by Baxter Clare
“Sounds like you and Annie are getting pretty chummy.”
“Chummy.” Frank tasted the word. “Makes it sound like we’re going to the movies and hanging out together. We’re workin’ a homicide.”
“I see. How’s that going?”
“Well, we got the candle and the vase delivered, so now we wait. Tomorrow we’ll go out to the cemetery and see what we can turn up there. No pun intended.”
“How old is she?”
“How old is who?”
“This Annie.”
“I don’t know. She’s going to retire in nine months. She looks like she’s maybe early fifties, give or take a couple years.”
“Hmm. How long do you think you’ll be staying here?”
“No telling. I talked to Fubar. He’s pissed. Told him it could be a couple more days, maybe a couple weeks. I don’t know. It all depends on what we get back from the lab. Or don’t. How about you? Going back tomorrow?”
“Yeah. From Manhattan to the morgue.”
“Sounds like a true crime title. So what are you going to do with your last night in the Big Apple?”
“I’m going to a play.”
“Alone?”
“No.” Frank waited for an explanation, but Gail continued. “I’m finally going to see Phantom of the Opera. I’ve waited so long I hope my expectations don’t exceed the reality.”
“Who you going with?”
“A woman I met at the convention. She’s nice. We’ve had fun together.”
“Nice.” Frank couldn’t resist. “Sounds chummy.”
Gail giggled. “A little.”
“So, where does this woman live?”
“Minnesota.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Don’t know. Nice place, Minnesota.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Nope. You?”
“Not yet.”
Her jealousy kindled, Frank quizzed, “Plan on going?”
“Maybe.”
“To see your friend?”
“Maybe.”
Gail sounded distracted and Frank asked, “What are you doing?”
“Painting my nails.”
Frank let the silence stretch out. “You never paint your nails.”
“I do sometimes.”
“This for your big date tonight?”
“It’s not a big date.”
“All right. Your little date.”
“It’s not a date at all. It’s just a play.”
“Whatever.” Frank sulked.
“My, we sound jealous.”
“Oh, no,” Frank answered too quickly. “Not at all. Should we be?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who left, remember?”
“Of course I do. You remind me every time we talk.”
“Well, given whose idea it was to walk I’m not sure how your rather high-handed inquisition is justified.”
Frank bit down on her lip. Talking to Mary one evening Frank had called herself an asshole. Mary had corrected, “You’re not an asshole. You’re just behaving like one. Now. Do you want to keep doing that or would you like to stop?”
Frank said, “Look. I hope you have a wonderful time. I hope the play’s better than you can possibly imagine. You deserve to have some fun.”
“You’re damn right I do. And I’m having it. Would you like to know why I called you?”
“Love to.”
“Well, I was wondering, before you started your interrogation, if you’d like to have dinner when you get home.”
Frank cringed. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, flapping the other fingers in the universal gesture for a flaming asshole. “I would love that.”
“Okay. Call me when you get back.”
“Promise you won’t be in Minnesota?”
“This jealousy, Frank, is it a trait peculiar to sobriety?”
“I wish. I’ve always been an asshole. Forgive me?”
“As long as I don’t have anything to worry about with you and Annie.”
“You care that much?”
“Let’s just say I still have a proprietary interest.”
“I like that. I’ll call you when I get home.”
“Okay. Good luck with your dad.”
“Thanks. You have fun tonight. And be safe, huh?”
“I will, copper. You, too.”
Frank hung up and tried to resume her place in the book, but Maggie haunted her. Frank’s jealousy had caused her first love to walk into the middle of an armed robbery and the petty squabble had cost Maggie her life. Frank would carry that scar to her grave, yet here she was, acting the same way with Gail.
A steady bump-bump issued from the bar downstairs and Frank thought how easy it would be to slip out of her harsh skin and into a few soft drinks. That would certainly shift her perspective.
And so would an AA meeting. Frank sighed and got dressed. She passed the bar on her way next door.
CHAPTER 16
The first thing Annie said to Frank was, “So? Did you see her?”
“See who?”
“Madonna. D’you share a can with her?”
“Nah, I think she’s moved up in the world.”
“Psh.” Annie slapped the air. “Forget about her.”
As she drove, Annie scrutinized the sidewalks. Frank silently watched the road for her. Each time she was about to call out a warning Annie stepped on the brakes or twisted the wheel. Frank’s stomach heaved and she wondered if the cop drove like this all the time.
At First Street Annie smashed the brakes. Frank started to complain but Annie growled, “Well, hello, kiddo. I knew you’d surface sooner or later.”
Frank saw the two male blacks Annie was looking at. Both late teens or early twenties, one in a red Hilfiger jacket with black shiny jogging pants, the other in a navy ski outfit. The taller wore a red ski mask and the one in navy’s head was shaved.
Annie drove past, averting her gaze to Frank. “I’ve been lookin’ for that mutt for three months. I can take him in right now on parole violation.” She drove around the block. “I want to take him, but if I call for backup he’s gonna bolt. You up for a collar?”
“Sure. I don’t have a weapon.”
Annie whipped the wheel around. “What we’ll do is get a backup en route, no sirens. Damn.” She jerked to scan the backseat. “Check the glove compartment. See if there are some plastic lock-ties in there. I don’t got cuffs with me. We shouldn’t need ‘em, but just in case.”
Frank produced a handful of ties.
“Good. Take three or four. He’s big.”
Annie turned onto First Street. The two men were still talking by a cluster of garbage cans. Frank asked which one she wanted.
“The tall one in red.”
“Why’s he not gonna bolt when he sees you?”
“He might.” She grinned. “But look at me. Would you?”
Annie requested backup and double-parked. Annie’s mope made the women as soon as they got out of the car.
He started walking but she called, “Irvin, I just wanna talk! Don’t make me haul you in on something as stupid as parole violation.”
“What I do?” He stopped, indignant. He watched his friend keep walking. “Damn!”
“Other than the parole violation, you tell me.” Annie planted herself under his chin, arms crossed. “We need to talk.”
“Talk? ‘Bou’ what? I don’t even know you.”
Flashing her badge, she told him, “Now you do. I’m Detective Silvester and this is Detective Franco. I hear you might know somethin’ about who capped Dread Knowledge.”
The mope became agitated, dancing, claiming, “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that nigger. Ain’t nothin’ I can tell you.”
“That’s too bad. Then I guess I have to take you in on PV.”
“Yeah, right.” He laughed. “Ain’t goin’ in.”
“You can come in, talk with me and leave, or you ca
n come in wearing cuffs and not leave. What do you want to do?”
“Neither one.”
The mope turned away. Frank stepped in front of him. As he moved around her Annie grabbed his arm, twisting it into the small of his back. But the mope wrenched his arm loose, taking his eyes off Frank to swing at Annie. In that instant Frank’s knee connected with his crotch. The big man gasped and went down. He must have hit Annie because she was recovering from a stumble. Yanking her 9 millimeter free she whacked his elbow with the grip. It made a solid crack and he cried out. Annie yanked his arm back to lock the tie on and Frank jerked his other arm around, getting a twist on it. Annie was ready with a third and zipped the ties together.
The perp was curled on the sidewalk, trying to breathe. Annie bent toward his face. She panted, “Dumb, Irvin. Very dumb. You just bought a trip to jail for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.” She tapped his head. “Very dumb.”
When she straightened, pushing the hair back from her face, Frank saw her chin was swelling. “You okay?”
Two men in uniform ran up to them. Annie dabbed her chin. “Ouch. Dumb, Irvin. Very dumb.” The cops yanked the mope to his feet and Annie told them, “He’s all yours, fellas. We tied him up all nice and neat for you, just like a box of cannoli.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Both cops were young and white. They glanced at the older women as they hustled Irvin into their unit.
“Sorry,” Annie said, heading for her car. “Your interview’s gotta wait.”
Frank got in and buckled up, asking again if Annie was all right.
The bump on her chin had doubled but Annie grinned. “I’m gonna be sore tomorrow, I can tell you that. My chin stopped him but I took it all in my neck.”
Annie gave her attention to the road and Frank relaxed. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Fun, huh? Crap, this hurts like a mother. I better get some ice on it.”
“Pull over,” Frank insisted.
Annie double-parked again and Frank darted into a deli. She got back into the car, tossing Annie a bag of frozen corn.
“Thanks.” Annie held the vegetables against her chin.
“Shoulda got one for your neck, too.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Hey, that was nice work out there.”
Frank shrugged. “I like the elbow trick.”
“Yeah. An old-timer taught me that. I was trying to wrestle this mope off a chain-link fence one day and this old fart from the backup unit walks up, goes whap-whap with his nightstick and that’s that. He looks at me, disgusted, tells me, ‘Go home, little girl, leave this to the men.’”
“Yeah, I had a couple like that.”
Because she had nothing better to do, for the next five, almost six hours, Frank watched Silvester and Meyers interview their man.
Meyers started off shaking his head. “Look what you did, Irvin. Hitting a woman. You oughta be ashamed a yourself. Didn’t your mama teach you better than that? Huh? And then to let two ladies take you down like that?” Meyers chuckled. “Oh, man. I wonder what your boys are saying about that?”
“They ain’t no ladies,” the perp declared.
Silvester let herself in. She carried a soda and slid it across the table for Irvin. “No hard feelin’s, huh?”
Irvin looked at the soda like it was a bomb.
“All right, honey. This has gotten way out of hand. I just wanted to talk to you. Word is you know something about Dread Knowledge. I was gonna go easy on your PV, I just wanted to talk, but you pulled a dumb on me. Now I know you ain’t dumb, and you know you ain’t dumb, so the smart thing to do is just answer my question. If you can do that we’ll go easy on the charges. I just want you to help me fill in a couple details about Dread. We’ve got a possible suspect and you might be able to help us pin him down. Is that so hard?”
“Who ya suspect?”
Annie said, “You know Alphonse Kincaid. Where was he the night Dread got popped?”
“Alphonse Kincaid?”
Annie nodded and Irvin was off.
Kincaid was a rival for Irvin’s turf and at the time of Dread Knowledge’s untimely demise he was being booked on a larceny charge. Apparently Irvin didn’t know this because he took the bait, firmly placing Alphonse at the scene. In painting the lie he admitted his presence at Dread’s murder. Over the next couple hours Meyers and Silvester probed his inconsistencies, agreed with Irvin and questioned him so deftly that he believed he had the detectives fooled.
When Irvin admitted he’d been packing a Walther PPK at the murder scene, the lieutenant watching with Frank murmured, “Beautiful.”
“That your weapon?” Frank asked.
He nodded, grinning at the glass. “That Annie. She’s whipped cream with a cherry on top. But under all that sweetness?” He slapped his palms together. “A fuckin’ bear trap. Christ, I could use a couple dozen a her.”
Two hours after the Walther admission, the perp was signing a murder confession. Closing the interview door behind her, Annie danced into the squad room waving the signed paper. Frank clapped and Annie executed a low bow. She had sturdy, well-turned legs and the deep grace of her bow made Frank wonder if she was a dancer.
“You’re good.”
“You’re damn right I am, cookie.”
Placing a small bottle of Advil on Annie’s desk, Frank said, “Take a couple of these tonight. They’ll help your neck.”
Rubbing under her hairline, Annie replied, “Tonight, hell. I’m taking one now.” Dry swallowing a pill, she added, “Thanks.”
“Just trying to make sure you don’t call in sick on me. Want to try the cemetery again tomorrow?”
“You bet. I’ll pick you up at nine.”
“Okay.”
Frank made to leave, but Annie called, “Hey. Thanks again for the collar.”
“No sweat. It was fun.”
“You California girls got weird ideas a fun.”
CHAPTER 17
Tuesday, 11 Jan 05—East Village
Oh, yeah. We’re having some fun now. Got to help Annie nail a perp today. Fucker took a swing at her when she tried to cuff him and I jammed him in the balls. Dropped like a coconut and six hours later squealed like a pig. I watched her work him in the box. Very impressive. We were on our way out to the cemetery when she saw the mope, so will try again tomorrow.
So surreal to be at the Ninth. I keep thinking I’ll see Uncle Al come around the corner, then we’ll go next door to Cal’s and he and dad will empty a pitcher.
I took a stab at the case folder. Way harder than I thought. This whole fucking thing’s harder than I thought. You’d think after having this monkey on my back for thirty-six years Td be kind of resigned to it. Td pretty much accepted the idea that I was never going to find out who killed him. Especially after I became a cop and realized the odds of closing stranger-homicides. Eighty percent of the time there’s a link between the vie and the perp that helps seal the deal, but when a stranger kills a vie a lot of time there’s nowhere to go except around and around in circles. That’s what I did for years after he died—mad-dogging every lowlife on the street, wondering if he was the one, waiting every day for Uncle Al to knock on the door and say, ” We got him!” And it just never happened.
Then I became a cop and had to deal with shell-shocked kids just like Td been. Had to break ugly news to wives just like my mother and after a while I tuned it all out. I learned to say and do the right things, but I didn’t feel it anymore. I couldn’t—it’d make me psycho to take on all that pain. So I pushed it away. And it got just as easy to push my own pain away. To drink it away and work it away. So now what? Now what do I do with it?
At first I was hooked in an abstract, professional way. “Gee, here’s this thirty-six-year-old cold case and isn’t this an interesting break?” Then I realized, holy fuck, this is my thirty-six-year-old case. This was me. My whole life. So Tm reading through the case fie this morning and bam! Tm ten years old again. What a p
ain in the ass. And just like when I was ten, I want to find this guy. I want to look him in the eye and I want to hurt him. I want to smash him. Thing is, the bastard’s probably dead. I mean he was a hope-to-die junkie, right? What are the odds he’s still alive? So here lam, almost four decades later, still chasing ghosts. When’s it gonna end?
Maybe when I find out who’s been leaving that shit for him.
Maybe not even then. I don’t know. Feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s box. Should have just left well enough alone and now it’s too late to slam the lid shut. Christ. Oh, well. One day at a time, right? Done all I can do tonight. Wonder how Gail is. Td love to call her. Hell, Td love a lot of things—to catch a killer; solve a mystery for Annie; have a glass of wine with dinner; have my lover back. What I got is a warm bed and a pretty good book. Need to break down and buy some reading glasses. Damn print’s swimming all over. Gotta hold the book halfway to my knees to get it into focus. Life’s a bitch and then you die. Had a vie once had that tattooed across his back. Thought it was funny at the time. Now Tm wondering how much that tattoo cost.
Tm tired. Going to bed. How can I be tired? Didn’t do anything all day. Maybe making up for all those lost nights. Anyway, manana, with luck.
CHAPTER 18
Buckling her seatbelt the next morning Annie informed Frank, “I gotta stop and talk to a witness first. Make sure she’s gonna be in court next week. I’ll only be ten minutes.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatevuh. Listen to you. Miss Patience. Couple days ago ya had ants in ya pants. What happened?”
Frank lifted helpless hands. “What am I gonna do? It’s your case, right? We work it on your schedule, not mine. I know you got dozens more important cases to be working, so I’m glad for whatever you give me. I appreciate it.”
Annie shot Frank a dubious look. At the light she pondered, “Thirty-six years and you’re still lookin’ for the mope that whacked your pops. He musta been a good guy, huh?”
Frank nodded.
“If it was my old man,” Silvester agreed, “I’d be lookin’ too. To give the mope a friggin’ medal. Then to kick his ass for not shootin’ the son of a bitch before he had me. My pops, he shoulda been thrown in the East River the day he was born.”
