Cry Havoc (7 page)

“I can see it’s been some while since you bought a new hat, Officer Frank.”

“You be careful out there,” Frank said, motioning Lewis on.

“She’s a piece of work.”

“He,” Frank nodded. “Miss Cleo’s real name is Clarence Carter. He’s been on the hoe stroll since before dirt was invented.”

“Damn,” Lewis marveled.

“Yeah. Looks like the genuine article, huh?”

“Better’n you and me put together,” Lewis laughed.

“You can’t see the scars under his make-up. A rookie tried to bust his cherry on him then went ape shit with his D-cell when he felt under Miss Cleo’s skirt. Bobby and I responded. He was almost dead when we got there. Had a big old crack in his skull.”

“What happened to the rookie?”

“Last I heard he was up in San Mateo. Working vice.”

“Damn,” Lewis said through clenched teeth.

Frank kept her window down, letting the hot air outside compete with the slightly cooler air inside.

“So tell me. How would you have handled the Mother?”

Lewis pushed out her lips, studying the question.

“First off, I’d have been respectful, then I’d’ve asked where she was Wednesday night. Depend—”

“Nope. Right off you’ve fucked yourself. Right away you’ve put her on the defensive by wanting to know where she was during a murder. In something like this, where we don’t know the level of involvement, it’s best to approach them from the standpoint of the bereaved relative or friend. Get them talking about the vie and give them the chance to say something you might be able to bury them with. Once they’re talking and comfortable with the story they’re telling you, then you can start introducing the questions. Start with something innocuous like, ‘What sort of mood was he in? Who was he with?’ That makes them give you details you might be able to trip them up on later.

“Try to make every question open-ended. Don’t ask, ‘Were you with Danny Blank that night?’ That just leads you into a yes/no response. Always ask in a way that forces a more detailed answer. Ask, ‘When was the last time you saw Danny?’ That way you’re pinning her to specifics. Instead of, ‘Was Danny here last night?’ ask, ‘Where did you see Danny last?’ Never give them the answer. Force them to come up with their own. You see?”

Lewis nodded, slowing at a light.

“That’s another reason to breast your cards,” Frank continued. Her arm dangled outside the Mercury and she took a perverse pleasure in the searing heat. She absently deciphered the graffiti hieroglyphics sprayed on a crumbling building.

On the sidewalk in the building’s shadow, a heap of clothing came to life. A dusty head poked from the bundle and Frank tried to determine if it was male or female. A face that seemed to have weathered countless suns lifted itself to hers. Bluish white eyes stared at Frank. The lips split into a fat grin.

The car started rolling and the grizzled head followed it, the blind eyes and wet smile still trained on Frank. She craned her neck out the window until the relic disappeared.

“Yeah?” Lewis prompted.

“What?”

“What’s the other reason to breast my cards?”

What the fuck was that all about?

It felt like that thing with the poached eggs for eyeballs had not only seen Frank, but recognized her.

“Well?” Lewis demanded.

Even as she silently chastised that she was getting as goosey as Lewis, the hair remained erect on her arms, despite the hundred-degree heat.

“What were we talking about?”

Lewis sighed, “You said to never give anyone an out. Make them give it up. And to breast my cards, whatever that means.”

“It means don’t show them your hand,” Frank answered, relieved to be back on familiar terrain. “You want to have something to surprise them with. Watch somebody long enough and their actions’ll usually tell you more than words. Did you notice me get closer to the Mother before I asked her about Echevarria and Hernandez?”

Lewis shook her head.

“I wanted to get close enough to see her pupils. Right as I said Danny’d been hanging around some Nicaraguans, they dilated. It was a slight and completely involuntary reaction, and it gave her away. She didn’t even know she was doing it. She tightened her lips and her eyes narrowed too. Just a fraction, but enough. When you drop something on them they don’t think you know about, they can go through dozens of involuntary reactions like that. All the way from pupils dilating to shitting their pants.”

The image of the old beggar faded as Frank talked.

“And pay attention to what they call you. Notice how she went from calling me child to Lieutenant and then back to child? In the beginning she was in control and I was child. Then when she got a little rattled I was Lieutenant. When we were leaving and she told me about the red dog, she felt she had the upper hand again and called me child. Did you notice that?”

“No,” Lewis pouted.

“You will,” Frank reassured. “It’ll all come with time.”

Frank checked the world moving by. A nail salon and a cell phone store. Metal works. A discount store. Two long-haired girls pushing strollers. A young man in a Walkman funked out toward them. Everything was normal.

“I was listening to you with Kim this morning. You gave her all the answers. Don’t do that. Let them think you’re clueless. Makes them think they know more than you do. Makes them feel more comfortable, confident, and that’s what trips them up.”

“Yeah, but she was cooperating. She was being up front with me.”

“Happily or reluctantly?”

“Reluctantly,” Lewis admitted.

“Yeah, like you are now. And if I push too hard you’re gonna cop that famous Joe Lewis attitude on me and clam up. What would happen if I treated you soft and respectful-like?”

“It’d make it easier to talk to you.”

“Yeah, you’ll open up to me. What if I beat you over the head with what I think you’re doing wrong?”

“I’ma be in your face,” Lewis chuckled.

Frank nodded.

“If you make some suggestions and let your wit come to the conclusion you lead him to, then he feels like he’s got some power in the conversation, some control. Makes him feel pretty good, then he’ll want to keep sharing. N’mean?”

Lewis grinned, “You just did that, didn’t you?”

Frank returned the grin.

“You’re gonna be all right, Lewis.”

The sun felt good and Lewis was pleasant company. Frank had written off the odd deja vu at Mother Love’s even as it happened, and already she was ascribing the blind stare as nothing more than the old fuck in the blankets recognizing the nostalgic purr of a Mercury engine. By the time they got to Norm’s, the unnerving incidents were forgotten. But not for long.

The Mother laughed. Her daughter-in-law and sons looked up from their plates.

“What’s so funny?” Marcus asked. He’d been pissed all day. Tired of being ordered around like a fucking nigger. Do this, do that. Maybe Danny’d been right.

“That girl coming around here this morning. Loo-te-nant Franco.” The Mother danced the title around. “Makes me laugh, is all. My daddy used to say, that dog don’t know what it’s bit into.”

“Maybe you don’t know what you bit into,” Marcus mumbled around a piece of bread.

He didn’t see the knife leave her hand. It hit Marcus in the temple.

“Goddamn!” he sputtered, bread flying from his mouth like snow.

“Don’t you ever doubt me, child. Not while you’re in my house, sleeping under my roof. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he sulked, dabbing his head for blood.

His mother stabbed at her chicken breast.

“Word,” she grumbled, “you two are just like your father. Him”—she lifted her head at Lucian—“frettin’ all the time, and you sulking the whole day. Uh-huh. You got his temperament, all right.”

Yeah, and you little Miss Fuckin’ Sunshine, Marcus thought. He shoveled rice and green beans into his mouth faster than a crack-head could hit off a rod. He couldn’t wait to get out of this ugly, dark-paneled room. His mother think she living in fucking England or something?

“It seems funny, is all, that girl. She’s younger than I thought she’d be. And a fool, too.”

That was just like his mama, be thinking everyone a fool. Well that bitch hadn’t looked like no fool snooping around in the supply room. What else had she gotten into before he and Lucian caught up to her?

His mother broke her bread and leaned toward him. As if she knew what he was thinking, and often she did, she confided, “You see, son. That’s what I was laughing about. This ain’t about police business. It ain’t about that at all. It’s
bigger
than that.”

Her grin iced his blood.

“That Loo-tenant? She don’t even
know
what this be about. That’s what’s so funny.”

Marcus didn’t like the sound of that, wondering what world of trouble his mother was getting them into now. He turned his head from her to his empty plate. Like a ten-year-old, he asked to be excused.

The next night Frank held a double Scotch in the air while she worked her way through the melee of the Alibi. Snagging an empty chair, she twirled it next to Noah’s and straddled it. She leaned into his ear, asking, “What’s your wife doing tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Why? You gonna run away with her?”

“Nope. She’s too smart to have me. Think she’d have time to go shopping with me?”

“Shopping?”

“Yeah, I gotta find something to wear to the opera.”

“Opera?”

“Yeah. The opera.”

“The opera?”

“What are you, a fucking parrot?”

“Give me a break,” Noah laughed. “Since when are you a fucking
opera
buff?”

Noah kept saying the word like he was choking on it.

“Mag liked it. I got into it from listening to her play it all the time.”

Noah’s eyes slitted and he asked, “You goin’ with the doc?”

“No fooling you, Detective Jantzen. So you think I could call her? See if she’d help me find something?”

“Sure. Markie’s got practice at 2:30 and I think Les’s is at 1:00, but we can work something out. Jesus,” Noah said wonderingly. “You dressed for the opera. Will you take pictures for me?”

Frank ignored him and leaned across the table.

“You talk to any of Danny’s homes?” she shouted at Lewis.

“Yeah,” Lewis yelled back. “Echevarria and Hernandez.”

Noah said, “Smokin’ Joe Lewis, here, called ‘em the most sorrowful excuse for men she’d ever seen. At first they’re giving us the three monkey routine—see no evil, hear no evil—then I lay it on ‘em that they’re looking like our prime suspects. That they cut Danny Duncan out of the business to keep overhead down. Then they just caved. Started crying, blubbering in Spanish, snot runnin’ all over. Man, they were just pitiful.”

Noah gave Lewis the nod and she picked up the story.

“Yeah. Turns out they
didn’t
want to be in business with Danny anymore, not because of the money but because of auntie. They’re afraid of her. Especially now with Danny dead. They claim she’s a witch and that she’s been planting curses on them. The one dude, Hernandez, he found a black cat hanging from his porch one morning, then a few days later he steps on this little sack under the door mat. He said he paid his neighbor to throw it away for him.”

“What was in it?”

“Damned if I know. He didn’t even want to touch it. A week later someone had laid powder all around his house. He said it was dirt from a graveyard and that if the person it’s meant for steps in it he’ll the within the week.”

“So’s he still alive?” Frank scoffed.

“He didn’t step in it. His wife saw it first, had a heart attack.

They’re scared. That old Mother Love’s got ‘em pissing in their pants. They got two Rottweilers in the yard and can’t figure out how someone’s puttin’ all this shit around without settin’ the dogs off.”

“Did you see any of this stuff?”

“Just some of the powder by the side of the house. Why?”

“Go back and get a couple clean samples from around the house.”

“For what?” Noah asked incredulously.

“Just to have. Make sure chain of custody’s clear on it.”

“Oh, let me see. First it belonged to some dead guy in a cemetery, then MLJ dug it up at midnight, then she turned into a bat and sprinkled it around their house, then we got it. That’s pretty clear.”

Frank ignored the sarcasm.

“What else did these three stooges say? And did you get to Carrillo?”

“Carrillo’s in Mexico, supposedly. Left the day before Danny went down. Evidently Echevarria—I’d say he was the bolder of the two, wouldn’t you?” Noah asked Lewis.

“Yeah,” she chorded, “he only went through one box of tissues.”

“Evidently he went to Mother Love’s after Danny ended up gutted in Carrillo’s driveway. Told her they meant no disrespect and kissed her ass a couple times. They promised to be good boys and it’s been quiet since then. No dead cats or graveyard dirt.”

Frank asked, “So what do you think?”

Lewis looked to Noah and he was about to speak, but Frank said, “Lewis. It’s your case.”

She swiped an embarrassed glance around the table.

“We know from his sister, Echevarria, and Hernandez, that the vie was planning on going into business on his own. Not only would that be cutting into his aunt’s profits, but it would be disrespecting her right on the street. She couldn’t let that go down. It seems to me like Mother Love’s our best suspect. There’s nothing else pointing us another direction.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at Noah.

“What she said,” he answered.

“All right. Let’s ride this pony. But carefully. That woman’s kept her nose clean this long because she knows what she’s doing. We’ve got to have a full arsenal before we hit her with anything.”

Noah interrupted, “And even then she’ll probably still slither out of the charges.”

“Maybe, maybe not. If we give the DA enough material, they might be able to do their job.”

“For once,” Lewis grunted.

“This bad attitude I’m hearing? Mother’s not psyching you out, is she?”

Lewis shook her head and Noah answered, “No, but you’ve gotta admit we don’t exactly have a stellar conviction rate for her.”