The Gone Dead Train (13 page)

She'd read that mistakes are made by people who have no talent for forethought. She believed that with her whole heart. Lying to Billy had been a mistake, a big one. She would like to change it by confessing, but if she explained what had happened, he would write her off. She needed his endorsement to get the spot on the homicide squad, and she couldn't take a chance of losing that.

She looked up at the sound of Billy's footsteps to see him trudging down the ramp, carrying a folder with Red's jacket over his arm. He wore wet cutoffs and a faded blue MPD T-shirt. The water dripping off the edge of the hull told her he'd been hosing down the decks and sweeping them. He had a sense of order. She liked that.

At six feet even, he wasn't an imposing figure, but he emanated a certain physical tension when he moved, like he knew who he was and nobody in their right mind would want to mess with him. He had a cool factor, too, a self-possession. A female detective could learn a lot from that.

He swung open the gate. “Welcome aboard,” he said with a remote air she read as tired and a little angry.

Already there was a problem. She slipped on her shades to cover her glassy eyes and followed him up the ramp. The passing riverboat had churned up slack water that smelled of mud and decay. She decided to start with something innocuous.

“The
Queen II
got under way,” she said. “The passengers were all wearing the same hats.”

He glanced back. “Tour boats book a lot of family reunions.”

“All those people are in one family?”

“You must not have a lot of relatives.”

“My dad died five years ago. I'm the end of the line.”

“At least we've got one thing in common. No family.”

One thing? What about they were both cops?

A teak table with a blue-striped umbrella and two glasses of ice water sweating in the heat waited for them on the aft deck. They sat down and swapped files, going over documents in silence. She looked up once and caught him watching her. He didn't look pleased.

He finished reviewing background information on Davis and Lacy then picked up the crime-beat article, rereading the part that covered the aggravated assault and property damage charges against the pimp. Toward the bottom was the part about the plaintiffs' no-show at Cool Willy's trial. He laid down the pages.

“Someone jumped me in an alley outside Bardog last night.”

“You all right?”

“No harm done. He came from behind. I can't ID him, but he reminded me of the guy we saw outside the squatters' house yesterday.”

“You think it was Cool Willy?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

“At least we know the instruments were smashed in New Orleans and not here.” She crunched some ice. “I don't understand why the guys carried busted instruments all the way up from New Orleans.”

He looked at her like she was a member of the unredeemed. “Red had that guitar so long it was a wife to him. Little Man's sax kept him in grits and gravy for forty years. You don't throw away family.”

That made no sense. Her dad had once told her, “People who live on train tracks get hit by trains.” It seemed like a ridiculous statement at the time until she became a cop. Then she understood what he meant. She dealt with people all day long who made bad decisions, sometimes lethal decisions.

Billy was frowning at her. She decided to drop it.

“I know an ex-cop in New Orleans who does investigative work,” she said. “I'll scan the photo of the girl at the piano and send it to him. He'll dig up more detail on Cool Willy and the guys.”

“Ask him to check with the company that publishes Red's music. If he has family in Chicago, they deserve the royalties.”

“I'm already on that.”

Billy squinted at her.

“What? What's the matter?” she said.

“The bruise. It's almost gone.”

She resisted putting her hand to her face. “I used a salve.”

“What kind of salve does that?”

“It's . . . I got it from Ramos yesterday.”

“The witch doctor?”

“He's a respected psychologist. I sent you his profile.”

“He's a witch doctor.”

She knew better than to take the bait. He wanted her to defend Ramos. Then he would toy with her.

“Look at this.” She laid the conjure bag on the table between them and launched into an explanation of the bag's distribution on the Internet. Ramos used the same bags. From the size and depth of his pharmacy, she was willing to bet he stocked the simple components that would match the bag's contents. Billy shifted in his chair, listening. Next she told him about the shelter's group photo that had included Ramos, Davis, and Lacy. That got his attention.

“I've booked a therapy session with him tomorrow at one. It's the best way for me to go back in.”

He sat silent for a moment. “While you're there, maybe you should talk out some of your own problems.”

She lowered her sunglasses and stared at him over the tops. “That was a bullshit statement.”

“When you called, you said you were at Baptist East Hospital with a sick friend. You were actually at the CJC.”

He raised his eyebrows, expectant.

Her mouth went dry, but she held it together. She wasn't about to ask how he knew. “I had a confrontation with a woman in one of the squad rooms. No yelling, but it was intense. I was rattled.”

“Was it connected to an arrest?”

“It was personal. I got away from her and took the stairs to the lobby. Then I called you. You answered as she came off the elevator. I was afraid that if she saw me, she'd start up again.”

She felt sick with the memory of ducking behind a pillar. She'd told the story about a friend in the hospital as a means to gain sympathy. No way could she have faced Billy stoned on pills.

“So why lie about it?” he asked.

Because she'd messed around with another woman's husband, and now the man was dead.
Because she was ashamed down to her toenails
. She could never admit such a stupid mistake. She wondered if he knew that, too.

There was nothing else to do. She lied again. “I don't know why I did it. I guess I got flustered.”

He looked surprised, then a grin escaped him. “What did you expect from the woman? Hair snatching? Fit pitching?”

Oh, Jesus
, she thought.
Just like a man. Always up for a catfight
.

“No more trouble, I promise.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“It won't happen again.”

He regarded her, elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers steepled in front of his face. He left her hanging while a tugboat chugged by, its diesel engine a constant rumble across the water. On the new bridge, truck tires clicked across expansion joints.

She waited.

He pulled a small notebook from his pocket. “Let's get started.”

He told her about Augie's two-thousand-dollar loan. A business deal, he'd called it. A recording contract? Maybe. Money and murder go together, but they didn't have enough facts to connect the two.

Next, he spread the jacket on the table and turned back the collar to point out the initials L.G. sewn into the felt backing. She flipped open the jacket's panel and ran her finger over the satiny label. She noticed that both breast pockets had been sewn closed and then clipped open.

“I found these inside the right pocket,” he said, and handed her a stack of three-by-five images, all urban settings. Some of the black males had Afros. Some of the whites had muttonchops and mustaches. The women wore their hair parted down the middle and ironing-board straight. A few shots allowed for a glimpse of miniskirts.

Frankie passed through the photos a couple of times, focused on drawing conclusions. “The locations seem familiar.” She pointed to a slice of an overhead sign. “That's a movie marquee.” She shuffled through some more. “The fire hydrant is a good marker. I think I've seen that doorjamb.”

She laid four photos in a square and put a fifth off to the right. “There's tension in these people's faces. Look at the body language. They don't want to be caught talking to these guys in suits who must be state or federal law enforcement. The one in glasses is wearing this jacket. Look at the slant of that outer pocket. Very distinctive.”

“Good,” he said.

She restacked the photos, pleased with herself, and started to count them out. “I get thirteen.”

“No, there's fourteen total.”

She counted again and got the same. He pawed through his file and shuffled papers. They looked under the table. He went inside then came out and walked to the rail. The tree line on the Arkansas side of the river had darkened into silhouette.

“No luck?” she asked.

He appeared to be watching traffic on the new bridge. By the set of his jaw, she knew he was furious.

“Do you know what happened to it?” she asked.

“I have a pretty good idea.”

H
ot as Hades out here, ya'll. Cold beer . . . cold Cokes.” The hawker leaned in to snag the twenty being passed over to him. “You
know
what it is,” he called. “You
know
what it is.”

The hawker had freckled skin and grizzled red hair, whale-shaped eyes shut tight at the corners. A scar ran beneath the pouch of his left eye. His upper arms were thick with muscle, and his body was agile, making it hard to pin down his age. He passed drinks over the heads of the fans in front of Billy.

Billy sat eight rows up and to the right of the visitors' dugout at AutoZone Park, home of the AAA minor league Redbirds. Whiffs of barbecued nachos floated through the stands. Overhead, the evening sky softened into a curved slice of pale blue.

In baseball there's a winner and a loser. You're safe, or you're out. Nothing in his life had been that clear-cut since Lou died.

The scoreboard showed the Tacoma Rainiers ahead by one. The Redbirds were at bat in the bottom of the second. The batter scuffed the dirt then spat in his batting gloves and clapped his hands together. He was putting on a show, more for the fans than for the left-handed pitcher. He swung late at the pitch and lifted the ball along the first-base line, a curving foul that arced into the dugout section where Billy sat. Everyone, including Billy, jumped to their feet with their hands up. In the aisle the hawker whipped a glove from under his box, reached over a couple of people, and snagged the ball. In one fluid motion, he fired the ball to the first baseman as if completing a cutoff play. Then with a quiet smile he stowed his glove under the box and continued down the steps.

“Cold beer . . . cold Cokes.”

This guy was no fan, Billy thought. He knew his way around a ball field.

In baseball you move up or you move on. The problem is, some folks can't move on. Augie had made that point a couple of hours ago at Rock of Ages. For the hawker, that meant selling beer at the ballpark so he could still yell at the umps and catch foul balls. Billy was afraid Augie wouldn't let go, either. He was about to drive the good things out of his life in pursuit of answers about his mother's death he could never find.

It was hard to believe Augie had stolen one of the photographs. He must have taken it when J.J. made that ruckus at the door at Bardog. The photo was evidence in a possible homicide. Augie knew that. Now Billy would have to confront him and get the photograph back, which could be very messy depending on Augie's state of mind at the time.

Warm air blew off the field and into the stands. Two solo homers put the Redbirds up by one at the bottom of the third. The crowd hooted and clapped, humiliating the Rainiers' ace pitcher. He whipped one high and inside to the next batter, a little chin music.

Billy preferred AAA ball to the animal-like proficiency of the major league players. He liked watching these guys play their hearts out for a chance to move up to the majors. AAA was still a field of dreams.

He thought about Frankie. She wanted to skip the years in burglary and jump straight to homicide. She dreamed of moving to the majors and wanted him to help her get there.

But Mz. Police Goddess was sitting on a big damned secret and hadn't trusted him enough to bring it up. With one call to Dave Jansen, he could find out about the woman at the CJC, but what was the point? A partner who can't be honest with herself wouldn't be honest with him. He'd been down that road.

On the other hand, she had a damned fine detective's eye. Her analysis of the photos was impressive, and she'd thought to count the pictures. A touch of compulsion was valuable in this business. However, loyalty was essential.

The twenty-four-foot-tall digital screen flashed photos and stats of the players while the sound system switched between ballpark organ music and classic rock and roll. The kiss cam cut to the crowd, flashing live shots of couples on the screen. The announcer encouraged them to show a little love. Some couples kissed. One woman pointed at the man beside her and mouthed, “He's my brother.”

The camera panned past a familiar face, swung back, and locked in. Billy's stomach lurched. Augie's sullen face loomed on the screen, his ball cap hanging cockeyed off his head. Billy scoured the stands and finally spotted him four rows up, at the club level. He was in the aisle, faced off with a teenage hawker who had a popcorn tray slung around his neck. The kid looked panicked, searching for a way to escape. Something bad was happening, and Billy couldn't get there in time to stop it.

“We have a celebrity here tonight,” the announcer boomed. “The Redbirds' own Augie Poston, who went on to be the greatest catcher ever to play for the Saint Louis Cards.”

The camera zoomed in. A cheer went up with the crowd's recognition of their old hero, the man who'd led the Redbirds minor league team to three championships.

“Hey, hey, Augie,” the announcer called.