Bleeding Hearts

by Teri White

  The thick black coffee burned his gullet. “Gotta go,” he said, taking one last gulp.

  She untwined herself from the chair to give him a hug. “What about tonight?”

  “I’ll have to see. No promises. The thing in the park might screw up my whole day.” His hands slid down her back until the fingers were gently massaging the firm flesh inside the silky panties.

  “Well, lemme know,” she said, going back to her bagel.

  Wondering what she did on the nights he worked, Spaceman moved carefully down the narrow outside staircase that led to her third floor apartment. One good tremor and the whole damned thing would collapse. Probably with him on it.

  Maybe it was time to think about losing those fifteen extra pounds.

  Except that it would probably be easier to find a girl who lived on the ground floor.

  Once inside his car, he radioed headquarters that he was rolling on the dead body in Griffith Park. As he spoke, he stared into the rearview mirror.

  The pink Lady Schick had done a perfectly miserable job of shaving his face.

  Chapter 5

  Spaceman Kowalski liked being a cop.

  He didn’t like morning traffic. Hunched over the steering wheel of his ’76 Chevy, he swore and sweated his way from Mandy’s place on Beverly toward the park. Finally, he pulled the bubblegum light from under the seat and shoved it onto the roof. With that flashing and the siren cranked up, his progress was made a little easier, though not much. Nostalgically, he thought about the good old days when he was a kid. Back then, the other traffic would pull over to make room for a cop on a run. There was respect.

  But then came the Sixties and the old world fell apart. Now a few drivers got out of his way, most didn’t, and a goodly number swore at him or made some obscene gesture. All of which he returned in kind.

  Something else he didn’t like, besides traffic, was looking at dead bodies.

  If the departed citizen was reasonably tidy, he could usually handle it with no problem. The old farts who just expired in bed, for example. That wasn’t fun, but if the carcass didn’t lie around too long before being found, it was at least tolerable. Maybe this case was just some old fart who stretched out in the grass and passed away.

  He could hope, anyway.

  Two zone cars and a black van from the medical examiner’s office were parked near the bird sanctuary when he arrived. Nobody was doing much, however; nobody would until he had a chance to view the scene intact. The routine was part of the mystique surrounding police work. Spaceman was supposed to see something, the clue, that would set the wheels of justice turning, no matter how slowly.

  The first thing he saw was that this body wasn’t neat and tidy.

  The stiff was just a kid. About the age of his own son, he realized, remembering suddenly, parenthetically, that Robbie had a birthday coming up soon. He’d have to buy something for the occasion.

  This boy wouldn’t be having any more birthdays. He’d been a good-looking boy, maybe sixteen, with longish blond hair and the pouty kind of face that was popular in some circles. A bloody tee shirt and some shorts were next to the body. There was a lot of blood.

  “Shit,” Spaceman said.

  Gardner, from the pathologist’s office, nodded. “That just about says it all.”

  “Pictures?”

  “All done.”

  When he had given the whole area a fast once-over, Spaceman gave a short nod. Gardner promptly knelt beside the body.

  Spaceman bent over and picked up the shorts. He pulled a worn black wallet out of the rear pocket, then handed the shorts themselves to a cop holding a plastic evidence bag.

  The only money in the wallet was a single dollar bill, well-creased, that had been tucked into a hidden compartment. Obviously, the buck was intended to be used only in case of the direst emergency. There wasn’t much else to see. Two pictures. The first was of a family group standing at stiff attention in front of a house. A middle-aged man in a checkered sport coat, a thin, tense looking woman, and three children. A girl, middle teens, wearing a short pleated skirt and a letter sweater. A much younger boy in a Cub Scout uniform. The third child was obviously the dead boy, looking a couple years younger, but otherwise much the same. He was wearing jeans, a black tee shirt, and a petulant, dissatisfied expression.

  Except for that one false note, the photo might have served as the basis for a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. There was even a dog that might have been Lassie. Americana preserved by Kodak.

  And if not for that expression of dissatisfaction and the feelings behind it, the dead boy might still be a part of the picture. Spaceman knew, without knowing anything else about the people in the photo, that it was the boy’s search for something different from what he had in that house that had brought him to this bloody and terrible end in Griffith Park.

  The other picture was from one of the quickie booths downtown. The dead boy, looking drunk and silly, grinned up at Spaceman.

  There were only a few other things in the wallet, none of them very significant, except for the ID card tucked behind the pictures. It was the kind of card that came with cheap wallets like this one. The name on the card was Peter Lowe, and the address was on Honeydew Lane in Wichita, Kansas.

  There wasn’t much else in the wallet: A shiny gold token from some game arcade, maybe used as a good luck piece, and a stub from a downtown movie house.

  That was all.

  Spaceman walked back to Gardner just as the other man stood. “Anything?”

  “Not much beyond the obvious so far. Somebody used a knife on him. I stopped counting the stab wounds at fifteen. About one for every year of his life. Some indication of sexual activity just before death.”

  “He was raped?”

  Gardner looked slightly annoyed. “Sexual activity and rape are not synonymous.” He shrugged. “Anyway, the poor bastard didn’t die easy.”

  “Let me know when the post is scheduled.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Spaceman watched as the body was tagged, bagged, and loaded into the black van. A minicam crew from one of the stations had appeared on the scene, drawn by the smell of blood, and the reporter stuck the mike into Spaceman’s face. “No comment,” he said. That was all he ever said to them, and he sometimes wondered why they kept asking.

  “Can’t you tell us anything about this brutal crime?”

  “No comment,” he repeated. Too many cops got themselves into trouble by opening their traps on camera or for the newspaper.

  They filmed him anyway, walking to his car and getting in. He sat behind the wheel for a moment, then belched again.

  “Shit,” he said once more, this time to himself.

  And to anyone who might catch the tape on the noon news and who could read lips.

  Chapter 6

  Spaceman decided that he needed some breakfast

  He parked his car in the police lot and walked around the corner. There wasn’t any name on the front of the tiny building he entered, just the stark word DINER over the door. The place was owned and operated by an ex-homicide dick named Joe Spinoza. Not surprisingly, considering the location, cops made up almost his entire clientele. Whatever Joe’s talents had been as a detective, they did not, unfortunately, extend to his culinary efforts. The food he served up reminded a lot of the men of home cooking, and that wasn’t a compliment. But he dearly loved to have the guys from the precinct come in, the prices were more than reasonable, and it was convenient. Also, Joe was always willing to let you run a tab.

  Spaceman perched at the otherwise empty counter and without even glancing at the mimeographed menu, ordered his usual: three eggs over easy, sausage links, hash browns, toast, and coffee.

  Joe cracked the eggs and poured them onto the sizzling grill. “So what’s doing?” he asked. He spoke in a raised voice, in order to be heard over the steady drone of the police radio and the small black and white television, both of which sat behind the counter, always on.

>   Spaceman wondered if Joe ever left this place, ever slept beyond the catnaps that he was sometimes seen taking behind the counter. It seemed that whenever a customer came in, day or night, the plump, balding man was on the job. His wife of forty years was dead, and Spaceman always figured that Joe was happier here than in an empty house.

  “I caught the stiff in Griffith,” Spaceman said in glum response to Joe’s question. The coffee wasn’t much better than Mandy’s. He added another little packet of sugar.

  “I heard about that on the box. Sounded messy.”

  “Yeah.”

  Joe flipped the eggs with concentration a brain surgeon might have envied, then slid them onto a plate. He added three sausages, a mound of potatoes that were only slightly burned, and two pieces of toasted Wonder Bread. “Any leads?”

  “Nada.”

  Joe moved a sticky pot of orange marmalade down the counter to within Spaceman’s reach. “Well, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. You never know.” He always said that, no matter what the case. In all his years of running the diner and offering to “keep my eyes and ears open” Joe had never turned up one piece of solid dope, as far as Spaceman knew. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

  “Yeah, do that,” Spaceman said. “Any help gratefully received.” He lowered his head over the plate and began to shovel the food in.

  The lieutenant was waiting when Spaceman strolled into the squadroom. “Took your sweet time getting here,” he complained.

  Spaceman removed the toothpick from his mouth, contemplated the well-chewed sliver, then shoved it back. “I had to catch some breakfast. Can’t think on an empty stomach.”

  McGannon only snorted. His own body was whippet-thin compared to Spaceman’s bulkier form. He waved Spaceman into his office. Inside, McGannon sat behind the vast desk that took up most of the space in the small room. The desk gave his men a lot of laughs.

  McGannon’s father and grandfather had both been lawyers, real movers and shakers in the legal establishment, and the big hunk of oak had been part of their prestigious offices. McGannon himself flunked out of law school and became a cop. His most driving ambition over the years had been to work his way far enough up the ladder of command to rate his own office. The very day he landed this job, the desk was moved in.

  Now he leaned back in the chair and clasped both hands behind his head. “So?” he said. “Any first impressions?”

  Spaceman broke the toothpick in half and tossed the pieces into the heavy cut-glass ashtray on the corner of the desk. “Some sex freako,” he said flatly.

  McGannon frowned. He didn’t like cases that had anything at all to do with sex. He was what used to be known as a “good Catholic.” In his view, sex was for married couples only, to be committed once a week in the dark, with its only object being the propagation of the faithful. Any pleasure that might happen along the way was permitted, but never acknowledged. Kathleen and he had six kids, with a seventh on the way, and even they never talked about sex.

  Money was a motive that he could understand. Or even drugs. But anything to do with sex made him very nervous. “But this was just a kid,” he objected.

  “Want a theory?” Spaceman asked.

  McGannon looked tired suddenly, a man who knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear. He nodded anyway.

  “I think the kid was hustling and picked up the wrong customer.”

  McGannon sighed.

  “Whoever he picked up wasted him. Did a very messy job of it, too.”

  “That’s really sick,” McGannon said, his voice ringing with a moral ferocity that Spaceman used to think was phony, but which he finally decided was real. It sometimes made him feel kind of sorry for the other man.

  Spaceman smiled faintly. “Sick? Yeah, that’s probably just what the defense attorney will claim when we bust him.”

  “If we bust him.”

  Spaceman spread his hands to indicate helplessness. “If we lose hope, there’s nothing left.”

  “And even if we do bust him, chances are it’ll never come to trial.”

  The damned gloomy Irishman. “That’s not my lookout.”

  McGannon was quiet, swiveling from side to side in his fancy chair. “Kids. What the hell is going on? When I was his age, there wasn’t any of the shit that goes on today.”

  “Sex, you mean?”

  “I mean, all this weird stuff. Who the hell started it all anyway?”

  “Beats me, boss. Maybe it was the hippies. Or the Beatles.”

  “The damned Commies, probably,” McGannon said darkly.

  Spaceman shook his head. “All the Reds I ever knew were puritans. Worse than Republicans, even.” He lit a Camel and waited for McGannon to get back on the track.

  Finally he did so, crisply. “You want to call the parents?”

  No, he didn’t want to.

  He was tired of making that same dismal call. Kids, the damned little shitheads, seemed to come from all over the country just to get killed or kill themselves in his city.

  See Los Angeles and die.

  That would make a great bumper sticker.

  So he made the call, time after time, and broke the news. The reactions he got never seemed to vary much in type, only in degree. Disbelief, followed by anger, then painful and weary acknowledgement. At bottom, it never seemed to come as much of a surprise. Parents today apparently expect something like this to happen, sooner or later.

  He thought again about his own son. What the devil did a boy just turning seventeen want for his birthday?

  “I’ll make the call,” he said.

  It was a crummy job, yeah, but he always did it himself. Maybe he hoped that by talking to a mother or father in that first unguarded moment, he might uncover something that would lead him to the why.

  McGannon was still frowning. “Well, keep me on top of it,” he said, closing the discussion.

  “Sure thing.” Spaceman started for the door.

  “Oh, by the way, Kowalski—”

  “Yeah?”

  McGannon studied him, smiling faintly now. Then he shook his head. “Later.”

  “There a problem?”

  “No. No problem. Just something we need to talk about. Drop in after lunch.”

  Spaceman shrugged. “Sure.”

  He went out to his own desk. Several other detectives were in the room as well, talking, writing reports, or just drinking coffee from styrofoam cups. Spaceman picked up his phone and dialed information.

  He scribbled down the number a bored operator gave him a moment later. Frowning, he traced the numbers over more firmly as he mentally figured time differences. Getting on toward eleven here, which meant almost one there. One o’clock on a summer Saturday. What were the chances of finding anyone home?

  But he dialed anyway, because he had no choice. The ringing of the other phone sounded very far away. Once, twice, three times, then the ringing stopped. “Hello?”

  It was a male voice, for which he was glad. Easier to break news like this to a man than a woman. The voice sounded a little winded, as if its owner had to run to catch the call. Probably he’d been outside, cutting the grass or feeding the cows or whatever else one does in Kansas on Saturday.

  “Mr. Lowe?”

  “Speaking.”

  “My name is Kowalski. Detective Kowalski, Los Angeles Police Department.”

  “What’s that? California?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Whatever trouble he’s got himself into, I’m not bailing him out.” The words were immediate and harsh.

  “You’re talking about your son, Peter Lowe?”

  “He’s no son of mine, not any more.”

  Spaceman picked up his pen again. He wrote the dead boy’s name on the notepad, then drew hard black lines through it. “The trouble he has now, you can’t bail him out of.”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid it’s very bad news, Mr. Lowe. A boy we’ve identified as Peter was found deceased this morni
ng.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes. Apparently Peter was the victim of a homicide.”

  Lowe seemed to mull that over for a time. “Somebody killed him is what you’re saying?” The flat mid western voice never wavered.

  “Yes.”

  There was still another pause. “You sure it’s him?”

  “Yes. As sure as we can be without an official ID.” He thought maybe that sounded a little hopeful, and hope was a commodity that nobody could afford anymore. “It’s Peter,” he said.

  “I told him that sooner or later he’d get just what he deserved.”

  “Sir?” Spaceman stopped scribbling and set the pen down carefully.

  “Peter was no good. He’s been nothing but trouble to us since he was ten. I knew he’d end up bad. And you want to know something? I’m glad it’s over. Yeah, I really am.”

  Spaceman didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t the first time he’d had this kind of reaction; usually he put it down to shock. Lowe didn’t sound shocked, though. He didn’t sound anyway in particular. Spaceman took a deep breath. “This is difficult,” he began awkwardly. “But—”

  “He left us two years ago. This was a good home, officer. We gave him everything a boy needs.”

  Spaceman thought about the dissatisfied expression on the young face in the family photograph. Not everything, he wanted to tell Lowe. At least, not all the things Peter thought he needed. Or wanted.

  “We’re good Christians, church-going people. I’m an alderman. But Peter threw all that back in our faces. Made out like it was us in the wrong instead of him. You want to know how many times we heard from him in the past two years?”

  Spaceman made a noncommittal sound.

  “I’ll tell you. Once. Just about a year ago. And that once was too much for me.”

  “What did he want?”

  “What else? Money, of course.”

  “Did you send him some?”

  “Certainly not. That would have condoned his lifestyle. I did the only thing a righteous man could.”

  “Which was?”

  “I told him that if he was willing to renounce the way he was living, and come home, we would forgive him.”