Some Degree of Murder (25 page)

It took me less than forty-minutes to find Wales and Magnolia and the deserted building Brian described. I parked Rowdy’s motorcycle about a block away and walked up to the building. A white Chevy van was parked in the alley behind and just west of the building.

At the front door, I tried the door knob. It turned slightly but wouldn’t open. I pressed my ear against the door and heard music coming from inside. A man’s voice yelled out in excitement several times over the loud noise. From the inside pocket of my jacket, I pulled out a pair of black lambskin gloves and slipped them on.

I pressed my shoulder against the door and leaned in hard. It took several minutes but the lock eventually popped. The door must have been kicked in more than a few times from the way the door jamb looked.

The loud music continued, as did the excited male voice. “How do you like that, bitch?”

I closed the door behind me and pulled my Glock out of my jacket pocket. My second Glock was still at the hotel room, just in case I needed to make a hasty retreat. The heavy weight of Hiero’s larger Glock in the small of my back was re-assuring. With careful and quiet steps, I made my way through the dirty office building. Old desks and broken furniture littered the rooms. I passed several rooms that smelled like someone had shit in them.

I took a long hallway to the back of the building, where I found a large office with a smaller room connected to it. The screeching heavy metal music was coming from the smaller room. I stepped carefully around the corner into the room and leveled my gun at the back of Rowdy’s head.

Tied to a bed was a naked young girl with slicked back red hair. Both her arms and her ankles were tied to the headboard, folding her over at the waist. Her hips were forced in to the air. A cloth rag was stuffed into her mouth and a piece of duct taped wrapped around her head. As the music squealed and pounded from a boom box on the floor, Rowdy danced and angrily slammed a large green dildo into her.

“You like that, don’t ya, slut?”

On a short, metal stool by the bed was a blackened glass pipe and little baggie. Rowdy jumped up and down and shook his shoulders.

“I wanna fuck you like animal!” Rowdy screamed in chorus with the music.

The girl’s eyes caught mine and they widened in surprise. I stepped behind Rowdy and grabbed my gun by the barrel.

Rowdy hammered his fist into the girl’s face before spinning around to face me.

“Hiya, sport,” I said and brought the butt of my gun down on Rowdy’s face.

He looked surprised for a moment and then crumpled to the ground.

I looked at the girl and realized I’d seen her before on Sprague. She was one of the young hookers who was just earning her bones. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was slack and blood flowed from her nose.

“I wanna fuck you like an animal!” The words screamed at me from the boom box. With a kick, I sent the boom box into the wall, shattering it and knocking over the stool with Rowdy’s dope.

I grabbed Rowdy by his hair and dragged him into the other room.

When he came to I shoved the Glock in his eye socket and told him to get up on his knees. Rowdy wobbled upright and tried to focus on me. A thick trail of blood ran down his face from the gash above his left eye.

I pulled out Fawn’s picture and showed it to him. “Remember her?”

Rowdy continued to stare at me. I lifted the picture up in front of his eyes.

“Remember her?” I yelled at him.

“Nope.”

“You killed her.”

“Oh, her,” Rowdy muttered.

I shoved the picture back in my pocket before jamming the gun back into Rowdy’s eye. He wobbled before falling backward.

I stepped over him and leveled my Glock at him. “That was my daughter.”

“Drop the gun,” a deep voice yelled behind me.

I recognized the place as soon as I turned onto Wales. Years ago, it had been cheap office space that housed shady loan companies and then telephone solicitors. Eventually even those dregs left and the offices have stood empty ever since. Patrol routinely rousted transients out of there in the winter time.

Cruising slowly up the street toward the building, I saw a motorcycle parked almost a block away in the dirt at the edge of the street. I could feel adrenaline coursing through my body, so I took a slow deep breath and pulled over.

I turned off the engine and trudged carefully toward the office.
As I sidled up to the corner of the building, I saw a white van parked in the alley behind the office.

I could hear the strains of
manic electric guitar coming from inside the building. Over the top the music came the sound of a male voice yelling. It wasn’t the sounds of fighting. Instead, it sounded triumphant and excited.

I slipped my Glock from my shoulder holster. Fawn’s face flashed in my mind and when I pushed it away, it was replaced with Serena’s.

I ducked beneath the window even though it had some boards over the top of it and approached the front door. I held my Glock at the low ready position, pointed at the ground about ten yards in front of me.

The front door stood open about an inch. The sound of heavy metal poured through the crack and the male voice was even louder. I heard the word “slut” fly out at me.

“I want to fuck you like an animal!”

With my left hand, I eased the door open. I kept my gun trained on the interior of the room as it became exposed to me. The small reception area was empty except for some trash and a small pile of smashed dry-wall. The smell of human waste hung in the air.

I felt my heart pounding in my temples as I shuffled through the room and several beyond until I reached a small hallway. The narrow passage was darker than the reception area, but the smells were stronger and the music was louder.

I took a deep breath through my mouth and took slow steps down the hallway.

The music abruptly stopped with a crash.

I dropped into a squat and peered down the hallway into the large room beyond. A moment later, Rowdy appeared from a small office inside the large room. A large, barrel-chested man had him by the hair and once they were free of the office, he pushed Rowdy forward toward the back of the room. He looked like Sammy the Bull.

Virgil Kelley.

Rowdy didn’t move for several moments and neither did I. I could hear Virgil’s breathing and watched as he fingered his pistol. It was a Glock, same as mine.

“C’mon, you fuck, wake up,” I heard him mutter.

Rowdy stirred.

“Up on your fucking knees,” Virgil told him.

Rowdy rose to his knees, wavering.

Virgil thrust his gun into his face. He held something else in his other hand.

“Remember her?” he said in a gravelly tone.

I crept down the hallway, staying almost completely in a squatted position.

“Remember her?” Virgil asked him again.

He is going to smoke him, I realized. Right here, right now.

I reached the end of the hallway and button-hooked around the threshold. Looking around, I could see no cover and no concealment.

“Nope,” Rowdy said. Even in that one word, I could hear that he wasn’t right. Whether it was drunk or high, he was messed up.

“You killed her.” Virgil pushed the muzzle of the gun into Rowdy’s face for emphasis.

“Oh, her,” Rowdy mumbled.

That was it?
Oh, her?
In that moment, I wished a thousand deaths for Rowdy. Violent, painful ones.

“That was my daughter,” Virgil growled. He slipped something into his pocket and jammed the gun into Rowdy’s face, toppling him to the ground. Virgil’s shoulders tensed and he leaned forward almost imperceptibly.

“Drop the gun!” I shouted.

Virgil stiffened.

“Drop that fucking gun!”

Virgil turned his head and looked toward me over his shoulder. His face was bruised and a bandage covered his cheek. The muzzle of his gun never left Rowdy. Even from across the room, I could see the cold glint in his eye.

“Or what?” Virgil said.

Virgil

The heavy voice repeated his demand, “Drop that fucking gun!”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Detective John Tower staring down the barrel of his Glock. His hands were steady but his eyes wide with the question of a man’s fate hanging in the balance.

“Or what?” I said.

His eyes slanted and turned hard. Tower had made his decision to shoot when the time came. “Or I’ll drop you right here.”

The trigger of my gun tickled my finger and for a moment I thought about slamming it home, drilling my vengeance into Rowdy and taking my chances with the cop. The odds of surviving were bad. I swallowed hard and ground my teeth.

“I know he killed your daughter, Virgil.”

I tilted my head slightly at the sound of my name and looked between him and Rowdy.
Andie must have told him about me. I wonder how he forced it out of her.

“Don’t do it,” he said with a lowered voice, trying to calm me just as he was instructed in Cop Negotiation 101.

Tower

I watched Virgil’s eyes. His head was tilted slightly as they flitted back and forth between Rowdy and me. I could read the hard intelligence in those eyes, as the gears turned behind them and he put things into place.

“I know you came here to kill him,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm. “But I’ve got him dead to rights for Fawn.”

Virgil’s eyes stopped moving and bore into me. “You’ve got proof positive?”

“Yeah.”

“Proof he killed Fawn?”

“Yeah. And another girl. And when I pull his DNA, it’ll be a slam dunk.”

Virgil

My mouth was dry and the trigger pressed back against my finger, begging to do its work.

“Nothing is a slam dunk,” I said.

Tower shuffled his feet as he kept his gun on me. He stopped when he realized he couldn’t get an advantage in this stand-off.

“I’ll make sure he goes away,” he said. “For life.”

“My way is better.”

Tower

I wanted to scream at him that he was wrong but my words stuck in my throat. Virgil’s eyes were locked onto mine and they did not waver.

“Your way is not an option,” I said, forcing conviction into my voice. “Put the gun down.”

“No.”

“Do it,” I repeated.

Virgil tipped his head toward Rowdy. “No. He dies.”

“He dies, you die,” I said, staring into his eyes.

Virgil

I wasn’t afraid of death, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to cash my chips in if I didn’t have to.

“Listen,” I started, but Tower cut me off.

“Lower your gun. I’ve got back-up on the way.”

“I’ll lower the gun if you’ll look in the other room.”

Tower smirked at me, a flicker of humor in them. “Right, I look in the room and you shoot Rowdy. Or me. I’m not a rookie, Virgil.”

“
I know you’re not. Look in the other room. You’ll find Rowdy’s latest plaything.”

Tower

His words cut into me like ice needles.

I glanced at the door frame to my right. Virgil had dragged Rowdy out of that room.

I met Virgil’s flat gaze and nodded my head. “Fine. Lower your gun and I’ll look in the room. But you make even one little move—“

Virgil lowered his gun, pointing at his own feet. I saw the tension in his arms relax slightly. “Just check the room.”

I kept my own gun trained on Virgil’s barrel chest and stepped forward slowly. The fifteen feet between us became ten and then I had the angle to look into the room. I could see the foot of a small twin bed and the bare flesh of a hip.

I breathed deeply and glanced back at Virgil. His gun remained pointed down and his face was impassive.

Virgil

For some reason Tower stopped moving toward the room and looked at me. He swallowed hard and his eyes lost their focus on me for a moment. The focus returned immediately and I saw his jaw muscles flexing.

He saw something, but not all. I nodded my head to the room, encouraging him to take that final step and truly see Rowdy for what he was.

Tower

Virgil’s nod was almost kind. I glanced down at his gun and wondered if he could bring it up faster than I could react.

I wondered if he would.

I swallowed again and shuffled slowly to my right.

Toward the doorway.

My eyes darted back and forth between the entry way and Virgil, who stood stock-still, watching me. As I approached the doorway, I could see a shattered boom box on its side against the far wall. A glass pipe was in the middle of the room, not unlike the thousands of other pipes I’d seen.

I forced my eyes to the bed.

Even folded in half and tied to the bed-post, I recognized her. The slick, red hair was disheveled and there was no hint of anger in her slack face. She still wore the large cross at her neck.

My stomach churned.

Virgil

As he stared into the other room, Tower’s face, reddened with the excitement of our stand-off, went gradually white and his lips tightened against each other.

When he moved his eyes slowly back to me, a new hatred burned in his eyes.

Tower

I flashed a look at Virgil.

“Is she dead?” I asked.

Virgil shrugged slightly. “He hit her pretty hard right.”

I looked back at the young girl’s face and at her bare chest, watching for signs of breath.

“She would be, though.”

I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.

Turning my eyes back to Virgil, I asked, “Would be?”

“Dead. If we hadn’t stopped him, she would be dead right now for certain.”

I met his eyes again and stared into them.

Virgil

“My way is better,” I said again.

Tower’s lip twitched as he struggled with the dilemma.

“I’ll sweeten the pot for you,” I said, looking for the final push to send him over the edge.

“How’s that?” Tower asked, an odd rasp to his voice.

“In the small of my back is a gun I think you’ll want back.”

“Why would I want it?”

“It belongs to one of your brothers.”

Confusion washed over Tower’s face. “What?”

I struggled with the proper way to tell him. If I planted the hook wrong, he’d want to nail me for what I did to the other cop.

“Let’s just say I found it after I talked with the blonde hooker.”

Tower

My mind raced. He had to be talking about Toni. And if he was talking about Toni—

Hiero. He had Hiero’s gun.

How did that happen?

Virgil watched me and I watched him back. His gun hand didn’t move, but his left hand drifted slowly to the small of his back. He drew out a Glock just like mine and held it by the barrel.

“You want it?” he asked.

“How’d you get it?”

Virgil was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “Sometimes people are in the wrong place at the wrong time and shit goes bad for them.”

“You’re the one who beat up Hiero,” I accused him.

Virgil shook his head. “Wrong place, wrong time. Now he’s fucked and you can help him out.”

I stared down the barrel of my gun at him. “Why should I believe anything you say?”

“Because you know it’s the truth.”

Virgil

I knelt slowly down, my gun still near Rowdy but not on him. Carefully, I laid the cop’s gun on the ground and pushed it across the bare concrete floor. It bumped into Tower’s foot but he never moved his eyes from me.

I stood back up and shifted my weight, getting ready for whatever play Tower was going to make.

“There’s the deal. Your buddy’s life for his.”

My eyes flashed to the moaning biker on the ground.

Tower’s face w
ent pale and he swallowed hard before speaking. “I don’t make deals.”

“Then we’re both going to end up bloody here. There’s no one coming to your rescue, is there, Tower?”

Tower

So there it was. I couldn’t bluff him and he couldn’t bluff me.

Somebody was going to die in this room, I realized.

Take the deal.
Help Hiero out of a bind.

I shook my head slightly. I didn’t owe Hiero anything. Except that he wore the same badge as me.

Rowdy killed this guy’s little girl.

He killed Serena Gonzalez.

I tried to push that thought from my head, but the picture of the red-haired girl in the next room replaced it.

Rowdy was sick. He was broken.

You’re a cop. Not a judge.

Virgil’s eyes never left mine. It was like he was listening to the screaming inside my head.

“Your way, he gets prison. Maybe.” Virgil said, his voice almost soothing. “My way, he gets what he deserves.”

Rowdy moaned and pushed himself up to his knees. “Where’s my little fuck-bitch?” he muttered like a drunk.

Slowly, I lowered my gun.

Virgil

As soon as Tower lowered his gun, I moved toward Rowdy and brought my Glock up on him.

“What the fuck?” Rowdy yelled as his head listed and eyes struggled to focus.

With a thrust, I jammed the Glock into Rowdy’s right eye.

“Hey, man,” Rowdy slurred just before I pulled the trigger.

Tower

The loud crack of the shot made me jump. It was coupled with the wet slapping sound of the bullet tearing away Rowdy’s face.

I watched Rowdy fall limply to the floor and a piece of me died right there with him.

Virgil

My eyes shifted away from Rowdy’s limp body to the cop standing to the right of me. His face was whiter than it had been but his eyes watched me intently.

I nodded to the southwest corner of the room. “I’m gonna walk through that door over there nice and slow,” I said, my voice as calm as I could make it, “and you get to be the hero by saving the girl.”

Tower

“I’m no hero,” I muttered to him.

Virgil shrugged and watched me.

I swallowed slowly and tried to think.

“Are we good?” Virgil asked me.

I realized that I’d made my decision when I lowered my gun. Enough blood had been spilled here today.

I looked at Virgil’s gun and the black leather gloves he wore.

“Leave the gun,” I told him.

He didn’t move, but only looked at me.

“Is the gun clean?”

“Of course.”

“Then leave it,” I told him. “Don’t make it something we have to look for.”

Virgil

Tower’s face had softened but his eyes remained alert. His gun hung at this side. I didn’t think he’d shoot me, but I wasn’t about to play odds with a cop.

I exhaled slow and hard through my nose, forcing me to calm down and consider the situation. “I’ll drop it after you put your gun away.”

Tower gripped his gun tighter and his head shook slowly. “I can’t do that.”

I backed up slowly to the door, my arm extended behind me feeling for the door. In my other hand, my Glock stared harmlessly at the floor. “And I can’t turn my back on you.”

Tower

Virgil was almost to the door.

“Then drop the gun when you get outside,” I told him.
“I don’t care. This just has to be wrapped up tight.”

The big man nodded slowly, finally understanding that I wasn’t going to betray him. Virgil’s hand touched the push bar on the door and he hesitated for a second.

“Hey.”