Soul Circus (23 page)

Strange thought of Mark Elliot, now an orphan. And he thought of Robert Gray, living with that junkie aunt of his and her equally damaging boyfriend.

Strange drove by a church set back on Georgia. He saw a banner outside of it, read, “Member: One Kid, One Congregation.” He knew of the program and had once met the man who ran it. He made a mental note to give that man a call.

Lionel was out on Quintana, standing under a street lamp, the hood up on his car, as Strange parked the Brougham. Lionel had a rag in his hand and he was using it to wipe oil off a dipstick.

Strange got out of the Caddy. He waited for Greco to jump out before he closed the door. Greco stayed with him every step of the way as Strange came up on Lionel.

“Hey,” said Strange.

“Pop. Rough night, huh?”

“I’m still standin’.”

“Mom kept some food on.”

Strange brought Lionel to him and held him close.

“Don’t stay out here too long, hear?”

Lionel nodded, somewhat embarrassed by the affection, somewhat confused. Strange let him go and walked toward the house, Greco’s nose bumping at his calf. Janine was waiting for him behind the screen door. Strange wondered where he had found the luck to have all this, when others had none at all.

DURHAM and Walker were taken to the Sixth District substation on Pennsylvania Avenue, Southeast, and interviewed separately by homicide detectives working the shootings outside the market. Predictably, both said that they knew nothing about the event. Detective Nathan Grady entered the interview room where Dewayne sat and asked him about the whereabouts of his brother, Mario. Dewayne gave him nothing except for the address of his mother, which he knew they could easily find or already had. There was nothing to hold them on, so Dewayne and Walker were told they could leave. Their car was waiting for them out on Pennsylvania.

Back in the Benz, Dewayne called his mother. She was crying and said that the police had already been to her town house. She told Dewayne that she didn’t know where Mario could be. Their mother was smart enough not to mention Mario’s friend Donut while talking on the cell.

Dewayne Durham told his mother not to worry. He’d stop by later and bring along some sweets that he knew she liked, truffles he could get in a late-night market by her place.

“Drive over to Valley Green, Zu,” Durham said to Walker. “Make sure we don’t get followed.”

Down in Valley Green, near the hospital, they cruised a cluster of streets: Blackney Lane, Varney Street, and Cole Boulevard among them. Durham was looking for Donut’s car, a silver blue Accord, as he didn’t know exactly where Donut lived. But then they saw Mario, wearing that stupid-ass Redskins getup, standing on a street corner up ahead. Mario stood with one hand in his pocket, slouched, just looking around. Looked like he was waiting for something, he didn’t know what. Just like he’d been doin’ his whole sorry life.

“Fool,” said Dewayne under his breath. “Pull over, Bernard.”

Dewayne got out of the car and crossed the street to the corner where Mario stood. Mario kind of puffed out his chest then, like he was one of his brother’s kind. But he saw Dewayne’s eyes and deflated himself quick.

“What you doin’ out here, huh?” said Dewayne.

“Nothin’,” said Mario.

He had some fake crack in his pocket, a whole rack of dummies, but he hadn’t sold a dime’s worth yet. He didn’t think his brother wanted to hear about it now.

“Don’t you know you wanted on a homicide?”

“They found her, huh?”

Dewayne took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Who you stayin’ with? Donut?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where he live at, man?”

Mario told him.

“You got your cell on you?” said Dewayne. At Mario’s nod, Dewayne said, “Give it to me.”

Mario handed Dewayne his cell. Dewayne dropped it on the concrete and stomped on it savagely, breaking it into pieces. He kicked the various shreds into the worn grass and street.

“They can find you like that, trace your ass right through your phone when you be usin’ it. Don’t you know
nothin’
?”

Mario looked up into Dewayne’s eyes. “Don’t be mad at me, D.” Dewayne didn’t respond.

Mario said, “You
told
me the bitch needed to be got.”

“Stupid motherfucker,” said Dewayne. His hand flew up and he slapped Mario’s face.

The blow caught them both by surprise. Mario rubbed his cheek and slowly turned his head back to face Dewayne. Mario’s eyes had welled up with tears and his bottom lip shook.

“Why’d you do me like that?” said Mario, a tremor in his voice. “You my kid brother, man.”

Dewayne brought him into his arms. Mario was right. He had punked his brother, shamed him in front of Walker, who had surely seen it from his spot in the Benz. And that was wrong.

“Come on,” said Dewayne, leading Mario across the street, one arm around his shoulders. “We got to put you underground.”

“Where I’m goin’?”

“To stay with this girl I know who owes me.”

“That gonna be all right with her?”

“It’ll be all right if I tell her it will. C’mon.”

From behind the wheel, Bernard Walker watched as Dewayne led his retard, no-ass, no-job-havin’ brother toward the car. As they neared, Walker noticed the blood-stained shoes on Mario’s feet. Yesterday he had had one “ordan,” and today he had him a whole pair. Walker thinking, That’s progress, to
him
.

TERRY Quinn and Sue Tracy were fucking like animals in Quinn’s bed when Strange called. Quinn reached over and swept the phone off the nightstand without missing a stroke. Fifteen minutes later Strange called again. Quinn had put the receiver back in its cradle, and Sue was in the bathroom washing herself when the phone rang. Quinn sat up naked on the bed and answered the call.

“What’s goin’ on?” said Tracy, coming out of the bathroom, seeing Quinn’s pale, drawn face.

“It was Derek,” said Quinn, nodding toward the phone. He repeated, briefly, the details Strange had given him. She asked some questions, but he waved her off and got up from the bed. He dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, and got into his leather.

Quinn stood dumbly in the center of the room and stared at his bureau. His Colt was in there. He took a step toward his dresser and stopped. What would he do with his gun now? The gun was his crutch, he knew. Violence was his answer, had always been his answer, to every conflict, threatened or imagined, he’d ever had. But there wasn’t even a target now. Not unless you counted that pathetic little man in the Deion jersey. No, it was Quinn who had gotten that boy’s mother killed.

He walked from the bedroom. Tracy heard him pacing the living room and then a crash. It was the sound of a toppled chair. He came back in, and the vein was up on his face.

“I’m going out.”

“Where?”

“For a walk.”

“I’ll come.”

Quinn’s eyes cut away from Tracy’s. “No.”

He walked up Sligo Avenue, past houses and apartments and the Montgomery County Police station, the 7-Eleven and the bus station on Fenton, and then along the car repair garages and auto parts stores lining the strip. The closed-mouth kiss of gentrification and the replacement of mom-and-pops by national chains had not yet reached this far south in Silver Spring. Quinn generally stayed in this part of town.

He turned left on Selim, crossed the street at the My-Le, the Vietnamese restaurant there, and went over the pedestrian bridge spanning Georgia Avenue that led to the commuter train station and the B&O and Metro tracks. He stood on the platform and looked down Georgia, his nearsighted eyes seeing only the blur of headlights, street lamps, and streaks of neon. He turned toward the tracks, hearing the low rumble of a freight train approaching from the south. It reached him eventually. When it did, he reached his hand out so that he almost touched the train and could feel its wind. He closed his eyes.

Now he was away from his world. Enemies and allies were easily distinguished by hats of black and white. Honor and redemption were real, not conceptual. Justice was uncomplicated by the gray of politics and money, and, if need be, achieved at the point of a gun.

Quinn knew he was out of step. He knew that his outlook was dangerous, essentially that of a boy. And that it would catch up to him in the end.

He opened his eyes. The train still rumbled by. Up on Selim, his Chevelle was idling outside My-Le. He crossed back over the bridge and went to the open passenger window. He leaned into the frame. Sue Tracy was behind the wheel, her right hand moving the Hurst shifter through its gears.

“Thanks for checkin’ up on me, Mom.”

“Look, I don’t know what you dream about up here, cowboy, but it doesn’t get anything solved.”

“In my mind it does.”

“Okay. But it sounds to me like you’ve got some work to do tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure you got some sleep tonight.”

“What you wanted was to drive my sled.”

“There was that.”

“I’ll be home in a little while.”

“C’mon, Terry,” said Tracy, reaching across the bucket and opening the door. “Get in.”

STRANGE and Quinn sat at a table on the second floor of the Brian T. Gibson Building, the Fourth District station, in the office of Lieutenant Lydell Blue. Homicide detective Nathan Grady sat with them. Four Styrofoam cups holding coffee were on the table, along with a file. There were no windows in the office, no rays of sun, no bird sounds, no indication at all that it was a beautiful morning late in spring. It could have been any time of day. The fluorescent lights in the drop ceiling above gave them all a sickly pallor.

“So where we at?” said Strange.

“You first,” said Grady.

“I gave Lydell everything I had.”

“Tell
me
,” said Grady.

Strange repeated the story of Mario Durham’s visit to his office. He left out no detail of their meeting, except for one. He relayed the particulars of the subsequent investigation, including the conversations with his interviewees and those of Quinn. Quinn interjected to give further recollections as needed.

“Some man matching your description,” said Blue, “talked to a neighbor of Olivia’s at her old address. He used some ruse about being a football coach, called himself Will Sonnet. Like that old TV show with Walter Brennan. You know, ‘No brag, just fact.’ ”

“She came forward, huh?” said Strange.

“Soon as she saw on the TV news that they found the Elliot woman,” said Blue.

“Nice to know we got some good citizens out there.”

“I figured that was you.”

“And you told the son that his mother had won a raffle,” said Grady, addressing Quinn.

“Yes,” said Quinn.

“Tricky.”

Quinn ignored the editorial remark. “How’d he connect me?”

“The boy got a partial on your plates.” Grady stared at Quinn for a moment, then looked down at a small lined pad, where he tapped his pen. When he looked back up at Quinn he said, “You were a patrol cop here in Four D, weren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

Next thing you’ll tell me I look familiar, but you already know who I am. I’m the cop that shot that other cop two years ago. Never mind that I was cleared. All of you will never forget. And now I’m private, a joke, tricking kids so that I can get their mothers killed. The opposite of what a cop does. Why don’t you just say it so we can move on?

“We had no reason to think we were going to cause that woman any harm,” said Strange.

“True,” said Grady.

“Mario Durham looked less than harmless.”

“I appreciate your cooperation on this. I really do.”

“Anything we can do to help.”

Strange knew Grady by reputation and by sight, a tall man with gray-blond hair and ice blue eyes, looked like an older version of that Scandi actor, played in the later
Walking Tall
movies, Bo something. Blue said that Grady was all right. Odd, but all right. He was known to keep crime-scene photos of victims mounted on the walls of his apartment, where he lived alone. Cops who’d been by his place described them: There was one of a young man lying on his back on a Capitol Hill street, his hands still tented in prayer from before he had been shot. Another showed a woman who had hung her cat from the basement pipe, then hung herself beside it. That one was framed above the mantel. Outsiders would say that Grady was disturbed to keep such photos on display. Cops knew that this was Grady’s way of dealing with his job.

“Y’all are positive it was Mario Durham who killed her, right?” said Strange.

“As positive as you can be. He left prints all over the apartment and her car. His prints were on her car keys, the shower curtain he wrapped her in, everything.”

“Any idea on motive?” said Strange.

Grady shrugged. “They found cash between her mattress and box spring. There was marijuana in there, too, looked like it might have been a little more quantity than for personal use. Mario’s got a connection to a dealer —”

“What connection?” said Quinn.

“I’m gonna get to that,” said Grady. “So maybe this had something to do with a drug debt unpaid. Or it was one of those crimes of passion. The way you described him, Mario must have been a real player.”

“How’s the son doing?” said Quinn.

“He’s staying with his uncle, William Elliot. It’s where he was when she was killed, and why she wasn’t reported missing right away. The way I understand it, the arrangement’s going to be permanent. The uncle’s about as straight as they come. A government employee, married, secure. Doesn’t tolerate knuckleheads or any kind of foolishness. Loved his sister but hated her lifestyle, all that.”

“Sounds like a really fun guy,” said Strange.

“Let’s be honest,” said Grady. “The boy’s never gonna get over the death of his mother. But from my point of view, he’s going to have a more secure environment now than he had before.” Grady’s eyes went from Strange’s to Quinn’s. “I’m not tryin’ to make you two feel good about yourselves, either. Just giving you my opinion.”

Strange nodded. “You get anything from Durham’s cell number yet?”