by Chris Culver
Lee parked beside a five–story apartment building that looked like it had at one time been a school. Its brick was brownish–red, and the sidewalk in front was cracked and crumbling. I stepped out of the car and pulled my jacket tight across me, hiding the firearm inside. Lee pulled what looked like a forty–five from a belt holster and chambered a round.
“This is it,” he said, holstering his firearm. “You strapped?”
I nodded and Lee walked toward the building’s steel door. The handle was broken, so the door never locked. So much for resident safety. Rollo lived on the fourth floor at the end of a hallway. The carpet was threadbare and I could see the concrete subfloor through cigarette burns. It smelled like piss. Lee nodded toward the last door on the right. The brown paint covering it was chipped, leaving flakes on the carpet beneath.
We didn’t need to discuss what would happen. We both had done it enough times that it was old hat. I put my hand over the peep hole while Lee positioned himself in front with his firearm extended. I counted down from three to one with my free hand, and Lee kicked the door beneath the lock. The door swung inward hard and fast. Lee vaulted inside, sweeping the room with his firearm. I did likewise and almost choked on the stink.
Rollo lived in a one–room shithole apartment. I saw a Murphy bed built into the wall on the left and a small kitchenette with miniature stove and fridge to the right. Empty boxes of macaroni and cheese as well as cigarette butts littered the floor. Flies buzzed everywhere.
“Shit,” said Lee, sliding his firearm into his belt holster. I stepped forward and saw the source of the smell. Rollo was dead. He sat on a chair across from the door, his head leaning back and a slit on his neck from ear to ear like a huge grin. A waterfall of brown, dried blood stained his shirt.
I covered my mouth with my hand and strode forward. Whoever had killed him damn near decapitated him because I could see the vertebrae of his neck. I cursorily looked around but couldn’t find weapons or shell casings. It didn’t even look like he had put up a fight.
“This is going to ruin my day,” said Lee, already taking out his cell phone. He told the dispatcher to send uniformed officers for crowd control and a detective from homicide. While Lee was on the phone, I checked out the kitchen. Rollo was a man who liked to keep in touch, evidently, because he had a cardboard box full of cheap, prepaid cell phones still in their packaging on the counter. It looked like Rollo bought them by the case.
I looked up to make sure Lee wasn’t looking and picked up the only phone out of its packaging. The call record had one entry, a local number. I memorized it and wiped off the phone with my shirt sleeve before putting it back on the counter. About two minutes later, Lee hung up and looked at me. “You might want to get a hold of your CI. We’re probably going to need him.”
I nodded. Even if James wasn’t involved with Rollo’s death, somebody would want to talk to him. I walked to the hallway, adding the phone number I had found on Rollo’s phone to my address book as I went. Once that was done, I called James and waited through two rings for someone to pick up.
“Detective Rashid?”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t narrow it down except to say that it wasn’t James.
“Yeah, this is Ash Rashid,” I said. “I’m looking for James Russo. Who is this?”
“Mike Bowers. And if you want to talk to Russo, you’re going to need a psychic because I’m staring at his goddamn corpse.”
Chapter 7
Lee and I got our story straight in the hallway before any officers arrived. Islam usually forbids lying, but there are exceptions. If Hannah asked me if her meatloaf was good, I could lie and say I love it as long as my intention was to avoid hurting her. I could also lie in times of warfare. While I didn’t have a background in Islamic law, I figured police work is as close to warfare as I could get without enlisting.
Lee and I waited for about five minutes for the first officers to arrive. Both were young, and neither was of color. That wasn’t a good combination for successful policing in that neighborhood. We gave them the basic story we had concocted, and they looked at the scene for a moment. One of the guys looked as if he were going to puke when he saw the body, but he held it together.
It took another half hour for the rest of the troops to show up. An old colleague of mine from homicide took our statements. Even if he didn’t believe our story completely, he wouldn’t jam us up; he knew that if we had dropped Rollo, we must have had a damn good reason. He released Lee as soon as he gave his statement but told me to stick around and talk to Lieutenant Bowers. Bowers wasn’t my CO, so I could have left. I didn’t, though. Instead, I took a moment to watch the crime scene technicians comb through Rollo’s apartment.
Indianapolis has pretty good techs. The problem was that they weren’t going to solve the case without better information. They focused their efforts on the shattered door frame, presumably thinking the killer got in that way. I doubted he did, though. He would have had to pick the lock, slit Rollo’s throat while he was sleeping and get out without leaving a trace. There weren't many people who could do that.
I looked back in the room for a moment. The window behind Rollo’s chair was open. I hadn’t noticed that before, although it must have been open when Lee and I got in there. That was another viable entrance. With Rollo’s chair pressed against the window, the killer would just have to reach in, slice the fat bastard’s throat, and get the fuck out. Thirty seconds tops. Of course, it’d take a hell of an athlete to do that from four stories up.
I ran my hand across my chin, considering. I had two options, and both pointed to a professional hitter. Seemed a little extreme to take out someone like Rollo. Most of the time when people like him are killed, the evidence is splattered all over the walls and into neighboring apartments. Spray and pray with an AK47 isn’t pretty, but it is effective. The forensics team would have had their work cut out for them even if Lee and I hadn’t done anything to stymie their efforts.
Bowers showed up about twenty minutes later. He had changed clothes since the last time I had seen him, but the bags under his eyes had grown. With as many homicides as the city had in the past few days, I doubted he had gotten much sleep. He stared at me, not saying anything at first. Eventually, he motioned to follow him down the hall and away from the hubbub of the crime scene. The urine smell dissipated some, but the overhead lights flickered periodically.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” I asked.
“How do you know James Russo?”
“He’s a CI. Nailed him for possession while I was on patrol eight years ago and kept in touch.”
Bowers shifted on his feet, his eyes boring into me.
“Then explain to me why he doesn’t have a file downtown. How are you paying him?”
“He never wanted money.”
And that was true, at least. James hadn’t ever wanted money; he was an information hound. I periodically told him who got pinched and where on minor drug charges. It was valuable information for a dealer looking to expand his territory, so I always figured he sold it somewhere.
“What’d you guys talk about at your last visit?” asked Bowers.
A door opened down the hall, and an elderly woman stuck her head out but quickly went back inside when she saw us.
“Nothing special. I wanted to see how he was. Hadn’t talked to him for a while.”
Bowers nodded.
“And how was he?” he asked.
“You saw his fingers,” I said.
“Yeah, I did,” he said. “Russo’s a goddamn lowlife. We found enough pot on him that we could have charged him with possession with intent to sell if he were alive. You could probably guess that, though. What you probably can’t guess is that he made three phone calls yesterday. Just three. You, his grandma, and Rolando Diaz. Now you’re here, and Rolando’s dead. I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know right now.”
I sighed.
“If I knew, I’d tell you.”
> “Would you?” asked Bowers, stepping in close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. I took a step back.
“You’ve got my statement, so unless I’m under arrest, I’m leaving,” I said. I glanced back at Rollo’s apartment. “And a word of advice. Rollo was taken out by a professional. Unless you want bodies piling up, I’d start trying to figure out who he pissed off instead of watching me.”
Bowers looked as if he were going to say something, but he pushed past me and stormed down the hall. While he shouted at evidence technicians, I took the stairs to ground level and had a uniformed officer drive me downtown. He dropped me off near Circle Center Mall. It was too early for the bars to be open, so I went by a cafe that served brunch and ordered an egg white omlette with a Bloody Mary on the side. I felt a little better after that.
After eating, I parked myself on a bench and buried my face in my hands. James Russo. I had known him since he was fifteen. He was a good kid even if he had made mistakes. I stayed there for a few minutes before looking at my watch. It was eleven and I had another two hours before my meeting at the Cuttings' house. I thumbed through the address book on my cell phone until I came to the number of one of our techs who worked with telecom systems. She answered before the phone finished a single ring.
“Sarah, it’s Detective Rashid. You got a minute?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” she said, her voice raspy from years of abuse. Sarah was the lead singer in an all–female heavy metal band. I’m not a connoisseur of heavy metal music, but supposedly they were good. She played their demo disc for me once. Maybe I’m old, but I didn’t get it. I’m not a fan of hearing women scream until they’re hoarse, I guess.
“I’ve got a cellphone number,” I said. “I wondered if you could trace it for me.”
“Shoot,” she said. I flipped through my phone’s address book until I found the entry I had made outside Rollo’s apartment. I read the number aloud, and I heard Sarah’s keyboard click as she typed. “It’s a prepaid cell on Virgin Wireless’s network. No name is assigned to the account.”
I nodded. That was about what I had expected after seeing the stack of phones in Rollo’s apartment.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about it?”
“If we had a warrant. Do you?”
“Can you do anything without a warrant?”
Sarah didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Is this for a case?” she asked. “Or are we spying on your wife?”
“It’s a case,” I said.
“Good. You’d be surprised how many people want to find out where their wives go during the day,” she said. “Give me about five minutes, and I’ll make a call and get back to you. I might be able to set something up.”
“I appreciate it.”
Sarah hung up, and I walked the four blocks to my car. It wasn’t even noon yet, but it was already hot enough outside that I almost expected my shoes to start melting on the sidewalk. I opened all four doors and let the interior air out for a few minutes before getting in. Sarah called back while I sat in the front seat with my legs hanging outside.
“Did you find anything out?” I asked.
“Sort of,” she said. “That number you gave me belongs to a phone that's only made two outgoing calls, both in the last twenty–four hours, and both were sent from a tower right outside Plainfield. It’s been off for more than twelve hours now.”
I nodded. What Sarah didn’t need to say was that the phone had probably been tossed, so tracking it further would have been a waste. I sighed and wiped sweat off my forehead before thanking her for her time and hanging up. I was starting to hate Plainfield even more than I did most suburbs.
***
The gate in front of the Cutting’s property was closed when I drove up, but it opened as soon as I turned off the road. Must have been on a pressure sensor. John Meyers met me outside the front door of the main house. He wore a charcoal–gray, pinstripe suit, and his silver hair was thick and neat. I shook his hand.
“Thank you for letting me do this,” I said.
Meyers turned towards the front door.
“Thank Maria Cutting,” he said. “I’ve already told you that I was against the idea.”
We walked inside, and Meyers led me to a plain, white door near the main entryway. It opened into a narrow staircase with rough gray walls and a concrete floor. I followed him for about a dozen yards to a steel door with the word ‘Security’ stenciled on the outside. The interior looked like the production booth of a television station with four flat–screen monitors attached to the wall and a control panel with dials and buttons beneath. A balding, middle–aged man swiveled on a rolling desk chair and faced me.
“Detective Rashid?” he asked, extending his hand towards me. I shook it. “Tom Garrity, Garrity Industrial Tech.”
“Good to meet you,” I said, looking at the monitors. “This is quite a system.”
Tom nodded.
“One of the most extensive we’ve ever put into a residential environment,” he said. “Mr. Cutting takes his family’s safety very seriously.”
I nodded. If he had taken my niece’s safety that seriously, I might not have been there.
“What sort of cameras do you have on the guest house?” I asked.
“None inside, of course,” said Tom, typing on a laptop beside the control panel. Two of the four computer monitors went dark, while the image on the other two shifted to what at first appeared to be static pictures of the guest house. “These are live feeds from outside, though.”
I squinted and looked closer. As I did, I noticed the shadows shifting as the breeze rustled nearby trees. The picture was so clear that it was almost like looking through a window.
“Is there any way we can back this up to about an hour before Robbie’s death?”
Tom nodded and turned a thick, round knob. The picture shifted too quickly to see what was going on until Tom glanced back up at me.
“What you’re looking at right now are still images exactly sixty minutes before Robbie Cutting passed away. We can alter the playing speed if you want.”
“Play it regular speed first, and we’ll see what happens.”
Tom hit another button, and we watched for about two minutes. Nothing moved.
“Can we try speeding it up?” I asked. Tom glanced up, nodded, and fiddled with another knob. The image was largely static still, but the time stamp in the corner shifted rapidly.
“Whoa,” said Tom, straightening about five minutes later and hitting the pause button. I hadn’t seen anything and glanced towards Meyers. He shrugged.
“What’s so exciting?” I asked.
Without saying anything, Tom pointed to a pair of smudges near the top of the screen on the left monitor.
“Shadows,” he said. He twisted a knob on the control panel, and the color drained from the images. The shadows shifted from gray to black. They were small, but Tom was right. I could make out what looked like a head and torso on one image and maybe the top of a head on the other. Tom played the video at regular speed. My heartbeat ticked up a notch as the two figures walked from one side of the screen to the other.
“Where are these figures going?” asked Meyers.
“Looks like behind the guest house,” said Tom.
I looked at Meyers.
“Is there a back door?” I asked.
Meyers shook his head.
“No, but there is a window leading to the bathroom,” said Meyers.
I turned towards Tom.
“Is there any way we can get another shot of these figures? Maybe from a different camera?”
He grimaced.
“We’ve got pretty good coverage of the main house, but there are dead zones around the yard.”
I nodded and bit my lower lip.
“When’d you put the system in?”
“We upgraded the cameras last year, but the basic system was designed four years ago.”
I nodded again. Four years w
as a long time with a teenager in the house. Robbie and his friends had probably discovered where those dead zones were years earlier so they could break in and throw parties unseen. It’s possible that he wasn’t alone when he died. That didn’t necessarily mean he was murdered, but it was significant. I rubbed my chin.
“Can you get me a copy of this video?” I asked. “I want some of our technicians to look at it.”
“It’s digital,” said Tom. “I can e–mail it to you as an attachment.”
“Fine,” I said, reaching for my wallet. I took out a business card and wrote my e–mail address on the back before handing it over. I looked at Meyers after that. “This may get complicated.”
Chapter 8
I walked back to my car after the meeting, gathering my thoughts. I only had one drink that day, and my buzz was gone, leaving a dull, longing ache in its place. I both wanted and didn’t want another. I licked my lips. They were dry and chapped. I didn’t drink when I was young, not even in college. I started four years ago to help me forget a little boy who had been mauled by a pit bull before dying of exposure. Tyrone Smith. His mother had abandoned him in the middle of the park in the middle of night in the middle of winter so she could entertain her drug–dealer boyfriend without hearing the kid. He died with tears frozen on his cheeks, presumably crying out for the very woman who had dumped him with the garbage in a city park.
My partner and I arrested her a day later. It wasn’t the first time I had seen her, either. I had met her when Tyrone was an infant and that same boyfriend had beaten her up. Their apartment was unfit for a child. There were empty liquor bottles on the counters, empty food containers on the floor, and cockroaches everywhere. I could have called child services. I should have. I didn’t, though, because his mother promised me she’d file a restraining order against her boyfriend and call the police if she saw him again. I even gave her the address of a women’s shelter that would have taken them both in. I’m sure she forgot about it as soon as I left.
