A Murder of Justice (2 page)

She stopped in front of one of the ICUs.

Through the glass door, Frank saw Pencil Crawfurd, chest bandaged, a tangle of tubes running in and out of his body, his bed surrounded by electronic monitoring equipment.

“He’s still out,” Arrowsmith said.

“Any guess how long?” José asked.

“Maybe another two, three hours.” Her eyes fixed on the motionless figure. She sighed, as if acknowledging how powerless all the tubing and electronics were to affect what would happen. “Maybe a couple a days.”

“He starts coming around . . .” José offered Arrowsmith a contact card.

She laughed. “Save your card. All these years, José, I got your number.”

 TWO

F
rank turned off Florida Avenue onto M Street, NE.

A dingy assortment of run-down row houses lined both sides of the street. The stark glare of mercury-vapor lamps washed over battered doors, raw-dirt front yards, plywood-patched windows sprayed with gang graffiti. A gutted mattress lay on the sidewalk. Farther on, a Safeway shopping cart, minus a wheel, leaned against a long-dead tree.

“Looks like all the shit in the world nobody wanted’s been dumped here,” José said.

“Little urban renewal needed.”

José grunted. “A little nuclear bomb.”

“Here we are.” Frank pulled over to the curb.

The two-story brick row house stood out from its crumbling neighbors: bright yellow with white trim, azaleas and climbing wisteria. A black ornamental cast-iron fence set the property off from the rest of the neighborhood.

The gate opened and shut quietly. At the door, José rapped with the polished brass knocker. He was about to knock again when the door swung open. A compact black
man in a black suit, white shirt, and black bow tie stood like a statue in the doorway.

Marcus was into his never-blink routine. Deciding against a stare-down standoff, Frank held up his credentials and badge.

“We’re here to see Ms. Lipton, Marcus.”

Marcus’s eyes moved almost imperceptibly, first taking in the credentials, then scanning Frank’s face as though he’d never seen him before.

“Wait.” Marcus’s shearing whisper was like a razor cutting through stiff paper. He swung the door shut. It made the heavy, cushioned sound of a vault closing. The snicking of a deadbolt followed.

Frank glanced out at the empty street, then at José. “I thought he was still in Lorton.”

“No,” José said. “Maybe a month, two months ago, I heard he was out. Nice uniform.”

“Looks like he got religion.”

“If you can call it that.”

More time passed.

Impatient, Frank rolled his shoulders. “Think he’s coming back?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

José had the knocker up when the deadbolt slid back. Another second and the door swung open. Marcus did a short rerun of the statue game, then motioned Frank and José in with a twist of his head.

Walking with feline grace, he led them down a narrow hallway and into a glassed garden room filled with potted palms, orchids, and climbing vines.

Sharon Lipton, a large, exotic woman, sat in an even larger wicker chair. Like a throne, the chair back swept out and up, forming an oval frame for her face. Beside her, a similar chair, empty.

“Thank you, Marcus.”

Marcus gave the slightest nod. He waited for a moment, eyeing Frank and José in warning, then left.

Lipton watched him leave, then turned to Frank and José.

They offered their credentials.

With the back of her hand, she waved them off. “Sit.”

The two men took seats on a small sofa. Lipton looked them over as if they were up for auction.

“You . . . you’re Josephus Phelps . . . Titus Phelps’s boy. And you”—she shifted to Frank—“you’re Frank Kearney.”

She continued looking at the two detectives, collecting more thoughts. She pursed her lips. “You the two who set up Johnny Sam.”

José shrugged. “Johnny set himself up.”

Lipton ignored him. “You said you wanted to talk to me.” She settled back in the chair and rested her hands on the arms. “So . . . so talk,” she commanded.

The thought came to Frank: She knows. She knows why we’re here.

José did it. Without preamble, he did it. “Ma’am, somebody shot and killed your son, James.”

Lipton’s expression didn’t change.

“It was over on Bayless,” José continued, “and Pencil—”

Lipton cut in. “I know.”

Her voice came from a dark cavern of grief and anger. It hung in the still air of the garden room. A heartbeat or two passed; then she brought her head forward a fraction of an inch. The motion carried an impression of searching.

“Where is he?”

“Medical examiner’s.”

“They gonna cut him up . . . my boy.” The final, flat way she said it, it wasn’t a question, it was an indictment.

“Medical examination could help us find who killed him,” José said.

Lipton registered zero expression.

“And his car?” she asked, as though toting up a score to be settled later.

“Impounded, ma’am, for evidence.”

Frank asked, “He lived here?”

“Yes.”

“Could we see his room?”

“Why?”

“There might be something there that could tell us something.”

Lipton shook her head. “Not gonna have my boy’s room tore up.”

“We won’t disturb a thing, ma’am,” Frank said. “We would like to look, though.”

“I don’t let you,” Lipton said sullenly, “you gonna get a warrant.”

“We could,” Frank said.

Lipton fixed Frank with a poisonous stare. Then the venom drained away, and only sadness remained.

“Marcus?”

She hadn’t raised her voice, but Marcus instantly appeared in the doorway. She motioned toward Frank and José. “Take these . . . these
gentlemen
to James’s. They gonna look around.”

M
arcus led the two toward the back of the house, through the kitchen and down a short hallway. In what was apparently an addition to the original house, he opened the door. A cathedral ceiling vaulted over a king-size bed that faced a wall-to-wall cabinet filled with stereo gear and a massive flat-panel TV. On the other side of the room, a recliner chair, a leather sectional sofa, a small wet bar, and another flat-panel TV.

“Turn all that stuff on at one time,” José said, “you black out the neighborhood.”

Marcus stationed himself by the door and folded his arms across his chest. The only thing that moved were his eyes as he followed the two detectives working their way around the room, Frank to the right, José to the left.

Without a warrant, you didn’t get down to squeezing toothpaste out of the tubes, dismantling furniture, or even
emptying the contents of drawers on the floor. But there were trade-offs. In the time you took to get a warrant, somebody could go through the place before you.

A walk-in closet: fourteen suits, a dozen or so shirts on hangers under plastic covers, and, Frank counted, twenty-three pairs of Nikes and sixteen athletic jackets of NBA teams.

Frank couldn’t find a Wizards jacket.

With Michael Jordan, you’d think . . .

The door beside the closet led into a marble-and-tile full bath complete with steam shower and whirlpool tub.

Another door led to a garage that opened onto the alleyway running along the backs of the row houses. Skeeter could come and go without mama’s knowing.

On the nightstand by the bed, a Uniden radio scanner and a large white telephone with a bank of speed-dial buttons and a row of LEDs.

“Secure phone,” José said.

Frank jotted down the number. The nightstand also held several magazines,
Ironman, Basketball Digest, Sports Illustrated.

José had finished his side of the room and was standing on the other side of the bed. He pointed to the
Ironman
cover, where an improbably muscled man and woman were showing nearly everything while rollerblading on a Venice, California, beach sidewalk. “Those two probably got muscles in their shit,” he said.

Marcus spoke for the first time. “You two finished?”

Frank and José exchanged glances.

“Take us back to Ms. Lipton, please,” Frank said.

L
ipton hadn’t moved from her wicker chair.

“You find what you wanted to find?”

“Thank you for your help, Ms. Lipton,” José said.

“Didn’t leave anything behind, did you?” she asked, eyelids heavy.

Frank ignored her.

“Do you have any notion who killed my boy?”

“No,” José answered softly. “No, ma’am, we don’t.” He let the silence ripen, then asked, “Do you?”

Lipton sat back in her chair. Her face suddenly seemed to wilt. She shook her head. “Would it do me any good to tell you?”

“I don’t know, ma’am,” José said very deliberately, in a low voice. “I don’t know if it would do you any good or not.”

“How do you mean that . . . you don’t know if it would do me any good or not?”

José lowered his voice even more. “Nobody can tell you that except yourself.”

Lipton stared at José a long time, things going on behind her dark eyes. “How many times my boy hit?”

“We don’t know, Ms. Lipton,” Frank said, “not yet.”

“My boy dead, and that Pencil gonna live . . .” Lipton mused, trailing off as if she had banked something she had to think about later. She assumed a businesslike tone. “When we get his car?”

“Like I said, Ms. Lipton, it’s at impound. We’ll be going over it for evidence.”

“Evidence?” Lipton’s mouth tightened. “Evidence against who?”

“Just evidence,” José said evenly.

“How long?”

“Beg pardon?”

“How long before we get his car?” Lipton’s exasperation was growing.

Frank watched as Marcus, standing behind her, stirred restlessly, gunner’s eyes locked on the two detectives. Frank became aware of the weight of his own shoulder holster and the drape of his coat over his left armpit.

Him first. Then . . . then her?

“Can’t say, exactly,” José said.

“Can’t? . . . Or won’t?”

“Can’t, ma’am. I can’t say right now, and you know that. As soon’s we can, that’s all I can say.”

For several heartbeats the four remained motionless, trapped in amber.

Frank broke the silence. “Ms. Lipton. Your son’s killer . . . you have any idea . . . any guess?”

Lipton took a deep breath. She held it, then let it out, rocking ever so slightly in rhythm with music only she could hear.

“Idea?” she said in a hard-edged whisper. “I got an
eye
- dea. I got an idea that you folks did him in.” She paused as though listening to her own thinking coming back to her. “Yes,” she said with finality, “I think I’m looking at the people who did my boy in.”

F
rank was unlocking the car when José’s cell phone chirped. José stood head thrust forward, phone pressed against his ear, massive body locked in place, as if the slightest movement might break a fragile connection. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. His shoulders relaxed. He turned.

“Daddy,” José explained. “Wants me to drop by.”

“Want to skip coffee?”

José gave Frank an incredulous look. “Not with your turn to buy.”

A
dair set the orders of hash browns in front of the two men. Steam rose, fragrant and seductive, heavy with oil and paprika. Frank reached down the counter and snagged a bottle of Tabasco. After dousing his potatoes, he passed the hot sauce to José.

Adair watched, then gave out his usual warning. “Stuff’ll rot your gut.”

José came back with his usual reply. “Hasn’t yet.”

Adair ran a rag over the already clean counter in front of them. “Word is, Skeeter Hodges got whacked tonight.”

José held up the Tabasco bottle. “Empty.”

Adair sighed, reached under the counter, and came up with another bottle. He held it just out of José’s reach. “And Pencil Crawfurd caught a few,” he added. He looked at José, then Frank.

Frank raised his empty mug for a refill, pointedly saying nothing.

Adair took the hint and gave up on the fishing. Sighing again, he handed José the Tabasco and collected both mugs. “Whoever zapped those shits,” he said, returning with the refills, “did us all a favor.”

“Isn’t hunting season for humans yet in the District,” José said.

“Too bad,” Adair replied over his shoulder as he walked away, down the length of the counter.