Done for a Dime (7 page)

Toby sighed guiltily and shrugged. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“Hell with that.” Francis turned into the gateway to the hill and headed toward the top of St. Martin’s. “What doesn’t kill you just leaves you lyin’ there.”

“Francis—”

“Look, Tobo, it’s not my place to come down on you for what you want to do, what your old man means to you, anything like that. He’s your daddy, you’re devoted, okay. Lot to be admired in that. It’s just I don’t want to see you end up like him. Be as good as he is, or was, only to gig maybe four times a year, if he’s lucky, with a bunch of other sorry old men the business forgot long ago. Or never knew about to begin with.”

“That’s not fair,” Toby said. The men in The Mighty Firefly were like uncles to him.

“Fair? Come on, Tobo. Your daddy, I like him, you know that, but his life ain’t nothing nobody would say, ‘Oh, please, one more time.’ Looks back, he’s bitter. Looks ahead, he’s scared. That what you want for yourself? Be honest.”

Like heading for New York will change that for us, Toby thought. Francis turned the corner onto his street, then braked so hard they both lunged forward toward the dash.

“Jesus motherfucking God.”

Four police cruisers sat down the block, lights swirling in the darkness, splaying across the housefronts and through the branch-work of the trees. Two cops were holding back the crowd while another two stood in the open gateway to Toby’s father’s house, looking in at something on the ground.

“Oh Lord.” Toby reached for his horn case and valise, swiped clumsily at the door handle.

Francis snagged his arm. “You can’t say my name, Tobo, understand?” Panic hiked the pitch of his voice, his eyes crazy. He stared at the cruisers down the block, still clinging to Toby’s sleeve.

Toby fought to free himself. He opened the door. “Francis, let go.”

Francis clung harder. “This ain’t no joke. I ain’t here. I ain’t the one drove you home. Tell me you got that.”

4

T
he seven-year-old—barefoot, in pink pajamas, her hair twined into bow-tipped pigtails—bumped her hip gently against the doorjamb, staring out at the living room where Murchison sat. The girl’s mother, Marcellyne Pathon, sat on the sofa, reviewing the faces in Hennessey’s Polaroids as, in the background, a song titled “Ain’t Got Time to Die” played softly on the radio, turned to KDYA: “Gospel by the Bay.”

“Like I told you, these here are Mr. and Mrs. Toomey. They all lived up here for years.” She pointed to the older couple in their robes and slippers standing on the edge of the crowd in the street outside the murder scene. “Same as for the Carvilles and the—Where are they? There. Mrs. Ripperton and her sons. Went to school with Jamal Ripperton. All these folks been living up here the longest. Nothing strange about it.”

“Okay, Marcellyne. Good. But these guys.” He pointed to the trio of young men unable to duck away from Hennessey’s flash quick enough, their faces caught in quarter angles. One of them wore a skully, his hand raised to hide behind. His accessorizing gave him away—three gold rings on the fingers of the upraised hand, at least four gold chains around his neck. “Diamonds and gold and just paroled” was how Hennessey put it.

Marcellyne licked her lips as she took a shallow breath, adjusted her glasses. “Hard to see their faces here.”

“I realize that.”

She spun around. “Don’t make me get up, Daijha.”

The seven-year-old stared back at her, moody, fearful. Marcellyne made a move to stand up and the girl slid back into her room, rejoining her four-year-old sister.

“The name Arlie Thigpen ring a bell?”

Hennessey had pointed out his own hit parade from the crowd. There were several ballers, including the guy in the skully, from Long Walk Mooney’s crew. Long Walk, a San Quentin grad, dealt in town, had for years, but now he hid behind the guise of party promoter. His parties tended to be wild, sometimes violent, so he moved them around, like the crews he had on hand to sell product—most recently brown tar heroin dissolved in water and sold in popper vials, and gooey balls, hash-laced Rice Krispie treats, favorites with the rave crowds. So went word on the street, at least. The police had no hard evidence, and they’d yet to come close to catching Mooney doing anything they could arrest him for. There’d been reports of an event that night down around the warehouse district, but the Carlisle murder had taken place before anyone could bother with breaking up a dance.

These young men here, in the photograph, probably worked bank. No one but juvies handled drugs on a Long Walk crew. Though he’d recognized faces and had tales to tell about several, Hennessey’d only been able to bring one full name to bear: Arlington Thigpen, age nineteen. He appeared in one of the Polaroids with the hood of his sweatshirt puckered tight around his face, but a webwork of whitish scars around one eye gave him away.

“I know Sarina, his mother. She works over the convalescent hospital. Has a retarded daughter. Her oldest, Robert, he lives in Richmond, I think, works construction.”

“This is Arlie.”

“Yes, sir. Don’t know him. Not really.”

“Any idea how his eye got like that?”

“No, sir. Couldn’t say.”

Hands trembling, Marcellyne shuffled the pictures together and handed them back to Murchison. One of the first things he’d learned about interrogation was when to pretend you believed, when to pretend you didn’t. If someone’s lying to you, act like every word is golden. String him along. If you think he’s holding something back, accuse him of lying. Or her.

“You’re not being up front with me, Marcellyne. You know, or Mr. Carlisle knew, Arlie or some of these other young men. That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

A flinch shot up her shoulder and neck. She couldn’t look at him. “Everybody knows everybody up here, okay? But all I know is what I’ve told you. Did Mr. Carlisle know anybody in particular? I couldn’t say. Anybody in those pictures?” She pointed. “I do not know.”

“But
you
know them.” He held up the picture again, took out his pen, and prepared to write on the back. “You just said it. Everybody knows everybody.”

As he walked down from Marcellyne’s door to the street he checked to see who took notice. In particular, he looked for J. J. Glenn, Waddell Bettencort, Michael Brinkman, Eshmont Carnes—the young men whose names Marcellyne had just delivered. Only three scattered groups of onlookers remained, and none of those were promising. It was, after all, Saturday night. Sunday morning now, to be exact. Money to be made.

Truax, looking almost lonesome, remained on guard with his clipboard at the gate to the scene. The coroner’s unit had come and gone, taking the body with them. Two patrol units had left; the others had turned off their lights. The street seemed almost normal—dark, windblown, wet.

Glancing back at Marcellyne’s home, Murchison spotted a sprawling bougainvillea, once high as the roof gutters, now sagging from its trellis, weighed down with rain. It littered warm-winter blossoms onto the patchy lawn. Here and there, daffodils, bearded iris, daylillies already bloomed in scattered flowerbeds down the block. Oxalis—yellow bell-shaped flower, clover-shaped leaves, a weed—cropped up everywhere. First week of February, Murchison thought. Might as well be Easter.

From across the street, Stluka bounded up to greet him, all smiles. “Oh man, are you gonna fucking love this.”

Something feral lit Stluka’s eyes. “Let me guess. One of the Victorians?”

“You kidding? Both of ’em, locked up tight as a nun’s butt. Listen to me.” Stluka pulled a notepad from inside his sport coat. “I figured, this close to last call, we couldn’t wait any longer to contact the club, this Zoom Room in Emeryville where the so-called son played tonight.”

“What do you mean, ‘so-called’?”

“Spoke to the owner, woman named Vanessa. You should get a load of this broad. Oh, oh, oh, what a girl.”

For what seemed the thousandth time, Toby looked around the bare interrogation room, seeing it finally not as a place but a state of mind. The state of mind was:
guilty
. He recalled his thoughts on the ride home with Francis: Leave the old man behind. Let him drink himself sick in that house alone. Let him die alone. He welcomed the sound of the door opening, someone joining him, anyone, even police. Glancing up, he saw there were two of them, both white, in plain clothes. They looked at him as though trying to figure him out. He felt a slight disorienting charge, like static electricity, as he picked up his glasses from the table and put them on, fitting the earpieces in place.

“Toby, is that right?” the nearer one said, sitting down. He was the older of the two, rangy and tall, with rust-colored hair and worry bags beneath the eyes. He had freckles, wore a modest wedding band, and carried himself with an air of rumpled loneliness.

“I’m Detective Murchison,” the man said, then with a nod to the other added, “This is Detective Stluka.” This guy was stocky and flat-faced, with black hair and cop eyes.

“Toby Carlisle?” Murchison, the sad one, asked.

“No,” Toby said softly, clearing his throat. “Marchand. Toby Marchand.”

The stocky one said, “You told Sergeant Holmes at the scene the victim was your father.”

Toby flinched at his tone. “He is my father. Marchand is my stepfather’s name.”

“Stepfather?”

“He lives in Denver. He and my mother are divorced.”

The two detectives looked at each other. Toby, feeling his skin grow warm, went to loosen his tie, only to discover his collar already undone, the knot lying at his breastbone. He remembered the officers hunched around him, the smelling salts.

Murchison said, “I wish we could give you time to get your mind around what’s happened, Toby. Prepare yourself. But we can’t. First seventy-two hours after a homicide are crucial.”

The man’s eyes, his voice, they were strangely gentle, inviting, like sleep.

“I understand.”

“You told someone else tonight it’s your father who lives in Denver.”

Toby stiffened. “That’s not true.”

“What’s not true?”

“My dad lives here. I mean, he did.”

“But you said otherwise. Earlier tonight.”

“I don’t—”

“After your father was thrown out of the club in Emeryville. The owner, she came up to you, asked if you knew him. Asked if he was your father. You said no.”

Toby sat back. A sickness bubbled in his stomach. The detectives waited. His mind cleared suddenly; he realized what the man had just said.

“Thrown out—you know about the fight at the club.”

“We know a lot of things, Toby. The investigation’s almost complete.”

“But if you know about the fight, then Nadya—”

“She’s at the hospital. She’s fine.”

One guilt fed the other. His father’s death, Nadya’s being left alone to deal with—what? “The officer at the scene, he—”

“She’s being treated. She’s safe.”

“That reminds me.” It was the black-haired one, Stluka. He reached into his pocket, took out a driver’s license, showed it to Toby. “Stephanie Waugh?”

Toby took the license from him, studied it, puzzled.

“It was in your girlfriend’s purse. Along with her real ID.”

Toby tried to hand it back. Murchison said, “Been a lot of little white lies told tonight, Toby. Too many.”

“Listen, I—”

“Let me stop you. This is important. I absolutely need to know you understand, Toby, we can’t help anybody—not you, not your girlfriend, not your family—with false information. Won’t help. Can’t help.”

Stluka got up at that point, whispered to Murchison, “I’m gonna get to that thing we talked about,” then left the room. Toby watched him go as Murchison edged his chair an inch or so closer.

“The truth, Toby. No more stories. No more telling one person one thing, another person another. It’s already caught up with you.”

Toby turned back toward that voice, and as he did an odd sense of weightlessness came over him, the kind of sensation he associated with dreams in which he suddenly took flight. The thrill of terror. At the same time, he detected an echo of something else. An invitation to surrender. The two things fit together somehow. Don’t be scared, he thought. Tell the man it was you. Say you want to confess—what part does truth really play in this? Your father was murdered while you yourself wished him dead. Even if somehow, someday, they find out who really fired the gun, it will never bring the old man back to life or wash away this taint. You’ll feel filthy, soiled by your own shame, forever.

“I was thinking,” he whispered, “just before you came in.…” His voice trailed off, his words suddenly unwieldy. He couldn’t make sense of how to continue. Glancing up, he saw a momentary hardening in the detective’s eyes, a shadow so fleeting he wondered if it had really been there. Regardless, something hungry, almost pitiless, revealed itself. It shocked him out of his phony guilt. He sat up straight.

“Thinking what, Toby?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. You asked about my father.”

“Toby, don’t do this to yourself.”

“I lived with my mother and stepfather till I was ten.”

“Toby—”

“They separated, and Mom needed help. I’ve got two stepsisters; three kids is a lot. Pops took me in a few years. Went back to my mother’s for high school so I could study in the jazz program at Berkeley. I’ve been staying here again the past two months. My father had surgery.”

Murchison sat back a little, his eyes blank. Two seconds passed, five. Ten. “A kidney removed,” he said finally.

“Yes.” Toby felt caught in the man’s stare. “He’d just been up and half his old self.” His voice quavered.

Murchison leaned forward again. Their heads almost touched. “I can’t help you, Toby, without the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“The victim kept a gun in his bed stand, Toby. He was scared.”

Toby laughed, looked away, thinking,
The victim.
“Scared? That’d be something.”

“He had reason, or thought he had reason, to think he was in danger. Any enemies you know of? Scores to settle, old or new? Debts? Women he’d broken off with who took it hard?”

Toby felt relieved at this turning away of the detective’s scrutiny. And yet, in response to the question, he found himself addressing a void. There was either too much to tell, or too little.