by Danny Lopez
“Death by penis.” Petrillo laughed.
It almost knocked me over.
The detective who was examining the body stood. “What the hell is this, Petrillo?” He had a light southern accent. He didn’t look happy.
“It’s okay.” Petrillo made a gesture with his hand. “It’s just for background. No photos.” Then he looked at me. “Everything’s off the record.”
I raised my hands to show him I agreed. My hands trembled. I brought them down quick, forced a smile. I had never seen the detective before. He was young, maybe late twenties, and very pale. “So what do you think happened?”
The detective glared at me. Then he turned to Petrillo. “Chief Miller hears about this, it’s your ass.”
Miller was Jennifer Miller, the chief of police. Maybe that was the card Petrillo was playing. I knew Chief Miller and she knew me. I had embarrassed her after an article I wrote on how the cops in this town are a bunch of morons who have zero accountability when arresting or shooting people caused a big stink. The report led to an official investigation. It found that the department was not following procedure in at least 30 percent of arrests where excessive force had been used. The cops especially liked to beat up on homeless people and minorities. Sarasota PD promptly lost their accreditation. They were not the worst police force in the country. Not by a long shot. But they were ignorant and full of themselves.
“Take it easy, Frey,” Petrillo said. He was cautious, like a man playing chess. “I’ll take full responsibility.”
Petrillo had been with the force eleven years. He was a pro. He knew how to play people, managed to stay alive when everyone else got chopped. Now, he sounded as if he was daring this new detective to cross him.
The detective turned his eyes to me and reluctantly spilled a handful of beans. “Someone beat his head to a pulp with that giant dildo.”
Petrillo glanced at me. “No sign of a forced entry.”
The detective frowned, stepped over the body, and stomped quickly out of the study.
“Don’t mind Detective Frey,” Petrillo said. “He’s new.”
“Was there a struggle?” I asked. I was thinking of the rough guy at the bar and the pounding he gave Nick.
Petrillo shook his head. “The perpetrator must have known the victim. But whoever did it went above and beyond.” He looked past the medical examiners. “There’s brain matter and cranium fragments all over the shelves. His head was mush. Literally.”
“Another beautiful day in paradise,” I said. It was an act on my part. I was freaking. That was Nick under that sheet. And I’d just been dealing with him. A tense and shitty mix of guilt and fear pushed up my throat. I felt like throwing up.
My eyes moved all over the study, trying to record everything: the dildos on the shelf—now splattered with dark blood stains—the papers on the desk, the computer monitor, the pens in a penholder, the Andres Serrano sketch of multiple tiny penises hanging on a side wall, the photographs of Nick as a young man standing in front of one of his sex shops with a woman whom I assumed had been his first wife.
The furniture was the same, but the chairs had been moved around from when I had been here last. Probably the cops. Maybe the murderer. Not unusual. My mind turned at the speed of light, trying to pick everything up, trying to figure out what the fuck happened because I had a very clear vision of how the cops could turn this on me.
“You have any suspects?” It came out of my mouth like I was a kid asking for ice cream.
Petrillo’s eyes grew wide just enough that I noticed his interest in my question, as if he’d either been waiting for it, or not expecting it at all.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I said. “You guys have more unsolved murders than any other department in the state. I’m just curious if this is going to be another notch on the department’s record.”
“That’s bullshit, Vega. You know, I broke protocol letting you in here. You give me that crap.”
“Get angry,” I said. “But it’s a fact. I’m just wondering if you have any ideas, clues, leads, whatever.”
“We’re looking into it.”
One of the medical examiners took a photo and the flash filled the study with white light. It brought me out of my trance. I wasn’t here to do a story for the paper. I had come to tell Nick about Maya. I was done.
The other detective came back into the study. He didn’t look at us but nodded to one of the medical examiners. He put on a pair of blue gloves, and the two of them picked up the big penis and placed it in a plastic evidence bag.
“Come on.” Petrillo raised his arms. “Let’s give them some room.”
Rachel, who had been mesmerized by the sexual paraphernalia and the guitar player for the Funky Donkeys, shook her head and led the way out of the study.
“So you got an ID on the body?” I was trying to sound tough, aloof.
“We’re going to have to get that through fingerprints or dental records.” Petrillo paused and looked at Rachel and me for a moment. Then he leaned closer. “It’s probably Nick Zavala. It’s his place. But don’t print that.”
Rachel leaned her weight on one leg. “Am I going to get a picture?”
Petrillo pointed to the side of the house. “That would be a good place. Stay out of the way. When they roll out the gurney with the body, you can snap a couple. That suit you okay?”
Rachel smiled. I nodded and walked out of the house with her. We stopped between one of the police cars and the house. She grabbed my arm. “So what’s the gossip?”
“What?”
“You said you had something juicy for me.”
I looked at her big brown eyes. They took amazing, powerful photographs. I was lost for a minute, my mind swimming in ideas of Nick Zavala, images of him opening the door to his house in his bathing suit, of him offering me a drink, cocaine, money. Of my hands all over the bronze sculpture.
“Dexter.”
“I saw Holly,” I said quickly. “She kissed me.”
“Get out!”
Rachel loved drama, especially where it concerned Holly and me. Maybe she also had a crush on her. Why not? “But we were both a little drunk,” I said.
“So what? True feelings reveal themselves when you’re drunk.”
“Yeah, except I’ve called and texted her five times today, and she won’t answer me.”
“Don’t obsess. You do that. You obsess over shit all the time. You gotta give her some room.”
“Didn’t you tell me I had to show her I cared?”
“Yeah, but take it easy. Don’t badger the woman. You’re gonna freak her out.”
I stabbed my chest with my thumb. “She’s freaking me out.”
“Man, you’re going to fuck it up again. Let her hunger a little.”
She looked behind me where the police line kept the small crowd back. “There’s my reporter interviewing Petrillo.” Then she looked at me. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Just passing by on my way to a friend’s house.”
“Bullshit. You don’t have any friends.”
I smiled and backed away. “We should get together sometime. Have a drink.”
“Or a big bottle of Fireball.” She laughed and ambled toward the house where Petrillo had told her to wait for the gurney.
I walked under the police tape and down the block to my car.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS I DROVE home, the severity of the situation sank in. My stomach ached. My hands were shaking. I needed a drink—something hard and messy and fast—Bourbon or Mezcal.
I stepped into the house and saw the mess. Everything had been disturbed, gone through, tossed, fucked with. The couch cushions had been pulled out, tossed on the floor. The fabric sliced. Books, clothes all over the place. Records—my precious vinyl—scattered like trash. The whole place was upside down.
I ran to the kitchen and pulled out my cookbooks. There it was. Between the pages of Diana Kennedy’s bo
ok: the five grand.
The laptop. I froze for a moment trying to piece it together: all the moments of the last twenty-four hours raining down on me like rocks.
It was gone. They’d taken the laptop. But my stereo was there, untouched: an open-face vintage Scott 222c, the Thorens 160, B&W speakers. All together they could fetch over a grand, maybe two. That was a lot of money in my world. They hadn’t touched the TV either. Just the laptop.
I dropped on the desk chair. Mimi came out from somewhere in the mess, strutting her stuff. She hopped on the couch and stretched and yawned like nothing was wrong. Well, that was that. At least I hadn’t been pummeled to death like Nick Zavala. All the money in the world was useless wherever he was now.
I took a long, deep breath, pushed myself off the chair, and went to the cupboard by the fridge. In the very back I found an old bottle of tequila, shitty stuff whose name, Grande Sombrero, didn’t even make any sense. Probably 30 percent agave, 70 percent rotgut. It had two shots left. I put them down like a college kid on Cinco de Mayo.
I plopped down on the bare couch, my ass sinking deep between the broken springs. I ran everything through my faulty brain, every damn detail I could think of, but I couldn’t see a blip. Nothing. Why would someone want my laptop?
It was a four-year-old MacBook Pro. Not worth much. The stereo—the records—were worth at least five times as much. My computer had addresses, my e-mail inbox, the research from my stories for the last four years, and the drafts of the stories for Sarasota City Magazine.
What really got me was my e-mail in-box. I had a lot of data, a lot of conversations in there. It made me nauseous just to think someone, some fucking criminal, had access to my personal life, my past—e-mails between my ex-wife and me, Holly and me. I rushed to the bathroom and gave everything back to the toilet. I sat on the floor, arm draped over the commode. It wasn’t just the burglary, but the whole thing: getting laid off, Nick’s murder. And Holly.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of the good old days, of sitting back in the newsroom, the phone hanging on my shoulder, believing the world was anxiously awaiting my next hard-hitting piece. I had been so sure of myself. I was the first one in my family to go to college. My parents had their own story of struggle—children of Mexican immigrants who came to this country during WWII and worked in the fields and factories. My sister and I were raised by my mother. But what left me with a chip on my shoulder, that anger that motivated me to become a journalist, to kick ass hard and hold nothing back, had nothing to do with them. Everyone struggles. It was my father and what happened to him—what I witnessed that summer day in 1980 made me who I became. It was the lone reason why I couldn’t fail.
Now I was a fucked-up has-been unemployed reporter for a small-town paper. All the hard work, the anger, the resolution, the desire, the accomplishments—it had all been for nothing. I was as good as my dying father on that lone stretch of asphalt outside San Antonio, Texas.
A noise out front startled me out of my misery. I struggled to stand.
I heard the front door open and the screen door slam shut. “Dex?”
“Holly?”
I washed my face, rinsed my mouth.
“What’s going on, Dex?”
I stumbled out of the bathroom. Holly was standing in the middle of the living room. She was perfect, too perfect. Totally out of place. She didn’t belong here, in this pathetic mess. And I could tell she could see it. It was crystal clear from her expression. She was disgusted.
But she was sweet. She caressed my cheek. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“What are you, spring cleaning?”
“Not me,” I said. “Someone broke in.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wouldn’t treat my records like this.”
“My God, Dex. Did you call the police?”
“Not yet.”
“Did they take anything?”
“Just my laptop.”
“You going to report it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I took her arm and walked her slowly over the debris to the couch. “First thing in the morning.”
She stared at the mess. “It’s worth a try. But they rarely recover stolen goods. Statistics—”
“I know, I know. It’s a one in a million. It was probably some crack head who’s going to try and pawn it somewhere.”
“You have a serial number?”
“I got it somewhere, I’m sure.”
“Dex.” I could see the pity over her green eyes. “I’m worried about you.”
I was down, a little buzzed, confused. My mind was twirling. I wanted to crawl into the bottom of the couch, disappear.
“I waited for you at Michael’s on East,” she said. “What happened?”
“I left you a dozen voice mails. You never responded.”
She smiled, but it looked forced. “I never got a message, Dex. I tried calling you like an hour ago.”
I pulled out my phone. There it was, a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize.
“But, I called,” I mumbled and pressed buttons into my phone. I showed her the calls.
“That’s my old number, silly.”
She was nice enough to help me clean up a bit, pick up the records and clear a path to the bedroom. She fed Mimi and made some tea, which tasted like shit. Then she told me we’d get together another time.
It hurt, not because she left or because she saw me like this, but because she felt sorry for me. It was like a dagger in my heart.
* * *
In the morning I shook off all the depressing shit from the previous night and met the merciless Florida sun with a big smile. True. Nothing had changed as far as my life was concerned, but I hadn’t gotten drunk for the first time since I was laid off from the paper. I slept a solid ten hours. The clarity with which I processed reality was phenomenal.
I cleaned the house. But I didn’t just put things back in their place. I cleaned the shit out of the place, so by late afternoon it looked like a feature in Architectural Digest.
I still had to deal with the two articles I had pending for Sarasota City Magazine. They were due in a few days, but my drafts were in my laptop. I wasn’t sweating the articles. They were brainless fodder for people who liked to read about themselves. There was nothing special about the places I was writing about. They were just like all the other McMansions in town, decorated by a hired hack who filled the rooms with so much crap they looked like displays.
I knew I could wing the articles. I just had to get another computer, sit tight for a few hours, and spill it. All I had to do was load the copy with adjectives and adverbs and gush about the beauty and originality of the place. The editor would love it, and I would get my check.
I drove north to the computer store that’s just past the airport. But as I passed the art school, I couldn’t help veering off the Trail and taking Bay Shore Road. I told myself I was only taking the scenic route, but the truth was that I was curious. I wanted to see what was going on around Nick’s place.
There was a police cruiser and an unmarked police car, a white Grand Marquis, in the driveway. They were still investigating. It set off a small alarm in the back of my head. The cops were not just going to let this one fall off the radar. Or maybe they had no suspects and needed to find one. Anyone.
I turned the corner and pulled up a few yards ahead of the house so I could sit and watch the action through the rearview mirror. I was curious to see who was leading the charge: Petrillo or the new guy.
It wasn’t long before a uniformed officer walked out to his cruiser. He grabbed a black case from the trunk and walked back in the house. Maybe it was routine, but it looked off. The cops seemed to have real purpose, going above and beyond for old Nick.
When I switched my glance, I noticed a teenage girl standing on the other side of the street ahead of me. She was staring at Nick’s house. She was blond, barefoot, and wore cutoff jean shorts and a pink tank top
.
She stood with her arms crossed, slightly hidden from Nick’s house by a couple of small palms. It was pretty obvious what she was doing. Then it hit me: the topless girl taking in the sun by the pool when I visited Nick that day. Her eyes shifted back and forth from the house to the street. She looked impatient, scared, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, biting her fingernail.
I got out of the car and walked to the end of the block. I didn’t look at her, but I could tell she was watching me. I crossed the street to her corner. She fidgeted, turned away.
“How’s it going?”
She glanced at me and shrugged. Then she looked ahead at Nick’s house.
“You remember me?” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“At Nick’s house a couple days ago.”
She dropped her arms to her sides. “I ain’t never seen you before in my life.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But I saw you hanging out by the pool. Naked.”
There was movement in front of Nick’s house. The uniformed cop walked out. He got in his cruiser, but didn’t drive away.
“They’re looking for clues,” I said.
She turned her eyes toward me.
Looking at her now, up close, she appeared to be fifteen, maybe sixteen. She was pretty, but rough around the edges, baby fat filling her chin and cheeks. It was obvious life had toughened her up. Like a runaway. On the back of her shoulder she had a colorful tattoo of a butterfly.
“Oh yeah?”
“They’re trying to figure out who killed Nick,” I said.
“I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
I smiled. “You a neighbor?”
“Sort of.”
“You don’t live around here, do you?”
She laughed and pointed to a large obnoxious mansion three houses down on the next block. “I live in that big house over there. My daddy’s a big-time lawyer. He’s pals with the mayor. So fuck off.”
