Hold Still (17 page)

THIRTY-ONE

November 1st

Jocelyn paced the eighth floor
of the Criminal Justice Center, pausing every so often to look at the people bustling about the streets below. The city looked so peaceful from her vantage point. From where she stood, it was almost hard to believe what a cesspool of violence and depravity it really was down there. Almost. She paced to stay alert. She hadn’t slept well after she and Inez found the notes inside the sloppy cranes. Trick-or-treating had been uneventful, but it was hard for her to enjoy it with the specter of Henry Richards and whatever misguided issues he had with her looming large in her mind.

From the bay of elevators at the end of the hall, Phil emerged. He pulled a trial box behind him. He wore a gray suit, the pant legs creased perfectly, with a pink shirt and matching pink-and-gray-striped tie. Jocelyn used to think only Phil could make pink sexy. He was about ten feet away when he noticed her. He smiled. “Jocelyn.”

He stopped a few feet away from her this time, keeping distance between them.

“How are you?” Jocelyn asked after an awkward beat.

“I’m well.”

Well. Not “I’m good,” as most people Jocelyn knew would say, but a more proper, “I’m well.”

“Good,” she said. She jammed her hands into her jacket pockets.

Phil shifted his trial box, rolling it back and forth on its wheels. He glanced behind her and motioned down the hall. “I’m due in court.”

Jocelyn pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time. “Not for another half hour,” she noted. “This won’t take long.”

Phil sighed, a wry half smile on his face. He gave her the once-over before meeting her eyes again. “Okay,
Detective
,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Anita Grant. She was raped and mutilated a few weeks ago. We arrested Larry Warner and Angel Donovan. Not only are they out on bail right now but some of their charges have been reduced.”

Phil rolled his eyes, and Jocelyn resisted the urge to punch him in the face. She crossed her arms in front of her and studied him with a frown.

“You’re not going to get the rape charge,” Phil said without preamble.

Jocelyn felt her face flush and hoped it didn’t show. “They nailed her into the floor and had sex with her against her will.”

Phil shook his head and looked down at her as if he were looking at her over a pair of glasses. “Your unknown subject nailed her to the floor. Donovan and Warner paid her for sex.”

Jocelyn made a noise in her throat. She couldn’t keep the edge from her voice. “Oh, you think she was okay with being crucified?”

“Joce, I’m not saying any of it is okay. I’m just telling you, you’ve got a known prostitute who admits to soliciting on Craigslist who met with Warner and Donovan with the intention of having sex for money.”

Jocelyn arched an eyebrow. “That’s bullshit. They raped her. They didn’t make any kind of deal. She left the Dunkin’ Donuts. They followed her and forced her into the car. I have a credible witness.”

“And I can give you the kidnapping charge, but I’m pleading them down on the rape charge. It’s a done deal.”

Jocelyn glared at him. She stepped toward Phil and pointed at him. “If this was a white college student or a soccer mom, you’d be all over this. You’d never even consider pleading down.”

Phil’s tone was one of infinite patience. “But this wasn’t a college student or a soccer mom. It was Anita Grant. A high-risk victim. A college student or a soccer mom wouldn’t be meeting these guys to talk about how much it would cost to fuck them.”

“Phil—”

“I could just as easily charge Ms. Grant with soliciting.”

Jocelyn clenched her jaw, but the words slipped out anyway. Confrontational.
You’re always so confrontational
, he used to say,
and crass
. “Don’t be a prick.”

Phil sighed. “Look, either way they’re going to do time. Why do you care about this?”

Her mouth hung open. “What?”

Immediately, Phil’s face softened. He held up his hands and gave her his best conciliatory expression—the one he used in court that made female jurors swoon. “I didn’t mean it like that—I didn’t mean that the case doesn’t matter. A woman was raped, and I’m sorry for that, but, Jocelyn, you and I both know how this works. You know as well as I do that we get dozens of these cases every month. Why is this one under your skin?”

Jocelyn shook her head and paced before him, eyes on the cream-colored tile floor. Phil’s eyes followed her as though she were a metronome. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Is it because you knew Anita?”

Jocelyn shrugged. “I know a lot of girls.”

He stepped closer to her, stopping her in her tracks, and lowered his voice. He used what Jocelyn always thought of as his faux sympathy tone. “Is this about Camille?”

Jocelyn froze, her cheeks stinging with heat. “Don’t you dare bring my personal life into this. That’s off-limits, especially to you.”

Phil stepped back. He had folded his arms across his chest, and now they inched upward, making him look taller and larger. The impenetrable fortress. His mouth twisted, as though he had eaten something sour. “Oh, is it? Like everything else, huh?” he said, giving her a pointed look.

Jocelyn thrust her chin up at him. “Fuck you.”

Phil rolled his eyes, dismissing her. It was familiar territory. “It is personal,” he insisted.

“When I was on patrol, I saw thousands of rape cases. This is no more personal than any other.”

Phil shook his head. “Please. This woman was basically gang-raped just like your sister.”

“Camille was fifteen, and she wasn’t a prostitute.”

“But she was gang-raped and your parents did nothing about it. You don’t think your whole career is about finding
this
case?”

“You have no idea what my career is about, and clearly you have no idea what this case is about or you wouldn’t be trying to make it about me.”

She stopped pacing and looked at him. Tension knotted the muscles of her shoulders. “They crucified her, Phil. They held her down and put nails through her hands and feet. That’s sadistic. This unknown subject—I have a bad feeling. He may just be getting started. If he escalates—”

“You think he will?”

“Yeah, I do. He’s doing prostitutes now because they’re easy victims that no one cares about. Some of these didn’t even get reported. But one day it could be someone society does care about.”

“You think he’s going to continue to do this without his muscle? Warner and Donovan will be going away soon.”

“They’re out there now, Phil. Thanks to you. And if you think for one minute that they’re not going to do this again while they’re out on bail, then you’re pretty fucking naive.”

“Really, Jocelyn.” There was the patronizing tone. “Do you think they’re that dumb?”

She held his gaze until he looked away from her, fidgeting with the handle of his trial box again. “Not dumb,” she said. “Vicious.”

THIRTY-TWO

November 2nd

The next night Jocelyn and
Kevin were called out to a stabbing and a suspicious death, which they suspected was due to alcohol poisoning. Toxicology would take weeks. By nine o’clock, they sat at their desks, sifting through paperwork, which mostly meant Kevin moving all their paperwork from his desk to hers.

“Hey, Chen,” Jocelyn called as Chen fought with one of the filing cabinet drawers. “Anyone pick up my friend Henry Richards yet?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Chen replied. “You didn’t recognize any of his criminal colleagues?”

She shook her head. “No. Not even one.”

Chen walked back past her desk and dropped a manila envelope into her lap. “Someone from the DA’s office dropped that off for you.”

Kevin wheeled his chair over toward hers. His lips smacked as he chewed a wad of Nicorette. “What is it?” he asked.

Jocelyn slid a finger beneath the flap and opened it. “It’s the affidavit of probable cause in Larry Warner’s assault case. Phil’s paralegal has delivered again.”

“No shit. What’s it say?”

Jocelyn skimmed it quickly, flipping pages. Kevin leaned back in his chair, his eyes on her. The chair squeaked loudly. She let out a puff of air as she finished. She handed it to him, but Kevin shook his head. “I forgot my reading glasses, Rush. I’m in the over-forty club, remember? Just give me the gist.”

“Officer Vincent Fox responded to a domestic on the fifty-two hundred block of Hawthorne,” Jocelyn began.

“That’s in the Northeast.”

“Yeah. Fox arrives to find a man and a woman in a struggle over a handgun. Dwayne Knowle and Shasta Deeb—”

Kevin laughed. “Wait, wait. The woman’s name is Shasta? Like the soda?”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes. “Let’s not speak ill of the dead, Kev.”

Kevin threw his arms into the air. “She dies? We didn’t even get to that part yet! You’re ruining the suspense for me here, Rush.”

She picked up an empty paper clip holder and threw it at him. His body shook with laughter as he dodged it. It clattered to the floor behind him, drawing a disinterested glance from Chen. “Okay, okay. Keep going. Dwayne and Shasta are locked in battle over a gun.”

“Fox calls for backup. He tries to separate them, Dwayne gets hold of the gun and shoots Shasta, at which point Fox puts one in Dwayne. Dwayne later dies of his injuries.”

“What’s this got to do with Larry Warner?” Kevin asked.

Jocelyn held up a finger. “Wait for it. In the next room they find another man who evidently had been shot in the throat by either Dwayne or Shasta before Fox arrived. Guess who?”

Kevin whistled under his breath. “Angel Donovan.”

“Correct. Backup arrives. Then Larry Warner crashes the
scene—acting erratically, yelling, cursing, and generally causing a big shit-storm. He tries to get in the house, Fox restrains him, and Warner assaults him.”

“Did Warner live there?”

Jocelyn shook her head. “House belonged to a known drug dealer. Dwayne and Shasta were just staying there. It doesn’t say why Angel was there or what his relationship to them was.”

“Were there drugs in the house?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s why he was there. So Warner shows up for Angel, and when he sees cops swarming the place, he goes ape shit.”

Jocelyn sighed and tossed the affidavit on top of the monster pile of paperwork already on her desk. “This doesn’t really help.”

“Someone should talk to—what’s his name?” Kevin leaned over and squinted at the affidavit. “Officer Fox. He might know a lot more than what’s in that report—might even know who Warner and Donovan were hanging out with back then.”

Jocelyn glanced at the clock hanging above Chen’s head. “Why don’t we see who they’re hanging out with now?”

Kevin’s face creased with confusion, then slackened in disbelief. “No,” he said. “No way, Rush.”

Jocelyn stood and stretched her arms over her head. “I’ll drive.”

Kevin wiped a palm over his eyes and groaned loudly. “Rush, come on.”

Jocelyn put a hand on his shoulder and leaned down so that her mouth was only inches from his ear. “Her own cane,” she whispered. “Her own cane.”

The shudder that worked its way through Kevin’s body was barely perceptible. Jocelyn might not have even noticed it except that her hand was still resting on his shoulder. Without looking at her, he stood, his knees cracking. He fished a pair of keys from his pocket and threw them to her. “You fight dirty, Rush. Real dirty.”

They sat outside Larry Warner’s house for an hour before he and Angel Donovan emerged. The two men got into Larry’s car and pulled away. Jocelyn drove, staying three or four cars behind them. They weaved their way through the streets of North Philadelphia languidly, as if they didn’t really have a destination. They stopped for steak sandwiches at a small corner place—like most in Philadelphia, it was run out of a converted row house. The smell of fried food drifted across the street to where Jocelyn and Kevin were parked. They watched the two men eat in silence, and then followed them several more blocks to where the boundaries between North and Northeast Philadelphia blurred. The two men parked in front of a row of dilapidated homes, the last two of which were burned out. They went inside, Warner stumbling on the trash-strewn porch. A black male in jeans and a black button-down shirt let them in.

“Who is that?” Jocelyn asked. “Run the address.”

Kevin called Northwest Detectives and asked Chen to run a check on the address. When he got off the phone, he rattled off a name that wasn’t familiar to her. “Local drug dealer,” Kevin added. “Small-time stuff.”

Jocelyn sighed. “Well, that’s definitely not our guy.”

They waited another hour in the darkness. Jocelyn had to nudge Kevin several times to keep him awake. Finally, she said, “There’s a corner store two blocks back. Go see if they’ve got coffee.”

Grumbling and rubbing his eyes, Kevin got out of the car. Jocelyn watched him in the rearview mirror until he was just a gnat-size form in the gathering darkness. A few minutes later, Larry and Angel emerged from the house. Instead of going back to their car, they approached her vehicle. Slowly, heads down. Larry came to her window, and she rolled it partway down. She kept her eye on Angel, who stood at the front of the car, one large hand on the hood. His eyes darted up and down the street as Larry spoke with Jocelyn.

“Mr. Warner,” she said.

Larry rested one forearm on the roof and leaned down into her window. “What’re you doing here, Detective?”

His breath smelled like whiskey and cheap light beer. She eyed him. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

Larry turned his head and spit on the ground. Jocelyn kept her hands on the steering wheel, although the car was not running. She was aware of Angel’s large form moving around the car, toward the passenger’s side door. The line of streetlights behind Larry cast a pallid glow over the street. The bumping sounds of a bass stereo coming from a house down the street seemed to pulse in the air, nearly obscuring the more ambient sounds of people talking as they walked down the street or congregated on porches. Cars whizzed past far faster than the speed limit allowed. There was no good reason to drive slowly in a neighborhood like this. People didn’t come for the scenery. A cool, light breeze filtered in past Larry and licked the back of her neck.

“You got nothin’ else on me,” Larry said.

“I told you, Mr. Warner. I’m not interested in you.”

She had to keep her body from jumping when she heard Angel try the door. Kevin had locked it when he got out. He always did. Her heart thundered in her chest, but she kept her gaze on Larry. Calm, unflinching.

Larry motioned around them. “This ain’t exactly a safe place for a little girl like you.”

She didn’t have to fake her laughter. It sent Larry’s head rearing back just a little. She heard the ineffectual snap of Angel trying the door handle again. Where the fuck was Kevin? Not that she couldn’t handle these fuckers, she reminded herself, only half believing it.

“I’m not a little girl, Mr. Warner.”

He made a scoffing sound. “Oh, what? You gonna whip out your gun?”

Jocelyn ran her fingers over the top of the steering wheel before wrapping them tightly around it. She had a sudden flash of Anita Grant in her foldout sofa bed, weeping because her mother wouldn’t look at her. Alicia Hardigan’s gnarled hands. This time she didn’t feel nauseous. She felt angry and sick to death of men like Larry and Angel, who took what they wanted and left nothing in their wakes but ruined lives. Who hurt women for the sake of hurting women and for no other reason. Whose existence on this earth accomplished absolutely nothing but to inflict pain and suffering on others. It was a disgrace and an abomination that men like them should even be allowed to exist in the same world where goodness and innocence existed. Anita was right, she could put Larry and Angel away—she could even lock up their sadistic associate, the third man—but there would always be more.

And she wanted to kill every single one of them.

The world started to recede—the noises, her peripheral vision. Adrenaline was a dull roar, growing louder as it coursed through her. Rage—like the kind she had felt the day she’d pulled Henry Richards out of her car and punched his face in—quickened her heartbeat. And yet she felt calm and focused. She lifted her right hand in front of her and studied her splint. Slowly, she undid the Velcro and discarded the splint on the passenger’s side seat. She straightened her wrist, her fingers pointed upward toward the car roof like a spear. She used her left hand to caress it, as though it were a sleek, deadly weapon. As if it were a serrated knife she could drive into Larry’s heart, or a shiny Glock 19 with a magazine full of exploding rounds. She considered all the ways she would like to torture these two men while she studied her hand. From her peripheral, she saw Larry shift his weight. She turned toward him and smiled, a wicked, nasty grin. She stared hard into his beady eyes, imagining what it would feel like to torture him the way he had tortured Anita and Alicia. She stared until he looked away. When he looked back at her, she spoke, her voice low and even so that he had to lean in to hear her.

“What makes you think I need a gun?”

Jocelyn felt a thrill of satisfaction when she saw the flicker of doubt in Larry’s eyes. He backed away from the car and bobbed his head toward Donovan. She sensed Angel moving away from the passenger’s side. Relief flooded her chest, slowing her heartbeat.

As the ambient sound returned to her ears, she heard hurried footsteps. Then Kevin’s voice. “What the fuck is this?”

Angel was already walking away. Larry stood in the center of the street, looking at Kevin across the roof of the car. When Jocelyn saw Kevin’s tie dangling at the passenger’s side window, she unlocked the door.

“What the fuck are you doing, Warner?” Kevin asked. “You got a name for us or what?”

Larry didn’t say anything. Jocelyn watched his back as he retreated across the street. Mumbling expletives under his breath, Kevin got into the car and handed her a small Styrofoam cup. The smell of coffee filled the car.

“I’m warning you now, it tastes like shit,” he said as he settled his own cup into the cup holder. He lifted his rear off the passenger’s side seat and fished her splint out from beneath him. He stared at it, his brow wrinkled, until she snatched it away from him and fastened it back onto her wrist. “Chen called,” Kevin said. “We gotta get back.”

Jocelyn started the car and pulled into traffic, heading back to Northwest Detectives, leaving Larry and Angel behind. The coffee was thick and bitter. It burned Jocelyn’s tongue.

“What the hell was that about?” Kevin asked.

Jocelyn kept her eyes on the road. “Nothing.”