by Lee Lamothe
“In the middle of the night? You want to re-think that?”
“Nope. One a.m. Privacy, I guess. So, we went at him a little, then took a break. I went downstairs with Hambone and Brian. I left my partner with Sally in the anteroom. I left Marty in there with the suspect. Sergeant Brown, my partner, came down to the cafeteria and told us Sally was on side, that she’d moved off her position. Ansel was viable. We could go at him raw and dirty. We all came up together and walked into what we walked into.”
“Some guys are going to come at you harder than this, Ray.”
“I could give a fuck. We got the guy killed some poor ladies.”
Djuna Brown was so forlorn that the interviewer felt bad for her.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the interviewer said. “Just formalities, you know? Why don’t you give me a rundown, tell it as you like it. We’ll get to questions afterwards, okay?”
Djuna Brown went through the structure of the case. The poor dead ladies. The Volunteers. How Ansel emerged as a viable, how Sally Greaves was running him, how an after-hours interview was set up. “Ansel Partridge had gone wild. I think Sally came to know that.”
“She could have shot him anytime. Do you know why she waited? Why she picked that time? And not before she brought him in for the interview? Or at the first chance, here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she wanted no witnesses.”
The interviewer stared at her for a moment, then added, “An officer was in the room when she did it.”
“All that matters to me is he was a serial killer, a racist creep, and she smoked him. Good job, too. I don’t care why. The fucker wore his ass for a hat. We all wanted to put him down.” She looked up at the interviewer. “I mean, what good was he?”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Yes, really? Who does?”
Marty Frost told the interviewer about how she was working Ansel Partridge up, when she heard voices out in the anteroom. Then gunshots. Then screaming Sally Greaves with a gun in her hand came through the door and put three directly into Ansel Partridge’s face.“That’s all she wrote.”
“You were armed, Officer. Why didn’t you take her out? You were guarding the suspect, the suspect was your responsibility.”
“Too fast. It happened too fucking fast.”
“The suspect was in your care and control. You let him get wasted.”
“My bad.” She shrugged. “He can sue me.”
Brian Comartin didn’t know anything. He was upstairs, he was downstairs. If Marty Frost said anything, he didn’t hear it. He didn’t care about anything. Marty was okay. Fuck you.
“You’ve got to give me something, man. I can’t go out of here with an empty notebook.”
“Well,” Brian Comartin said, “those speed bumps that loony mayor put on the side streets, to slow down traffic, piss off the motorists? Bad idea. What do you think happens when a cop car or a fire truck hits them, on the way to an emergency?”
“That’s not going to cut it. We got dead cops here.”
“And too many bicycle lanes. Not enough cyclists, and what about in winter when the Express comes down outta Canada, drifting snow to the roofline? Who’s riding a bicycle then? Nobody, that’s who.”
Hambone Hogarth waited in front of the building. By rank he was allowed to look into the Porsche. The blonde lieutenant behind the steering wheel had no remaining face, it was all blood and bone and stuff and an eye on her cheek. Sally must have reloaded on the way down in the elevator, he thought. No face. Not so beautiful now, he thought. He said, “Not so beautiful now.”
One of his Homicide hammers said, “That’s what the dyke said, when the duty desk boys chained her up.” He looked into the Porsche. “Looks okay to me, except for that fucked-up face. A hockey mask and we’re good to go.”
It was noon before the preliminary interviews were finished. As each of them signed off their statements and were told to keep available, they headed down to the cafeteria. The day-shifters and white shirts watched them crossing the room like a lost patrol, sitting in the table farthest away from the sunlight. They were ragged. They looked at one another. No one said anything except, “Wow,” or “Fuck.” Djuna Brown watched the doorway.
When Ray Tate, the last one out of the interviews, came in and sat down, he immediately stood up and said loudly, “I’m going. I’ve had enough of cops and cop bullshit.”
Brian Comartin said, “I’m outta here, too. I’m stopping at Personnel.”
“Me too, poetry man.” Marty Frost nodded. “Can’t take another year of this shit. Just pay me off. See you guys back at the hotel? We still got a suite there?”
“Seven for dinner, the dining room.” Djuna Brown smiled. “We might be late, so wait for us.” She linked her arm through Ray Tate’s. “We’re banging, you know.”
The front of the Jank was jammed with media vehicles, camera crews, and reporters thumbing iPods. The Porsche Carrera was covered with a yellow sheet, a wide area of the parking lot marked off with crime-stage tape. Ray Tate’s Mercury was inside the stage.
The sunlight hurt their eyes. It was the light of another world. Ray Tate linked his arm tighter with Djuna Brown and they went along the west wall of headquarters, looking for transport. Two chargers were inspecting their ghoster for damage from a previous shift before signing it out, one of them consulting a clipboard.
“Yo, taxi.”
The wheelman looked up. “Ray Tate. And a little friend.” He held out his hand and introduced himself. “Quite a night you guys had.”
“Yeah. And our car’s inside the stage. You guys want to cruise the Whistler, look for miscreants?”
“We got a run up the other way. Sorry.”
“Chief’s squad special.” Ray Tate put his hand on the guy’s shoulder. “We’re commandeering.”
“Well, you put it like that, hop aboard. Who the fuck am I?”
Chapter 27
They went into the shower and did nothing but shower. They yawned and shook their heads at each other.
“Does this mean we’re getting old, Ray?”
“Tell you what. We dry off and get into bed. If one of us is still awake in five minutes, then we’ll see.”
“I’m asleep now, Bongo.” Wrapped in a hotel bathrobe, she sat on the bed and called the desk.
“Yes, Inspector Brown.”
“No calls to up here until five o’clock, okay?”
“Yes, Inspector.”
“Is that Gail? How are you?”
“Fine, yes it’s me. I saw on the news you got him. The one who killed Mariam?”
“Sorry, who?”
“Mariam Smith. She worked here? I mentioned her in the spa, that day. And the other women? You said you’d get him.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. We got him. He’s dead.”
“I’m glad. You won’t be disturbed.”
Djuna Brown hung up and lay back on the bed and fell asleep in the middle of a vast yawn. Ray Tate came out of the washroom in a towel. He looked at her, then stared at the print of Whistler’s Mother above the bed.
I can do that, he thought, closing the thick drapes. And I’m going to.
The staff in the lobby knew who they were. The concierge thanked them. The woman on the desk said Mariam could rest in peace. In the dining room the maître d’ showed them to a sparkling table beneath a crystal and silver spider chandelier.
“Please be our guests for dinner this evening,” he said. “The Cliquot is on the way. Miss Mariam was a very good person.”
Brian Comartin looked fresh and scrubbed. He had a suit and tie on and was closely shaven. Marty Frost sat beside him in a gay blue dress of white polka dots. She was made up carefully and there seemed to be less grey in her cornrows.
They all sat, pleased with themselves and one another. The wine steward brought and poured the champagne into flutes.
“Well,” Brian Comartin said, “I guess we should toast something.”
Martin
ique Frost said, “The poor ladies.”
They gestured with their glasses, not clinking, and drank.
Brian Comartin raised his glass, “Retirement.”
After they drank, Martinique Frost said, “China-town.” And then she said, “Stonetown.”
Djuna Brown sipped and held up her glass. “Poor Sally.”
The looked at her, but they knew she was a little different. They toasted.
Hambone Hogarth called in at seven the next morning, waking them up.
“Brown.” She put her hand on Ray Tate’s shoulder. He was still dressed. She was still dressed. They’d collapsed after dinner. She’d been dreaming that Ansel Partridge had done the shooting and he’d taken out Ray. The bullets came out of the gun, destined to miss, but they curved toward him in slow motion, homing in on him as he dodged. It was taking them a very long time. She was glad to be awake. “What is it?”
“Hogarth. I need you to come in. Homicide offices at Jank. Sally wants to talk to you. She’s exercising her rights, but if she gets to talk to you, she’ll talk to us.”
“Not my case. My case is down. You’ve got all you need. You got a witness, you got a gun. What else do you want her to give you? I’m tired, man, I’ve had it. I’m checking out today and going someplace else where they eat snails and drink champagne for breakfast. Au ’voir.”
“An hour. Give me an hour. I’ll have a car waiting down front in fifteen minutes. Bring you in, drop you back.”
She thought about him, in the anteroom where he’d shielded her from Brian’s gun with his body. Casual heroics, instinctive. Cop. “Okay. Okay, but I’m not taking a statement from her. I’m not softening her up for you guys. I just listen.”
“Anything you want. Just talk to her, maybe that’ll move her.”
“Gee.” Djuna Brown sat up. “I hope not.”
She quietly dressed in clean batiks and her slippers. Before she went out the door, she shook Ray Tate’s shoulder. “Raymundo, they need me down at the Jank for a bit. Okay?”
He rolled over. “What for? What time is it?”
“Sally. She won’t talk unless it’s with me first.”
“Fuck it, Djun’. That’s not our case. Our case is down. We should be pricing tickets to Paris.”
“We’ll make it, Bongo. I’ll be back in time for breakfast.”
When she arrived at the Homicide office, Hambone Hogarth walked with her to the interview room and said Sally Greaves was on suicide watch, chained waist and wrists and legs. “You talk to her, then we’ll put some guys in. They’re taking her to arraignment and then, I think, a mental lockup. How’d you guys do, last night? Get much sleep?”
Djuna Brown felt like she was floating in her slippers down the fluorescent corridor. A headquarters security guy was standing in front of the interview room.
“If you’re taping us,” Djuna Brown said to Hambone Hogarth, “I’m not reading her her rights.”
“No problem. They’ll get me when you’re done.”
When Djuna Brown came in, she saw that Sally Greaves was too small for her jumpsuit. The sleeves and the cuffs were rolled. Sally Greaves was staring at her hands, twisting the gold-and-ruby ring around and around.
“Can’t get it off. My knuckles are swollen. It won’t come off and I really want it gone. It’s strangling me.”
“One sec’.” Djuna Brown opened the door. Hambone Hogarth was talking to the security guy. “Ham, I need a bar of soap, a bottle of water, and some paper towels.”
Hambone Hogarth said to the security guy, “Do it.”
While they waited, he said past Djuna Brown’s shoulder, “Sally? Coffee? Anything?”
“I’m fine, Ham. Sorry about all this.”
“No worries, Sal’. It’ll straighten.”
The security guy brought the soap, water, and paper towels. Djuna Brown took them into the room and closed the door. She lathered her hands and took Sally Greaves’ ring finger in her palms and worked it. She felt Sally Greaves staring at her face. The ring, with a little more work, slipped off.
“There you go.” She put the ring on the table and dried her hands. “I’ll voucher it for you.”
“No, I don’t want it. Can you take it with you? Get rid of it. Make sure no one ever wears it, promise.”
“Done.”
“They’re taking me to arraignment, so I’ll be fast. Ham’s guys want a run at me. I made a deal. If I talked to you, then I’d talk to them.”
“Fuck them, Sally. Let me read to you, invoke.”
“No, I want this behind me. My life’s over, I know that. But you said something, upstairs, there, before … it happened. About being loved. Let me tell you about that.”
At eight a.m. the phone in Martinique Frost’s suite rang. She forgot who she was supposed to be and just said hello.
“Ford, down at the lockup? You know Joseph Carr? He wants to see you.”
“That’s not my case.”
“Whatever. He said it’s important. About the Riverbank?”
“Okay.” She hung up and shook Brian Comartin. “I got to go in, Joe Carr wants to talk.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to. Sleep.”
“Five minutes.”
They took a cab. The driver wanted to talk about the shootings at the Jank. They ignored him. At the lockup, Brian Comartin sat on a bench in the morning sun while she went and signed in. She surrendered her weapon.
Inside the interview room, Joseph Carr was already seated, chained hands to the table and feet to the legs of his chair. A face was framed in the window of the door.
“I hear-ed Ansel is dead. That true?”
“Killed last night, Joe. He was a police informant. At least he can’t testify against you, right?”
He shook his head. “Guess not. But I’m going to tell them what they want to know. I want to plead guilty. I’m responsible for those people in Chinatown. I’ll stand before God.”
“It’s good that you feel that way, Joe.” She waited a few seconds. “I had a couple of tough days. What’s up?”
He was off in thought, his forehead knotted. “I been thinking a lot, a lot about that night? On the river? When we was ending our patrol, the night you said that … that lady of yours got beat? Well, I heard, like, a gun shoot. It weren’t loud, like a varmint gun. And I hear-ed a noise, a pinging, like piiiing, you know? When I was a boy my father taught me to shoot an old twenty-two rifle. I missed the target and the bullet skipped off the bumper of his truck. It was an old truck, with a metal bumper? I thought he was going to whip me, but he just laughed.” He shook his head. “I’m glad my dad’s dead. He didn’t like the blacks, but he’d be ashamed, what I did.” He seemed very sad, thinking about disappointing his dad. He shook himself and came back. “So, anyway, that night, the river, I hear-ed a gunshot up the hill and I think that shot hit something, I think it hit that metal sign was up there. No Fishing? No Swimming? The same sound.” He looked sheepish. “I don’t know, important or not.”
“Joe, thanks for this.”
“There maybe was someone yelling, running? But it might’a been another night. It sounded like a man, and your lady was … Well, beat, right? And not shot, right?” He looked into her eyes. “If I remember more, maybe next time you can stay, longer? Talk some?”
“I’ll try.” She stood and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll do my best for you.”
He looked at her. He was crying. “My dad didn’t like the blacks, it was down south. But I think he’d like you.”
Sally Greaves said at first she was sure Ansel Partridge wasn’t their serial killer. “Not until I heard you on the phone. In the anteroom, about how he got his victims. The rink? The bump? That’s how I met Monica. I was at the skating rink, up on Marlborough one night. I love skating. Went every night. When you’re going really fast, no one looks at you too closely, they can’t see if you’re … you know. Ugly? Different? You’re a graceful blur. One night I was up th
ere and this guy went past, so fast he ran me into the boards. Kept going. I didn’t even see him. Monica skated up. I recognized her from the job, I was like all those guys I see in the cafeteria, in the hallways, lusting. I felt as hopeless as they looked.” She laughed. “Men, women, we’re all the same, we all want the same things, but to a different degree.” Her eyes were away, out of the room for a moment, then they came back. “You’ve seen her, right? Monica? Before I … before she died?”
Djuna Brown said, “Just the one time. Two actually, just for second. She was doing assignments during the Stonetown riots. That’s when I saw the ring. I saw her arrive that night, at the Jank. In the red Porsche. She was a beautiful girl.”
“I bought that for her. I stole the money for ghost informants. Stupid. Jewellery. A sports car. She was half my age.”
“We can all fall in love with the wrong person, Sally. Although sometimes it turns out to be the right person. You don’t know. You never know until you know.”
Sally Greaves smiled. “You mean you falling in love with Tate?”
“No. I mean him falling in love with me.”
“You have to get past that, whatever you think you did wrong.” Sally Greaves nodded. “So. I heard you on the phone in the anteroom, how Ansel got his victims out of the skating rink. And then raping them on the rohip and the cleaning up of the victims. I told him how to do that. He came by one night for dinner with Monica and I and I had too much wine, talked about cases, one of them a case where the doer drugged his victims, cleaned them up afterwards to get rid of evidence. I gave him his M.O.”
“You were a victim, too, Sally. They used you. They set you up and they whipsawed you.”
