“In the 1850s, Londoners were dying of cholera and no one knew why. Snow discovered that all the sick had drunk water from the same well. He didn’t grasp the underlying mechanism but knew that pump was the link.”
“And?” Pete, not seeing the relevance.
“He removed the pump handle.”
“That stopped the outbreak?”
“It did.”
“Your point?”
“Eventually the handle will come off the AIDS pump.”
As we clear the dishes, attorney Pete hits the talking points for a theory coagulating in my brain.
“Wong and Ingram were Millikin’s patients. Do you suppose he was treating them for AIDS?”
“Could be.”
“Wong does acupuncture, a procedure involving needles. Ingram’s a dentist nailed for running a dirty practice. Dentists also use needles and come in contact with blood.”
“Yes.”
“Millikin treats people with AIDS. Maybe his angry patient also has AIDS. Maybe he believes Wong or Ingram infected him.”
“Ergo, the killings are about revenge.” I finish the thread.
A beat.
Pete asks, “Nehi Height is a prossie?”
I nod. We both understand the implication.
“Shouldn’t someone warn the kid?” Pete asks.
“They’re trying to figure out where he lives.”
We finish our wine, watch the news, and retire. We don’t go right to sleep.
Five days pass. I hear nothing from Slidell or Rinaldi. Nothing from Larabee.
On the sixth morning, the phone rings as I’m preparing to head to the university. I answer.
“The guy’s name is Terry Flynn.”
It takes me a moment to dial in. “The patient Millikin refused to name.”
“Yeah.” Slidell coughs, hawks something unimaginable, spits, I hope, into a hanky. “Flynn’s a banker, which narrows it to half the suits in Charlotte. Lives in Eastover, which means he excels at his job.”
I hear voices, maybe drawers being opened and closed. “Where are you?”
“Millikin’s office. I’ve been going through files. Dull reading unless you’re into diarrhea and shit.”
I doubt Slidell is aware of his pun. “You obtained a warrant?”
“Nah, I’m going rogue. Think a little entrepreneurial zest might play well with a jury.”
I muster the willpower to bite back a snarky retort.
“CSU found a boatload of AZT in the shed behind Millikin’s trailer. The doc was selling to his patients, but charging only nickels and dimes. Except for one lucky customer.”
“Terry Flynn.”
“Bingo. The fat cat was paying through the nose.”
“Where’s Millikin?”
“We had to kick him.”
“Did you confront him with all this?”
“Yeah. He rolled. Admitted he piped the money to the clinic, used some to finance his trips south. Looks like his story’s gonna have legs.”
I wait out another cough. Then I share the theory Pete and I discussed a few nights ago.
There’s a long moment of background noise.
“I’m going to talk to this fuckwit Flynn. Maybe you want to be there.”
That astounds me. “Where’s Rinaldi?”
“Height’s sister lives in the Southside Homes. Nashawna.” He elongates the second syllable unnecessarily. “Eddie’s watching for Nehi, wants to give the kid a heads-up if he shows.”
“Dumb question, but why are you inviting me along on this interview?”
Slidell does something in his throat I can’t begin to interpret.
“Sorry?”
“You spotted Wong’s memo, Millikin’s gay cancer.”
I let the latter slide and wait for further explanation. Slidell offers none.
“So, what the hell? Am I picking you up?”
“Sure.” I give him my address. What the hell?
—
Slidell’s Crown Vic is a rolling recycle bin. The day is cold, and a filthy sky promises it’s going to get wet. The heater is pumping and the car’s interior is overripe with smells. Old food. Sweat. Bad cologne. Stale cigarette smoke.
The drive seems endless. It lasts ten minutes.
Flynn’s home is on Colville Road in one of Charlotte’s caviar-and-Cadillac hoods. Circle drive, manicured lawn, house definitely not trying for subtle. The place is lit like a cruise ship on a holiday sail.
Slidell drives to the top of the circle. We get out and climb to a veranda spanning the entire first floor. Propped by the door is a toboggan that says MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y’ALL!
Slidell thumbs the bell. I hear a muffled chime that goes on longer than Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
No one appears. No voice crackles from the little intercom box.
Slidell rings again.
No response.
Slidell resorts to the same battering tactic he employed with the elevator button.
Still nothing.
A window to our right throws slashes of light onto the brick at our feet. I step to it, lean close, and peer through the plantation shutters covering the inside of the glass.
The room is a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves holding hundreds of books. The furnishings have a decidedly masculine air. Carved mahogany desk. Large, angular sofas and chairs. A globe. Photos of sports figures on the mantel over a fieldstone fireplace.
Behind me, Slidell curses. As I turn, he kicks out at the sled. It sails, hits the wall, and ricochets onto the steps. The Y’ALL greeting wings off into a bush.
I cock a brow but don’t comment.
We’re walking toward the Crown Vic when the radio sputters. Slidell hasn’t brought his portable, so he bolts for the car. By the time I slide in he’s rehooking the speaker mic. He looks like he’s just had a kick to the nuts.
“What?” I ask.
Slidell shifts and pounds the accelerator. We reverse so quickly my head snaps forward. He throws the engine into gear, guns down the drive, and cuts a fast left. I brace myself on the dash with both hands.
“What the crap?” I say with more feeling.
“A patrol unit spotted Flynn’s Bimmer on Baltimore Avenue.”
“And?” I don’t know the street, the significance.
“It’s parked opposite Nashawna Height’s unit.”
The Southside Homes feel suburban to the extent that public housing can ever feel suburban—one- and two-story brick duplexes with small windows, small porches, and small front lawns that bleed into one another. Some units are fronted by shrubs, others by ragged dirt strips. Here and there, a window is edged with jingle bell lights. Not Chestnut Hill, but not the usual “government-bleak efficient” mode either.
Dumpsters sit at intervals along Baltimore Avenue. At one, a cat paws trash that has fallen or been tossed to the base. Its calico fur is matted and dull, its body cadaver-thin. As we pass, the cat’s head whips up and it crouches so low its belly touches the ground.
Rinaldi’s Bonneville is parked across from unit 8A, a short distance below the intersection with Griffith Street. He’s in it. Slidell noses to the Pontiac’s rear bumper and we both get out.
“Where’s Flynn’s ride?” Slidell asks.
“Gone when I got here.”
“You talk to the sister?”
“Nashawna. She’s not receptive.”
“You clue her that Nehi’s ass is in serious jeopardy?” Slidell is eyeing 8A. I’m sure Nashawna is similarly assessing us from behind the blue sheet draping the dingy front window. Suspect others are doing the same.
“I told her I was here to help.”
“You say you’re a cop?”
“No need. The lady’s been through the system.”
“She probably thinks you came to bust her brother.”
Both detectives look at me.
Rinaldi says, “A unit’s cruising, looking for Flynn.”
“How ’bout you hang here while I chat with N
ashawna?” This time Slidell has brought his handheld radio. Not awaiting Rinaldi’s blessing, he strides toward 8A. The Motorola looks like a brick in his hand.
I watch him climb the steps, ring the bell, wait. Open the screen and fist-bang the inner door. A series of dull thuds carries in the wintry air.
I notice a Weber grill beside the neighboring unit. A ceramic pot on a rusty tripod. A section of ankle-high picket fencing protecting both.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I watch two small children coax a kite skyward in the area of common grass running behind the buildings. An old woman walking a pit bull that looks even older than she. Two geezers arguing, too far away for me to hear the point of contention.
I feel my fingertips turning blue. Think about gloves. Slip my hands inside my pockets.
Finally, Slidell pauses and his upraised hand drops. Though his back is to us, I see his shoulders angle downward and his head move in a way suggesting conversation. I assume Nashawna is listening to him through the smallest of cracks.
Slidell takes something from inside his trench coat. A beat, then he pivots and hurries to rejoin us.
“Christ. There’s a brain trust.”
“What did she say?” Rinaldi asks.
“She and Nehi ain’t close. She hasn’t seen him. Kiss my bony black ass.”
“What do you think?”
“I think the kid probably has product stashed in her bedsprings.”
“Now what?”
“Dispatch knows the situation with Flynn?” Slidell is scanning the block, not looking at his partner or me.
“Yeah.”
“Tell them to find the dirtbag.” Slidell’s voice has that buzz again. “I’m going to drop the doc off, then swing back to Flynn’s pad.”
I don’t protest. I’m not properly dressed and my toes are going numb.
We’ve gotten off I-77 south onto the John Belk Freeway and are approaching the Fourth Street exit when the radio spits something that snags Slidell’s attention. He grabs the hand mic. As he thumbs and releases the button, I hear both ends of the exchange. Flynn’s car, a black BMW 735i with tinted windows and North Carolina plate NNX-43, has been spotted heading south on Tryon Street toward Griffith.
“Tell them to stay on it.”
“The unit is no longer in visual contact.”
“Sonofabitch!”
We spin a U-ey sharp enough to launch me sideways into the passenger-side door. Slidell activates flashing headlights and a whup-whup siren and bulls his way across Fourth and onto Third. We’re barreling back the way we came when dispatch again summons him.
“What?” Barked.
“A Nashawna Height just dialed 911 asking for you.”
“What’s she saying?”
“A man is parked across the street watching her place.”
“What’s he look like?”
Pause.
“He’s white.”
“Jesus on a jump rope. What’s wrong with people? Old, young? Tall, short?”
Pause.
“She says he’s a tall skinny white guy.”
Slidell’s scowl tells me the description fits Terry Flynn.
“Height calling from home?”
“A neighbor’s phone.”
“Tell her I’ll be there in less than five. Keep her on the line.”
“I’ll try. She’s pretty agitated.”
I feel my heart beating way too fast.
Dispatch keys in again. “Height says she’s watching the guy from the neighbor’s kitchen window. Says he’s out of the car and walking toward her building.”
“Is her brother with her?”
Short pause.
“The brother is in the home.”
“You got a unit en route?”
“Yes. Hold on.”
Long pause.
“Height thinks the guy’s armed.”
“Tell her to stay where she is. I’m three minutes out, max.”
Slidell runs a stop sign at the Remount Road exit. Drivers hit their brakes and their horns.
The dispatcher’s voice reemerges from the static. “The caller says she’s leaving to help her brother.”
“Order her to stay put! I’m almost there!”
My heart is now racing as fast as the Crown Vic. I know we can’t reach Nashawna or Nehi before Flynn gets to the door.
No response.
“What’s happening?” Slidell demands.
“I lost her.”
“What do you mean you lost her?”
“She hung up.”
At Baltimore Avenue, Slidell makes a high-speed right turn and mashes the gas pedal. Halfway up the block a white panel truck pulls from the curb. Slidell slows a hair, swerves around it, and accelerates. In the side mirror, I see the receding driver wave a one-finger salute.
“Where’s Rinaldi?”
“On his way.”
In moments we squeal up behind Flynn’s BMW. Slidell throws the gearshift into park. My whole body lurches forward. He is out before I can right myself.
“Ass on the leather!” he shouts, finger jabbing at me. He starts toward 8A, gun drawn and held low by his thigh.
My fingers are white on the dash. I push myself back. Realize I’m not breathing, and inhale deeply.
I look around. See the Pontiac but not Rinaldi. No cruiser. No Flynn. No Nehi. No bony black ass.
The kids are gone from the grass. The pit bull granny. The bickering men. I’m glad. Every instinct in me is howling danger. Adrenaline is pumping hard.
I lower my window and listen. Except for distant vehicles, all is still. Just traffic and my hammering pulse.
Seconds pass. A full minute. I hear a scrape followed by a crash. My mind offers no picture to accompany the soundtrack. Then recognition. The tripod-urn has been upended and shattered.
I’m digesting that when a gunshot rips the cold morning air. Another follows. A third.
An image explodes in my forebrain. Slidell ambushed, bleeding out on the icy lawn. Maybe Rinaldi.
A man bellows. Another bellows back. The voices come from behind 8A. I can’t make out the words.
I’m not good at taking orders. Never have been. I know I should stay where I am. That I’m untrained. That I shouldn’t put myself at risk.
But I need to find out what’s happening. And hiding in the car isn’t going to help a damn.
I take a few calming breaths and slip from the Crown Vic. Do a three-sixty sweep, then, moving as discreetly as possible, diagonal toward the gap between 8A and its neighbor.
I see them as soon as I round the house. Slidell. Nashawna. Nehi. Flynn. I assume Rinaldi is near but out of sight. All are locked in a tableau of horror and shock.
Flynn has Nehi at gunpoint, barrel pressed tight to his throat, forcing his chin up at a painful angle. They are on the back stoop. The door has flown inward and is no longer hanging square on its hinges. Muddy footprints suggest Flynn has kicked it in. A trio of small holes explains the gunfire.
Nashawna is at the rear of the neighboring unit, hands pressed to her mouth, hunkered behind the Weber. Slidell is beside her, gun held two-handed and pointed at Flynn.
Flynn’s body is little more than a skeleton shrink-wrapped in bruised flesh. His face is emaciated, the cheeks hollow, the eyes sunken, the nose a spiny beak sharply contoured by the underlying cartilage and bone.
“You didn’t tell me, you twisted little prick!” Flynn’s voice trembles with rage.
“Tell you what, man?” Nehi’s words are choked due to pressure on his trachea and the unnatural thrust of his jaw.
“You killed me, now I kill you. Eye for an eye, man. Justice, man? The Bible tells me so.”
“What the fuck you talking about?” Nehi is small and wiry with eyes like those of a terrified dog, deep brown and rimmed with way too much white.
“You signed my death certificate, you sick little bastard.”
“You talking that gay immune shit? I ain’t got that, man.”
I hear an engine, tires, car doors opening behind us on Baltimore Avenue. The sputter of a radio.
“It’s so wrong. You sell heroin and crack. You sell yourself. You’re scum. I had so much to live for and you took it all away.”
“I said drop your weapon!” Slidell shouts. I know he isn’t firing, for fear of hitting Nehi.
Flynn jams the muzzle deeper into Nehi’s flesh. Tightens his grip on the handle. Though Flynn is far taller than his prey, his posture is so stooped their heads are almost level.
Feet pound in our direction. I note the rhythm. Four.
“I’m telling you one more time!” Slidell yells. “Drop the gun.”
Nehi is a scrapper. A survivor. And afraid for his life. What happens next is a testimonial to that powerful trifecta.
Flynn’s eyes cut to the sound of the approaching footsteps for a sliver of a second. Sensing the shift, Nehi twists, hooks one leg around the back of Flynn’s knees, shoulder-shoves his chest, and strikes at the gun hand. Flynn goes down with a sound like logs striking a hearth. The gun flies free.
“Height! Back away!”
Ignoring Slidell, Nehi straddles Flynn’s chest and presses both his wrists to the ground. It’s no contest. Teenage street fighter versus middle-aged invalid. Though Flynn struggles, Nehi has him pinned.
The choreography is spontaneous and fast. Slidell closes in. Rinaldi steps from behind the unit to the north, gun straight out and aimed at Flynn. Two uniforms round the house, see the action, and draw their weapons. Nehi jumps free and scuttles sideways. Rinaldi scoops Flynn’s gun from the grass. It is over in seconds.
Nashawna scrambles from behind the Weber. I run forward and wrap her shoulders with one arm. Tears stream down her cheeks. She is shaking and allows me to restrain her.
“He’s okay,” I say. “Everything will be all right.”
“That man crazy,” she says. “Nehi don’t got no AIDS. His girlfriend made him get hisself tested.”
Over her shoulder, I see that Flynn is on his feet. One of the uniforms cuffs him, reads him his rights. Nashawna and I watch him and his partner lead Flynn away. He walks between them, wobbly, limping.
I try but feel little sympathy for Flynn. He is dying, but murdered two men and tried to kill a third. I can forgive that he is angry. Confused. Distraught. I cannot forgive that he is vengeful.
And I cannot forgive that he is self-righteously judgmental. That he views himself as superior to Nehi Height. His life as more valuable.