Authors: J.D. Rhoades
The reply came back immediately. “10-4,” the dispatcher acknowledged. “Thirty-five, be advised, EMS is en route.” The dispatcher pronounced it “in root.”
“10-4, County, I hear them,” she replied. She reached into the glove box and pulled out a box of rubber surgical gloves, tucking a pair into her pocket as she got out.
Marie felt her pulse quicken as she jogged over to the small knot of people. There were three men and a woman, clustered in the doorway. “Move aside, please,” she said. They looked up at her, faces still blank with shock. No one spoke. No one moved, either. Only when she pushed forward did they give ground, reluctantly, as if they were trying to protect her from what they had already seen.
She saw the body of a man, lying on his back on the floor. His hands were over his face. The hands were covered with blood. Flecks of unidentifiable tissue were mixed into the rapidly congealing fluid coating the fingers. Marie knelt by the body. The people pushed back into their earlier positions, looking down at her. She looked up in irritation. “You people need to get back,” she said. “This is a crime scene.” Nobody moved. “I said, get back!” she snapped. For a brief second she heard the voice she used when she was at the end of her rope with her son, what she called the “Mad Mommy” voice. It seemed to work; the people edged back. Marie fought back the hysterical urge to laugh. Steady, girl, she told herself. She bent back to the man on the ground. She took the pair of rubber gloves from her back pocket and pulled them on. Gently, she pulled the hands away from the face.
“Oh, God,” she said. She felt her stomach heave. The man’s face was a mess of brain, blood, and smashed bone. I am not going to throw up, I am not going to throw up, she said to herself as she clenched her teeth. Automatically, her hand slid down to the artery at the base of the man’s neck, searching for the pulse she knew she wouldn’t find. The sudden howl of the ambulance pulling in made her jump. She stood up as the shrieking spun down to a rumbling purr. Her knees trembled slightly as she turned toward the two paramedics, a man and a woman, who spilled out of the truck and began jogging toward her. They slowed to a walk as they saw Marie’s face. She shook her head. They came in anyway and she stepped aside. She felt the trembling in her knees begin to spread to the rest of her body. She closed her eyes.
Against the back of her eyelids, like a picture on a movie screen, she saw another body, lying by the side of a road, illuminated by the riot and flash of the
lights of her cruiser, her partner’s face looking up at her, frozen in a last look that said What the hell just happened to me…
Stop it. She took a deep shuddering breath and straightened her shoulders. Do the work, her own voice came again in her head. Do the next thing. For a moment, she fumbled for what the next thing might be. Secure the scene, the voice said. And the witnesses. She got to work.
By the time the detective pulled up, Marie had the scene lined off with rolls of bright yellow tape from her trunk and the witnesses corralled over to one side of the parking lot. One of the men had complained that he and his buddy had to get to work and had looked like he was going to make an issue of it. He had even muttered something under his breath about “not taking any shit from any girl deputy.” Marie had just unclipped the handcuffs from her gun belt and stared significantly at him. He had backed down and was now sitting on a stack of boxes.
Marie was bent down, drawing a chalk circle around a shell casing near the body when the brown unmarked car pulled in. There was a mini-gumball light pulsing blue on the dash, but no siren. A man got out.
Marie had once had an art class in high school where they had tried to teach her figure drawing. The teacher had told them to start by sketching the basic parts of the body as rounded shapes: an oval for the head, another for the torso, long thin ovals for the limbs. But the man approaching seemed to have been made out of squares and rectangles. His iron-gray hair was cut across the top of his squarish head in a brush cut. His shoulders were broad and blocky and his body seemed to drop straight from them to the ground with no visible waist. His face was pitted with ancient acne scars and his nose had been broken long ago and badly reset, giving him the look of a prizefighter who had had more losses than wins. She was so new, it took her a moment to place the name. Shelby, she finally recalled. She didn’t know anything about him beyond that. He stopped and looked around at the scene, noting the tape and the witnesses. He looked at Marie for a second, then nodded almost imperceptibly. He walked inside and stood over the body for a moment, looking down. Then he turned slowly, looking things over, before walking back out. He jerked his chin at the paramedics sitting in the open door of the ambulance. “They
move anythin’?” he said. His voice was surprisingly high for such a big man and his accent was pure country.
“No sir,” she said.
Shelby cracked a tight grin, showing crooked teeth. Marie decided he was probably one of the ugliest men she had ever met, but there was something about the smile that relaxed her. “Don’t call me sir,” he said. “I work for my livin’.” Marie recognized the non-com joke that must have been old in the time of the Roman legions. Shelby was obviously ex-military. Marie smiled back, relaxing a little more. “Just checked him over. He was dead when I got here.”
Shelby nodded again. “Get any statements?”
“No sir … I mean, no,” she said. “Waiting for you.”
“Awright,” he said. He looked around. “Looks like you got ever’thing pretty well squared away,” he said. “Good work.”
“Thanks,” she said.
He looked back at her, then down at her hands. “Y’better wash that blood off, though. Don’t want to spread it around. Besides, y’might forget and touch your face or your hair.” He grinned mirthlessly. “We don’t know where this feller’s been.”
She looked down. Her gloves were still streaked with gore. “Okay,” she said. “Sorry. Let me find a bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here,” he said as he turned toward the people standing by.
Marie located the restroom around the side of the building. She grimaced as she looked around at the grimy tile and cracked fixtures. As she reached for the faucet, she noticed a drop of blood on the edge of the sink. She stopped short, her hand a few inches away from the faucet. She looked around. There was another drop of blood, almost too small to notice unless you were looking for it, on the floor. She looked over at the toilet stall, a feeling of dread twisting her stomach. Another body in there? she wondered. Slowly, she pushed the door open. The stall was empty.
Marie breathed out. She had not realized till then that she had been holding her breath. Then the paper towels sticking out of the trash can caught her eye. She walked over and looked down. There was blood there, too, ragged stains soaked into the rough flimsy paper.
Marie’s head snapped up as a scream came from outside. She slammed the door open with one hand and drew her weapon with the other. She skidded to a stop at the comer of the building as another scream split the air. It sounded like a woman.
Marie held the 9MM Beretta in a two-handed grip, her elbows slightly bent to take the recoil. Then she stepped out, planting her feet shoulder-width apart, her eyes hunting for targets.
Bells hanging on the front door jingled as Keller walked into the small diner. A plump waitress with badly dyed red hair looked up from pouring coffee for a table of men in paint-spattered overalls. “Sit anywhere you want, hon,” she called out. “Be with you in just a sec.”
This time of day, with breakfast long over and the lunch crowd petering out, the place was mostly empty. A few older men sat on stools at the counter, nursing coffees or glasses of iced tea, newspapers propped up before them or spread on the counter. The rich smells of coffee, eggs, and bacon still hung in the air. Keller slid into a booth. The red-haired waitress came over, the coffeepot still in her hand. The table was already fully set, and Keller turned the inverted coffee cup upright.
The waitress filled it and handed him a laminated plastic menu. “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ll just have the coffee.”
“Okay, shug, take your time,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. As she started to turn away, Keller said, “You got a minute?”
She turned back, a look of mild surprise on her ruddy, kind face. “Can I hep you?” she asked.
“I’m trying to find Laurel Marks. Anyone know—”
The face shut down, all of the friendliness suddenly evaporated. “She don’t work here no more.”
“I know,” Keller said. “I was wondering if—”
“I’ll get the manager,” the waitress said. She walked off, slowly, as if her feet hurt.
After a few moments, a man in cook’s white pants and a sweat-stained T-shirt came out. He was in his late thirties, but hard work and harder partying had already
carved deep lines in his face and under his eyes. His scraggly hair poked out at odd angles from beneath his flat round paper cap. A bushy cavalryman’s moustache almost, but not quite, hid his badly crooked teeth when he spoke.
“You lookin’ for Laurel?” he said. His voice was a raspy croak, his eyes narrow and suspicious.
“Yeah,” Keller said. “I work for her bondsman. She skipped bail on us.”
The eyes grew less wary. “You tryin’ to put her in jail, huh?”
“That’s right.”
The manager leaned back and smiled. “Well shit, somebody sure’s hell ought to. Jesus, that bitch was flat crazy.” He extended a hand covered with healed burns and old scars from kitchen mishaps. “I’m Bart,” he said. He didn’t offer a last name.
Keller shook his hand. “Jack,” he said.
Bart leaned back and took off his cap. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. He produced a cigarette and lit it. “You got a card, Jack?” he said. “I mean, it ain’t like I don’t trust people, but…” He left the sentence hanging.
Keller handed him a card. Bart studied it through the haze of his cigarette smoke. “H & H Bonds. Yeah, I used them a time or two.” He pocketed the card. “Actually, Alicia’s the one you ought to ask about Laurel,” he said. He looked around.
“’LICIA!” he bellowed suddenly. The men at the counter looked up. The painters at the nearby booth stopped talking. “‘LICIA!” Bart yelled again.
A rail-thin blonde girl in the same uniform as the other waitress came out the back, wiping her hands on a rag. “What is it, Bart?” she whined. “I got side work to finish …” She stopped as she caught sight of Keller. She smiled at him and walked over to stand beside Bart. “Who’s your friend, Bart?” she asked. She tried to make it sound flirtatious, but the nasal quality of her voice spoiled the effect.
“Jack here works for Laurel’s bail bondsman. She skipped bail and he’s lookin’ for her.”
“That bitch!” Alicia said. Her voice went up an octave and the word came out as two syllables: bee-yitch. “Look what she did to my arm!” She pulled the polyester sleeve of her uniform up almost to one bony shoulder. All Keller could see was the bandage that ran from her shoulder down to her bicep. “She coulda kilt me!” Alicia
said dramatically. She looked around to where the men at the counter were still staring. “She coulda kilt me!” she announced again to the room.
Bart slid out of the booth. Alicia took his place. “Don’t take too long,” he growled at Alicia. “I ain’t payin’ you to talk.” He didn’t wait for an answer before walking off.
“Fuck you, Bart,” Alicia said, too softly for him to hear. She smiled at Keller again. She twirled a lock of her thin blonde hair around her index finger. “So,” she said, “Crazy Laurel skipped out on you” Her voice was light and teasing.
Keller nodded. “Yeah. Thought I’d check and see if anyone knew where she might hang out. Or where she lived, stuff like that.”
Alicia’s eyes brightened. “Whatcha gonna do when you catch her? You gonna cuff her?”
“Probably. Most people don’t really want to come with me.”
She leaned forward. “You bring your cuffs with you? Can I see ‘em?”
“They’re in the car.”
“Maybe you can show ‘em to me later,” she said. Keller grinned. “You always ask guys you just met to show you their handcuffs?”
She grinned back. “If they’re cute enough,” she said.
“You could get in trouble that way,” he replied.
“Honey,” she said, with all the clueless bravado a twenty-year-old can summon, “I love trouble.” She punched him lightly on the forearm, then leaned back. “I’m just playin’,” she said.
It was an old game, invitation and withdrawal. Keller played along. To keep her talking, he told himself.
“I know,” he said.
“I don’t know all that much about Laurel, tell you the truth,” Alicia went on. “She came in, always acted like she was pissed off at somethin’. Most of us just steered clear of her.”
“Why’d she cut you?” Keller asked.
She grimaced. “I made some stupid joke about that creepy boyfriend of hers.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” she folded her arms across her chest, as if the memory made her cold. “He was good-looking, I mean, for an older guy, but he was old enough to be her father. And he was … I don’t know, there was somethin’ not right about him.”
“Was she staying with him?”
Alicia shrugged. “I guess. She always left with him. And he dropped her off in the morning. Anyway, I made some crack about how her daddy was here to pick her up. Next thing I know, she’d cut me.”