“It’s a very small sample,” the short guy in the lab coat says. His hair is in a deep buzz cut. You’d think he’d use the clipper on a higher setting to give himself a little more height. Maybe he’s afraid he might contaminate the things he’s analyzing with a strand of hair. Severe brush cuts rarely look good. The average head is damn unattractive, often asymmetrical, and sporting a few birthmarks nobody normally notices when enough hair covers them up. This guy has a mole right on top of his head that looks like a brown, misshapen cherry. Marcus’s fade is different. It has enough texture to cover up any imperfections. As if that man has any.
“Is there enough to figure out if it’s heroin, or laced with anything?” Malone looks over at me as if I’m the one who laced it. She’s still mad at me for grabbing her so hard. Even if I did it for a good reason. She said her wrist still hurts. I never figured her for such a crybaby.
“Should be,” the short guy says. He walks across the room and places a bag containing Alice’s jewellery box lining in a box behind a whole lot of other, similar boxes. When he moves past me I get a closer look at the mole on top of his head. It’s raised and irregular and totally grosses me out. The man really should have a doctor check that thing out. “But I have a lot of other stuff to look at first. We had a raid on a tractor-trailer full of cows last night smuggling OxyContin over the Canada-U.S. border.”
“I thought Canadians only exported weed,” I say. It’s not legal there yet. Although that piece of eye candy they have running the country says it’s coming soon. Canada has one of the highest percentages of pot smokers in the world, plus lots of remote, empty spaces to covertly grow the stuff. They export it mostly to us Americans who smoke leaf even fucking more than they do.
“We see a lot of the illegal prescription drugs come over the border,” the technician says. “Canada has national health care. A person can go to the doctor as much as they want and pester them for opioids.”
“Don’t we have national health care here as well?” Malone says. She and the lab tech look at each other and laugh. Even I manage to let out an amused snort.
“But what about the cows?” Malone says, after we’ve finished chuckling about the inadequacy of the U.S. health care system.
“We got a tip-off that they’d fed the animals balloons full of the pills just before they went over the Rainbow Bridge.”
Malone and I look over at the other boxes holding samples waiting to be tested. Each plastic bag inside is smeared brown and speckled with straw.
“No way,” Malone says.
“At least I don’t have to collect it,” the lab tech says. “Right now we have some of the city’s finest either sifting through cow paddies or waiting for them to be made.”
“Poor animals,” Malone says.
“Yeah, it gives you a whole new appreciation for the term drug mule.”
“They were cows, not donkeys,” I say.
“Either way,” the little lab guy says, “their shit stinks just as bad.”
“When do you think you’ll get to our sample?” Malone asks.
“Maybe tomorrow morning,” he says. “Or the next day. I’ve got to try and lift fingerprints off the balloons.”
“Won’t that be, uh, difficult?” I say.
“Fingerprints are made mostly with the oil from your skin. Wash the cow crap off, and they’ll still be there.”
“Okay,” Malone says, shaking her head with impatience. After the initial comedy of the situation, I guess she’s a little miffed her case is now last in the queue behind a bunch of cow shit. “But tell me,” she asks the guy while turning to look at me again. “If there is W-18 in there, would a little bit on your finger be enough to kill you?”
“If the purity is high enough, and you haven’t built up a tolerance, it can take only a few grains,” the lab technician says. Then he picks up a box from the front of the line and places it at his work station. Malone and I get out of there before he opens the plastic bag.
I’m smiling smugly as we walk down the hallway. Malone ignores me, but she quits rubbing her wrist to try to make me feel bad. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she takes the call in another room, making me sit outside on a chair like a kid in trouble with Principal Cutter.
“Let’s go,” she says when she comes back into the hallway.
“Where to this time?”
“Back to the Mendlers’ house,” she says. “That was Hawk Security. Jessica’s father wasn’t working the night Tyler Brent was killed.”
CHAPTER 15
THE MENDLERS’ HOUSE IS DARK when we pull up to the curb, but there’s a double-cab Ford pickup in the driveway. It looks like it’s seen a few too many winters; judging by the bald tires, it probably shouldn’t see another one. It hadn’t been there when we first interviewed Jessica and her mother. I guess they can only afford the one vehicle with the father’s work being so sporadic. I wonder if the mother has a job. It hadn’t seemed like it. Too much hassle trying to explain the state of her face to co-workers. A woman can only walk into so many doors.
“Doesn’t look like he’s here,” I say, even though the pickup says otherwise. But it’s cloudy and almost dinnertime. Most people would have turned on a light or two by now at this time of year with the sun still setting on the early side.
Malone and I had stopped at a hot dog cart after the lab; a late lunch. But I couldn’t stop thinking about those poor bovines stuffed full of Oxy balloons. You never know what the hell goes into those wieners. A girl I knew in prison swore she bit into one once and found a vein. I’d tossed bun and all into a streetside garbage can without eating any.
“Well, we’ll just have to see about that,” Malone says.
“Come on, Malone,” I say. It’s been a long day, at least for someone like me who isn’t exactly a nine to fiver. I really just want to relax with a drink somewhere. Maybe see if Marcus is still around so he can help me relax even more. “Why don’t we try back tomorrow? The guy’s a veteran. We shouldn’t be hassling him anyway.”
“His military experience just makes him a more likely suspect, Candace. He may have learned a few tricks about how to break a kid’s neck.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they have zip lines in Afghanistan.” But I think about my dad and know she’s probably right.
“And the wife lied about where he was,” she says. “There’s that.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Let’s get it over with.”
Malone takes a deep breath and gets out of the car. Almost forgets to let me out of where I’m stranded in the back seat without door handles. “You know this is just getting silly,” she says.
We ring the bell. No answer. Malone rings it again, more insistently. We stand waiting for the sound of footsteps on the stairs or the kerfuffle of someone trying to apply heavy pancake makeup around their eyes before answering the door.
“They’re not home, Malone,” I say, a stiff drink and perhaps something stiffer seeming within my grasp tonight after all.
“I heard something,” she says. And then I hear it, too. A grunt, or maybe a sigh.
“Maybe you should call for backup,” I say.
“I don’t need backup,” she says. “I have you.” She puts her ear against the door and listens. Then steps away. Nothing.
“Did you hear that?” she says. I have very good hearing. There hadn’t been another sound from inside since the grunt. “I’m quite sure it was a scream,” she says, tilting her bobbed head at me. She tries the door; it’s unlocked. “I don’t think we have any choice. We have to go in. Someone may be in danger.”
“You are so fucked up, Malone.”
She opens the door to the house where no one has screamed, and we both step inside.
We stand on the mat directly inside the door, and Malone calls out, “Hello! Mrs. Mendler? Jessica?” And then finally, “Mr. Mendler?”
“In here,” a voice says from the kitchen. I can smell the smoke from here. Shit, I can take anyt
hing, dead bodies, cow manure, but I cannot stand the stink of bloody cigarettes right now.
We walk down the hall. Mr. Mendler is sitting at the kitchen table with his back to us. He’s a mountain of a man, but he’s hunched over like his glacial peaks are melting. A beer sits in front of him and it doesn’t look like it’s his first. But you’d probably need a full case to put a dent in this guy. Malone walks to the opposite side of the table, pulls out a chair, and sits down. I lean against the counter, away from the lit butt he has in his hand.
“Mr. Mendler,” Malone says gently. Mendler looks up. He has a boy’s round face on a man’s body. He’d probably have bright eyes if they weren’t so dull from the booze. His hair is cut in a poorly chopped mullet. He gives us a crooked grin, as if it is totally normal to have strange women come walking into his kitchen. I suspect he thinks we’re a mirage. Behind the twisted smile, though, you can still see the good-natured big guy he used to be, a redneck for sure, but the nice one on the football team you called Moose. He could put the lead quarterback in traction, but he wouldn’t punch a drunk at a party, even if he was breaking his balls. Of course, they all have their snapping points, these big, sweet guys. And the problem is that when they snap, someone usually ends up half-dead. So they learn young to exercise restraint.
Guys like Mendler are too obvious to use in my line of work and too dangerous to use for enforcement, accidentally killing people when they’re only supposed to beat the shit out of them. Mostly they get jobs as bodyguards. They rarely have to touch anyone, just look imposing all day, and then go home to their mom’s place where they watch This Is Us with her before eating through half the refrigerator. But Mr. Mendler had a stopover on that trajectory. Something dark took away his good nature. He never really wanted to hurt anyone, but he couldn’t help it. Something broke him, I’m thinking, to a point where he doesn’t care who he hurts anymore.
“Who are you?” he says, looking at Malone then slowly bobbing his face over to look at me. He can barely keep his head up, and when he puts the butt out in the overflowing metal ashtray, I’m relieved on a variety of counts. He’s like one of those toy birds with the top hat that keeps tipping over to take a drink of imaginary water. Not a good candidate for holding a burning cigarette.
“I’m Detective Malone, and this is my associate, Carrie Fisher.”
“You’re missing those big buns on the sides of your head,” he says, taking another drink of his beer. Honestly, Malone has to come up with another alias. This joke is getting old.
“What do you want?” he says, his head bobbing down toward the table again, looking for that elusive top-hatted bird drink.
“We want to talk to you about Tyler Brent,” Malone says.
That brings his head back up with a vengeance. His eyes clear a bit, and he wills himself to focus. “That worthless piece of shit,” he says.
“Looks like he knows him, Malone.” She shushes me. I stay leaning against the counter but keep my guard up. This guy is a powder keg, and talk of Tyler Brent might ignite him.
“You’ve probably heard Tyler was found dead in Riverside Park last week,” Malone says, pushing forward with the fire she’s lighting. “We’re hoping you can help us with our investigation, Mr. Mendler.”
“And why the fuck would I do that?” The fog of his semi-consciousness is clearing. He looks at Malone straight on, no more bobbing.
“Well, if you don’t want to answer our questions here, we could always bring this down to the station,” Malone says. I know she can’t make him go without having something to arrest him for. She’s probably wagering his knowledge of citizen’s rights comes from Law and Order reruns and the empty threat of being parted from his kitchen table with its readily available beer and smokes will intimidate him. She’s wrong.
“Get out of my house,” Mendler says. His voice is so low and threatening it makes me reach down the front of my pants for the gun that isn’t there. His eyes are sharper now. He’s reached into whatever training he had in Afghanistan to override the alcohol in his system and put him on full alert. I remember a guy in the Marines telling me how they made him and the rest of his platoon dig holes in the pouring rain for forty-eight hours straight, ordering them every five hours to lie down and sleep for twenty minutes. He lay down with his cheek in the mud in the hole he’d dug and slept, and when the Sargent woke him, he got up and dug again. The soldier learns to seal off the reality of his body and force his mind not to listen to it. All so he can do what he’s ordered to do.
“We just need to ask a few questions,” Malone says, trying to talk him down. She impresses me by not backing down. But if I were her I might put a little more distance between the mountain and myself.
“Get out of my fucking house,” he says again.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mendler, but if you won’t answer our questions here, you’ll have to come down to the station.” I guess she really is going to arrest him. Although I’m not sure for what. Suspicion of being a drunken psychopath? If that were a crime, the joint wouldn’t be big enough to hold everyone. Malone stands up from the table and starts fishing for the cuffs she had clapped on me earlier. I wonder whether they’ll hold a guy like this.
He’s quick. I’ll give him that, particularly for a big guy with at least a dozen Budweiser in him. Mendler jumps up from his chair and grabs Malone by the London Fog lapels and throws her up against the stove. “I said get the fuck out of my house,” he roars in her face.
I walk over, grab him by the long hair of his mullet, and kick out both his knees. I have him down on the floor so fast Malone doesn’t have time to reach for her service revolver. The heel of one of my shit-kicker boots is wedged so firmly against a vulnerable part of the spine that an unanaesthetized root canal would feel like child’s play in comparison. He groans, his cheek pressed into the floor. A little bit of blood trickles down his ear from where I pulled a clump of long hair out, just below where it abruptly changes to a short crop on top. Someone really needs to tell him that hairstyle went out with acid-wash — the ’80s bleached jean fad, not the stuff you use to dissolve dead bodies in the bathtub. That acid’s always in.
“Let’s all just calm down here,” Malone says, righting herself from the stove.
“What do you know about Tyler?” I say, grinding the toe of my boot in a little farther between the vertebrae. I really hope I don’t have to slip this guy’s disc to get him to talk. He’s a veteran after all.
“I don’t know anything. Except what that little fucker did to my daughter,” he says, snarling through the pain.
“Where were you last Saturday night?” Malone says, going for her handcuffs again.
“He took her to those fucking animals,” Mendler says, ignoring her question. “As an initiation. Let them do whatever they wanted to her.” Now he’s crying. “I’m glad the fucker’s dead. He deserved it.” Same as I suggested to Malone in the bar. The boy really was a poster boy for aggravated assault. “But I didn’t kill him. I just wish that I had. Oh God, stop whatever you’re doing. Jesus! This is fucking police brutality.”
“I’m not with the police,” I say, removing my boot. Malone hurriedly straddles him to put the cuffs on. She could have taken her time. It’ll be a few minutes before he will be able to get up again.
She stands and asks him again, “Where were you last Saturday night, Mr. Mendler?”
The fight’s gone out of him. The dullness has come back into his eyes. Then he shuts them. “I don’t remember,” he says faintly. Like the Marine in the trench full of rain, he starts to fall asleep. Within minutes he’s snoring. By the time Malone and I have secured the house, he walks pliantly to the unmarked and gets in the back, following orders like a good soldier.
Apparently, you can’t legally interview a person who has consumed a ridiculous amount of alcohol and make anything they say stick. If that’s the case, they should throw out every statement I ever made to police. Although there have only been a few and they were always bulls
hit. Like I said, never admit to anything.
So, we’ve dropped Mr. Mendler in the drunk tank with the rest of the poor-decision-makers and gone to get a late bite at a sushi place Malone knows. The cops will interview him tomorrow when he’s sober.
“It’s Japanese, you know, not Chinese, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Malone says, talking about the sushi.
“I’m a felon, Malone, not a fucking cultural moron.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” she says, as she pulls out the restaurant iPad from under the table that’s used for ordering off the all-you-can-eat menu. Its white plastic frame is covered with pink lotus flowers.
“These places are all run by Koreans anyway,” I say, looking around. A rotund, white porcelain cat with red and gold overalls sits on the ledge of the hostess station. The obligatory Happy Cat. I don’t know what that cat has to be so happy about. At his weight he’s a massive kitty coronary waiting to happen.
“What do you want?” Malone asks as she scrolls and taps out her picks of specialty rolls and nigiri.
“I like the spicy stuff,” I say.
“Wasabi?” Malone says.
“I mean the spicy rolls,” I say. I like wasabi well enough but had a bad experience with it. The one and only time my dad took me for sushi as a kid, he had gone to the can, and when they put out that little mound of lime-green liquid nitrogen from hell on the table with the ginger, I had thought it was guacamole. I fucking love guacamole. I think my dad had a worse cleanup on his hands that night than the cops waiting for those cows to crap in the tractor-trailer.
The Starr Sting Scale Page 14
