“One more thing,” said Brock.
Brock kicked Charles in the ribs. He kicked him again, his teeth bared, and Charles rolled over on his side as bile poured from his open mouth. James looked away.
Gaskins pulled on Brock’s arm and moved between him and Charles. They stared at each other until the fire went out of Brock’s eyes.
“Y’all coulda made this easy,” said Brock, stepping back and shaking his head. “I was willin to share. I was only lookin to take half. But you had to fuck up and lie. And now you prob’ly thinking, We gonna get this motherfucker. We gonna come back on him, or we gonna find someone who can, and get righteous on his ass.” Brock straightened his shirt. “But you know what? You never will. Y’all ain’t man enough to fuck with me. And you don’t have anyone to protect you. If you knew someone bad enough to do it, they dead or in jail. If you had someone in your life who gave a fuck about you to begin with, you wouldn’t be out here on this corner. So what do you have? Your little-ass, no-ass selves.”
The boy on the ground said nothing and neither did his friend.
“What’s my name?”
“Romeo,” said Charles, his eyes closed in pain.
“We’ll be comin ’round again.”
Brock and Gaskins walked back to the Impala SS. None of the residents or onlookers had made a move to help the boys, and now they averted their eyes. None, Brock knew, would talk to the police. But he wasn’t satisfied. It was too easy, and not worth the effort for a man of his reputation. It hadn’t been a challenge, and the payoff was shit.
“How much we get?” said Gaskins.
“Buck forty.”
“Hardly seem worth it.”
“Don’t worry. We gonna step it up from here.”
“It’s lookin to me that all we doin is roughin kids and shit. I’m askin where we goin with this, cuz. What’s this about?”
“Money and respect,” said Brock.
They got into the car.
“We’ll head back to Northwest,” said Brock. “Got a couple more appointments we need to keep.”
“Not me,” said Gaskins. “I got to be up before the sunrise. ’Less you sayin you need me.”
“I’ll drop you off at the house,” said Brock. “I can handle the rest myself.”
Brock made a call on his cell, ignitioned the SS, and drove off.
Soon after he and Gaskins left the neighborhood, a police cruiser came slowly down Gallaudet. Its driver, a white man in uniform, looked at the residents in front of the apartments and at the boy on the corner who was helping another boy, holding his side, to his feet. The uniformed officer gave the cruiser gas and continued on his way.
H
OW IS IT?”
said Detective Bo Green, back in the box.
“Taste good,” said William Tyree, placing the can of soda on the table.
“Cold enough for you?”
“It’s good.”
In the darkness of the video room, Anthony Antonelli grunted in disgust. “Fucknuts thinks he’s in a restaurant.”
“Bo’s just making him comfortable,” said Ramone.
Green shifted his weight in his chair. “You feel all right, William?”
“Not so bad.”
“You still high?”
“I been high for a day.” Tyree shook his head in self-disgust.
“When did you get first get high yesterday?”
“Before I got on the bus.”
“You took the bus to…”
“Jackie’s.”
“How much crack had you smoked? You remember?”
“I don’t know. But it musta hit me good. I was upset to begin with. The rock made me feel, you know, fierce inside.”
“What were you upset about, William?”
“Every goddamn thing. I got laid off from my job a year ago. I was a driver for a linen service, you know, one of those companies that deliver uniforms, tablecloths to restaurants, and stuff. I been havin trouble finding a job since I lost that one. It’s hard out there.”
“I know it is.”
“It
damn
sure is. And then, to lose my wife and kids on top of that. I mean, I’m an honest man, Detective. I ain’t never been in trouble in my life.”
“I know your family. You come from good people.”
“I never even messed with no drugs before my luck turned bad. A little marijuana, maybe.”
“That ain’t no thing.”
“And then my wife goes and takes up with a low-ass criminal. Man sleepin in my bed, telling
my
kids what to say and do… telling them to shut their mouths and show respect. To
him
.”
“It bothered you.”
“
Shit
. Wouldn’t it bother
you?
”
“It would,” said Green, giving him that. “So you smoked some crack yesterday and you went to see your ex-wife.”
“She was still my wife. We ain’t had no divorce proceedings yet.”
“My mistake. I got some bad information.”
“We were still married. And I was just… I was
angry,
Detective. I’m sayin my head was on fire when I left out the house.”
“Did you take anything with you when you left?”
Tyree nodded. “A knife. You know, that knife I told you about.”
“The one you put in the Safeway bag.”
“Uh-huh. I snatched it up off the counter before I tipped out.”
“You carried it on the Metrobus.”
“It was inside my shirt.”
“And then you walked up Cedar Street with the knife in your shirt and you went to your wife’s apartment.” When Tyree nodded again, Green said, “You knocked on the door, right? Or did you have a key?”
“I knocked. She asked who it was, and I told her it was me. She said she was busy and couldn’t see me right then, and asked me to go away. I said I just wanted to talk to her for a minute, and she opened the door. I went inside.”
“Did you say anything else to her when you went inside?”
In the video room, Antonelli said, “No, I just fucking murdered her ass.”
“What did you do when you went inside, William?” said Green.
“She was unloading groceries and stuff. I followed her over to where the groceries were at, by the eating table.”
“And what did you do when you got there?”
Ramone leaned forward.
“I don’t remember,” said Tyree.
Rhonda Willis entered the video room. To Ramone she said, “Gene found the Safeway bag in the Dumpster. The clothes and the knife are inside it.”
Ramone did not feel elation of any kind. “Tell Bo,” he said.
Ramone and Antonelli watched the monitor as Green’s head turned at the sound of a knock. The door opened, and Rhonda came half through it to tell Green he had a call he should probably take.
Before Green left the interrogation room, he looked at his watch, then up at the camera, and said, “Four thirty-two.”
He returned several minutes later, stated the time the same way, and took a seat across the table from William Tyree. Tyree was now smoking a cigarette.
“You all right?” said Green.
“Yes.”
“Need another soda, somethin?”
“I still got some.”
“Okay, then,” said Green. “Let’s go back to your wife’s apartment yesterday. After you went inside, you followed her over there to the eating table. What happened next?”
“It’s like I said: I don’t remember.”
“William.”
“I’m telling you straight.”
“
Look
at me, William.”
Tyree looked into the big soulful eyes of Detective Bo Green. They were caring eyes, the eyes of a man who had run the same streets and walked the halls of Ballou High School, just like Tyree had done. A man who had come up in a strong family, just like him. Who had listened to Trouble Funk and Rare Essence and Backyard, and seen all those go-go bands play for free at Fort Dupont Park, just like him, when both of them had been young men. A man who was not all that different from Tyree, who Tyree could trust to do him right.
“What did you do with the knife when you followed Jackie over to that table?”
Tyree did not answer.
“We have the knife,” said Green without any tone of threat or malice. “We have the clothes you were wearing. You know the blood on the clothing and the knife is going to match your wife’s blood. And the skin under your wife’s fingernails is gonna be the same skin got took off your face, from that cut you got right there. So William, why don’t we get this done?”
“Detective, I don’t remember.”
“Did you use the knife we found in the bag to stab your wife, William?”
Tyree made a clucking sound with his tongue. His eyes were heavy with tears. “If you say I did, then I guess I did.”
“You guess you did or you did?”
Tyree nodded. “I did.”
“You did what?”
“I stabbed Jackie with that knife.”
Green sat back and folded his hands on his ample belly. Tyree dragged on his cigarette and tapped its ash into a heavy piece of foil.
“I gotta hand it to Bo,” said Antonelli. “He’s good with them hootleheads.”
Ramone said nothing.
Ramone and Antonelli watched and listened as William Tyree told the rest of the story. After stabbing his wife, he had taken her car and, using all the cash in her wallet, bought more crack. He then proceeded to smoke it in various pockets of Southeast. He didn’t eat or sleep all night. He rented Jackie’s car out to two different men. He used her credit card to buy gas for the hack and also for cash advances to buy more rock. He stayed high and without a plan, except to wait for the police, who he knew would eventually come. He had never done anything remotely criminal before on the violent end and had no knowledge of the underground. He didn’t know how to hide. And if he were to run, he could think of no place to go.
When Tyree was talked out, Green asked him to stand and remove his belt and shoelaces. Tyree complied, then sat back down in his chair. He cried a little, and afterward wiped the tears off his face with the back of his hand.
“You all right?” said Green.
“I’m tired,” said Tyree very softly. “I don’t wanna be here no more.”
“No shit,” said Antonelli. “You shoulda thought of that before you killed her.”
Ramone did not comment. He knew that Tyree was not speaking about being held in the box. He was saying that he didn’t want to be in this world any longer. Green had sensed it, too. It was why he had taken Tyree’s shoelaces and belt.
“You want a sandwich, somethin?” said Green.
“Nah.”
“I can go to Subway.”
“I’m good.”
Green looked at his watch, then up at the camera, and said, “Five thirteen.” He walked from the interrogation room as Tyree reached for a cigarette.
Ramone’s eyes thanked Green as he came out of the box. The two of them and Rhonda Willis walked to their cubicles, situated in a kind of triangle. They were senior detectives in the unit and friends.
Green sat down and Ramone did the same, immediately reaching for the phone to call his wife. He did this several times a day and always when he closed a case. There was still much work to be done on this one, especially paperwork, but for now the detectives would allow themselves a small break.
Detective Antonelli and Detective Mike Bakalis took seats nearby. Antonelli, a Gold’s Gym enthusiast, was short, broad shouldered, and narrow waisted. He was called Plug to his face and Butt Plug to his back by his fellow detectives. Bakalis, because of his prominent beak, was called Aardvark and sometimes Baklava. Bakalis was there to type a subpoena into his computer, but he hated to type anything and had only been talking about it all day.
Over the desks of the detectives were corkboards, many displaying photos of children, wives, and other relatives alongside death photos of victims and apprehended but unconvicted perps who had become obsessions. Crucifixes, pictures of saints, and psalm quotes were in abundance. Many of the VCB detectives were devout Christians, others only claimed they were, and some had lost their faith in God completely. Divorce was fairly common among them. Conversely, there were those who had managed to maintain strong marriages. Others were players. Some drank heavily and some were on the wagon. Most had a beer or two after their shift and never developed a problem with alcohol. None of them were types. They weren’t in their position for the promise of great financial reward. The job wasn’t, for the majority of them, a calling. For one reason or another, they were suited to be homicide police. It was where they had naturally landed.
“Everything all right?” said Rhonda Willis, noticing Ramone’s frown as he hung up the phone.
Ramone stood, leaned his back against a divider, and crossed his arms. He was an average-sized man with a good chest who had to work hard at his flat belly. His hair was black, still full and wavy, and without gray. He had a dimpled chin. He wore a mustache, the only thing that identified him as a cop. It was unfashionable for white guys to wear them, but his wife preferred him with it, which was reason enough for him to keep it on his face.
“My kid got in trouble again,” said Ramone. “Regina said she got a call from the assistant principal, something about insubordination. We get calls from that school damn near every day.”
“He’s a boy,” said Rhonda, who had four of her own by two different husbands and was now raising them by herself. She spent a good part of her day communicating with her sons via their cells.
“I know it,” said Ramone.
“Spare the rod,” said Bakalis, distracting himself with a stroke magazine he had picked up off his desk. Bakalis had no kids himself but felt he needed to chime in.
Antonelli, who was divorced, tossed a set of Polaroids onto Bakalis’s desk. “Check these out, you want to see something.”
They were the death photos of Jacqueline Taylor. In the photos she was laid out on her back, naked on a large sheet of black plastic. By the time the sister had identified her, she had been cleaned up, but these were the shots taken when she had first arrived at the morgue. The stab wounds were most prominent on her neck and one of her breasts, which was nearly severed. Her eyes were open, one more widely than the other, which made her appear to be inebriated. Her tongue was swollen and protruded.
“Look at that hair trail,” said Antonelli, putting his feet up on his desk. His trouser hiked up, revealing an ankle holster and the butt of his Glock.
Bakalis studied the photos one by one without comment. The mood was not festive, despite the fact that they had caught a killer. No one could be happy with the results in this particular case.
“Poor old gal,” said Green.
“Him, too,” said Ramone. “Guy was a solid citizen up until a year ago. Loses his job, falls in love with the pipe, watches his wife shack up with an asshole who parks his laundry in the same place Tyree’s kids are sleeping.…”
“I knew his older brother,” said Green. “Shoot, I used to see William out there when he wasn’t nothin but a kid. His people were good. Don’t let no one tell you that drugs don’t fuck you up.”
“Even if he pleads,” said Rhonda, “he’ll catch eighteen, twenty-five.”
“And those kids’ll be messed up for life,” said Green.
“She must have been some woman,” said Bakalis, still studying the photos. “I mean, he was so torn about losing that thing he had to kill it so no other man could hit it.”
“If he hadn’t been smoking that shit,” said Green, “he might have thought straight.”
“Wasn’t just the rock,” said Antonelli. “It’s a proven fact, pussy will compel you to kill. Even the pussy you
can’t
have.”
“Pussy can pull a freight train,” said Rhonda Willis.
Bakalis dropped the Polaroids on his desk, then touched the pads of his fingers to the keyboard of his computer. But his fingers did not move. He stared stupidly at the monitor.