Authors: Mary Willis Walker
At the back of the huge complex, the night was illuminated with strobes of red and blue. They drove toward the lights, down row
after row of long, low, flat-roofed buildings that looked like cheaply constructed barracks with no windows. “Place gives me the fucking creeps,” Grady muttered.
When they got to the last building, where patrol cars blocked both ends of the narrow road running between two buildings, they pulled in and parked. The drone of police radios on different frequencies competed with the screech of crickets for control of the night air. Several groups of uniforms were gathered behind the morgue wagon, which was a Chevy van with blacked-out windows.
If this was all for David Serrano, Molly thought, he had certainly never gotten this sort of attention while he was alive. Or maybe he had—just once—during those eight days back in 1982 when he was a murder suspect, before Louie Bronk had confessed to the crime.
They both got out of the car. Grady raised a hand in greeting to each group as they passed. Outside the open door of unit 2870, in the glare of headlights and spotlights turned to illuminate the place, Detective Caleb Shawcross and two uniformed cops stood talking and laughing. A corpse lay at their feet, half inside and half out of a closet-sized unit. The legs rested outside on the asphalt, while the rest of the body lay across the threshold on the cement floor.
As she and Grady approached, the men stopped talking. Molly felt like an intruder into some sort of male ritual that was spoiled by the presence of a woman. When they reached the body, Grady took hold of her elbow and drew her around to his side. Molly breathed shallowly through her mouth, trying to avoid the full impact of the smell—that sweet, spoiled smell of raw chicken forgotten in the refrigerator weeks past the expiration date on its package.
Molly started with the polished black lace-up shoes and moved her eyes up the slender, relaxed-looking body in the well-tailored blue suit. The jacket had fallen open to reveal an empty leather holster under the left arm. On his handsome cheeks a dark stubble caught the cold light beams and glittered. The eyes, which just forty-eight hours ago had been dark and shining, were now dull and dried, half open as if he were just awakening to some unexpected noise. His mouth had relaxed into a soft smile. Death didn’t look as bad on David Serrano as it had on Georgia McFarland.
Two days, two bodies—things were indeed on the move.
Just above and behind the left ear was a black, messy-looking wound.
“Is it Serrano?” Grady asked.
“Definitely,” Molly said.
Grady nodded to Caleb Shawcross. Molly had met him at the McFarland scene the day before, but until now she hadn’t really looked at him. He was a big man in a shiny gray suit. The sides of his head were shaved, although the slicked-back hair on top grew long and black. It looked as if he’d started to get a military haircut and changed his mind halfway through, or as if he were expressing two warring sides of his personality with one haircut.
“Howdy, Caleb,” Grady said. He gestured toward Molly. “You met Miz Molly Cates at the McFarland scene the other night. Molly, you remember Detective Caleb Shawcross from homicide, the primary on this one.”
Caleb reached a powerful-looking hand across the corpse and shook Molly’s. “Howdy, ma’am,” he drawled.
Grady flicked his eyes down toward the corpse. “And, Caleb, this here is Mr. David Serrano, an undertaker from down at the border. Brownsville. Former handyman-baby-sitter for the McFarland family some eleven years ago. We got ourselves a real murder mystery here.”
Caleb squatted and stared into the corpse’s half-open eyes. “Howdy,” he said to the dead man.
“What we got so far?” Grady asked, squatting down so he was on the same level with his detective.
Caleb pointed at one of the uniformed cops, a slight man with a dark mustache. “Senior Patrolman Cavallos was the first officer. Cavallos, the lieutenant here will appreciate hearing about how this stiff jumped out of the closet at you.”
Cavallos laughed uneasily and glanced at the uniformed man next to him. “Well, sir, when we finally sawed the lock off and opened the door, the body was like folded up against the door and the feet fell out, just like you see ’em here, sir. It really did look for a second like he was jumping out at us.” He forced another laugh. “You shoulda seen Jackson jump, sir. I think he set some kinda world record for the standing broad jump.”
The other cop took a step away and looked hard at Cavallos. “Yeah, but it wasn’t me who pulled his gun and screamed, ‘Freeze right there, motherfucker.’ ”
The men laughed, louder and longer than Molly felt the story
deserved. But it was no news to her that people who witnessed a great deal of sudden death felt a desperate need to joke about it. The funniest jokes she’d ever heard were all told at murder scenes.
Caleb Shawcross straightened up. “Looks like he was done somewhere else and dumped here, Lieutenant. And I think I know where—we just found his black Lincoln Town car over in the corner of the grounds near the fence. Blood all over it. Lady in the office says this unit was empty, so the killer must’ve put his own lock on it when he left. Barrow already took that in for prints. Along with the gun—Smith & Wesson .38 caliber Combat Special.”
“Can we give him a ride now?” a voice behind them asked. Molly turned to look. The young man wore white shorts and a gray sleeveless T-shirt with dark patches of sweat across the chest. Molly recognized him as Bill Mixter, the Travis County assistant medical examiner. He must be filling in while Robert Perez was on vacation.
Grady said, “Hey, Bill. You know Molly Cates? She just ID’d this guy as one David Serrano of Brownsville, Texas.” He tilted his head toward the corpse.
Bill and Molly nodded at one another; she’d met him on one of her many visits to the county morgue.
“How long?” Grady asked him.
“Now, Lieutenant,” the young ME said, “you know how hard this is to figure in the heat and all.” He shrugged. “Decomposition is well under way.”
Grady wrinkled his nose. “For that information I don’t need an eighty-thousand-dollar-a-year assistant ME.”
The ME held up his middle finger. “Eyes are dried. He seems to have come out of second-stage rigor. My wild guess is maybe fifty hours.”
Grady nodded. “Well, this should help you. Molly here saw Mr. Serrano alive and drinking at Katz’s Tuesday night at”—he glanced at Molly—“what time?”
“Around nine-thirty,” she said. “And, Bill, I’m sure he was clean-shaven at the time.” She glanced back at the corpse. “There’s definitely been some growth since I saw him then.”
The ME pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “That’s real interesting, Molly. Are you aware that contrary to the widely held belief, hair does not grow after death?”
She nodded. “I am aware of that.”
“It’s understandable that people think that”—he jotted something down in his notebook—“because often both hair and nails appear to have grown, but it’s just that the skin around them desiccates and recedes. Bearing that in mind, could you take a close look and try to estimate how much growth?”
Molly took a few steps toward the body. “May I touch his cheek?” she asked, looking back at Bill Mixter.
“Be my guest,” he said.
Holding her breath, Molly knelt next to the body. She brushed her fingertips against his cheek. Under the prickly stubble, the skin was clammy, like she imagined a marine mammal would feel. She let her fingers rest on his cheek as she conjured up his face across the little table at Katz’s—it was olive-skinned and as smooth as if he’d shaved only an hour before.
She withdrew her hand slowly and stood. “When I saw him, there was no stubble at all, not even a five o’clock shadow. So allowing for some receding of the skin—” She thought for a minute. “I’d guess that’s quite a few hours of growth since I saw him, maybe five or six, or more even.”
Grady stuck his hands in his pockets. “Believe me, Bill, this is a lady who should know her beards.”
Molly refused to look at him or take the bait.
The ME looked a little confused and said, “That’s real helpful, Molly. Thanks.” He turned to Grady. “That means he’s probably been dead less than forty hours. We’ll see what we can do with stomach contents.”
Grady knelt down next to the body again. “That puts his death close to the time Georgia McFarland hit the ground. It sure would be helpful, Doc, if we knew whether he died before or after that lady. If you can tell me that you’ve earned half your eighty thousand. And if you can tell me whether they were done by the same weapon, that would be worth the other half.”
Bill Mixter thought a few seconds. “One thing I can tell you just from eyeballing—the gun was in contact with the skin when the shot was fired and he didn’t commit suicide, unless he figured out how to padlock himself inside here. We’re ready to take him to the chop shop now, if it’s okay with you, Lieutenant.”
Grady shrugged. “It’s Caleb’s scene. I’m just stopping by with my lady friend.” He grinned. “What do you say, Caleb? Don’t let anyone
rush you on this. It’s a big one because of its tie-in to the McFarland murder, so take all the time you need.”
Caleb silently surveyed the scene. Then he punched a thumb up in the air. “Yeah, Doc. Go ahead, take him. We’re finished here.”
The assistant ME gestured. Two attendants pulled a litter from the back of the van and set it down next to what remained of David Serrano. They bantered cheerfully as they wrapped a sheet around the slender body and lifted it onto the litter. They reminded Molly of carpet layers going about their business in a good-natured and workmanlike way, showing about the same amount of respect for the mortal remains of David Serrano as they would for a roll of mid-priced broadloom. She understood. In her business, too, it was often necessary to detach herself from the misery and misfortune of the people she wrote about; self-preservation demanded it. But the way the system treated a body as nothing more than any other piece of evidence—tonight it offended her, made her head throb. Their voices were too loud and the laughter too forced.
Molly took a few steps back and closed her eyes. Damn. Those whirling lights were enough to give anyone a headache. You’d think they could turn them off now. But cops seemed to find them energizing.
She glanced over to see if Grady was ready to leave. He and Caleb Shawcross were talking in front of one of the squad cars. His back to her, Grady had one foot propped up on the car’s bumper. The fabric of his pants was stretched tight across his narrow hips. She began to think about what it used to be like. So damned ridiculous. This was the wrong time and the wrong man. And it just made her headache worse. The morgue wagon pulled away. She looked around and thought about human perversity—
her
human perversity—wherein death becomes the ultimate aphrodisiac. Something about the nearness of death makes you want to go out and do something to prove how alive you still are.
“Okay, Detective, don’t spare the horses on this one. And give me a holler after the autopsy.” Grady thumped Caleb on the back, then took Molly’s arm as they walked back to his car. He opened the car door for her with a flourish, something Molly hated.
As they drove out the gates, Grady adjusted the rearview mirror and said, “You okay, Molly? You look a little green around the gills. It wasn’t the body, was it?”
“No. Of course not. I’m fine. Just a little headache. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
He glanced over at her. “Neither did I.”
They drove in silence out of the storage complex.
“Molly,” he said as he turned right onto Burnet Road, “tell me again about your conversation with Serrano Tuesday night.”
Molly closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the seat, and described the encounter—David’s nervousness, his repressed anger, his queries about the execution, his feelings about the McFarlands and the past, his story about the nicks on Tiny’s scalp. “Oh, Grady,” she said, “I wish I hadn’t let him get away so quickly. If I’d stuck with it a little longer, pushed him harder, asked a few more questions, he might have told me more. Haven’t I learned a damned thing all these years?”
Grady reached his arm out around the shotgun that stuck up like a barrier between them and rested his hand companionably on her shoulder.
She didn’t move away.
“Do you think he was just bragging or had he really struck it rich?” he asked.
“I think he really had. But you’ll check it, won’t you?”
“Oh, yes indeed. Molly, let’s just brainstorm a little here, see if we can concoct a possible story for these two murders. Let me try one out on you.” He glanced at her, then back at the road.
“Go ahead.”
“For whatever reason, Charlie McFarland needs to get rid of Georgia. It’s been known to happen, you know. He sets up that elaborate alibi for himself with the shower and the business trip. And he plans for you to find the body.”
“No. How could he do that, Grady? It was just chance I went to check out the buzzards.”
“Now hold your horses, Molly. This is just a fragile idea aborning. We’re brainstorming here and the rules are not to jump on anything too quick. Just listen. Charlie’s a big executive who’s used to delegating life’s unpleasant tasks. He may have decided to hire someone else to do his dirty work, maybe an old employee. Maybe David Serrano was an undertaker, but of a different sort. Maybe he created business for undertakers, opened new markets. After all, from your own mouth, Molly, Serrano came to town armed. He was an angry
sort. He had prospered. None of that is inconsistent with his having gone into the killing business. And those border towns are known to breed violence. Right?”
Molly didn’t answer. She slipped her shoes off and stretched her feet out to the dashboard.
Grady continued, “After the deed was done and Georgia was dead, Charlie didn’t trust Serrano to keep the secret, so he paid him off with a bullet in the head and stuffed him in a storage closet.”
Molly nodded. She didn’t buy it, but it was possible. “Of course, that scenario would only work if David was killed after Georgia.”
“Yeah,” he said, deep in thought.