by Jim Stevens
“Number sixteen on the right.” Jellyroll points.
“You people go with Jelly and don’t look at anything you’re not supposed to look at.”
Kelly demands. “I want to see the stiffs.”
“Go.”
I turn right. They turn back down the corridor and walk towards the waiting room.
I grab a pair of latex gloves on my way to number sixteen, where I flip the latch and slide Alvin out for a full view. He remains disgusting. No matter how well they clean him up, an open coffin is out of the question. I cover what is left of his face. Been there; seen that. On his torso, he has a train-track scar running from the base of his neck down past his navel where they cut him open to take inventory.
I look for needle marks on his arms, on his thighs, and between his toes. I find one pin-prick that might even be a mosquito bite. Alvin is no needle freak. There are numerous bruises on his body, forearms, and legs, but his manicured nails have held up well. I skip his privates; some areas should remain private in life and death. He has white pasty legs and bunion-filled feet. Feet tell a lot about a person. He also stinks, not of formaldehyde, but whatever they use to stuff his veins and arteries. The entire process has taken less than fifteen minutes. I’m angry. I have seen nothing of interest, nothing that helps, nothing out of the ordinary. How shameful that I consider someone with his head bashed-in ordinary.
Tiffany and Care return with Jellyroll. I slide Alvin back into his refrigerated condo unit, take off the gloves and join them.
“Was it gross?” Care asks.
“Totally,” I reply, then ask, “Where’s your sister?”
Care shrugs her shoulders.
I turn to my left to see my eldest daughter in the anteroom reading toe tags like they were labels in a department store.
“Get over here.”
“Just looking,” she says returning. “You always say we should develop a healthy curiosity.”
“You’ve never paid attention to any of my advice before; why start now?”
“First thing you said that ever made any sense, Dad.”
I have raised an incurable wiseass.
“Anything else, Sherlock?” Jellyroll asks.
“Health records.”
“Didn’t have any.”
“Everybody has health records,” I say.
“Not Alvin,” Jellyroll says. “Never spent a day in a hospital.”
“Can we go get our faces done now?” Kelly asks Tiffany.
“Sure.”
___
I sit in the chair reserved for the rich guy while his wife or mistress spends his money, and read the autopsy report. My two daughters sit in high chairs at the cosmetic counter with Tiffany directing the cosmeticians like Spielberg on the set of a movie.
The autopsy reports Alvin had six different drugs in his system when or before he died, not one name I recognize. The six had no correlation, except that they were all high-powered and deadly if taken in bulk. If a person is not a constant user of drugs, the substances will clear their system completely which is the reason they do random tests of athletes for steroids and growth hormones. Alvin could have been an every-so-often abuser and even his doctor wouldn’t have known the difference. I make a mental note to myself to check on the amounts of each drug found in his system, because I have no clue how much would be too much. Other than six opiates found, Alvin was the picture of health. Heart, liver, lungs, kidneys all in great shape; too bad he wasn’t available for parts; he would have been a goldmine.
I hardly recognized my two daughters when Tiffany brings them over. They resembled Jon Benet Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty queen of unsolved-murder fame.
“You two look like painted Barbie dolls.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, Kelly, you do.”
“Barbie has breasts; we don’t.”
Tiffany drives us back to my apartment, where she tells the kids, “Next time I’ll teach you how to shop.”
I make chicken for dinner. They say it’s gross, but they eat it. We watch some dumb TV show on Nickelodeon, Kelly relenting to Care for some reason I’ll never know.
When the girls are with me, they sleep in my bed and I take the couch, which does wonders for my back. They were tired. I tuck them in, give them a kiss.
“Tell us a Joe and Mo, Dad,” Care requests.
Whenever I was home at bedtime, when the two were young, I would tell them a story about an old geezer couple who lived in a shack by the river. Joe and Mo. I made the tales up as I went along, finishing as eyelids were closing. It was a ritual I enjoyed immensely.
Now the girls are well past story time age, but a request is a request. I sit on the edge of the bed and make up an absurd tale of Joe catching a catfish that was a spitting image of Mo and then can’t tell the two apart until he plants a big kiss on the fish’s lips. In five minutes they are fast asleep.
Just when you believe your kids are growing up, they revert to hold onto a piece of their childhood. Yes, I want my kids to learn, mature, become self-confident, and do things on their own; but I never want to forget that feeling when they needed me, wanted me around and appreciated me being their dad. Exactly how I feel at this very moment.
6
Money dearest
“It was the bitch before me.”
I am in a Ritz Carlton suite, twice the size of my apartment, seated in a leather chair so comfortable I could easily drift off into naptime, except for the fact that the woman across from me has the voice of a peacock.
“Bitch could never get over the fact that she got beat at her own game.”
Doris Augustus refused to return to the Kenilworth house. She said bad karma still lurked within its walls. She instead booked a suite at the Ritz and was living as comfortably as she could in her time of grief.
“Doris, please…”
Doris. There is a moniker you don’t hear very often any more. Too bad, I like the name, although not its namesake before me.
Mrs. Augustus is a slight woman, five-one, maybe a hundred pounds, late forty-something, trying her best to look late thirty-something. If she is bereaved, she hides it well--very little expression on her face. No doubt she’s tough, stoic, unflinching in her opinions and demands. In a family argument, I can see her standing up to Alvin until he opened up his checkbook.
Tiffany sits to my left. The Ritz Carlton is her element.
“What were you doing in Palm Springs?” I ask the widow.
“Vacationing.”
“In 190-plus heat?” Tiffany repeats herself from two days ago.
“It’s a dry heat,” Doris snaps back.
“You could cook an egg on the sidewalk,” Tiffany argues.
“I don’t do dairy,” Doris retorts.
“Why were you there?” I try again.
“Vacationing.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, alone.”
I give up on hearing any valid reason for travel. “Was there anyone else besides,” and I use her inflection, “that bitch second wife of his who hated your husband enough to kill him?”
“That bitch,” she repeats, “and everybody else.”
“Thank you for narrowing things down.”
“Those guys at the Board of Trade, their job is to put the other guy into the poor house.” Doris points a manicured finger my way. “Somebody takes your money, you’d hate them, too.”
“But that’s business,” I say. “Or divorce.”
“It’s money,” Doris says. “And money transcends all.”
“Right on.”
“Thank you for your input, Tiffany.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Were you divorced before you married Alvin?” My question will surely solidify her monetary policy.
“Isn’t everyone?” she replies.
I stand, mosey over to the window. The northern view from the fortieth floor is spectacular. “How long had you been in Palm Springs?”
“T
wo weeks.”
Tiffany zeroes in on Doris with a squint each time the woman speaks.
“When was the last time you spoke with your husband?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“You didn’t call during your trip?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Maybe just to say, ‘Hey?’”
“No.”
“So, you didn’t speak?”
“Only when we had to.”
“How often was that?”
“I can’t recall.”
My ex used to give me the silent treatment for weeks and months at a time. All of a sudden she would clam up and treat me as if I wasn’t in the room, driving me nuts. She wouldn’t even pass the salt, if asked. Her silent treatment was the death knell of our marriage.
“So, could we say the conversational element of your marriage had fallen into disrepair?”
From what Doris answered, she and Alvin had four working cold shoulders, night and day. They shared their distaste for one another by not speaking, unless it was absolutely necessary, which was probably when Doris was asking for more money.
I turn back from the view. “Do you know where Alvin was the night before he died?”
“No.”
“Where were you?”
“In Palm Springs,” she snaps back.
I raise an index finger to acknowledge my mistake. “Do you know where your husband may have been going on a Saturday morning dressed in a linen suit?”
“He always dressed to go to the office.”
“On a Saturday?”
“He was funny like that.”
I wait. She seemed to suddenly want to talk.
“Alvin was peculiar in some ways,” Doris said in a calm tone of voice. “His idea of kicking back was a clean, pressed pair of slacks, a silk shirt, and a blue blazer. That might be a result of his upbringing, when he couldn’t afford a shirt. He also didn’t write checks--kept a wad of cash on him at all times. He didn’t own a cell phone and didn’t use a computer. His underwear had to be ironed and his shoes had to be perfectly buffed.”
“Nothing the matter with that,” Tiffany chimes in.
“Was that because he had bad feet?”
Doris was surprised. “How did you know that?”
“Homework.”
“Besides his feet, did Alvin have any ailments?”
“No.”
“Who was his doctor?”
“Didn’t have one.”
“Did he do a lot of cardio?” Tiffany asks.
Doris glares at Tiffany, as if she is an idiot in designer clothes.
“What was the appeal of the rock garden?” I ask.
“He’d spend hours out there, digging, designing, moving one, replacing another. I’m glad you couldn’t see it from the house; embarrassing to watch a grown man playing with his pebbles.”
“Did he beat you?” Tiffany asked.
“No.”
I wasn’t sure what direction to go next after that sudden foray.
Doris leaned towards Tiffany. There was very little movement in her face when she spoke. “When will the insurance pay out?”
“I’m not sure.” Tiffany knows, but won’t tell.
Doris knows Tiffany knows.
“I’m not sure the policy is ready to be disbursed,” Tiffany says.
“That’s my money.”
“Ah,” Tiffany says, “not yet.”
A crack in her expression, Doris is pissed or surprised. Hard to tell which.
“Bullshit.” She’s pissed.
Tiffany shrugs.
“Who is in charge?” Doris asks.
“My dad.” Tiffany smiles again.
I make no comment.
“His money is my money.”
“Not quite,” Tiffany continues thetête-à-tête“I earned every penny. Alvin was more than a husband; he was a job.”
“And when he was terminated, you got fired.”
The edges of my mouth turn down and I nod slightly; Tiffany’s comment amazes me.
Doris stands, walks to the door, opens it. “You can go now.”
___
“Boob lift.”
Tiffany and I sit in the Ritz lobby on the twelfth floor of Water Tower Place. If there is a more impeccably manicured room in the world, I’d like to see it.
“She had a boob lift.”
“What?”
Tiffany demonstrates. “They pull this up to fight this falling down.”
I am slightly embarrassed, staring at the young girl’s flawless breasts. “You think that’s why she was in Palm Springs?”
“What better time to go?” Tiffany says. “She’s probably got a standing room reservation at a private hospital every year at that time.”
“She’s had that much work done?”
“If Doris has one more face lift, she’ll be wearing a goatee.”
I sip coffee from a cup of fine china. “Why does a guy like Alvin stay married to a woman like Doris?”
“He doesn’t want to be bothered,” Tiffany says.
“Bothered by what?”
“His house, cars, help, kids, social obligations, whatever; he’s got too much else going on to worry about. He lets her do all that, ’cause she’s got nothing better to do.”
“She was right-on about marriage being a job?”
“All she has to do is keep the house running, keep herself looking good; so he looks good and everybody is happy.”
“Think they still did it?”
“Sex?” Tiffany questions my question. “No way.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t have to anymore and he’s shelling out for premium blend.”
I sip my coffee. “Is there something going on with that policy, I should know about?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“Some kind of rider.”
“Ever consider mentioning that to me?”
“Not really.”
“What did the rider specify?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tiffany, tell me.”
“All I know is Daddy didn’t get to be Daddy by paying out.”
7
The old block's chip
Two gangbangers are found shot to death on the Red Line train at 3 am on a Tuesday night. The case falls on the rookie detective’s desk.
The victims are teenagers, sporting more tattoos than a starting NBA line-up. They wore the requisite baggy shorts and skin-tight tee-shirts, but in dissimilar colors. Each had a criminal record from age thirteen and spent most of their time, doing time. Each was shot at close range, one bullet per brain. There are four witnesses who won’t talk and I can’t blame them. Witnesses in the projects become an immediate endangered species. The lab guys refuse to dust for prints on a subway car; can’t blame them for that, either. All I have to go on are eight-by-ten glossies of the boys in deathly splendor.
I take the pictures to my cubicle, pin them up on the wall and stare at them for two hours. My fellow detectives think I am nuts. Nobody cares about gangbangers, because they are usually killed by rival gangbangers; a thinning of the criminal herd, a win-win for the citizenry. After all that staring, I finally see, amidst a slew of painted skin, one small tattoo, a replica of a handgun, is shared by the victims.
The next night two more gangbangers are shot to death beneath the Harlem “L” platform on the Westside. Again, nothing matches, except the handgun tattoo. If this is two gangs having it out, the least they can do is identify themselves. More pictures are tacked to my wall.
I go to work and question every gang squad cop to discover if they have ever seen similar tattoos. They think I am either kinky or gay. I review three years’ worth of cases and find gang crimes are surprisingly boring. One kid shoots another kid and that kid’s buddies shoot back, etc., etc. I visit with every gangbanger doing time in Cook County and make them take off their shirts to find a match of tats and find none. I am sure they also suspect I am
gay.
I take the photos and question hookers, ER nurses, tattoo parlor artists; nobody knows or won’t say a word. I keep asking questions and, although I didn’t realize it at the time, what I was doing was fueling more talk on the street than a free cell phone offer.
Two nights later two more teenagers are found shot to death in an abandoned school bus; interesting transportation angle at work here. Plus, same tats.
With the total at six, the newspapers increase circulation, the local TV stations have plenty of grisly video to kick off their broadcasts and the mayor’s office is screaming bloody murder, so to speak. And my wall is filling up.
The buzz on the street has grown meaner than a cocaine addict trying to free-base baking soda. Fingers are pointed, alibis are established, snitches are reeling in the money; tongues are wagging with anonymous tips and there is a massive covering of one’s own ass from the top down in a number of gangs. The Insane Unknowns are blaming the Latin Kings, the Crips are ratting out the Bloods. The Blackstone Rangers say it’s the Mongols and on, and on, and on.
I have no murder weapons, no stack of cash for a motive, and no connection between crimes, except six kids with one similar tattoo. All I can do is keep asking questions. I pull one leader from each gang in for questioning and put them in the same room. Although they are all in the same business, the leaders are not the type to kibbitz with their personal trade secrets or exchange favorite recipes. What happens? Stupidity rises to the surface like a fart in a swimming pool. As each blames the others, facts surface, the story takes shape, and motives are revealed.
It took me about twenty minutes to learn that six gangbangers, from rival gangs, joined forces in an attempt to start their own gang. Ah, the American dream in all its glory. Unfortunately, the upstarts didn’t write a very good business plan, because once the word of their new biz got back to their respective chiefs, each was destined to pay the ultimate exit fee.
In the end we arrested nine, got great press, and I received an accommodation for a job well done. A day or two later, life was back to normal with the same amount of gang-related drug dealing, violence, and mayhem in the City of Chicago. Isn’t it great to make a difference?
