Ray Tate and Djuna Brown Mysteries 3-Book Bundle

by Lee Lamothe

  Djuna Brown caught Ray Tate’s eye and glanced down at Sally Greaves’s left hand. A gold snake was wrapped around her wedding finger, in its mouth a tiny ruby apple. The same custom-made ring, she remembered, as the gorgeous blonde lieutenant at the staging area had worn. Djuna Brown felt very good about this, but she didn’t know why. Ray Tate, she saw, looked confused. Ray, Ray, she thought, how can you be an artist when you miss the possibilities of life in front of you? She thought this might be profound in some way and noted to ask him that later. Someone for everyone, she thought, even brutal cops who forgot themselves.

  Hambone Hogarth missed it all. He told Sally Greaves they were going to discuss the dead women’s case. “If you’d like, we can sit somewhere else.”

  “No, it’s okay. This is the case you like the suicided Volunteer for?”

  “Well, with the white-on-black porn on the walls and the videotapes, yeah, we’re thinking.”

  “But these weren’t sex cases,” Djuna Brown said. “He just beat them and left them dead. We’re thinking a race killer.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Sally Greaves thought for a moment as if remembering something. “On one of the training courses at Quantico there was a lecture where they said some men beat one woman to get aroused, then go and find the victim they really want. Most of the time the second victim isn’t physically violated in an exterior way. Raped, sodomized, terrorized, but left in apparently normal outward physical condition, left alive so he can come by later and observe her in her afterlife. He uses the first attack, the fatal or sometimes near fatal one, as an aphrodisiac. Could this be that kind of case?”

  Djuna Brown nodded. She could listen to that voice all day. “It could be. It makes sense, you look at it like that. A pervert, ramping himself up.”

  “These white power guys, they see themselves as patriots, not criminals. I can’t see one of them going off without leaving a marking of some kind. A swastika carved on the victim, that kind of thing. A way to strike terror, send their message.” She turned to Hambone Hogarth. “Did anyone do a data drag to look for ancillary straightforward rapes at about the same time?”

  “Well, Sally, we were a little late getting onto this. We’re just getting into it now. Frankly, we wouldn’t be pushing it like we are, except someone high up put in a word for Ray, here, on the Chinatown arson and gave him magic powers. He’s using them where he can. So, he’s got some temporary weight and we have to move a little more aggressively.”

  She smiled. “Willard Wong.” She asked Ray Tate if he knew Willard Wong.

  “At the Chinatown fires. We spoke a little. He went on about generals and sergeants. I figure he, for some reason, reached into his bag of contacts and put in the word. I don’t know why. I just wanted to shoot him.”

  “Willard Wong is undergoing rehabilitation, self-rehabilitation. He’s getting older, more spiritual, closer to meeting his ancestors and having to answer some uncomfortable questions about his behaviour.” Sally Greaves spoke as if gossiping about a neighbour over the back fence. “We’re all over Willy.”

  “Well,” Ray Tate said, “for whatever reason, we got some weight, here. We did good work, or at least Marty Frost did, on the Volunteers who firebombed Chinatown. So I’m parlaying that goodwill, like Hambone said, into this case.”

  “Speaking of which.” Hambone Hogarth took a notebook from his pocket. “We got little or nothing from the guys you had picked up in Chinatown, Ray. They’re going for the arson murders, but on the dead women, nothing. After the raid on Corey Garnett’s house, one of my guys went back at them with the suicide and the white-on-black porno. Both of them were convincingly shocked, my guy said. Garnett was a straight shooter, never catted around, was focused solely on building a compound up north where there were no blacks or Chinese or democrats or anything not God-fearin’. Raising his family right. We talked to the wife. No hope there. She says we made it all up to protect the Chinese and blacks who have corrupted the city. So, if it was Garnett, he was keeping it on the real down-low when he was with the cadre or his family.”

  “But he isn’t ruled out, right?” Ray Tate asked. “The last lady, our survivor, was found on the riverbank the same night the Volunteers were out repelling boats from Canada. Maybe our guy hung around after the other boys left? An earlier victim was a black prostitute who worked the men on the boats. So there’s a connection there, to two of them anyway. All blacks, no motive.” He was desperate, reaching, and he knew it.

  Sally Greaves knew it too. She asked if anyone did workups on the other victims. “Maybe the other women had some connection to the river, to the men on the boats? In their backgrounds?”

  Hambone Hogarth shook his head. “Look, Sally, we fucked this one up. We’ve done it before and I’m sure we’ll do it again. We get stupider, not smarter, the more we’re in business. Reverse Darwinian. Another couple of decades and we’ll all be testifying on all fours.”

  Sally Greaves gave them all a protruding smile. “We can put it on him, if we want. We can do anything, especially if he’s dead. You want us to find something in his stuff, ties him in?”

  Hambone Hogarth mused for moment. “But if the guy, the real guy, goes off again, then what? I don’t mind charging a dead goof for this, but I’d hate to have to apologize to the goof’s family.”

  “I guess. Look, why don’t I put some of my kids into the files, see if anything comes up, might give you a point?” She looked at each of them, peering through the granny spectacles. “Give me a couple of days, get this Volunteer nonsense out of the way.”

  Ray Tate wanted to ask about the snake ring. He couldn’t find a way into it. In his imagination the image of Sally Greaves grappling with the blonde lieutenant was disturbing and intriguing, both. He wanted to know how the relationship came to pass. He sat mute, trying not to stare at the snake and ruby.

  Sally Greaves got up and gathered her remaining half-banana and her thermos and elegant china cup. “Let’s see what my little wizards come up with. Maybe there’s some stinko stuff from the other rezes.” She made a crowded, goofy smile. “Me, with what you’ve told me? I’d go to the pervert side of the menu.”

  Hambone Hogarth and Ray Tate rose to their feet, well-trained schoolboys. When Sally Greaves was gone, Hambone Hogarth remained standing. “You guys can hang in if you want. Or I’ll see you in the morning after Sally’s people get done. I’m gonna fly. We’re setting up a press conference tomorrow, announce the Volunteers’ conspiracy.”

  When Hogarth had left, Ray Tate and Djuna Brown sat in the vast cafeteria, looking at each other.

  “We okay to go home, Ray? The Whistler or your place.”

  “We’re okay, Djun’. We talked it out. We’ll put it away, both of us.” Idly, he put his hand on hers. “Nice pick-up, by the way, spotting the ring. I couldn’t have imagined that. I don’t know if it’s weird or not.”

  “I don’t know. I like it. Look at us. Who’d have thought, this, us? This is strong, I know that. What Sally and the blonde have, they must have gone through some stuff to make it work. Just like us.”

  He stood up. He’d left the painting from that day out in plain view. It disturbed him that she might see it before he could look at it with fresh eyes and maybe decide to destroy it. “The Whistler. Let the State pay for the gin.” He looked at his watch. “I should call Marty, tell her maybe it isn’t looking good for the Volunteers. We’re going to have to move out, wider.”

  “Let’s hold off. I’ve got that guy from down south, Missouri, coming in that thinks his missing daughter might be the survivor on the riverbank. Maybe he’ll give us a lead. Maybe Sally’s kids will come through with a connection between the Volunteers and the poor dead ladies. Let’s call Marty in the morning. You never know, right? Be nice to have a bit of good news for her.” She made a small grin. “I’ll bet anyway she’s having a quiet night of poetry reading.”

  The Irish maintenance man was pushing a mop along the tile hallway in the lobby. He leered at Dju
na Brown. She gave him a sweet smile.

  They drank gin and taps in the tub, then they drank gin and taps in the bed. While he slipped asleep, she thought about the day. A bad time had confronted them, and they’d confronted it. A bigger problem, what to do when she was shipped back north, was looming. With the worst of the bug just about over, city cops would come back on the roster. The State wouldn’t leave her seconded forever. It was unimaginable that she abandon the Spout. But it was imaginable not to stay with Ray Tate. She let her mind roam through the day, but not the night before.

  She dozed dreamily and at dawn snapped awake and rolled onto him, and his hands moved over her body of their own volition. “Ray?”

  “Ah, look, give me ten minutes more, okay. You’re killing me. I got a gun.”

  “No, no, not that. How come Sally Greaves didn’t offer to go into the background of the Volunteers for us? Dig for pervo stuff? Somebody with a free-range hard-on? She’s been drilling into them for quite a while.” She folded her arms on his chest, put her chin on her forearms, and looked at him until his eyes opened. “Did you get the feeling Sally was trying to steer us off the Volunteers?”

  Ray Tate thought about it. “She and Hambone are friends, good friends. With a little help from Sally, he could just close the dead ladies case. That would be easier. Just close it between them, put it on the dead Volunteer, have a press conference. And if Sally wanted it done like that, well, she’s a good pal to have owing you a favour.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “maybe they’d close it dirty. Except we’re in there, right? Someone up the chain of command got a call, probably from your pal Willy Wong, to put you into play, and now they have to be careful. You’re not one of them. You have to be satisfied.”

  Chapter 19

  Samual-with-two-A’s Darius Evans looked like what he was. A scratch farmer who’d spent most of his life bent at the waist, putting in and pulling out. His hair was white and tight to his skull and his face was seamed. He wore the simplest of work shirts, tucked into clean but worn khakis, and a wide, old tie that was tied too short. His eyes were a little sunken after his all-night drive north. His hands were rough as bark, but his fingers were long and tapered like a pianist’s. When he shook Djuna Brown’s hand, the callouses against her palm were thick, but his long fingers gentle, wrapping softly and gently around hers. She read him as a man of huge personal strength and modesty. She saw a worn black bible, with pages edged in flaking gold leaf, in his coat pocket.

  “Djuna? Is that a freedom name? That your parents gave you, if you don’t mind my asking, Officer Brown?”

  Tiny beside him in her little slippers, she guided him across the Sector reception room and shook her head. Strange that she’d have the same conversation in two days. “No. My dad read about a woman in Paris named Djuna. He liked it and I got it.”

  Inside an interview room she let him sit where he wanted. There was no percentage in controlling the format. She instinctively knew this man could do no harm except in back-to-the-wall defence, and even then he’d only use the minimum strength required. He reminded her of her father, a cab driver who parked with his inside light on and devoured books of any kind. Solid men. Men busting themselves the life they could.

  She offered him coffee or a drink of any kind.

  He declined politely and she knew he didn’t want to inconvenience her.

  “I’m getting myself a root beer.”

  “Well,” he said. “They don’t make root beers like they used to. No roots, I guess. And beer’s a sin.” He chuckled. “But I’d appreciate it if it’s no trouble and I’m sure it’ll be fine as long as there’s no roots or beer in it.”

  He stood until she left the room, leaving the door open so officers passing would know he wasn’t a suspect, that there might be a victim or a victim’s bereaved family on site, to keep down the yelling and boisterousness.

  She was punching buttons on the beverage machine when Ray Tate came in. He showed her a digital image on his cellphone taken from an awkward angle to show enough of the victim’s face without revealing the full extent of the damage. It had been almost impossible. “He should be able to tell from this. If not, we’ll have to take him down there. You want to work him alone?” He wanted her to deal with policing that was the opposite of the Stonetown riots. “I think you should, Djuna. If he can do it. If you can do it.”

  “He can do it, if he has to, Ray. So can I. He’s got a strength to him. If that’s his kid on the tubes, I just found out why she survived.”

  They went down the corridor to the interview room. He put his hand on her arm. “This is the real work, Djun’. That other stuff, that was the anomaly.”

  She looked at him with sadness. “I know.”

  “I’m going to meet up with Marty and Brian, at the Bottomless. Call me when you’re done, come on over.”

  When she entered, Samual Evans stood and waited until she closed the door softly, put the cans of root beer on the table, and sat, then sat himself. He waited until she’d pulled the tab off her drink before doing his own. He waited until she’d sipped before he took a swallow. Ladies first.

  “Mr. Evans, I need to recap. You reported your daughter, Eve, missing the day before yesterday. Your report, forwarded from Jefferson City, Missouri, PD, indicates you always spoke to her at least a couple or three times a week, that when she didn’t call for more than a week, you went to the police station. You said Eve lived alone here in the city, that she was a documentarian filmmaker, that you didn’t know if she had a boyfriend. Jefferson City forwarded the report to our missing persons unit.” She looked at the follow-up, which was skimpy. A policewoman had gone to Eve Evans’s address, an apartment just on the dirty edge of Stonetown’s development where artists and students lived in rundown rented lofts, and confirmed she hadn’t been seen recently by either-side neighbours or the building’s superintendent. The section on the form suggesting follow-up actions had been left blank. It was minimalist policing.

  “Did you know, Officer Brown, the first two slaves off a slave ship were sometimes given the names Adam and Eve? I didn’t know that when I named her. The history to it. I named her Evening. Evening Evans. Because when her mother and I were young and we bought the patch we’d sit on kitchen chairs holding hands in front of the house looking at evening fall, each night. I thought it was the most beautiful thing, to sit on land you owned, well, maybe with the bank, but you had a stake in it, and you could watch evening come down as if you owned it. My baby would be that beautiful and I’d name her after those happy moments. I didn’t think how it would sound, when people shortened it to Eve. For a long time she got teased about being called Eve Evans, but she came to like it. She said it was a good name for filmmaker. For a long time she was Eve Evans, and then E.E., and when she did her first documentary about a cancer lady she brought it down to Jefferson City and they showed it at the film school and there on the screen was ‘An Evening Evans Project.’ I was so proud. Her mother had died the year before of cancer. At the end it was dedicated to the memory of her mother.”

  Djuna Brown recognized he was diverting. His all-night drive north must have been a babbling time in his mind. He’d do anything not to have to leave the interview room to find out if his daughter was one of the poor ladies. In his mind was a wispy cloud of hope that his Eve was off on a film expedition, maybe in Hollywood on a filmmaking course. You could live a long time in that trace of wispy cloud, even as it faded away. She wished Martinique Frost could meet this man. Marty could chat with him about all manner of various stuff and unearth from him what was needed to be known.

  She softly cleared her throat. “Mr. Evans, the simplest thing to do is for me to show you a picture of the … the lady in the hospital. If you say that it isn’t her, I’ll take you to our missing persons unit and they’ll do a more in-depth interview with you about your daughter. We’ll get them to prioritize it, we’ll get it in the media, on the Internet, on the film-industry related websites. We’ll get i
t out to veterinarians, dog walking services, everybody. Wherever she is, she’ll see she lost the rhythm for a bit and was a little careless and she’ll contact you or us. Can I show you the picture?”

  “Veterinarians? Dog walkers? No. She hated dogs, feared them.” He smiled at Djuna Brown, relief apparent. “Before I moved to Jefferson City, we had the patch down south, she saw a dog chase down a gopher and rip it up and it made her sick, what an animal could do to another animal. When she tried to save the gopher, the dog nipped her pretty good, here on the hand. Did this lady in the hospital have a dog? It isn’t Eve, then.” He sat back relaxed, his stoic attitude softening into relief although not pleasure. “I feel sorry, though, for the family whose daughter it is. I’ll pray for them.”

  Djuna Brown made a small happy smile. “Okay, then. It seems this girl was out walking her dog when she was attacked. She said the dog, Harris, saved her.”

  “Harris?” Samual Evans, his voice croaking, said, “Harris?”

  She felt the case curve on itself. “Harris, we think it was her dog. She said Harris saved her.”

  Samual Darius Evans’s shoulders sagged. “Could she have said Horace?”

  “Who’s Horace?”

  “I’d better look at that picture, Officer, please.”

  Djuna Brown opened Ray Tate’s cellphone and scrolled to the photograph of the survivor. She handed it to Samual Evans.

  “It’s Evening.” He was finally overcome and his voice cracked. “My baby.”

  Belted in, Djuna Brown drove to the hospital. Samual Evans sat in the shotgun seat, unbelted, but she didn’t comment on it as she did when Ray Tate was in the vehicle.

  “I got it for her when she moved up north to go to school. A dangerous place, up here. We named it Horace because Horace Smith was half of Smith & Wesson, the gun people. Down home everyone has a gun. She was a good shot. She knew guns and wasn’t afraid of them. I’m afraid I made her take it. She didn’t want to. Up north, she said, was people who used their brains instead of their guns. But I insisted. I wouldn’t give her my blessing unless she took Horace. I wouldn’t sleep. And she wouldn’t come up here without my blessing. So, she took it. When we spoke on the telephone, I’d ask, ‘You keeping Horace nearby? Keeping him fed?’ She’d say, ‘Yep, Dad. Me and Horace double-date all the time.’ She laughed. She was humouring an old man.” He slipped into a reverie, his lips moving in recall of past conversations, and Djuna Brown drove slowly to the hospital while he nodded to himself at the windshield.