H Is for Homicide

  "Uh, excuse me," I said. "Hey!" It was a strain to try to hold my head in that position, so I laid it down again. Several pairs of regulation cop shoes appeared in my line of vision. I hoped none of them belonged to Lieutenant Dolan. Somebody gave an order. Suddenly, there was an officer on either side of me. I felt myself hooked under the armpits and I was lifted to my feet, levitating into an upright position effortlessly. After a quick pat-down, I was hustled off to a squad car and shoved into the backseat. The door was slammed shut.

  An unmarked car came down the street from the opposite direction, sliding to a halt on the rain-lubricated asphalt. I saw Bill Blair, the coroner's deputy, get out on the driver's side, taking a moment to shrug himself into his raincoat. Head bowed against the rain, he moved over to the body without looking in my direction. All the various crime scene personnel had begun to assemble: two guys from the Public Works Department setting up barricades, running tape around the perimeter, the CSI unit, along with the supervisor in a separate vehicle. As in the early moments of a play, the actors were appearing on stage, each with the necessary props, each with a bit of business to perform. Little by little, the drama of homicide was being played out again.

  I sat forward slightly, peering through the metal screen that separated the front of the squad car from the rear. It was 1:17 A.M. and my head had begun to ache. The rain now formed a hazy curtain that seemed to blow against the streetlights, sending up whiffs of steam. The sound was homely, like uncooked rice grains falling on a cookie sheet. Within minutes, the precipitation increased rapidly to a steady drumming on the roof of the black-and-white. Ordinarily, I like sitting in a parked car in a downpour. It seems cozy and safe and surprisingly intimate, depending on the circumstances, of course. The same smattering of people stood outside on the darkened street, avoiding the sight of me as if I were leprous. Anyone sitting in the rear of a cop car looks guilty somehow. The emergency vehicle had been moved to one side to allow the coroner's deputy access to the body. Chago had been covered with a length of yellow plastic to shield him from the rain. Blood had coagulated on the sidewalk like a sticky patch of motor oil, and I could still smell cordite. The police radio was squawking incomprehensibly. There was a time in my life – during my days in uniform – when I understood every word. Not so, tonight. I'd lost my ear for it, like a foreign language I no longer had a use for.

  Bibianna was being questioned by the police inspector, who'd appeared at some point. She was being pelted by the rain, the red dress clinging to her stained to a dark bloody hue. She looked like she was complaining, though I couldn't hear a word she said. Judging from the inspector's expression and the set of Bibianna's shoulders, she was subdued, but uncooperative. The inspector waved a hand at her impatiently. The same officer who'd ushered me to the patrol car steered Bibianna in my direction. She was frisked for weapons, a ludicrous formality under the circumstances. In the little mini she was wearing, what kind of weapon could she possibly conceal? The rear door of the squad car was yanked open and the officer pushed her head down and shoved her into the backseat beside me. She'd recovered some of her energy, jaws snapping at the guy's hand like a rabid dog. "Get your fuckin' hands off me, you cock-sucker!" she screamed.

  Nice talk, huh? When you get arrested, these are the kind of people you're forced to associate with. Because of the handcuffs, her arms were pinioned awkwardly behind her, which meant she ended up lying halfway across my lap. Before the officer could close the door, she lashed a kick at him with one of her spike heels. He was lucky she missed. She'd have torn a hunk of flesh out of his thigh if she'd caught him right. He was amazingly polite – probably heartened by the fact that he could look up her dress – but I noticed he managed to get the door shut before she could kick at him again. She was a firecracker, absolutely fearless. For a minute, I thought she'd lie there and kick the windows out. She muttered something to herself and straightened up.

  She flicked her hair away from her face with a shake of her head. A few drops of water flew off on me. "Did you see that? I could have been killed tonight! Those assholes tried to kill me!" She was referring to the cops, not Chago and the blonde.

  "The cops didn't try to kill you," I said irritably. "What did you expect? You haul off and sock a cop, what'd you think was going to happen?"

  "Look who's talking. You hit that bitch twice as hard as me." She turned a calculating look on me and I could see now that I had garnered a spark of admiration for my pugilistic skills. She began a staring contest with one of the cops standing near the car. "God, I hate pigs," she remarked.

  "They don't seem all that fond of you," I said.

  "I mean it! I could sue. That's police brutality."

  "What's your problem?"

  "Forget it. It's none of your business."

  She peered out of the car window and I followed her gaze. Two cops were conferring, probably in preparation for removing us to the station. I wished they'd get on with it. I was cold. My tank top was soaked and my pants were soggy, clinging to my thighs like a lapful of wet sheets. I wasn't sure what had happened to my leather jacket. Somebody would steal it if I'd left it in the restaurant. Both my scruffy pumps and little white socks were mud-spattered and made squishing sounds every time I moved my feet. I could still smell the sooty cologne of secondhand cigarette smoke that permeated my hair. With my hands cuffed from behind, I had metal bracelets digging into the bruised flesh of my wrists.

  Bibianna's mood underwent a shift. Her manner now seemed completely matter-of-fact, as if shoot-outs, death, and resisting arrest were an everyday occurrence. She held a foot up, inspecting her shoe. "Fuckin' shoes are ruined," she remarked. "That's the trouble with suede. One wet night and you're wearing slime. I wish I had a cigarette. You think they're going to bring my bag?"

  "You better hope not. I thought you had a joint in there."

  That warranted a half laugh. "Oh, yeah. I forgot. That's how my luck runs, you know? What's the point trying to straighten out your life if it's all going to turn to worms again?"

  She peered out at the various law enforcement types milling around in the rain. "Hey! Let's pick up the pace, frog-lips. What's the delay?" It was pointless yelling with the windows rolled up. One of the beat cops turned and looked at her, but I was sure he hadn't heard a word she'd said. "Pig," she said to him pleasantly. "Yeah, you, dick-head. Get an eyeful." She stuck a leg up in the air. He looked away and Bibianna laughed.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Even with the harsh lights playing on her face, that fine dusky skin looked almost luminous. Thick lashes, dark eyes, a wide mouth still lush with flame-red lipstick. How'd she keep the stuff on like that? Anytime I tried lipstick, it ended up on the rim of the first glass I drank from. Hers looked fresh and wet, lending color to her face. Despite the foul talk, her dark eyes glinted with amusement. "I can't believe those guys get paid to stand around like that," she remarked with a glance at me. "How are you holding up?"

  "I've been better. You have any idea where Dawna disappeared to?"

  "She probably went to call Raymond. Oh, man, he's gonna have a fit when he finds out Chago's dead."

  "Who are they?"

  "Don't ask."

  "What'd you do to piss 'em off so bad?"

  "It's what I didn't do that counts."

  "You owe 'em money?"

  "No way, baby! They owe me. What I can't figure out is how they got a line on me in the first place. What'd you say your name was?"

  For a minute, I couldn't remember which set of fake ID's I'd brought. "Hannah Moore."

  There was a calculated silence. "What's the rest of it?"

  "The rest?"

  "You have a middle name?"

  "Oh. Sure," I said. "Uhm, Lee."

  Her tone of voice turned flat. "I don't believe it."

  I felt my heart do a quick flip, but I managed a noncommittal murmur.

  "I never met anyone with three pairs of double letters in their name. Two n's in Hannah. Two e's
in Lee and the two o's in Moore. Plus, 'Hannah' is a palindrome, spelled the same way forward as it is backward. You ever had your numbers done?"

  "Like numerology?"

  She nodded. "It's a hobby of mine. I can do a chart for you later... all I need is your date of birth, but I can tell you right now, your soul number's six. Like you're big in domestic harmony, right? People like you, your mission is to spread the idea of the Golden Rule."

  I laughed in spite of myself. "Oh, really. How'd you guess?"

  A uniformed officer, toting Bibianna's handbag, moved over to the squad car and let himself in, locking eyes with me in the rearview mirror as he slammed the door shut. It was apparently his job to transport us out to the jail. He held the bag up. "This belong to one of you?"

  "Me," Bibianna said, rolling her eyes in my direction. It was anybody's guess whether the joint in her bag would come to light or not. She was in deep doo-doo if it did.

  He plunked the bag down on the seat beside him. "How you doin' back there?" He was in his late twenties, cleanshaven, his dark hair clipped close. The back of his neck looked vulnerable above the collar of his uniform.

  None of this was lost on Bibianna. "We're great, sport. How're you?"

  "I'm cool," he said.

  "You have a name?"

  "Kip Brainard," he said. "You're Diaz, right?"

  "Right."

  He seemed to smile to himself. He started the car and eased it away from the curb, radioing the dispatcher that he was on his way in with us. There was no more conversation. The rain had begun to sound like a pile of nails being dropped on the car roof, windshield wipers flopping back and forth without much effect, the monotonous calls from the car radio punctuating the silence. We reached the freeway and headed north. The windows were fogging over. In the warmth of the vehicle and the lulling drone of the engine, I nearly nodded off.

  We took the off ramp at Espada and turned left onto the frontage road, proceeding about a half a mile. We turned right onto a road that cut around to the rear of the Santa Teresa County Correctional Facility, better known as the jail to those of us about to be incarcerated. On the far side of the property, the complex shared a parking lot with the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department. We pulled up at the gate. Kip pushed a button for the intercom. The master control regulation officer responded, a disembodied female voice surrounded by static.

  "Police officer coming in with two," he said.

  The gate swung open and we passed through. Once we were inside the fence, he honked the horn and the gate swung shut behind us. We pulled into a paved stretch enclosed by a chain-link fence. The whole area blazed with lights, the rain creating a misty aureole around each flood. A county sheriff's car had pulled in just ahead of us, and we waited in silence until the deputy was admitted with his prisoner, a vagrant who was visibly drunk and much in need of assistance.

  Once they'd disappeared, Kip shut the engine off and got out. He opened the rear door on my side and helped me out, a clumsy procedure with my hands cuffed behind my back. "You gonna behave yourself?" he asked.

  "No problem. I'm fine."

  He must not have trusted me because he continued to hold on to my arm, walking me around to Bibianna's side of the car. He opened the door and helped her out of the backseat and then walked us toward the gate. A female jail officer came out to assist him. The rain was constant, unpleasant, a chill assault on my body, which was already trembling with accumulated tensions. Never had I so longed for a hot shower, dry clothes, my own bed. Bibianna's dark hair was plastered to her head in long dripping strands, but it didn't seem to bother her. All the earlier hostility had faded, replaced by a curious complaisance.

  Reception at the county jail is approached through an exterior corridor of chain-link fencing that resembles a dog run. We were buzzed in, passing yet another checkpoint complete with electronic locks and cameras. Kip walked us along the passage, raindrops splashing up around us as our heels tapped across the wet pavement. "You know the routine?" he asked.

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all the same, stud," Bibianna said.

  "Let's make that 'Officer.' Can we do that?" he said dryly. "I take it you're an old hand at this."

  "You got that right... Officer Stud," she said.

  He decided to let it pass. I kept my mouth shut. I knew the drill from the old days in uniform. It was odd how differently I perceived the whole process now that I was the perp.

  We reached a metal door. Kip pushed a button, announcing once more that he was bringing in two of us. We waited while the cameras inspected us. I've seen the big console where the MCR operator sits, surrounded by black-and-white monitors showing the equivalent of twelve totally boring Andy Warhol movies simultaneously. The operator buzzed us in. In silence, we walked down one corridor and then turned into a second, emerging eventually into the reception area where the male prisoners are booked in. I was hoping to see Tate, but he'd apparently been processed and taken to a cell. The vagrant, weaving on his feet, was emptying the pockets of his ragged sport coat. I knew him by sight, one of the town's perennial characters. Most afternoons he hung out around the courthouse having heated arguments with an unseen companion. His invisible chum was still giving him a hard time. The booking officer behind the desk waited with benign patience. I knew the deputy, too, though I couldn't remember his name. Foley, maybe. Something like that. I wasn't close enough to read his name tag and I didn't want to call attention to myself by squinting at his chest.

  I turned my head, staring off to the left to avoid any visual contact. It had been a good ten years since I'd last seen the guy, but I didn't want to chance his recognizing me, blowing the cover I'd set up. I probably flatter myself.

  I looked as respectable as the bum they were booking. I fancied I smelled better, but perhaps not. I've noticed that most of us don't have a clue what we smell like to other people. It's almost as though our noses blank us out in self-defense.

  Kip buzzed at yet another locked door, and after a brief wait another female jail officer emerged from the women's side. Bibianna and I had our pictures taken in the kind of booth you see in Woolworth's, a sorry strip of poses appearing moments later in the outside slot. In mine, I looked like a suspect in a teen porno ring, the kind of woman who'd lure the young girls with glib promises of modeling gigs. We moved into the women's booking area, where we approached a row of holding cells. I went into the first and Bibianna the second. The officer with me did a quick pat-down and then removed the handcuffs.

  "Lean up against the wall," she said. Her tone wasn't unfriendly, but it was devoid of real warmth. And why not? I was just one more in an endless stream of jailbirds as far as she knew.

  I faced the wall, arms straight out in front of me, leaning my weight on my hands, which were spaced about four feet apart. She did a second, more thorough, pat-down, making sure I didn't have any tiny lethal weapons concealed in my hair. She allowed me to take a seat on a bench along the wall while the proper papers were assembled at the counter to my right. When the booking officer was ready, I emptied my pockets, passing my phony driver's license, my keys, my watch, my belt, and my scruffy shoes through the window slot. There was something pathetic about the sight of my personal possessions, which were not only meager, but cheap as well. We began to go through the catechism that accompanies the loss of freedom. Personal data. Medical.

  Employment. I said I was out of work, claiming "waitress" as my occupation. We went through the litany of facility and arrest data. I was being charged with assault, a misdemeanor, and battery on a police officer, which is a felony with a five-thousand-dollar bail attached. I assumed Bibianna was being booked on similar charges. I was offered the chance to post bail, but I declined, operating on the premise that Bibianna would do likewise. All I needed was to be stuck in jail while she found a way to get herself bailed out. I kept waiting for the booking officer to realize that my driver's license was a fake, but she didn't seem to notice. My few pieces of personal property were itemized an
d placed in a clear plastic boiling pouch, like a Seal-A-Meal. The whole procedure took about fifteen minutes and left me feeling unsettled. Oddly enough, I didn't feel humiliated so much as I felt misunderstood. I wanted to assert myself, wanted to assure them that I wasn't what I appeared to be, that I was really a decent, law-abiding citizen... on their team, in effect.

  The booking officer completed her process. "You want to make any calls, there's a pay phone in the next cell."

  "I can't think who I'd call anyway," I said, absurdly grateful that everyone was so polite. What had I expected, curses and abuse?

  Padding along in my sock feet, I was taken down the corridor to the ID bureau to be fingerprinted. A second set of photographs were taken, front and profile this time. At this rate, I could put together a little album for Mother's Day. It was 2:13 A.M. by the time I was escorted to the drunk tank, a cell maybe fifteen by fifteen feet. A skinny white woman, with her back turned, slept on a mattress in the far comer of the room. There were no outside windows. The entire front wall was barred, with a lidless commode tucked into an alcove on the right. I've seen cells where the toilet seats are removed as well. I had to guess we were being trusted not to try to hang ourselves with this one. The floor was beige vinyl tile, the walls painted cinder block. There was a built-in bench running the width of the room with some one-inch mattresses rolled up and arranged haphazardly against the wall. I snagged one for myself and spread it out on the floor.