by Diane Kelly
He stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn around. Everything in him told him to run. To run as fast as he could out to Wes’s car and to never look back. To get away from her and to stay away.
But he couldn’t do it. Had never been able to do it.
Slowly, he turned around.
By this time, she’d stepped up to the front counter. He saw tears in her deep brown eyes.
“It is you!” Her smile revealed an incomplete set of teeth. “I knew it!”
She was out the door that led from the food prep area and standing in front of him before he could even take a breath.
And he knew right then it was all over. The basketball at the Y, the B average in school, the bedroom and bathroom he had all to himself.
He was no longer blessed, but damned.
Damned straight to hell.
And, this time, he could blame no one but himself.
THIRTEEN
HOUSE CALLS
Megan
Thursday morning, the W1 Division captain called the staff in early for a briefing. We officers—uniformed, plainclothes, and detectives alike—crowded into the conference room.
The Big Dick had been lucky enough to snag a chair up front. Summer had been unlucky enough to land the seat next to him. By the time I arrived, it was standing room only. I managed to squeeze myself into a small space between two male officers, a Latino named Hinojosa and a stocky African-American named Spalding, both of whom were veteran cops in their thirties. After offering them a nod in greeting, I turned my attention to the front of the room and Captain Leone, a fortyish guy with spongy dark hair and wiry eyebrows that threatened to reach out and grab you. Terrifying. Brigit sat at, and on, my feet, her rigid stance indicating she didn’t like being boxed in by the crowd. Couldn’t much blame her. With any luck, this briefing would be quick.
The captain stepped up to the podium and scanned the group, his face blank with a practiced impassivity perfected during years as a homicide detective. If I hoped to make detective someday, I should probably work on my poker face. My emotions tended to be obvious, as evidenced by my gastronomic response to seeing that bludgeoned corpse on Monday.
“Listen up, folks,” Leone barked, the crowd immediately quieting in response. “It’s been a busy week. We’ve had reports of two home burglaries, one in Mistletoe Heights, the other in Fairmount. The thieves took the usual. Jewelry. Electronics. Silverware. Both homes were unoccupied at the time. The couple who owns the first house was on a cruise. The second house was owned by a single woman who was away at her cousin’s wedding in Sonoma, California. Best we can tell, both burglaries took place in the late afternoon, after school hours but before most people get home from work. Residents of Mistletoe Heights and Fairmount are understandably concerned. Spend a little more time in these neighborhoods, let the people know we’re looking out for them. All right?”
Murmurs of assent came from the officers gathered.
“Okay. Item number two, the murder at Forest Park. I’ll invite Detective Jackson up here to give y’all an update.”
As Detective Jackson stood from her seat and made her way to the front of the room, Captain Leone stepped aside to allow her to take the podium.
Jackson leaned forward, resting her arms on the podium and curling her fingers over the front lip. “A few more details we’ve found out. Fingerprint analysis positively identified the victim as Brian Keith Samuelson. Samuelson has a conviction for possession of methamphetamines and has long been suspected of doing some occasional dealing in the area. Unfortunately, though we’ve now identified our victim, we still have no idea who might have killed him. Since we found drugs but no money on Samuelson, we suspect his murder was a drug deal gone bad. The medical examiner put his time of death around eight o’clock Sunday evening.”
Eight o’clock Sunday night? That was about the time I’d been kissing Seth good-bye at my apartment. And what a kiss it had been. Soft. Warm. Somehow sweet and sexy at the same time, making my toes curl and my mind visualize white picket fences and vegetable gardens …
“We have one potential person of interest,” Jackson continued, pulling me from my picket-fenced reverie. “A woman who works at the zoo was walking to the bus stop on University a few minutes after her shift ended at eight. She says a man ran past her down Colonial Parkway headed toward Park Place. He had dark curly hair. He was wearing dark clothing. Average height. She estimated the man to be in his mid-twenties. Given that it was dark outside she didn’t get a good look at him, but she believes he’s either a dark-skinned Caucasian or a light-skinned African-American, but she said he could be Asian, middle-Eastern, or Latino.”
So the only thing we knew for sure was that the guy who ran past her wasn’t unusually pale or dark. That didn’t narrow it down much. The pinched expression on Jackson’s face told me she’d been frustrated by the vague description, too.
She held up a black-and-white drawing penned by a police sketch artist. The drawing showed a young man with lightly shaded skin and short, dark curls.
The Big Dick snorted. “The guy was killed by Bruno Mars?”
“Nah,” replied one of the older officers in the middle of the crowd. “That’s a mid-eighties Michael Jackson.”
Everyone seemed to be chiming in with opinions now, claiming the drawing looked like everyone from Usher to Shemar Moore to a young Barack Obama. Of course my mind went straight to Chris Brown, who had a documented history of violence.
“Enough!” Jackson sliced the air with her hand, cutting off the chatter. “If you interact with anyone fitting this description,” she said, “find out where the person was Sunday night. Got it? I’m going out this morning to speak with a couple of men in W1 who have meth convictions on their records.” Her eyes met mine through the crowd. “Officer Luz, I’d like you to go with me.”
Instinctively I stood up straighter, nodding. Yay! Detective Jackson was including me in the case! My first thought was that she’d asked me to accompany her because of my impressive detection skills, but when Brigit shifted on my feet, I realized the detective was probably more interested in my furry K-9 partner. Having a drug-detection dog along on the interrogation could be useful. I was only along for the ride, or, more precisely, because I could give Brigit a ride. I wasn’t a cop. I was a chauffeur. For a dog.
“Officer Mackey,” Jackson said, turning her eyes to the Big Dick, “I want you to escort me. Both of the men we’ll be visiting have violent records.”
She didn’t explain why she’d chosen Derek in particular to serve as her security detail, but she didn’t have to. The Big Dick had a reputation for being the bravest cop in W1, maybe the bravest in all of FWPD. Of course there’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and Derek sometimes crossed it. So far he’d been lucky when he had crossed the line. At any rate, he’d make a good bodyguard for Jackson should things go south during this morning’s visits. Part of me felt insulted she didn’t think I’d be sufficient backup for her. Another part of me was thankful I only had to worry about keeping myself and Brigit safe.
On hearing the detective announce that I’d be working with the Big Dick this morning, Summer turned around from her seat next to him and offered me a sympathetic expression before forming a gun with her thumb and index finger and pretending to blow her brains out. I nodded in return. Yeah, I’d rather put a bullet in my brain than work with Derek, but I wasn’t about to let Detective Jackson down. Looked like my brains would remain intact for the time being.
Jackson stepped aside and Captain Leone returned to the podium. “Stay safe out there. You’re dismissed.”
While the room emptied, I turned sideways to better shield Brigit from the moving crowd. Didn’t want her paws getting stepped on. Once everyone had left the room, only Detective Jackson, the Big Dick, Brigit, and I remained.
Jackson jerked her head toward the door. “Let’s go, folks.”
Ten minutes later, the four of us pulled up to a house on East Dashwood Street, wh
ich lay in the northeastern quadrant of W1 and dead-ended at the railroad tracks that ran just west of and parallel to Interstate 35. An old, boxy sedan sat cockeyed in the front yard. Oxidized chocolate brown paint covered most of the car, though the driver’s door, which had been replaced with a door scavenged from a salvage lot, was robin’s egg blue. The house, like most others in this area, was around ninety years old. With some TLC and a designer touch, it could make a beautiful home. As is—with its cracked windows, faded white paint, and cushionless couch on the porch—not so much.
Jackson had ridden with Derek in his cruiser. They waited at the edge of the street while I clipped Brigit’s leash to her collar and let her out of the back of my car.
Jackson’s eyes cut to a trio of black plastic garbage bags sitting on the curb. “Have your dog check the trash.”
“Sure.” I led Brigit over to the bags and let her give them a thorough sniff. Trash left at the curb was fair game for a warrantless police search. No probable cause needed.
While my partner put her nose to work, Detective Jackson gave me and Derek the rundown.
“This house belongs to Sabina Patterson,” she explained, “mother of Darius Patterson. Darius has two drug convictions. The first was for possession of meth. The second was for possession with intent to distribute. He was caught with crystal meth and crack in quantities large enough to indicate he was dealing in the stuff.”
Interesting …
The detective continued to fill us in on the potential suspect. “Darius has two assault convictions, one for breaking a guy’s arm after a dispute at an apartment complex and the other for briefly choking his own cousin with a strand of ribbon snatched off a gift at the family Christmas celebration in 2008.”
“Choking, hmm?” I said, thinking back to the ragged neck on the murder victim. “Sounds familiar.”
“My thought exactly,” Jackson replied. “Luckily for the cousin, their granny intervened and knocked Darius out with a cast-iron skillet.” She went on to tell us that, unluckily for Darius, Granny had pulled the frying pan off a hot stove, leaving him not only unconscious, but also with first-degree burns on his forehead.
“Serves ’im right,” Derek said.
I was inclined to agree. “Did he get jail time for the assaults?”
Jackson nodded. “Spent four years in the Glossbrenner Unit down in the valley. He was released three months ago.”
The question now was whether he was back in the drug game and, if so, whether he was connected to the murder in Forest Park.
Though Brigit had thoroughly sniffed, snuffled, and snorted her way around the garbage bags, she gave no alert. I gave her a nice scratch behind the ears to reward her efforts. “The bags are clear.”
“Okay, then,” Jackson said. “Let’s roll.”
We walked up to the porch, which creaked under our collective weight, threatening to give way. Derek positioned himself at an angle, resting his right hand on his belt near his gun. He spread his legs slightly and bent his knees, ready to move fast if needed. Jackson stood next to him, while Brigit and I took up a spot to the rear left.
Jackson rapped firmly on the door. Rap-rap-rap.
A moment later, we heard another creak, though this one came from the flooring behind the front door. The door did not open, however.
“I know you’re there!” Detective Jackson called. “We heard the floor creak. Open up.”
A moment later the door swung in to reveal an unsmiling black woman in a satin head scarf, zippered terrycloth robe, and cheap open-toe house shoes. “What do you want?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Patterson.” Detective Jackson handed her a business card. “I’m Audrey Jackson with the Fort Worth PD. I’d like to speak with your son.”
Mrs. Patterson gave the card back to the detective. “He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“How should I know?” Mrs. Patterson frowned. “He don’t tell me everywhere he’s goin’. He’s a grown-ass man.”
“If he’s a grown-ass man,” Jackson replied, nonplussed, “why’s he still living with his mother?”
Touché.
A door opened down the hallway behind the woman and a man stepped out wearing nothing but a white tank top and a pair of wrinkled XXXL boxers. He certainly was a grown-ass man. His ass had grown to epic proportions. Clearly the guy had not spent his time in prison at the gym or exercising in the yard, sculpting his glutes. Perhaps he’d chosen to curl up next to the fence with a classic novel, maybe something by Steinbeck or Tolstoy. A copy of Hustler was probably more like it, disguised behind an issue of Golf Week.
Other than his ass the guy was average sized, his skin the color of coffee with cream. Unlike our suspect, however, Darius had no curls. He wore his hair shorn nearly to the scalp, the burn scar from the frying pan visible on his forehead. Still, the haircut looked fresh. It was possible he’d purposefully had it cut and styled since Sunday.
Darius rubbed his eyes. “Hell, Mama! Who’s coming by this earl—” He stopped speaking when he spotted us in the doorway.
Jackson waved him forward. “Come here, Darius. We’d like to talk to you a minute.”
“You got a warrant?” Mrs. Patterson asked.
“No,” the detective said.
Mrs. Patterson waved her son back. “Then he doesn’t have to tell you nothin’.”
“That’s true,” Jackson replied, “but if he doesn’t talk to me now, he may find himself talking to me later down at the station.”
Mrs. Patterson was not deterred. “He’ll take his chances.” With that, she slammed the door in our faces.
Jackson pushed past me with a huff. “Well, that was productive.”
We climbed back into our cars and drove to the next suspect’s place. Owen Haynes lived in a house, too, his being a yellow model with green shutters located on Carlock Street. Though Haynes’s home was as old as the one Darius Patterson lived in, it was slightly better maintained. There was no car parked in the drive and the curtains had been pulled tightly shut.
“This is a rental,” Jackson explained as we walked to the door. “Haynes’s girlfriend leases it.”
I wound Brigit’s leash tighter around my hand to keep her close. “What’s the scoop on Owen?”
“He’s racked up convictions for both possession of crystal meth and assaulting the police officers who’d arrested him. Rumor has it he put up a damn good fight. He went after them with a pocketknife. Broke two fingers on one officer and stabbed the other in his upper arm.”
Yikes.
Derek’s reaction was the polar opposite of mine. He smiled and cracked his knuckles, as if hoping for a brawl. “If he puts up a fight today, he won’t know what hit him.”
“What does Haynes look like?” I asked. “Anything like the guy in the sketch?”
Jackson pulled out her cell phone, tapped the screen a few times, and held it up to show me the screen. “You tell me.”
The photo on the screen depicted a man in his twenties with dark, loose curls surrounding his face. His hair was longer than that on the man shown in the police sketch, but a recent trip to Supercuts could account for the difference. He appeared to be mixed race, with a high percentage of Caucasian relative to African-American. His skin was a café au lait tone.
My eyes moved from the screen to the detective. “There’s a definite resemblance.”
Dare I hope that we’d find Haynes at home bearing scratches or other telltale defensive wounds and put this case to a quick rest? Yeah, I dared. Chalk it up to rookie idealism.
We walked up to the door and assumed the same positions we’d taken earlier at the Pattersons’ residence. Jackson knocked on the door. Knock-knock-knock-knock. My heart knocked in my chest right along with her.
We stood there a full thirty seconds before Jackson tried again. Knock-knock-knock.
Still no answer.
The detective tried one last time. Knock-knock. Nothing. “Let’s try the neighbors.”
The older retired couple who lived in the house on the left had nothing to offer.
“We don’t get out much,” the woman said. “I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone over there.”
“Me, neither,” her husband added. “It’s been awhile.”
The detective handed the man her card. “Call me if you see anyone at the house, okay? But it would be best if you don’t let them know we’ve been by. Understand?”
The man dipped his head. “Sure do.”
The young, scraggly man who answered the door at the house on the right claimed he hadn’t seen anyone at the house recently, either. He scratched at the greasy hair at his temple. “I think Owen may have taken off. For good.”
“So you knew him?” Jackson asked.
“Not good or nothin’.” The guy’s nose twitched. “I mean, I just seen him out working on his car every once in a while. That’s all.”
Jackson handed him a card, too. “If Owen or his girlfriend show up, I’d appreciate it if you gave me a call ASAP.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Despite his assurance, I had my doubts he’d contact the police. He seemed more like the type who would let Haynes know we were on his trail.
We tried a couple of houses across the street, but nobody was home.
“Looks like we struck out,” Jackson said, turning to head back to the cars. “You two cruise by here on occasion, give me a call if you see any cars or people.”
“Will do,” I said.
Derek tugged on the waistband of his pants, jostling his nards, a habitual behavior that disgusted me though it seemed to give him some satisfaction. “Anything you say, Detective.”
“How about I give you a ride back to the station?” I suggested to the detective. “Let Mackey and his muscles get back out on the streets.”
My compliment was backhanded, meant to manipulate Mackey so he wouldn’t fight my proposal to give Jackson a ride back to the office. I wanted to hear more about the burglaries Captain Leone had mentioned at this morning’s meeting, and see what I might learn.
Mackey eyed me suspiciously, but Jackson shrugged. “Fine by me. Let’s go, Officer Luz.”
