Some Degree of Murder (9 page)

At the end of the first verse, she launched herself into the air and grabbed onto the pole just off center stage. Just as quickly, she wrapped her legs around the pole and then froze. Her body jutted out at ninety degrees and she held that position with the still strength of a gymnast. As the second verse began, she removed her bikini top and flung it off stage.

As she moved forcefully, full of grace and strength, around the pole, onto the stage, to her feet and back to the pole, her face never changed. If anything, she looked more sorrowful.

I turned away and asked George, “When was Rena scheduled for work again after Sunday?”

George squirmed. “Well, they’re not really scheduled. Like I told you, they’re independent –“

“Don’t bullshit me, George.” I kept my voice low. “I just want to know when she was scheduled to work again.”

George worked his tongue over his teeth behind tight lips. Then he said, “All right, well, there is sort of a loose sign-up sheet. Just to make sure there’s girls here.”

“So when was she signed up for?”

“Rena worked every night,” he told me.

“Every night?”

“Yeah. She only missed one or two days the whole time she was here.”

“Is that normal?”

George shrugged. “For some. If they’re making money, they work a lot. If they’re not making money, they work a lot so they can try to make money.”

“What’d you think when she didn’t show up for work Monday?”

“Nothing. I figured she took the day off.”

“You didn’t hear about the murdered girl we found over on Erie early Monday morning?”

George blanched. “Oh, shit. That was
her
?”

I nodded. “What about Tuesday? Or tonight? What’d you think when she didn’t show up?”

“To be honest, I was starting to think she’d quit.”

“Quit?”

He nodded. “Yeah. All of us knew she could be making more money if she went to work out at Showgirls. I just figured she decided to go there.”

“She ever talk about that?”

“No, but I lose girls to that place quite a bit. Once they figure things out.” He didn’t have to explain the rest. He meant once they figured out where the Tip Top girls were on the pecking order and where the bigger bucks could be had.

I gave George my card. “Call me if you or anyone else thinks of anything or hears anything that might help.”

“Okay.”

“I mean
anything
that might help.”

“Got it. I will.”

I’d been watching the action on East Sprague for a couple of hours when a maroon, unmarked patrol car pulled up in front of the Club Tip Top. I was sitting at a bus stop across from the bar, waiting for a ride that I would never catch.

A plain-clothes cop stepped out of the car and glanced up and down Sprague. He looked like a detective. An arrogant fucking detective with a sport coat that bulged under his left armpit. Shoulder rigs are designed for cross draws so the guy was right-handed.

He strutted around his car, shook his head at a clucker asking for a handout and yanked open the door to the bar. When the door closed, he disappeared from view. I pulled out a cigarette and lit up.

The human aquarium that is Sprague Avenue continued to thrive even without a functioning filter system. The sharks swam up and down the street, into doorways and alleys before popping out in other areas. The feeder fish meandered around, begging or soliciting, all with the same purpose in mind. I kept waiting for a Great White to show, but none of the Brotherhood popped out of their clubhouse and no one went in.

A large bus with the words
Sprague Avenue / Downtown
scrolling by on a reader board above the driver’s head pulled up to the curb in front of me. The door hissed open in front of me.

“Getting on?” the big woman behind the wheel asked.

I shook my head.

The bus wheezed as it pulled away from the curb and lumbered down the road.

I tossed my cigarette to the sidewalk and ground it out with my shoe. A light wind blew across my neck and I flipped up the collar of my jacket. I shoved my hands into my pockets and leaned back against the bench.

Twenty minutes later, the detective left the bar, climbed back into his car and pulled away from the curb. I stood and started the walk back into downtown.

As I passed the La Playa motel, which sat next to the BSC clubhouse, I suddenly stopped and looked around. Across the street, the Palms Motel squatted unceremoniously.

I trotted across the street and walked into the Manager’s office of the Palms Motel. No one was in the room so I slapped the small metal bell on the counter.

A door opened to a back room and a haggard looking woman in her fifties ambled out. Her grey hair was a mess and she wore a pink night coat with a large feather fringe. The belt barely kept the coat closed over her belly.

“What can I do for you?” she rasped.

“I want to rent a room.”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“What?” I repeated.

“You don’t look the type to get a room down here. You a cop or something?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I’ve had my fill of cops this week.”

“What do you mean?”

“A detective came in here and gave me the third degree about one of my tenants. She was found dead
someplace else but he wanted to search her room. He was an asshole.”

“You ever meet a cop that wasn’t an asshole?”

She smiled at me. “Room’s thirty-nine bucks a night and I’ll need some ID.”

“How much is it without ID?”

“Seventy-five a night.”

I pulled out my money clip. “I want to pay for two weeks in advance.”

She pulled out a map of the small hotel. “How about a room here?” she asked and pointed at the map. The room sat directly behind the manager’s office on the first floor. The line of sight for the BSC clubhouse would be nonexistent.

I pointed at the map. “How about over here? And on the second floor.”

She shrugged and turned to her occupancy board. “I got one up there for you,” and she lifted the key.

“It’s not the dead girl’s room, is it?”

“I haven’t gotten that one cleaned up yet. You want it?”

”No.”

She handed me the key for room 204.

The door to the room that the manager walked out from earlier opened up and an older black man peered out. He was naked except for a towel around his waist. The woman peered over her shoulder at him.

“You comin’ back, Peggy?”

“I’m workin’ here.”

He shrugged his shoulders and quietly closed the door.

“Sorry about that,” Peggy muttered and scribbled some notes into a ledger. She slapped some keys on a calculator and gave me the total for the room.

I peeled a number of bills from the money clip and laid them on the counter.

With the key in hand, I left the manager’s office and continued walking back downtown to the Davenport.

The house
was silent when I slipped in through the kitchen door. The kitchen was clean as usual. The smell of popcorn hung in the air.

I shed equipment as I walked slowly down the hall. The weight of the handcuffs came off my waist but did little to lighten my step. I shrugged my shoulder rig off my shoulders.

I moved into my bedroom and dumped my gear on top of my dresser. Then I poked my head into Ben’s room. He lay in his bed, sleeping, perfectly still. It always concerned me, how still he lay while he slept. Only his shallow breath moved the blankets slightly.

After the collision, I used to wonder if Ben had always slept so stilly. The only other person who might have known was my sister.
She wasn’t around to answer that question.

I closed his door and started toward my own bedroom, then paused. Directly across from Ben’s room was the spare room. The door was partially open. I swung the door open slowly, wincing when it gave a small creak.

Teri lay on her back in the small twin bed. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow. The blankets came to her waist and I could see her turquoise nightgown. She was breathing deeply and I felt a tinge of shame as I watched her. Asleep, she didn’t press her lips together so tightly. They pouted like a 1940s movie star.

Teri moaned softly and rolled onto her side, facing the door. I took in the curve of her body under the blanket, beginning at her feet and following it up her legs, over her hips, to her bare shoulders and to her face. When I reached her eyes, I saw her looking back at me.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

“I just got here,” I half-whispered. “I tried to be quiet. Sorry if I woke you.”

“S’alright,” she murmured. “You check on Ben?”

“Yeah. He’s sound asleep.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. Never moves when he sleeps.” She snuggled down into her pillow. “Everything okay?” she asked sleepily.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmmm-kay.” She closed her eyes. “’Night, John.”

“Goodnight,” I said and pulled the door closed. I stood and stared at that closed door for several moments before turning and trudging toward my bedroom. I knew that sleep would evade me again.

A jagged headache pushed inward from the temples, making me uncomfortable and angry as I wandered along Sprague in the early morning sun. The newspaper predicted it would be abnormally warm for the day. At nine o’clock in the morning, I was already roasting in my jacket with beads of sweat rolling down my back underneath my shirt.

Sprague Avenue was pretty quiet at that time of the morning. The locals were still sleeping off their highs from the previous night and the few honest business folks in the area were tucked quietly away inside their shops. The gnawing headache convinced me that I needed something to eat and a caffeine injection.

I stopped at the Lazy J diner. An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was finishing up when I walked in for breakfast. One of the female members collected their sign from the front entrance, flashing an embarrassed smile when she walked by me.

The smell of bacon grease and burnt coffee wafted around the room, over-powering the obligatory cigarette smoke that accompanies any recovering alcoholics meeting. I grabbed a table near the window and sat facing out at the activity on the street.

A white-haired waitress slowly ambled over to me. Her brown skirt fell below her knees, allowing the varicose veins in her thick, lower legs to show. The scuffed nurses shoes she wore looked several months past comfortable. Her orange nametag read
Laverne
.

“Morning,” she said with a slight southern drawl.

I nodded back at her and pulled out a pack of Camels.

“Something to drink?” she asked and laid a plastic menu on the table in front of me.

I lit up a cigarette and drew a deep inhale. “Coffee.”

Laverne had large crow’s feet with deep crevices near her eyes. Her dark eye shadow made her appear tired and haunted. “Need a moment to look at the menu?”

“
Two eggs, bacon and an English muffin.”

“How do you want those eggs?”

“Sunnyside up.”

Laverne nodded and wandered off to the kitchen.

I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and massaged my temples, hoping to ease the headache.

From inside my jacket I pulled out Fawn’s picture and the article that Andie had sent me on her murder. I unfolded the article on the table and reread it.

GIRL FOUND MURDERED BEHIND BINGO HALL

Early morning discovery shocks neighborhood

A young woman was found murdered behind a dumpster in the parking lot of the Farmer’s Bingo Parlor in east River City. Her body was discovered by a patron leaving after an evening of Bingo.

The victim’s name was not released pending notification of the family. She was described as white and in her early teens. No further information regarding her description was released.

Vivian Marsh, the patron who discovered the body, was still shaken after finding the girl. “No one, especially a little girl like that, deserves to get herself killed that way,” said the sixty-seven year old grandmother. Marsh immediately notified the Bingo Parlor management, who called the police. Patrol units responded quickly.

The case was assigned to River City Police Detective John Tower of the Major Crimes unit. When asked if the murder was sexually motivated, Detective Tower responded, “We’ll have to wait for the forensic tests to come back before we can make that determination.”

No immediate suspects have been developed, but the police department’s Crime Analysis unit will begin compiling suspects who match certain criteria. “Once the evidence is collected, and that includes interviews of potential witnesses, Crime Analysis will input that data into the system and pull out individuals of interest. It’s a slow process sometimes, but we’ve got to make sure we don’t overlook anything,” said Detective Tower.

Anyone with information regarding this homicide is requested to contact the River City Police Department at (509) 555-4100.

“Is that your daughter?” Laverne asked when she brought my breakfast.

I glanced up at her and covered the article with my hand. “Yes. Did she ever come in here?”

Laverne put my plate down with a clatter and stared at the picture for a minute. “She doesn’t look familiar. Do you guys live around here?”

“No. She was hanging out down here.”

Laverne’s face softened and she glanced outside to Sprague Avenue. When she looked back to me, she nodded silently and walked back into the kitchen.

I folded the article around Fawn’s picture and tucked it back into my coat.

After breakfast I wandered back out to Sprague where traffic, both human and vehicle, was starting to pick up. I closed my eyes and lifted my head to the morning sun, feeling its warmth on my face. I pulled out a Camel and lit it.

“Got a smoke, man?”

I turned around to see a young black kid with a serious case of the shakes. His eyes looked older, but I guessed him to be about fifteen years old.

I shook a cigarette free for him. He reached out with a shaky hand and plucked it from the pack.

“Suck your dick?” he asked, lifting the cigarette to his lips.

“What?”

“Suck your dick?”

“Get away from me.”

“C’mon, man, I’m jus’ tryin’ to make a livin’.”

I stepped towards him, ready to inflict the reality of the situation on him, when a loud voice boomed, “Dookie!”

The black kid spun around and looked back up the street at Rolo, the pimp I’d met in The Hole.

“Get your black ass back over here.”

I looked up the street at the pimp and gave a small wave. He ignored my sentiment and slapped Dookie hard across the face when he was in range. East Sprague’s version of tough love, I guess.

The normal players were scarce in the morning, usually spending their mornings hung-over or in a cell block. By coming down early in the morning, I hoped to get a different feel for Sprague Avenue. Down near the ACME TV, a leggy blonde stood next to a bus stop sign, smoking a cigarette and watching the passing traffic with intent eyes.

The girl wore a dirty, red flannel shirt over even dirtier blue jeans. The shirt was open and Mickey Mouse’s face peered out from a faded t-shirt. Her long blond hair was stringy and a month or two had passed since its last bleaching.

A patrol car cruised slowly down the street as the whore leered at it. The female police officer behind the wheel never looked in her direction. The hooker was smarter than I had given her credit for. She stood near the bus stop, acting like she was waiting for a bus.

I lit a cigarette and headed in her direction, hoping to show Fawn’s picture.

A shiny, black Mercedes pulled up next to the curb and the leggy blonde clicked over to the car. The passenger window rolled down and she leaned into it. The windows on the car were tinted, but the interior was light enough that I could see an older white male behind the wheel. I stopped in the doorway of an antique toy store and watched. It took only a few seconds of negotiation before she nodded her head and stood up from the car. She spun around deftly on her high heels and clicked off around the corner with the car following her.

I took a deep inhale on the Camel and dropped it to the sidewalk. As I got close to the alley’s entrance, a patrol car
came around the far corner with its engine gunning. The car whipped into the alley in front of me.

A young black officer was behind the wheel while an older, graying officer was in the passenger seat. They stopped behind the Mercedes and activated their emergency lights. The Mercedes was rocking slightly side to side. I could see the head of the driver, but the prostitute’s head was out of view.

The black officer jumped out of the car and strode quickly and confidently to the driver’s door of the Mercedes. The graying officer took his time getting out of the car and saw me standing at the alley entrance. He ignored me and sauntered up to the passenger side of the car.

“River City Police Department, sir,’ the black officer said after he smacked the top of the roof.

The hooker jumped upright in her seat. The older officer stood next to her window where she never saw him.

“Roll down your window, sir,” the young cop ordered.

A moment later the driver leaned his head partially out of his window. “What’s the problem, Officer?”

“You’re getting oral sex from a known prostitute, that’s the problem.”

“She’s not a hooker, Officer. She’s an old girlfriend.”

“What’s her name then?”

The hooker leaned over and yelled, “Toni.”

The young officer looked frustrated. “Ma’am, please sit back. I’m talking with the driver.”

“Her name’s Toni,” the driver said.

“Yeah, she told me.”

The driver pleaded, “I swear she’s an old girlfriend.”

The young officer crossed his arms and frowned. “Let me see your driver’s license and registration.”

The driver reached over to the glove box and fumbled around. Toni looked to her right and saw the older officer outside the car. She rolled down her window and said, “Why are you standing there?”

“I’m his back-up officer,” he said and watched his partner.

“Do you know Officer Hiero?”

He turned his head to her. “Hiero?”

The hooker nodded.

“Yeah, I know him.”

“I know him, too,” she said.

“He arrest you?”

She shook her head, the blonde hair flopping over her shoulder. “No, we’re friends.”

“Friends?”

She nodded again.

“I doubt it.”

Toni glanced at the black officer and then turned back to the officer standing outside her window. She leaned in and read his name tag. “Officer …. Bates, you’re not his back-up. You’re his training officer. Am I right?”

Bates ignored her and watched his partner.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Rookies arrest everybody.”

A broad smile grew on the older officer’s face. It faded when he glanced over at me. He jerked his head for me to leave the area.

“Can I get out of the car?” Toni asked.

“No.”

“But I need to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Toni whined.

Bates glanced over at me. “What the hell do you want?”

I shrugged.

“Take off.”

I glanced around, shoved my hands in my pockets and started across the street.

“I’ll tell you about the dead girl,” Toni blurted to the older officer.

I spun around and stared at them.

“What dead girl are we talking about?”

“The one in the bingo parking lot.”

Bates stared at his partner and thought for a moment. When he started to turn in my direction, I wandered off to the end of the block over on First Street. I shook a cigarette free, lit it and stood there smoking. When the cigarette was done, I changed my vantage point to make sure the police car was still there.

The rookie was stuffing Toni into the back seat of the patrol car as his training officer dropped back into the passenger seat. The rookie climbed into the car, turned off his emergency lights and backed out of the alley. The tires chirped slightly as they drove away.