Bennie tuned out the activity behind her, the uniform cops who were talking to Lou, gathering the yellow plastic tape, or loading wooden sawhorses onto a municipal truck to be carted off, now that the crime scene had been released. She wondered if Declan had been here and seen the blood, and knowing him, she guessed he had. She couldn’t imagine the grief that he’d felt at the sight. She didn’t know whether he’d gotten custody of Richie, but that wouldn’t have mattered. Declan loved Richie, and it would have killed him to lose the boy, especially this way.
Bennie found herself walking toward the blood, her step as reverent as a funeral procession. She caught a whiff of its distinctive metallic odor, mixing with the garbage smells, then stopped at the edge of the dark pool. The blood was so still that it reflected the light from the sky, like a dark red mirror. On impulse, she knelt, eyeing its surface, which had frozen, forming a thin red crust. She looked down and saw her own image looking back at her.
She realized with a start that Richie’s blood was a part of her. He had been Declan’s nephew, and she had been pregnant with Declan’s child, so this very blood had been inside her body, and the very same DNA had flowed through the veins of her own child. She had lost the baby, miscarried when she was two-and-a-half months pregnant, and she would never forget that night, down to the most minute detail. She’d gone to the bathroom, and there was blood on the tile floor, drops like so many red starbursts. Then there was blood in the toilet, too, and other things, but that was too much of a memory to bear.
Bennie found herself reaching toward the dark mirror, unconsciously hoping to reconnect with something long gone.
“Bennie, what the hell are you doing?” Lou called out, hurrying up behind her. “Don’t touch that! God knows what’s in it. He could’ve had AIDS, Hep C, or anything.”
Bennie came out of her reverie, rising, and Lou helped her to her feet, frowning with concern.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just tired is all.” Bennie composed herself, swallowing hard. “I didn’t get any sleep last night.”
“Hmph.” Lou gestured at the blood, his lip curling in distaste. “They couldn’t clean up the blood last night because the hose froze. They left to get some hot water.”
“Okay. So. What did you learn? Anything?”
“Yes.” Lou gestured to the left side of the alley, which was wide. “This is where the victim parked his truck. That’s why he came into the alley, he parked here.”
“Good to know.”
“Also, I found out there’s seven stores that have street cameras on Pimlico. There’s also cameras on the traffic lights at either end of Dunbar. The detectives and the uniforms canvassed last night and they’re getting the videos. I assume they’re going to show our boy going into the alley after the victim.”
“The cumulative effect won’t be good at all, and you know the D.A. will try to use every one. I’ve never known a prosecutor to be subtle.” Bennie got her head into the game. “But who knows? They could show someone else coming into the alley.”
“That would be nice. Do you believe in Santa?”
Bennie let it go. “They could show somebody leaving it, too.”
“Like I said.”
“Or what actually happened during the fight. How Jason got knocked out. Who planted the knife on him.” Bennie tried to visualize the fight, at the location of the bloodstain. “But forget that, I think the pallets would block the view from the street.”
“And it would’ve been dark.” Lou glanced around at the roofs of the buildings on either side of the alley, which were two stories high. “I don’t see any security lights or motion detectors.”
“Me neither.” Bennie faced the back of the alley and saw that it didn’t go through to the opposite street, but ended in a cinder-block wall, some five feet high. A recycling bin sat in front of the wall, and a trash can lay on its side. She gestured at the cinderblock wall. “Anybody could’ve gone over that wall. That’s not very high. They could’ve used the trash cans to climb up. The ledge on top is flat, so it’s easy to get over.”
“How can you stand on the side of a trash can? It would roll like a log.”
“Maybe somebody stood on it when it was on its side, then it fell over when they jumped back over the fence.”
Lou arched a graying eyebrow. “So you think somebody could come in the other side?”
“Yes, that’s possible. That’s consistent with what Jason tells us.”
“Why? How would they know? You think there was noise? Nothing’s open in this street at night, and it’s not residential.” Lou pointed left, then right. “This left wall is a check-cashing agency, now out of business, and the right wall is the back of a medical supply company, which was closed at that hour.”
“I don’t know, I can’t answer that yet.” Bennie knew it was the question Lou had raised before, but she was trying to develop reasonable doubt. “I was hoping the alley was open on the back, which would be a slam dunk.”
“Bennie, think about this for a minute. I don’t think Jason is leveling with us.”
“Lou, you said you were going to give him the presumption.”
“I’m not saying that he’s guilty. I’m saying that maybe it didn’t happen the way he said.” Lou cocked his head. “He tells you that he didn’t know who the knife belonged to and that he woke up with it in his hand. But maybe what happened is that he followed the victim into the alley and the two got in a fight.” Lou walked down the alley and stopped before the blood. “Pretend I’m Jason, and I want to finish what I started in the bar. I pick a fight with the victim while he’s trying to take a leak. Who’s the victim again?”
“Richie.”
“All of a sudden, Richie pulls a knife on me. I have to defend myself. I get the knife from him and I kill him in self-defense. Isn’t that more likely than somebody planting the knife, framing me?”
“It’s possible, sure.”
“Bennie, who’s more likely to carry a knife, Jason or Richie?”
“Richie.”
“So that fits my theory.” Lou nodded.
“It’s certainly possible, but it’s not what Jason said.”
“He wouldn’t be the first client to lie to us.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Because knuckleheads lie all the time, and he’s a knucklehead!” Lou threw up his hands. “He tells you a story that makes him look like he doesn’t know anything. He think that makes him look less guilty, when it doesn’t. Why? Because he’s a knucklehead!”
“I don’t know, Lou.” Bennie couldn’t bring herself to agree.
“Okay. Try another scenario. The knife could’ve been Jason’s. Is that possible?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe Jason comes in the alley and he pulls the knife on Richie. He doesn’t want to kill him, he wants to scare him.” Lou clapped his hands together. “But Richie calls his bluff and grabs the knife from him. They struggle, and our client kills the victim in self-defense. That could’ve happened too, couldn’t it?”
“Yes, it could have,” Bennie conceded.
“Who’s bigger?”
“Richie.”
“There.
“So if that was me, and I was the knucklehead, and it’s my knife, I wouldn’t say it was my knife. That would make me look really guilty. I mean, you walk in with a knife, you’re the bad guy. So I say, ‘I don’t know where the knife came from.’” Lou smiled, newly animated. “Do you know the stories that knuckleheads tell? Do you know the lies they try to get away with? You know my favorite all-time knucklehead story?”
“I forget.”
“We get a call that somebody stole a TV in Northern Liberties. So me and my partner, we’re in the neighborhood and, lo and behold, we see a guy running down the street with a TV. We roll up and stop him. I say to him, ‘Yo, where’d you get that TV?’ He says, ‘What TV?’” Lou burst into laughter. “‘What TV!’ Can you beat that? No! Bennie, don’t you see? That’s all our c
lient is doing. He’s just saying, ‘What knife?’ ‘I don’t know nothin’ about no knife!’”
“You might be right, but let’s table it for now.” Bennie looked back at the back wall. “I still wonder about that wall, if a person could climb it, and what’s on the other side.”
“Of course you do, because you’re stubborn. I assume it’s Yearling Street, but there’s only one way to find out.”
“Yes, I know.” Bennie looked down at Richie’s blood, which lay between them and the wall. “But I don’t want us walking through this blood. It’s disrespectful.”
“And a health hazard.” Lou cocked his head. “What about if we approach the wall from the other side? Let’s go around the block, go down Yearling, and scale the wall from there.” Lou slid his phone from his coat pocket. “But first let’s take pictures of the way we found everything in the alley, before the uniforms get back with the hot water.”
“Okay.” Bennie pulled her phone from her purse, then took pictures of everything she saw, knowing she would study them for hours between now and the day of trial. Lou did the same thing, and they walked back and forth, in and out of the alley, taking pictures of everything. Bennie poked around in the litter that lay everywhere in the alley, just in case somebody had dropped something or something had fallen, but she found nothing noteworthy, while Lou measured the relevant distances, walking off the feet with his Wallabees.
“The alley is sixteen feet wide where he parked, and a truck is generally about eight feet wide, so there’s not much room to move. The alley narrows to eight feet after the parking spot, and it’s about five-hundred feet to the wall in back. I’m guesstimating.”
“Good to know.” Bennie made a note in her pad, and they looked at each other. Nobody had come to wash the blood away, and it lay freezing in the shade.
“Wait here a minute. I’ll go see what happened to the uniforms.” Lou walked away, dumping the pallets where they’d been, and Bennie took more pictures, wrote more notes, and poked around more trash until Lou came back with two men in long white aprons stained with blood and short rubber boots, also bloody.
Bennie gasped. “Is this a nightmare?”
“No, this is Nacho and Diego, and they don’t speak English.” Lou gestured at the two men. “They work at the Polish butcher shop and they’re willing to help us for only twenty dollars apiece. See those doors down there, on the right?” He pointed, and Bennie noticed two black metal doors on the right wall toward the back of the alley. “The closer one is the back door of the butcher shop. They get their deliveries this way, which between you and me, can’t comply with any code. Don’t tell L & I. In any event, when it comes to cleaning up blood, they’re the experts.”
“But where are the cops?”
“Nowhere to be found, and their cars are gone.”
“Isn’t it their job to clean up a crime scene?”
“Technically, no. It’s the job of the homeowner or the property owner, but nobody’s claiming ownership of a bloody alley. Our new friends have a hose that runs hot water, so come out and let them do their stuff.”
“Okay, thanks.” Bennie left the alley and stood next to Lou, then one of the men turned on the hose and squirted the blood, while the other started sweeping reddish water toward a drain with a push broom. Steam rose from the blood the moment hot water hit it, and the metallic smell filled the air, making Bennie queasy.
“You okay, kid?” Lou put an arm around her. “Why don’t you wait in the street until they’re finished?”
“I’m okay,” Bennie said, but she held on to Lou. She watched the powerful hose spray the blood toward the drain, turning up the trash and litter from the bottom of the alley, like the most grotesque sort of washing machine. A ballpoint pen, a cigarette lighter, a long tube sock, a slew of cigarette butts, handwritten papers, a hoagie wrapper, a baby pacifier, newspapers, and a condom flowed toward the drain, human detritus like shards of life among the death.
None of it made any sense to Bennie, all of this blood and loss, and after they had washed the blood away, she still couldn’t get it from her mind, even as she checked the back wall, and the trash cans, searching for something she didn’t completely understand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Bennie rallied as they left the alley and turned onto Pimlico, backtracking along the route that Jason would have taken last night. Pimlico wasn’t a major artery, but it had two-lane traffic and was lined with small businesses that had seen better days. They passed the medical supply store, its glass front covered with peeling ads, then the Polish butcher, marked by a red-and-white awning that read STAN’S FINEST HOMEMADE POLISH KIELBASY, above a hand-painted list of items: Pasztet, Zwyczajna, Salceson Wloski, Krakowska Swieza, Mysliwska!
“No yuppies here,” Lou said, with approval.
They approached Eddie’s Bar, a small neighborhood tavern with one tiny window stuck into a grimy white stucco wall, and it had a neon sign that flickered Lech’s Beer, next to which someone had graffitied Blech’s Beer! Old cardboard placards rested on the windowsill: 6 Packs To Go. Credit Cards Not Accepted. Phillies World Series Champions 2008.
Lou eyed the bar, with a growing smile. “This looks like a great dive bar.”
“Is that a thing?”
“Of course, like the Irish Pub. Don’t you know that bar?”
“Have we met? I don’t spend a lot of time barhopping.”
“How about Doobies? You’d like that place. The owner won’t carry Coors because of the seal hunt in Canada. I bet he’s a vegetarian, too.”
“Good, I’ll say hi at the next vegetarian convention.”
They reached the entrance to Eddie’s, and a concrete step to a plain wooden front door, with a handle encircled by grime. Lou pointed up at the transom. “Check it out.”
Bennie looked up to see a white security camera mounted above the door, next to a light. “Duly noted.”
“After you,” Lou said, opening the door.
“Thanks.” Bennie went inside, waiting a moment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The bar smelled vaguely like hot dogs, and it was a medium-sized room with a wooden bar on the right, which held two men hunched over beers, facing a TV showing ESPN on low volume. On the left side of the room, behind a red tile divider, was a dining area with wooden tables and a chalkboard menu that showed hamburgers and salads, as well as pierogies, sweet red cabbage, pickle soup, white borscht, and bigos.
Lou took a seat at the bar, and Bennie followed suit, figuring they’d play their approach by ear, the way they always did. She wanted to get any and all versions of what happened last night in the bar, find out what else anybody knew, and best-case scenario, find out what they told the police. Lou must’ve caught the eye of the bartender, who gave him a high sign that he’d be right over.
Lou turned to Bennie. “Let me do the talking,” he said under his breath. “This guy’s my age, but not as handsome. Also I think he’s a retired cop.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell. A lot of my buddies started working in bars when they got off the job. There’s beer and tipsy broads. What more do you need?” Lou chuckled at his own joke. “Also for security. Cops know how to spot a knucklehead right off the bat. If you have a cop tending bar, the knuckleheads find other bars to go to.”
“Interesting,” Bennie said, meaning it, as the bartender ambled over. She wouldn’t have guessed he was a former cop, because he was short, wide, and had thick glasses that made his brown eyes look even smaller. He wore a blue polo shirt with his jeans and a waist apron.
“What can I get for you folks?” he asked, his gaze shifting from Lou to Bennie, though he barely smiled.
“I’m Lou Jacobs, and my associate is Bennie Rosato. We’re here about a fight that happened last night, which led to a murder. Were you here?”
“No, the night guy was. I only work days.” The bartender turned to Bennie, frowning. “You that lawyer?”
“Yes.” Bennie knew it could g
o either way, if he’d been a cop.
“Way back when, I used to work in the 37th Precinct, and you sued some of the brass.”
Lou interrupted, “Don’t be giving my boss a hard time.”
“I wasn’t going to,” the bartender said, with a crooked smile. “I never liked them anyway.”
Lou laughed, and Bennie joined him. She knew they had broken the ice, and they would need a good rapport if they were going to learn anything.
The bartender gestured toward the back of the restaurant. “You wanna know how it went down, ask the waitress. Emily, the owner’s daughter. She’s in the back.”
“I’ll go, thanks. Be right back, Lou.” Bennie rose, walked through the dining area, and found a hallway behind. There were restrooms on the left, and past them a young woman stood at an electronic cash register in a nook on the right. She had short brown hair and a soft, pretty face, the contours of her cheeks illuminated from below by the green-and-blue lights on the machine. She turned, as Bennie reached her. “My name is Bennie, and the bartender said I should talk to you. I represent Jason Lefkavick, who was here last night.”
“Oh, sure.” Emily brushed bangs from her forehead, showing pained greenish eyes. “He’s such a nice guy! I don’t believe he would do something like that.”
“I don’t think he did. Can you tell me how you know him?”
“He comes in all the time. He’s a regular.”
“Since when?”
“Since the summer, that’s when I first met him.”
“Okay.” Bennie made a mental note. That was about six months ago, which was when Jason moved to Philadelphia.
“I remember because we hit it off that first day. He seemed real quiet but I noticed that he had the same tattoo as me.” Emily pulled up the sleeve of her blue sweater and showed Chinese calligraphy on the inside of her forearm. “We thought it was so cool when we got it, now everybody has it.”