Skies of Ash

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Homeless camp,” Luke said.

  “Yep.” Nausea worked its way from my stomach to the back of my throat. But my breathing remained steady. Guess my lungs didn’t know I wanted to vomit.

  An Olde English malt-liquor bottle rolled from a patch of ivy and onto the dirt path ten yards in front of us.

  We stopped and raised our guns.

  “Police,” I shouted, barely audible over the commotion of the 405. “You hurt?”

  No response.

  I glanced at Pepe.

  His eyes were trained on the ivy.

  The leaves rustled.

  I took a deep breath, then shouted, “Police. Are you hurt?”

  The creature writhed beneath the filthy blankets.

  Pepe stepped forward and deeper into the cloud of flies.

  Luke took Pepe’s place.

  I stayed in my spot, legs steady and spread apart, gun trained on the blanket.

  Seconds slammed into each other.

  Pepe crept closer, then looked at me over his shoulder. He mouthed, “On three…”

  One… two…

  Pepe bent and grabbed the edge of the blanket.

  Three!

  He yanked.

  The pit bull snarled.

  Pepe reeled back and fell on his ass.

  Luke shouted, “Shit!”

  The dishwater-colored pit bull didn’t lunge. No, it stayed in its spot. Blood gushed from its left flank. The dog bared its teeth, but didn’t mean it.

  “Someone shot a dog,” I screeched, relief erupting from me.

  Pepe, sweating and wild-eyed, stumbled to his feet.

  The poor animal’s head dropped back into the ivy.

  “Just a graze,” Luke said. “Poor baby.”

  “That son of a bitch was about to eat me,” Pepe shouted.

  “Oh, stop wettin’ your panties, Peter.” I dropped my arms but didn’t holster my gun—a pit bull is still a pit bull. I radioed in for Animal Control to ferry the dog to a vet for stitches and kibble. “What kind of asshole shoots a dog?” I made a sad face at the pup. “You’ll be okay, Bullet.”

  Luke smiled. “Bullet. I like that. I’ll stay with her. She kinda reminds me of Lupita.” He inched closer to the dog with his hand out for sniffing. “Duérmete mi niño,” he sang softly. “Duérmete mi amor.”

  As Luke lullabied Bullet, Pepe and I trudged back to the storage unit, sweaty but enervated. As detectives, our hearts no longer pounded from the chase but pounded from all that had been left behind after the chase. Not tonight, though, and it felt good.

  Pepe stepped back into the unit, and muttered, “Shit.”

  I stood beside him and saw it, too. And my knees weakened as though someone had punched me in the gut.

  The space closest to the unit’s door was empty. Problem was: that space had been occupied by two file-storage boxes filled with deposit slips and phone bills.

  And now those boxes were gone.

  33

  THE GRAINY BLACK-AND-WHITE FOOTAGE FROM THE SURVEILLANCE CAMERA showed Pepe and me, guns drawn, tiptoeing out of Christopher Chatman’s storage unit. Luke waited ten seconds, then followed us off camera, radio to his mouth.

  Twenty seconds later, two individuals wearing dark hoodies crept on camera from the north to the storage unit. Suspect 1 stood at the doorway as lookout while suspect 2 entered the unit. The hoods kept their faces hidden in shadow—they knew that they were being recorded. Ten seconds later, suspect 2 returned to the door holding two stacked document boxes. Suspect 1 took the top box. They both looked south, to where we had been following the trail of blood. Then, they ran north and out of camera range.

  Pepe and I had returned at the six-minute mark, smiles on our faces, minds already knitting together the story we’d tell at the station the next day. Pepe had entered the unit. My face was hidden but my shoulders had hunched to my ears.

  Luke, Pepe, and I now stood in Sudanek’s musty little office, our faces sweaty, our mouths agape as we watched the surveillance recording on the fifteen-inch television monitor.

  Luke popped an antacid tablet and muttered, “Carajo.”

  Sudanek shrugged. “Happen all times. People watch. People, they steal. What do you do?” He shrugged again and burped into the back of his hand. “They call you. They steal from you. What do you do?”

  We couldn’t answer—embarrassment had squeezed out all irate thoughts.

  Luke waddled to the Impala to complete a stolen-property form. Pepe and I plodded north, in the direction the thieves had taken. My feet burned in the high-heeled boots, and my legs stayed rigid—I didn’t deserve to walk with a spring in my step.

  We passed Del Taco and approached an alleyway near the Dollar Store.

  “What the hell happened?” Pepe wondered.

  “They shot the dog, knew that we would hear the shots, knew that we would leave to investigate the shots, waited until we left, and grabbed what they could.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “Pawnable things? I don’t know.”

  “Chatman knew you were coming here?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Pepe paused, then asked, “Is it possible…?”

  “Certainly.”

  “So?”

  I halted in my step. “What’s that?”

  Up ahead and deeper into the alley, two document boxes sat near a garbage bin.

  Pepe sprinted toward the Dumpster as though the boxes would disappear at any moment.

  Aching feet be damned, I raced behind him with the same horrid expectation. By the time I reached his side, Pepe had already taken off the box tops. I watched him shuffle through the boxes, shifting from foot to foot, pressure building in my bladder as though I had to pee.

  Receipts… random pieces of paper… No CDs. No deposit slips.

  “Not pawnable?” Pepe asked.

  “Guess not.”

  “CDs and deposit slips, though—”

  “Aren’t pawnable, either.”

  “So?”

  I closed my eyes and groaned.

  Pepe rubbed his mouth. “As my Korean grandma says, Jen-jang.”

  I shivered. “Does your grandma have a saying for ‘our ass is grass’?”

  “Yeah, but it loses a lot in translation.” He stared at the boxes, then said, “If she saw me now, she’d call me a byung-shin.”

  “Dumb ass?”

  He nodded. “Will you tell L.T. or…?”

  I squeezed the Motorola so hard that it cracked. “I’ll tell him, since it’s my investigation. And then I’ll have to tell Chatman. That is, if he doesn’t already know.”

  34

  ON THE WAY HOME, I STOPPED AT TARGET FOR A BOTTLE OF SANGRIA AND A BIG BAG of Doritos. On impulse, I also threw into the shopping cart three Christmas candles and an Anita Baker Christmas CD.

  Ho, ho, ho. Fa, la, la.

  Syeeda called again as I pushed my basket through Pain Relief. “Sorry for rushing you off the phone earlier,” I told her. “And right now, I don’t feel much for talking.”

  “Bad day at the office, kitten?” she cooed.

  “I just pulled the economy-sized tub of ibuprofen off the shelf and dropped it in a cart filled with wine and Doritos, so you know how my day has gone.”

  “Damn,” she said. “That’s pretty bad. Lena told me that you guys made up? And that you’re planning Tori’s memorial?”

  “Yep. Can you write a nice obit?”

  “Anything for you. And something else for you: Christopher Chatman.”

  I pushed my cart toward checkout. “What about him?”

  “I’m sure you’re gonna look into his work history, but I called his firm today and told the receptionist that I was writing a story about the house fire. She said he didn’t work there.”

  “Same thing happened to me,” I said, grabbing a tabloid from the magazine rack.

  “I pressed her a bit, and she said that he’s on leave. It’s all very hush-hush and weird.”

  “Co
uld be something, could—”

  “Be nothing. Right. You always say that.”

  I smiled. “Cuz it always works.”

  * * *

  As I pulled into my garage, Colin left his third voice-mail message. I would not listen to it—this message would sound no different than the previous two. You take shit the wrong way. Am I supposed to keep quiet cuz I’m new here? When will I be here long enough to have an opinion? I’m sorry if you’re offended blahblahblah.

  Not that I wanted to talk to him—I had already confessed to Lieutenant Rodriguez that possibly important documents had been stolen and their boxes abandoned in an alleyway. My boss had then inflicted upon me a tongue-lashing that would make DMX and Pepe’s grandmother blush. But he didn’t take me off the case. Yet. Or worse: ask for my badge and gun. Yet. So, yeah, I didn’t feel like hearing a Tic-Tac-crunchin’, cowboy-boot-wearin’, spoiled-brat bastard tell me that it had been stupid for all three of us to leave an unlocked storage unit.

  Byung-shin.

  Aiden, my next-door neighbor, was now exercising in his garage—Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” blasted from his stereo as his leg press went clankbang.

  The condo was cold and dark, and after the crap day I’d had, I vowed to change that. I sat one candle in the middle of the dining room table, then lit it with a fireplace match. I arranged the two remaining candles on the living room mantel, then lit those. The walls flickered with gold and grays, and the smell of synthetic gingerbread wafted as the wax melted. In the garage, I found the purple plastic storage bin full of ornaments. I carried the bin back into the house and dropped it next to the tree. I slipped the CD into the stereo—Anita’s smooth alto launched into “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

  Part of me wanted to join Aiden for an hour’s worth of exercise. But I had a Christmas tree to decorate. After that, I had to snuggle with Greg on the couch and watch Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure while eating the last pieces of cold fried chicken in the fridge I had bought back on Monday. And also chug from the new bottle of sangria.

  Ho, ho, ho. Fa, la, la.

  The landline rang from the coffee table. Caller ID announced that Greg was calling.

  I grabbed the phone and fell back on the couch. “I’m dead from the brain down, so don’t ask me any difficult questions.”

  “Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?” Greg asked in his wonderfully husky voice.

  “Because their mothers make them. What’s up, and why aren’t you home?”

  “About to do a sync up with Creative cuz stupid shit is starting to happen and I’m stuck in my own bog and so I need to check in.”

  “Sounds like a day full of suck.”

  “But nothing’s worse than dead people. That was your day, right?”

  I told him all that had happened since we’d last seen each other, including Christopher Chatman’s property being stolen and my argument with Colin.

  “He’s an asshole,” Greg growled. “He’s nothing like Bruno.”

  Correct: Bruno Abbiati, my partner before Colin, and now retired, was 260 pounds, saggy-jowled, and twenty years my senior.

  “Colin’s okay,” I said, suddenly protective of my new partner. “He just has to get with the program and shut his mouth.”

  “Why can’t you get a female partner, anyway?”

  “Cuz there are only so many female detectives on the force.”

  “Why can’t Pepe—?”

  “Cuz he’s Luke’s partner.” And gay. Also perfect for me.

  “It just puts you in an awkward position,” Greg explained.

  “News flash,” I said. “Men and women can work together without sleeping together.”

  He snorted. “Okay.”

  That single word had yanked something inside me, and I sat up on the couch. “Men and women can’t work together without sleeping with each other?”

  “Sure, they can.”

  My hand gripped the receiver tighter. “You have what’s-her-face on your team right now. The one who wears the tight Star Wars T-shirts. You gettin’ down with her?”

  He groaned. “I didn’t mean—let’s not start. I was calling to let you know that I’m gonna be home late.”

  “Cuz you’re bangin’ the chick in the tight Star Wars T-shirt.”

  “Lou. Stop. I know you’d never sleep with Colin.”

  “I wouldn’t?”

  “Nope.” He laughed. “Cuz you have the best at home.”

  Was this a dare? Did he really know what I would and wouldn’t do?

  “You always see drama where there ain’t none,” he said. “You can’t let a day pass without poking at shit.”

  Shots fired. Officer down.

  After picking my teeth off the carpet, I bade him good night. The ornaments stayed in the purple bin. The tree remained naked, and the candles were snuffed. I replaced the sounds of Anita Baker’s CD with the frantic screams of passengers drowning aboard the SS Poseidon.

  I didn’t plan to eat all three chicken breasts. Nor did I plan to finish the bag of Doritos. I had set out to drink one glass of sangria, but that glass had turned into a tumbler. Then, three tumblers.

  At seven minutes to eleven, I still lay on the couch, still nibbling chicken crust from the bottom of the deli bag, still watching Gene Hackman lead a scrappy group of cruise-ship survivors to safety.

  The doorbell rang.

  I lay there, greasy, still pretending not to be home.

  The doorbell rang again.

  I sat up.

  The den shifted once, shifted twice, then spun all the way around.

  I stumbled to the foyer. Part of me knew that I’d had too much to drink. The rest of me didn’t believe that since my feet still worked. I squinted through the peephole.

  No one stood there. Just an empty porch.

  My inner gyroscope cracked, and my forehead banged against the door.

  I muttered, “Ouch,” then stumbled back to the couch.

  A knock on the door.

  I stared at that door.

  The knob twisted.

  I squinted.

  The doorknob twisted slowly left, slowly right.

  I whispered, “What the…?”

  Bile, chicken, and tortilla chips bubbled in my stomach, and I fought the urge to vomit.

  That happened. I saw that happen… Right?

  I crept back to the foyer, uncertain that the twisting had been real.

  But the doorknob slowly twisted right and left again.

  “Hello?” I croaked.

  No answer.

  I placed my ear against the door’s cool wood.

  Couldn’t hear a thing.

  I squinted through the peephole again.

  Empty porch.

  On weak legs, I hurried up the stairs and to my bedroom closet. I opened the Glock’s case, plucked the gun from the foam, and crept back down the stairs to the foyer. I took a deep breath and yanked open the door.

  Night air swept over me, and I sobered up a click. For the second time that night, I slipped into the darkness with a gun in my hand.

  Blades of grass wet my bare feet, and my toes grew numb from the cold.

  Around the corner…

  Television light glowed from Aiden’s downstairs windows.

  In the little park across the street, a small group of people hung out at the marble water fountain. Even though the fountain had been turned off, even though there were no exterior lights, they were all smoking—their lit cigarettes bobbed in the darkness like fireflies. One of the men glanced in my direction. Then, his buddies turned to look at me.

  Nothing to see here, folks. Just a drunk, barefoot, off-duty cop patrolling her home with a Glock in hand.

  The man and his buddies agreed, and they returned to their smokes and jokes.

  I moved on… toes squelching wet earth and grass… pulse racing beneath the grip of the gun…

  “There’s nothing out here,” I mumbled.

  I stopped at t
he base of Greg’s office window and looked down to my feet.

  Shoe prints left in moist earth.

  Buzzing filled my ears as I stared at those boot treads.

  It’s Thursday. The gardener came—those are probably his prints, and you’re drunk.

  I stared at the ground a moment more, feeling my body lean forward as I listened to that buzzing…

  Lou!

  I snapped upright, awake now, then crept back around the corner. The scent of gingerbread rode atop the smells of marshland and burned popcorn and guided me home.

  “You always see drama where there ain’t none,” I said.

  I slammed the door and locked it. Then, I sat on the bottom step of the staircase, feet muddied, gun still in my hand. And I didn’t move from that step until the DVD player shut off. And as I stumbled up the stairs at midnight, washed off, placed the gun on my nightstand, then climbed into bed, I told myself that the entire day had been just a dream. A terrible, never-ending dream.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14

  35

  I CLOMPED INTO THE STATION AT A LITTLE PAST EIGHT IN THE MORNING. AND EVEN though I wore my favorite pantsuit, the tan one with the flared leg, along with cranberry-colored Michael Kors heels that cost as much as a black-market liver, I still felt like stir-fried shit.

  Luke sat at his desk, his eyes trained on a report or a form or maybe nothing at all. Pepe stood at the watercooler, a thick manila envelope tucked beneath his left arm, his gaze trained on the red letters that spelled ARROWHEAD.

  Colin was also seated at his desk. Dark circles hung beneath his bloodshot eyes, and his fingers looked as though mice had been gnawing on his nails. He hadn’t slept, and he now watched me like a kicked golden retriever watching a lion. When I didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. “Syeeda’s article came out.”

  I dropped my bag into the bottom drawer of my desk. “Oh boy.”

  He handed me the section of the Times.

  The lede: TRAGEDY IN THE HILLS. Above it, beautiful pictures of Cody and Chloe at a sunset luau. My heart raced, scared what her words were about to do to me.

  They were just kids, and they were murdered in what was supposed to be the safest place in the world. Cody Chatman, 12, was found in his bed, his favorite Gameboy clutched to his chest. And Chloe Chatman, 8, called “Coco” by so many who loved her, perished in her mother’s arms…