detective in the room when she’d first come here after Thomas’s death. He’d been brusque and accused her of not staying in the pod with her partner, thus allowing that partner to get hurt. Like a dog pissing on a hydrant, he’d sprayed and intimidated her with his territorialism.
“We gotta stop meeting like this.” He smiled, putting Jace in mind of a bulldog baring teeth.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m not a sir; I work for a living.”
He motioned her to a chair but she’d been in that chair before. The padding was worn thin and one leg was shortened. The detectives used it to make people uncomfortable. Jace chose a different chair. She caught the tiniest smile on Jakob’s face.
Von Holton eyed her. “I told you to sit there.”
“Actually, you didn’t tell me anything at all, but I prefer here, thank you.”
He sucked his teeth. “Let me ask you: can you see through the ice?”
“Excuse me?”
“The ice beneath you is pretty thin. I just wonder if you know that.”
Beneath her? Jace spent more time thinking about the ice around her—the deputies who froze her out—rather than ice beneath her.
“Do you know what I mean when I say we have to stop meeting like this?”
Jace ground her teeth and tried to shake away the feeling that the room was growing around her, leaving her small and meek and scared in the chair. That’s what he wants. He doesn’t like you. He wants to hurt you. He is a bully. “It’s a little foggy, to be honest.”
“Ah, well, let me burn some sunshine through, then. Every time I see you, you’re involved with death. Thomas’s. Now Wrubel’s. Always death with you. Being around that much death would give me a complex.”
Jace pictured this man in the orange jumpsuit of general population. He’s a bully one step removed from the inmates and you’ve faced them down for months now. Don’t let this guy freak you out. She’d staved off the inmates—sadists and brutalizers and sexual degenerates and garden variety bullies—by making them believe she had no fear, even as her stomach twisted into Gordian knots. When she glanced at Major Jakob, the woman’s eyes flicked and a single eyebrow rose in a question mark.
Jace plunged in. “It doesn’t seem to have bothered you so far.”
His eyes bulged. “What?”
“Four shootouts, Detective. Three dead suspects, one of whom was in custody and pulled a small gun from between his buttocks that, apparently, the pat-down missed. Two high-speed pursuits, one of which ended in the death of an old woman who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That body count’s twice as high as mine. Tell me again what kind of complex keeps you awake at night?”
Instead of boiling over, he grinned. “Well, you ain’t the scared worm you were last time. Got yourself some info. Found some jail balls, too.”
“Detective.”
“Apologies, Major.” He said it with a phoniness that irritated Jace. “But I’ve had some dealings with Deputy Salome here.” He glanced at what Jace assumed was Wrubel’s case file. “And last night, as it turns out, she was pretty near where this innocent man was attacked and murdered, and she did nothing to stop it.”
Jace stared hard at him. “A few months ago you yelled at me because I was outside my pod. Now you’re yelling at me because I was inside my pod. Which is it, Detective? Where do you want me?”
“That’s the fluidity of police work, Deputy. You gotta figure out where the trouble is going to be and make sure you’re there.” He winked at her, again with a phoniness that irritated Jace. “Reminds me of the old joke: How many cops does it take to screw in a light bulb? Only one but he’s never around when you need him.” Von Holton laughed.
“Very funny, sir. I’ll have to remember it.”
He glared at her. “Tell it next time you guys are being comedians over the radio.”
“Detective? The murder?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Major, it’s a done deal. This is Jace Salome, the wunderkind of the Zachary County sheriff’s office. Investigator extraordinaire. She’s the one who sniffed out the dirty cops and got us back on the path to righteousness.” He slammed a meaty fist on the desk to punctuate his words. “Hallelujah.”
“Well, the sheriff figured as long as you weren’t doing the job, someone ought to.”
Von Holton laughed off her insult. “Nice try. You wanna dig your way under my skin, get a bigger shovel.”
Jace shook her head. “Sir, I’m not trying to get under anyone’s skin.”
That single eyebrow still played on Jakob’s face while Von Holton’s eyes worked Jace over like a pugilist with a weaker opponent. “Get on with the interview.
“Yes, ma’am.” Grinding his jaw, Von Holton shuffled his papers until he managed to tear one. He stopped, carefully aligned them, and looked at Jace. “I have a few questions, Deputy.”
“Anything I can do to help, Detective.”
“You were in the pod and Urrea ordered you to go to the scene.”
“Yes.”
“The inmates were locked down?”
“Yes.”
“Wrubel was dead when you arrived?”
“Yes.”
“You were ordered to control access?”
“Yes.”
The irritation was plain on his face. “Anyt
hing to add to those answers? Or aren’t you capable of anything except monosyllabic grunts?”
“Respectfully, don’t—”
“Piss on your respect.”
“Respectfully, if I’m asked yes or no questions, I give yes or no answers.”
Tension lay between them like two performing musicians caught on opposite chord changes.
After clearing his throat, he began again. “Who are your suspects?”
“Mercer.”
Von Holton blinked rapidly, like he had something stuck in his eye. “You wanna think about that?”
“No.”
“Why him?”
“Because of the problem with meds the night before. The ERTs had to be called.” She left the rest unsaid, unwilling to sully Wrubel’s name before she had a chance to ask a few questions.
The detective shuffled the papers and produced one, which he waved like a single at a stripper. “Because of this?”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re waving around, but if it’s the incident report, then yes, because of that.”
“Well, bless me, why didn’t I think of that?”
Boiling blood filled Jace’s cheeks. She turned away from Von Holton, not wanting him to see he had embarrassed her.
“Tell you what, why don’t you run that phenomenal lead down for me. Find out where Mercer was and where he was supposed to be. And while you’re at it, find out why he did it and where the murder weapon is.”
Jakob leaned back in her chair. “The murder weapon was in the man’s chest, Detective.”
This time, Von Holton’s face flood with hot blood and Jace kept a satisfied grunt to herself.
“I think you focused on Mercer too quick, Deputy,” he said. “I’d say we’ve got another three hundred or four hundred suspects available to us.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Everyone in the jail at the time is a viable suspect.”
“Wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because most of those viable suspects were locked down. You said yourself that the inmates were bedded down and you were right. So it’s ten or twenty suspects at best. Only those trusties who were free to move around when the murder happened.”
“The prisoners could have gotten out of bed.”
“Out of bed, out of their cells, and out of the pod? No.”
“Are you questioning me?”
Jace wished Rory were with her. This was the kind of grandstanding bullcrap that Rory loved to get in the middle of. If she were here, Jace might feel better about swinging back at this blowhard. As it was, Jace’s nerves, already like high-voltage lines down and sparking, made her want to throw up. “Trying to think logically, sir.”
“For the last time, I am not a sir; I’m a detective.”
“Really.” It was not a question.
“What about cops, Salome?”
“What about them?”
“Couldn’t they have done it?”
Jace frowned.
“A cop in particular, maybe?”
“I’m a little lost here, Detective. What are you asking me?”
“Never mind. Wrubel was stabbed, right?”
“Yes.”
“How’d he get knifed?”
“It wasn’t a knife; it was a shank.”
“Same difference.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Yeah? And you know that how?”
“Training and experience.”
Von Holton rolled his eyes. “I’ve got me a few days’ worth of experience, too.”
“Not in the jail, you don’t. The jail isn’t your kingdom, it is mine.”
“Please, I’ve—”
“How many shanks have you seen in the last few months? In your entire career? I’ve been on-duty nearly a year and I’ve pulled twenty or more out of cells and off inmates’ persons. Knives look like knives. Shanks look like shanks.”
“What’s the diff—”
“There was no finished handle, Detective. The handle was taped.”
“Could have been a broken knife.”
Jace bit back a laugh. “I defer to your experience.”
“Okay, a shank versus a knife. That doesn’t really matter.”
“Sure, it does. A shank means probably an inmate.”
“Which puts us back at three hundred suspects, just as I said. What about bribes?”
“Are you offering me one?”
“Jailers take bribes all the time. How many times have you turned a blind eye to sex or a beat down and gotten a few extra bucks in your pocket? Or maybe a little manliness up between your—”
“Major.” Jace turned to Jakob. “I’d like to file an official complaint for sexual harassment against Detective Von Holton. I’ll need a union representative and at least two members of the administration for a preliminary hearing.”
Von Holton snapped his mouth shut, his eyes glistening with venom. Jace ignored him and kept her gaze on Major Jakob. The major stopped writing on her yellow pad and set her pen aside. Eventually, she raised her head and tugged on her ear.
“Certainly, Deputy. Once we are done with this interview, you can fill out the paperwork in my office.”
Von Holton glared at Jace and busied himself with making notes. “Still going after cops, I guess.”
“Do you have an investigation-related question, Detective?” Jakob asked. “If so, get to it.”
“Absolutely, Major. I think it is more than possible that an inmate could bribe a jailer and get out of their cell.”
“And then?”
“Then the inmate goes into the hallway and knifes—excuse me, shanks—Dr. Wrubel.”
“If an inmate gets out of their cell, by whatever means, they’re still in the pod,” Jace said.
“Another bribe to get out of the pod,” Von Holton said.
“At which point they’re in the go-between.”
“For God’s sake, another bribe, then. Or one giant bribe. You’re playing games with me, Deputy.”
“Not at all, sir. But let’s say somehow a prisoner gets to the hallway; how does he manage to time everything so that Doc Wrubel is there when he wants him dead?” Jace sighed. “I guess I’m not sure why you’re so convinced a guard did something wrong.”
“Me? You investigate bad cops, not me.”
Biting back a foulness from deep inside her, Jace stood and moved behind the chair, and hoped her iron grip on the thing didn’t show. “Look, I’m sorry you’re floundering in your investigation, Detective, really I am. I’d hoped we could find Doc Wrubel’s killer together but that might be asking too much. You can flog me all you want, but that doesn’t change anything. I saw what I saw and know what I know. Sitting here trying to beat me up because you’re pissed at me isn’t going to solve this murder.”
“Floundering? You think I’m on the wrong track?”
“To be on the wrong track, you have to at least be on a track. Once you find that track, let me know and I’ll be glad to take another look for you. Your murderer is Mercer. Period. Are we finished?”
The only sound in the room was Von Holton’s breathing. “Take another look? I don’t need you looking over my shoulder.” His nostrils flared. “Get the hell outta my Pulpit, worm.”
She hesitated, then pulled the newest flyer from her pocket. It had been hanging in the vents of her locker when she’d arrived tonight. After smoothing it out, she laid it softly on the table directly in front of Von Holton and Jakob. “If you want to dig your way under my skin, get a bigger shovel.”
Von Holton’s eyes caught the flyer and immediately came angrily back to her.
CHAPTER 11
“Laid it right out there, huh?” A touch of barbeque sauce leaked from Rory’s mouth during their dinner break. Her tongue flicked out to lick it away but was just short.
Jace wiped Rory’s face. “You should have seen him.”
“He didn’t expect you to have it.”
“He oughta see my second
bedroom, then.”
“What?”
Jace waved it away. Rory asked about the complaint forms and the preliminary hearing, but Jace shook her head. “I was just mouthing off.”
“The hell you say. You should file. The guy’s an ass, Jace; he needs to be taken down a peg or two.”
Jace brushed away cracker crumbs from her uniform shirt. They’d had Brooks Barbeque delivered early in the night and warmed it in the microwave. “Sure, but not by me, he doesn’t. I’m on dangerous enough ground already; I don’t need the aggravation, either in my head or my career.”
“That’s the best place for it.” Rory licked her spoon clean.
“Head or career?”
“Yeah.”
The ladies gathered up their trash and dumped it.
“So, this career you’re talking about. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you mention a career before.”
With a shrug, Jace said, “Not a big deal, Rory.”
“Okay. Except a few months ago, you went into Dillon’s office with your resignation all typed out nice and neat.”
“Yeah, well, that was then. It’s different now.”
“Why?”
Jace grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and wiped down where they’d eaten, and thought about her answer. When Chief Deputy Cornutt, now dead, had first handed her a shiny, new badge, Jace had been unsure of the entire affair. It had almost been a lark, applying for the job, and a part of Jace had thought this might well be nothing more than another in a long string of bad jobs she would keep for five or six months before moving on to something else. The problem was that the next job was never better and frequently it was worse. This job, that required her to store people like pallets of goods shipped from China, turned out to be something else altogether.
When Gene Thomas’s death had hung in everyone’s head and the weight had begun to focus on Jace, she wanted nothing more than to disappear into the forever of a summer sandstorm. But now she was almost a year into the gig and everything was different. In those first, terrified days, the job had seemed like an unknown monster that would probably eat her alive. It was still a monster and always would be, she knew, but she believed she was beginning to recognize it even if she wasn’t quite sure yet how to fight it.
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