Vicki found a parking space down from Mrs. Bristow’s house and got out of the Cabrio, setting a loafer into wet slush. A chill wind hit her like a blast, jolting her to a realization. No official vehicles were parked out front; no crime scene techs or police cruisers with their engines idling. She hadn’t seen a cop in front of Mrs. Bristow’s house, guarding the crime scene and logging personnel in and out. In fact, there wasn’t any yellow crime scene tape or police sawhorses. She checked her watch. Noon. Only hours after Mrs. Bristow had been found knifed to death, the scene was already closed.
She hurried toward the house, head down against the driving snow, her thoughts churning. She couldn’t help but remark on the contrast between this murder scene and Morty’s. There’d been tons of uniforms there, not to mention detectives, crime scene techs, FBI, ATF, and DOJ personnel. Admittedly, Morty was a federal agent and the scene had been a triple homicide, but Vicki didn’t think that completely accounted for what she was seeing. She reached the step, hesitating before going in. She didn’t relish what she had to do, but she knew she had to do it.
She knocked on the closed door once, then again. There was no answer. Snow blew sideways into her ears and hair; she had gone out without a hat, she’d been in such a rush. Wind bit her nose; it was twenty-five degrees. She had no gloves on, either, and pounded the door once more, hard. It creaked open.
Vicki blinked. The door hung ajar. She didn’t want to simply barge in. “Hello?” she called out. “Hello, anybody home?”
There was no answer.
She felt a shiver all the way to her toes, and it wasn’t the cold. A woman had been killed here, and the last time she had walked through an open door, Morty had been killed. Too much violence, too much death; all these row homes, awash in blood. Not even the snow could cover it up and hide it, not forever.
“Anybody home?” she called out, louder, knocking again on the open door. A chill wind blew harder, carrying her voice off with the snowflakes and opening wide the front door.
Crap. Now Vicki was standing in an open doorway, watching snow blow into the dark living room. She conceded the obvious and stepped inside, shutting the door. She blinked away the snow blindness, waited until her eyes adjusted to the interior light, then turned around.
The living room looked completely different from yesterday. It was much darker because newspapers had been taped up against the windows like temporary curtains, and only indirect light streamed in. The beach chair lay folded on the brown couch, which had been moved into the center of the room and was loaded with black Hefty trash bags, their yellow drawstrings pulled tight. The dark red rug had been rolled up and also placed on the couch, resting on the two armrests, and every bit of trash in the room had been picked up. The floorboards looked swept and had even been washed clean; wet spots dried here and there, and a lineup of empty water jugs sat against the wall, next to a metal dustpan and new corn broom. The air smelled a little more normal, but it was still as cold inside as out.
“Hello?” Vicki said. The house was still. She braced herself and went into the bedroom where Mrs. Bristow had been killed. The dirty mattress had been lifted up and was standing on end, with the bloodstained side evidently against the wall. Still, it emitted an awful stench; rotting, human blood.
Vicki turned away. The end table had been pushed against the mattress, she guessed to hold it upright, and this room had been cleaned, too, all the debris and crack paraphernalia swept into trash bags and piled in the center of the bedroom. She went into the kitchen, expecting more of the same, and she was right. The cabinets hung open and empty; all the food and cigarettes had been taken out and, presumably, disposed of in the trash bags in the center of the room. The floorboards had been swept and mopped; a large white Rubbermaid bucket sat in the corner and a lemony Pine-Sol odor filled the room. A cockroach skittered across the counter, but Vicki sensed he’d be history soon.
“WHO’S IN THERE?” someone shouted, all of a sudden, and Vicki startled, whirling around.
She froze at the sight of Reheema Bristow, aiming a small, lethal Beretta at her. The black woman’s mouth set in a grim line, and she stood tall and four-square, her feet planted wide apart, as if she were ready to fire.
“I’m within my rights to shoot you dead, Allegretti.” Reheema’s dark eyes glittered under a navy-blue watch cap. Snowflakes dotted the cap and her broad shoulders in a navy-blue pea coat.
Stay calm. “That’s the third gun pointed at me in two days, and it’s getting old. Why don’t you put it away before I arrest you for ag assault and weapons offenses?”
“You’re trespassing.”
“Then I’ll go. I came to tell you I’m sorry about your mother.” Vicki’s chest tightened. She was pretty sure Reheema wouldn’t shoot her, but pretty sure had too much wiggle room when it came to small-caliber weapons.
“Why was your wallet on her?” Reheema shot back, her tone icy as winter.
“Put the gun away and I’ll answer you. I don’t like being threatened.”
“I don’t like being put in jail. I said, why’d I find your wallet in my mother’s pocket?”
“Okay, she took it out of my purse. I came to see her and when I went out of the room—”
“How’d you know she lived here? The phone book?”
D’oh. “That would have been too easy. I found out from your old boss at Bennye’s.”
“Why’d you come here?”
“To learn about you.”
“What did you wanna know?”
“If you had anything to do with my partner’s murder. If you had Shayla Jackson killed so she wouldn’t testify against you, or if someone did that on your behalf. If you resold the guns, and to whom, which I’m still wondering since the one in your hand isn’t one you were indicted for. And that’s just for starters. Now, put the gun away.”
“Ha.” Reheema let out a short burst of laughter, like semiautomatic fire, then unlocked the trigger, lowered the weapon, and shoved it inside her coat pocket like a pack of gum.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Now we’re even.” Reheema snorted. “You attacked me at the conference.”
“Oh, that. Shall I go?” Now that the threat was over, Vicki had lost her sense of humor. It seemed as if it should be the other way around, but she was too angry to puzzle it out now. “I’m finished with the condolences. You blew the mood.”
“Not yet.” Reheema yanked the cap off her head and shook her hair out. It had been mashed flat under the cap but she didn’t seem to care; she was still strikingly beautiful, for a stone bitch. Her cheekbones curved almost delicately, and her mouth was soft and full, however nasty her expression. “Why do you think I was involved with what happened to your partner and Jackson?”
“Because you’re the one who benefited from Jackson’s murder. The timing’s too coincidental, and Jackson dimed on you. She told my office that you two were best friends. She testified before the grand jury to that effect and she was ready to go to trial to convict you.”
“I told you, I don’t know the girl. She lied.”
“She was under oath.”
“Oooh. Nobody lies under oath.” Reheema grinned crookedly, and Vicki reddened.
“You sure you don’t know her?”
“Never met the girl.”
“Jackson also said she knew who you sold the guns to. She was my confidential informant in the case.”
“That’s a lie, too. I didn’t sell the guns to anybody.”
“What did you do with them?”
“None of your business.”
“It would help if you told me.”
“Tough.”
I should have strangled you when I had the chance. “If it’s true that you didn’t know her, then it would mean that Jackson, a complete stranger to you, framed you for a straw purchase charge. At risk of perjury, by the way. Why would she do that to you? How would she even get your name?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Reheema’s gaze didn’t waver. “I care about getting this house cleaned up. You’re leaving.”
“Not so fast. What did you do with the guns?”
“I said, it’s none a your business.”
“How about I tell you? You gave them to your mother, who sold them or traded them for drugs. Or you sold them yourself and gave her the money or the drugs.”
“I would never give my mother drugs.”
“But you bought the guns for her, didn’t you? One for you and one for her? Then somehow she traded them both. That’s why you wouldn’t take the deal I offered you. You wouldn’t give her up.”
Reheema blinked, and Vicki knew she had scored.
“Just tell me. If you tell me, I’ll go.”
“You’ll go anyway.”
“No, I won’t. I can be a real pain in the ass.”
“I know,” Reheema answered, unsmiling. “Fine. Whatever. She said she wanted a gun for protection. I left mine here when I moved to my apartment, and she took it.”
“She sold them for drugs?”
“She’d sell me for drugs. She sold everything I owned.” Reheema’s tone was beyond bitter; it was utterly without affect, but Vicki still felt strange speaking ill of a woman who had been murdered in this very room.
“I know where your mother bought drugs last night.”
“You proud of yourself?”
Well, yeah, Vicki thought, though the question may have been rhetorical.
“You think I don’t know that?” Reheema arched an eyebrow. “You think I didn’t find that out five minutes after I found her?”
“It’s on Cater Street.”
“I know, the vacant lot. They opened a store there.”
A store? “Did you go there?”
“That’s none a your business.”
“I was there, last night. I followed your mom, after she took my wallet.”
“You?” Reheema laughed, less like gunfire this time. “A white girl?”
“In a white car.” Vicki smiled. Yay! We’re bonding!
“Why?”
“First I wanted to get my wallet back, then I wanted to see where she bought her drugs.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity.” Vicki felt tougher by the minute, just talking to someone so tough. In fact, she was sure she’d never experience another emotion again. “You wanted to know, too. You went over there, to see who killed your mother.”
“Wrong. I know who killed my mother. My mother killed my mother. Whatever junkie finished her off did her a favor.”
Vicki couldn’t speak for a minute, the thought was so cruel.
“Time for you to go, lawyer. I got a U-Haul out front and I got to get to the dump before this snow gets too deep.”
“Just one thing. Do you really not know Jamal Browning?”
“Don’t know him,” Reheema answered, her response quick, direct, and believable.
“I think he was Shayla Jackson’s boyfriend.”
“Whatever.”
“How about Jay-Boy and Teeg?”
“I told you, no.”
“They’re drug dealers, or work for one.” Vicki didn’t tell her about the fish-scale coke. It wasn’t prudent to reveal police business to a gun-toting ex-con.
“Time to go.” Reheema gestured to the door, but Vicki stayed put.
“Jay-Boy and Teeg were the shooters. They killed my partner and Shayla Jackson, who was pregnant. I saw them.”
“Life in the city. Now, get out.”
“Your mother, she was very beautiful, when she was younger,” Vicki heard herself say, then wondered why. If she was trying to make some connection, it was futile. Reheema’s face remained impassive, and she had already started picking up Hefty bags, two in each hand, and lugging them to the door, which she opened with difficulty.
“Leave.”
Vicki swallowed hard and walked to the door, then stopped in the threshold. “I’m gonna bust whoever sold those drugs to your mother.”
“You go, girlfriend.” Reheema dropped the bags and began to clap, and her ironic applause followed Vicki as she walked out the door.
And into the snowstorm.
TWENTY
Snow fell hard, and Vicki hurried to her car, her head bent against the icy flakes that bit her cheeks. She reached the Cabrio, got inside, but didn’t pull out of the space right away. Snow dusted her plastic back window, but she could see in her outside mirror that Reheema was carrying Hefty bags out of the house and tossing them into the bed of an orange-and-white pickup, double-parked out front.
She turned on the ignition and watched Reheema work, pretending she was letting the engine warm up. Clearly the woman was determined; a Lady Tiger, indeed. Carrying concealed and aiming without blinking. Cleaning the house the same morning her mother was killed. Being practical, levelheaded, and emotionless about all of it, even her mother’s addiction. You didn’t need to be Dr. Phil to guess that Reheema might have been the parent growing up, taking care of her mother. Even buying her a gun for protection. Had Reheema been fooled, or did she know? Was she telling Vicki the truth? Either way, Reheema had taken the rap, spending almost a year at the FDC. And she would have been convicted if Jackson hadn’t been killed.
Jackson. Morty. Who was Jackson to Reheema? How were they connected, if at all? Was it possible that Jackson knew Reheema but not vice versa? How?
Vicki yanked down the emergency brake and eased out of the spot. There was no one on the street, playing or driving. Not a living soul except Reheema, coming out of the house with another load of bags, a tall, dark figure with dark bags against the white snow, receding in the rearview mirror.
Vicki reached the corner and turned, noticing things about the houses that she hadn’t before, now that it was daytime and the street felt more familiar. Here and there, lights glowed inside the houses, and in one of the windows flickered an electric candle, ringed by a plastic holly wreath left over from Christmas. There was still life in Devil’s Corner; still families making their way, and people like Reheema, moving in and trying to set up house.
Vicki cruised ahead, the car interior warming, and approached Cater. The corner at the mouth of the alley was empty. No scary guys in dark hoods. She drove forward slowly and eased to a stop, looking to the right as she had last night. She parked and scanned the street, which looked different in the daylight. There were no cars parked on it, so she could conceivably drive down it, and it was lined with houses, many of which had lights on and trash at the curb collecting snow, their black bags like misshapen body bags. But even in the terrible weather, she could see people milling at the far end of the street. They seemed to be going inside the vacant lot.
The store. Vicki reached into her purse for her Filofax and pen, then started taking notes. Whether it was the bad weather or the fact that the cops had been at the Bristow house, the watchers hadn’t come out yet. She shivered in the cold car, but she didn’t quit because she’d never get another chance.
In time the foot traffic fell into a pattern; customers walking into the vacant lot, then leaving five to ten minutes later. A few cars came down the opposite cross street, driving toward Vicki, the windshield wipers pounding to keep the snow off. They stopped at the vacant lot to let somebody out and back in again after the buy; the transaction was never made curbside. Only a car or two drove past her and up Cater, because the vacant lot was closer to that end, and she noted their license plates.
She documented everything in her pocket-size Filofax. Every hour or so, the same man, a short man in a black leather coat and black leather baseball cap, would leave the vacant lot, walk down the street away from the Cabrio, then return in about twenty-five minutes to half an hour. Alternating with him, but making the same trip on roughly the same schedule, was a taller man in an Eagles jacket and black knit cap. Vicki theorized that they were the go-betweens, going back and forth to a crackhouse that supplied the store.
On the third trip by the man in the Eagles coat, Vicki set
aside her notes and started the Cabrio engine. She cruised forward in the driving snow, finally turning on the heat and switching the defrost to MAX to keep the windshield clear. She took a right at the corner and sped to the end of the street, her windshield wipers pumping to keep up with the snowfall. She stopped at the traffic light, striking a blow for lawful behavior everywhere, and turned right.
By the time she was on the cross street, the man in the Eagles coat had reached the top of Cater Street on foot. Vicki slowed the Cabrio to a crawl and double-parked by a salt-covered Taurus to watch him. Eagles Coat had his back to her, the emblematic bird flying high, its talons splayed. The street was quiet; there was little traffic. Nobody was out in the snow; on the drive over, she’d heard reports of a big storm.
Eagles Coat got into a battered blue Neon parked at the middle of the line-up of cars. Vicki waited while he started the Neon, and when he pulled out of his space, she let a black Ford truck get between them for cover, then took off after him. They cruised to the top of the street together, his speed quicker than hers. She stepped on it, tailgating the black truck. Her heartbeat picked up as the Neon took a left onto Cleveland Street and headed west.
The black truck went straight, leaving her exposed, but a pile of fresh snow covered the Neon’s back window, and the driver made no attempt to defrost it. The Neon had to be ten years old, with a large dent buckling the back fender. Vicki had heard that drug dealers kept the nice cars for driving around in and used crummy cars for “work,” because they were less conspicuous. The felonious version of a station car.
The Neon sped forward heedless of the weather conditions, with icy snow streaming sideways across the street. Pellets hit the window, making tinck tinck noises, and the windshield wipers worked frantically. Vicki drove as fast as she could, letting the occasional car get ahead of her to minimize her chance of being spotted, since snow on the back window of the Neon was sliding off.