Night Work

by Steve Hamilton

  I don’t know if I truly learned how to sleep again, but two years later, I could at least spend a whole night in my bed without seeing Laurel’s face or trying to run to her, running the way you do in a dream, like it’s something your body is trying to invent on the spot. Two years and now here I was, my truce with sleep officially broken, although now instead of walking the streets at night I got to do things like fighting for my life in my own doorway and then spending the next few hours looking for a tie just to prove I didn’t use it to strangle someone.

  Eventually, the body gives out and you go into a strange limbo, somewhere between asleep and awake. I knew that place well. I was there when the sound came to me, a sound that was too familiar …

  Knocking. I sat up straight, looked around the place, at the disaster. Whoever it was knocked on the door again. I got up and opened it.

  It was Detective Shea.

  “If you’re going to come here every morning,” I said, “you gotta start bringing coffee.”

  “What happened to you?”

  I was wondering if he really wanted the full double-column list, but then I realized he was probably talking about my face. “Just a random assault on the street,” I said. “Doesn’t even crack the Top Five this week.”

  “Somebody attacked you? Was it someone you know?”

  “If I tell you who, you’ll have to go charge him. It’s the last thing he needs right now.”

  “Under the circumstances, I think I should really know what happened, Joe.”

  “I’ll tell you when this whole thing is over. I promise.”

  “You’re seriously not going to tell me.”

  “I assume you had some reason to come see me, Detective?”

  “I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” he said, with a sigh of exasperation. He looked past me at the hundreds of CDs all over the floor. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I apologize for the mess. I was rearranging my collection.”

  He nodded his head slowly. “Okay.”

  “I needed something to take my mind off things. Things like being accused of murder.”

  “Nobody accused you, Joe.”

  “You always let your partner run the show like that? You barely say a word.”

  “He’s the senior investigator.”

  “And your job is what, to come check on me every morning? Make sure I haven’t skipped town?”

  “You’re not being fair now.”

  “So what do you really think?” I said. “Your partner’s not here. Tell me if you really think I killed those women.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t see how you could have. Put it this way—you’d have to prove to me that you did.”

  “Well, something tells me you and the Rhino aren’t on the same page, then.”

  “Who told you about his nickname? No, wait, let me guess…”

  “I hear you and Howie have some history.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “He’s your best friend, so I won’t bother defending myself.”

  “I’d like to bring up a possibility,” I said, “if you don’t mind hearing it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I closed the door halfway, then bent down by the doorknob. Shea gave me a puzzled look, eventually leaning down to the same level.

  “This place is pretty old,” I said. “This lock probably hasn’t been changed in fifty years.” I ran my hand along the brass plate, rattled the knob. How many times had it been opened and closed over the years, back when this place was a bus station and this room was the manager’s office?

  “What are you suggesting?” he said.

  “I’m positive that I had my red tie with me when I got back here that night,” I said, figuring what the hell, might as well get that out in the open. If it really was my tie, they were going to find out about it, one way or another. “And I’m equally positive that it’s not here now.”

  “You’re saying somebody broke into your place and took your tie?”

  “Maybe my shoelaces, too.”

  “But you were wearing your tie. If she was killed right after you left … Are you saying the killer got in here that night while you were asleep? That he stole it without waking you up and went back to her place?”

  “No, that doesn’t make any sense. I didn’t go to sleep for a long time, in any case.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know, Detective. I’m trying to figure it out.”

  We both stood up. “So what next?” he said.

  “Are you going to help me go through all my old cases?”

  “Of course,” he said. I thought he might have hesitated for just a split second, but if he did, he recovered well. “Let me go check back in with Detective Rhinehart, and then I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “I want to get started as soon as possible. I should be out there right now.”

  “Joe, do you think it’s smart doing this on your own? Why don’t you give me an hour or so and I’ll come with you.”

  Maybe this is why he’s here, I thought. Maybe he got sent to be my shadow all day long. Either that or he really does want to help me. Or else he just enjoys my company.

  “I’m leaving as soon as I get cleaned up,” I said. “You can catch up with me later if you want. I’ll give you my cell phone number”

  “All right, then.” No hesitation at all. He was smooth—I had to give him that much.

  When he was gone, I took a shower and shaved. I finally got my first good look at my own face in the light of day and saw I had a nice bruise going over my left eyebrow. I looked like a boxer. I put on my jeans from the day before and one of my last clean shirts. Somehow I didn’t think laundry would be a big priority for a while.

  When I got downstairs, Anderson was leaning over the ropes, watching Maurice and Rolando go at it. They stopped as soon as they saw me.

  Maurice mumbled something. Then he remembered to spit out his mouthpiece. “Joe!” he said. “What the hell happened?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I just need to talk to Anderson for a minute.”

  If I had planned on talking to him alone, it clearly wasn’t going to happen. The two fighters stood on the edge of the ring while Anderson grabbed me by the shoulders and looked at my eye. “Who did this?” he said. “Why the hell didn’t you keep your left hand up?”

  “It was a misunderstanding. I’m fine.”

  “What’s with your neck?” He pulled down my collar to check the marks. “It looks like somebody tried to strangle you.”

  “I’m going out to visit some old clients. If I get a chance, I might stop by the hardware store and pick up a new lock for my door upstairs.”

  “What are you saying? You think somebody broke into your apartment?”

  “I just want to be extra careful. That’s an old lock up there now.”

  “Leave it to me,” he said. “You go do what you need to do. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  “Who you gonna go see?” Rolando said. “You think one of your old juvies is the killer?”

  “Holy crap,” Anderson said. “Is that what you’re doing? You’re gonna try to find him yourself?”

  “You can’t do this alone,” Rolando said. “What if you find him?”

  “Yeah, we’ll come with you,” Anderson said. “All of us.”

  I pictured that scene, the four of us standing on someone’s front porch. Sorry to bother you, sir. Don’t mind my three bodyguards. It was the first and last laugh I’d have all week.

  “Detective Shea’s gonna join up with me eventually,” I said. “You don’t have to worry.”

  “Is he carrying heat?” Maurice said.

  Rolando and Anderson both looked at him like he was the dumbest man on the planet.

  “What?” he said. “I was just asking.”

  “Yes,” I said to him. “I’m sure he’s carrying heat.”

  It took me anoth
er minute to convince them to let me go out without them. Finally, I was out of there and in my car. At last, I thought, it’s time to get to work.

  Time to go visit my greatest failures.

  It didn’t take me long to get to my first stop. The Bowmans lived on Franklin Street, right across from the library, not far from where I had grown up myself. As I drove over there, I couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that I was still living so close to that old house on Linderman, when I had hated this place so much as a kid, had promised myself that I’d get in a car as soon as I could buy, borrow, or steal one and drive as far away as I could get and never come back.

  Maybe it was sheer stubbornness that kept me here now. Like I’m going to stay until I finally work things out.

  I parked in front of the house. The houses were packed in tight on this street, but it was quiet today. The normal August humidity was coming back to the Hudson Valley, making everything feel like a steam bath. A good day to stay inside and sit in front of the air conditioner. I stayed in my car for a minute, going over my notes. The Bowmans were the first name on my preliminary A-list, those half dozen cases that stood out as the most obvious places to start. Besides having bad outcomes, these were the clients who were already making me nervous back when I was holding their files, the clients who not only went down in the end but went down with some obvious bad feelings toward me. Either the client himself or someone he left behind—a father or maybe a brother, somebody who might not have been able to let those bad feelings go, and might have nursed them into something even bigger.

  It’s not like I had a detailed checklist or anything. It all boiled down to a gut feeling, these names on my A-list, based on all of the time I spent with the client and the family before everything went wrong.

  I got out of the car and went to the door. I rang the bell, reviewing my basic strategy. I’d be hoping that the man of the house answered. If he didn’t, I’d ask for him without giving my name. When I saw his face, his reaction would tell me everything I wanted to know. It would have to. If it was him … After all the time he’d spent following me, for me to turn the tables, to show up at his door … It would have to rattle him. If I watched him close enough, I would know.

  At least that was the idea.

  I rang the bell again. Nobody home, apparently.

  I still had one card to play. If Mr. Bowman still owned the car detailing business, that’s where he’d probably be.

  I got back in the car and drove down to Washington Avenue, past my old elementary school, where Howie and I had once played on the monkey bars and my biggest problem in life was how to get my hands on a Lee Mazzilli baseball card. Crazy thing was, I had a probationer there now, a kid in fourth grade who reported to me every week because he was caught trying to sell drugs to his classmates.

  The business was down at the end of the street, where Washington hits this crazy intersection with five other streets, cars coming from six different directions, who knows which actually having the right of way. Most of the time you just wait a while, then gun it and hope for the best.

  Bowman’s Detailing was right around the corner on Greenkill. I stopped short of the open garage door.

  “Pull it right in,” a young black man said. I couldn’t help noticing the way he was looking at my car. It obviously needed a lot of help.

  “I’m not here to have the car done,” I said as I got out. “Is Mr. Bowman around?”

  “He’s in the office,” the man said. “But you’re gonna have to move your car if someone else comes in.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  It was a small office. There was just enough room for a counter, a register, and a display stand with various car care products on it. High gloss wax, tire shine, a fragrance you could spray in your car to make it smell new. In my case, it wouldn’t have fooled anybody for a second.

  Another young black man came in through the door to the garage. “Help you, sir?” he said. I recognized him—he was Mr. Bowman’s oldest son, Darius. I knew he was a graduate. That’s what we call anybody who fulfills the terms of probation successfully and who never comes back into the system. He was already out of the program by the time I started. I never would have even met him if his brother hadn’t followed in his footsteps.

  “Is your father here?” Even as I spoke, I knew how I must have sounded. Official, confident. An authority figure. There are some things you can’t turn off. “I’d like to talk to him for a second, if I could.”

  Darius’s chin went up an inch. One simple gesture, but it conveyed a long history of mistrust. “Who can I say is asking for him?”

  “My name’s Joe Trumbull. I was your brother’s probation officer.”

  “I remember you now.”

  “Is your father here?”

  He tapped his fingers on the counter. A full minute went by. At least that’s what it felt like. I looked him in the eye the whole time.

  “I’ll see if he feels like talking to you.” He left me there to wait in the office. As he did, I couldn’t help noticing how easy his movements were. He was in his midtwenties by now, but he had been an athletic star in three sports before being suspended from school.

  Hell, half my clients were black, so no big deal— but it was a simple gut fact that Darius Bowman could run me into the ground if he wanted to. I knew this had to have figured into my putting his family on my list, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not.

  That’s when Milford Bowman came into the room, and any misgivings about my rationale disappeared. The main reason I picked this family was because Milford Bowman, white, black, red, green, or purple, had been the biggest pain in the ass I’d ever come across in eight years on the job.

  “Mr. Trumbull,” he said. It had only been three years, but it looked like half of his hair was gone now. The hair that was left was the color of moonlight. “My son says you’re looking for me.”

  “Just wanted a word,” I said. “How have you been?”

  He nodded his head slowly. “We get by.”

  “Business going okay?”

  “People don’t want to spend money on their cars no more. But we’re still here.”

  “You go up to see Darnell? How’s he doing up there?” Up there being the Auburn Correctional Facility, after starting his term at Coxsackie. It was the Rockefeller laws that put him there—twelve years for possession of eight ounces of crack cocaine. When he killed another inmate in the shower, his round-trip ticket was canceled. Now the only way Darnell would ever leave Auburn would be by transfer to another prison. Or in a wooden box.

  “He lives day to day, Mr. Trumbull. He doesn’t have a choice, does he …”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Why are you here?” he said. “If you just wanted to be sociable, you would have come by here a long time ago.”

  “I was under the impression that I’d be the last person on earth you’d want to see.” I wasn’t about to quote him. On the day Darnell went back to court to have his probation annulled, Mr. Bowman’s exact words were that if he ever saw me again, he’d kill me with his bare hands.

  He let out a long, tired breath. “You know I was fighting for my son’s life. You got kids yourself now?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, when you do, you’ll understand a little bit. Half of it, anyway. Unless you marry a black girl and have black kids. Then you’ll understand a little more.”

  I didn’t need to hear about it again. I knew the numbers. Over 90 percent of drug-related convictions in New York State are black, even though a majority of users are white. As a PO in an interracial city, it was something I had to deal with every day. But that didn’t make Bowman’s son an innocent man.

  “I tried as hard as I could,” I said. “I hope you know that.”

  “We failed him, Mr. Trumbull. We all did.”

  “I guess I can’t argue that one.”

  “My oldest son still takes it hard,” he said. “Now that he’s grown
up, he looks back and blames himself.”

  “Darius has done well. It’s good to see.”

  He nodded at that. It was another sore point for him, the fact that Howard Riley, one of the old-timers at the Kingston office, had kept Darius out of trouble. When it was Darnell’s turn, Riley was retired. That’s how he got me.

  “I won’t take up any more of your time,” I said. “I just wanted to stop by.”

  “You know anything about those two women that got killed this week?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m just saying, you work with the law. You might be able to explain to me how something like that could happen around here. I mean, I know we have our troubles, but two dead women in two days …”

  “They’re doing everything they can to catch the guy,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

  “All right, then.”

  I said good-bye to him. As I was about to leave, he stopped me.

  “Mr. Trumbull,” he said. “I want to say something to you while I have the chance.”

  “Go ahead.” I braced myself.

  “Back when everything was happening with Darnell, I think I might have said some things to you. In fact, I know I did.”

  “Yes?”

  “I promised my wife, God bless her soul, that I would take care of her boys and keep them out of trouble. That was the promise I made to her on her deathbed. You understand what I’m saying?”