Me and Leonard were in the main interrogation room at the newly renovated police station. The room was larger than the old room and the table had yet to be carved on with keys and pens and stout fingernails. Things got serious, you’d end up in one of the smaller rooms at closer quarters with your interviewer, your hands cuffed to a rail in the table that was fastened to a ring in the floor. So far, we were getting the luxury treatment, the guest suite, not the galley-slave quarters.
Marvin said, “Don’t mention Barker’s gun unless somehow they bring it up. Don’t mention Manny being there with you either.”
Manny was in the main office filling out an application. Mrs. Elton and Charm were somewhere under protection. I had called Brett and let her know what was happening, told her to be alert. She pretty much said fuck it, bad guys or no bad guys, she was going to sleep. She had Buffy to protect her and was too tired and sick to come down to the station.
I was not that confident in Buffy’s protective abilities.
“And another thing,” Marvin said. “Going to say you guys turned yourselves in.”
“How did we know we were supposed to turn ourselves in?” I said. “Figure that one, smart guy?”
“Right now we don’t have to explain it. I can look cool and enigmatic. Later on, we got to tell them something, we will. Things don’t add up right, I got to throw you under the bus, and I’ll probably be sliding under there with you. I might quit being police chief, and you two might go over to Huntsville for a little stay and a cocktail party that involves a very sharp needle and a long nap.”
“That’s not nice,” Leonard said.
“Judging by our arrangements, I get the impression we’ll be having visitors soon,” I said.
“Yep,” Marvin said. “Coldpoint, Sheerfault, and Bobo are coming over. They want to play pin the tail on the donkeys.”
“I presume we are the donkeys,” Leonard said.
“Bingo,” Marvin said, and he went out.
We sat and waited.
Leonard said, “Right now, that cocktail and a nap sounds pretty good.”
Finally, Marvin came back. He had Coldpoint, Sheerfault, and Bobo with him. Sheerfault looked like he had been in a car wreck. Black eyes and cuts on his cheeks and forehead, one ear mashed and swollen. Bobo wasn’t bruised or injured in any way. Damn. I hit him pretty hard.
Marvin said to us, “Although you aren’t under arrest, I want to warn you that you have the right not to say shit and all that, and you can have a shyster if you want one.”
“We don’t need a goddamn lawyer,” Leonard said. “We ain’t done shit.”
“After tonight,” Coldpoint said, “you’re going to need a magician to get you out of this.”
“Everyone shut up,” Marvin said. “I’ll ask the questions. This is being recorded, by the way.”
“Recorded?” I said.
“Upscale shit is going on here,” Marvin said. “This room records sound and sight, and we got a doohickey that freshens the air.”
“Good,” Leonard said. “Let me go on record saying these three motherfuckers are liars and assholes. I beat Sheerfault’s ass like a dead goat, and Hap knocked Bobo’s dick in the dirt.”
“Noted,” Marvin said.
“We’re fellow cops,” Coldpoint said. “You can’t let him talk to us like that.”
“He was going on record,” Marvin said.
“What the hell?” Sheerfault said.
“You’re in my jurisdiction now,” Marvin said, “so put away the high hat.”
“This is our case,” Coldpoint said. “Happened in Camp Rapture. Our jurisdiction.”
“And they were picked up in my jurisdiction,” Marvin said, “and right now, there’s no real evidence of them committing a crime.”
“Sure there is,” said Coldpoint. “There’s an eyewitness says Hap’s car was at the old school.”
“Anonymous witness,” Marvin said.
“Still, we got to take them back on account of them attacking an officer,” Coldpoint said.
“And a monkey,” Leonard said. “Don’t forget the monkey took a beating too.”
Bobo swelled his chest, looked as if he might leap at Leonard.
“Hope you took your vitamins,” Leonard said to Bobo.
“Everyone, calm down,” Marvin said. “You fuckers are in my station now.”
“We go with them, let me tell you how it works out,” Leonard said. “They’ll say we tried to escape and they had to fire a few warning shots into the back of our heads. That would be a treat for you, wouldn’t it, Coldpoint? One dead nigger and a white-trash motherfucker stacked at the curb.”
“Thank you for including me,” I said.
“What I’m going to need for these two to go anywhere with anyone is some real facts,” Marvin said.
“Just told you some real facts,” Coldpoint said.
“No,” Marvin said. “You gave me some opinions and some stories I don’t believe. Leonard got in a fight with Sheerfault, but he didn’t get his ass whipped, for one.” Marvin nodded at Sheerfault. “Look at you, boy. Looks like someone climbed your ass with cleats, set you on fire, then shit on you until the flames went out. You won that fight, you must have taken a little extra time afterward to beat yourself up.”
“Whose side are you on?” Coldpoint said, glaring at Marvin.
“I haven’t picked a side yet,” Marvin said.
“We know you guys are friends,” Coldpoint said to Marvin. “You may find your time as police chief brief, you keep this friendship up. And you two. I’ve heard about you. You’re the kind that ends up in prison bending over a toilet bowl with a dick in your ass.”
“Been there,” Leonard said. “But not a prison, and the bending was by consent.”
“Shut up, all of you,” Marvin said. “I’m not kidding. Hap. Leonard. You want to spend the night in the jail on general principle, keep it up.”
Leonard drew a zipper motion over his mouth.
Marvin looked at me. I did the same.
Marvin turned to Sheerfault, said, “Have Barker’s death photos sent over to me.”
“We can get them for you tomorrow,” Coldpoint said.
“You can get them for me now,” Marvin said. “Give me your body cutter’s number, and I’ll call him. We got all kinds of technology these days, and those photos, which I’m sure were taken at the crime scene, can be here within seconds, faster than you can get a delivery pizza.”
“You have always been an asshole,” Coldpoint said.
“Yeah,” Marvin said. “I have. And I remember when you worked here, both of us cops together, and you have always been a scum-sucking bottom-feeder trying to look sharp and cool and well dressed. In final evaluation, you’re just a cheap hood with a badge. Maybe once you did something right and lawful, but I can’t prove it.”
“This is all recorded, remember?” Coldpoint said.
“For posterity, I hope,” Marvin said.
37
Marvin sent everyone out of the room but us. We were brought some coffee by Officer Carroll, a cop we had recently met. He was new to the force. A stout, nice-looking guy with a shaved head.
“Where have you guys shit this time?” he said.
“You might say we missed the toilet,” Leonard said.
“Never mind, I’ll read the reports,” he said.
“Good,” Leonard said. “I’ve told it about as much as I want to.”
“Just have your coffee,” Officer Carroll said.
The station had been renovated, but the coffee was still the same crap as before. Acid with a touch of colored water and caffeine and the slight aroma of mouse droppings.
“All right,” the officer said. “I got to ask this. Bobo, what’s up with him?”
“Got hit by a train,” Leonard said. “Did you know it raised his IQ?”
“Damn,” Carroll said, and went out. Leonard carefully watched him go.
“I kind of like the way he looks,” Leonard sa
id.
“He looks like a large-caliber bullet,” I said.
“I know.”
A short time later Officer Carroll came back.
“Hey, guys. Chief wants to see you. You can bring your coffee with you.”
Leonard looked into his cup, said, “Do we have to?”
38
Marvin was behind his office desk, leaning back in his chair. He had his heels on the desk. He had a cup of coffee from Starbucks.
“Hey,” I said, “we have to drink the cop-shop shit and you had Starbucks brought in for you.”
“Yep.”
We sat down and Officer Carroll leaned against the wall.
I said, “What happened to Manny?”
“Filled out an application and I sent a patrol to drop her off at her vehicle.”
“She got off easy,” I said.
“Yes, she did,” Marvin said. “Got the photos of Barker’s body.”
“Already?” Leonard said.
“Told you, faster than a pizza. Take a look. See anything interesting?”
Leonard took them from where they lay in front of Marvin and spread them on the desk in front of us. They were nude shots of Barker stretched out on a table. It made me long for him to be wearing his cheap suit.
“Very small dick, for one,” Leonard said. “Ugly feet.”
“The wounds,” Marvin said. “The beating.”
There were standard shots, and there were close-up shots. Marvin opened his desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass.
“Look at you,” Leonard said to Marvin. “Sherlock Homey.”
Marvin handed me the glass.
“Why him?” Leonard said.
“More responsible,” Marvin said.
I put the magnifying glass against the photo, roamed it over the close-up off Barker’s head. At the back of his ear I saw something. A bloody imprint.
I put my finger on what I saw, looked up at Marvin.
Marvin swung his feet off the desk, pulled the photo away from me, held it up to us with his thumb next to the spot I had indicated.
“That wound right there, it’s an odd mark,” Marvin said.
He put that photo down and snatched up another.
“Visible in most of the shots, but this one is really good. I don’t think Coldpoint had any idea what was there, wasn’t looking for it. Had his folks send it over because he felt he didn’t have to worry. They weren’t investigating anything because they had you two framed for it.”
Marvin tapped the photo with a finger. “Look close.”
Leonard leaned forward. “A little skull?”
“Yep,” Marvin said. “It is not a mark that naturally appears in nature. Barker did not have a case of the skulls, nor do fist and feet have skulls on them.”
“But rings can have skulls on them,” I said. “I noticed that ring when Sheerfault took it off to fight with Leonard.”
“Damn, look at you,” Leonard said. “You’re like Ellery Queen.”
“Who?” Carroll said.
“My opinion of you just went slightly downhill,” Leonard said, and he and Carroll grinned at one another.
I hadn’t gotten it until right then. He and Leonard were flirting.
“And I saw that ring on his finger tonight in the interrogation room,” Marvin said.
“I didn’t notice,” Leonard said. “I was thinking about how bad the coffee was.”
“That is why you will never be the keen detectives that Marvin and I are,” I said.
“Way I figure it,” Marvin said, “Bobo probably helped Sheerfault beat Barker to death. Maybe Coldpoint too, but I doubt it.”
“Manny said he didn’t do his own dirty work,” I said.
“And she’d be right,” Marvin said. “I’ve known him for a long time, and I’ve disliked him just as long.”
“I assume this helps our situation?” Leonard said.
“It does. Another thing will help is there was no gun taken from Barker. Right?”
“None at all,” I said.
“And I’m going to give the gun that was not taken back to you to get rid of so that it is not in my possession. You get caught with it before you get rid of it, then the gun will exist, and your balls will be in a vise. A gun I didn’t know about will have turned up, and it will complicate matters.”
“I didn’t shoot him with it,” I said.
“Yes, but it is probably registered to him, and if you were to have beat him to death, you might have taken it off his body. Dig? No use giving them any kind of ammunition for a defense.”
“Dig, daddy-o,” I said.
“Get rid of this nonexistent gun and go home.”
“Are you going to arrest Sheerfault?” Leonard said.
“That’s the plan, but I’m going to lay this case out really good. We’re checking for someone else’s DNA on Barker’s body. Beat a guy to death wearing a ring like that, it might have cut into you, might have caused you to bleed and leave some DNA. Maybe Sheerfault or Bobo slobbered on the body while it was being kicked and punched. We get that, well, they can’t say that anyone could have had a skull ring. We find DNA and we got the ring too, we got those motherfuckers by the short hairs.”
“Charm and Mrs. Elton?” I asked.
“We’ll take care of them,” he said. “Might want to watch yourselves as well as keep a close eye on Brett and Chance.”
“So we can go?” I said.
“You can go. And remember, the gun that doesn’t exist needs to not exist at all. Least not on your person or in any location near you, and keep your fingerprints off of it.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
Marvin reached in the drawer again and took out Barker’s cheap pistol. It was wrapped in a handkerchief. He handed it and the handkerchief to me.
“Get rid of it,” he said. “I’ve wiped it clean.”
39
Officer Carroll drove us over to our office.
“You look like you work out regularly,” Leonard said to Carroll when we stopped. “Maybe you could use a partner? We could work out together.”
“I might could do that,” Carroll said. “I’ll consider it, sure will.”
“Good,” Leonard said, and he got out of the car and closed the door and watched Carroll drive away.
“Okay, you’re both gay, right?”
“Wow,” Leonard said. “You are so tuned in.”
“And you are interested in him?”
“And him in me.”
“How do you know?”
“We have hidden gay impulses that tell us things that you heteros don’t know about. We had an entire conversation telepathically.”
“What was the subject?”
“Quantum physics, of course,” Leonard said.
We went upstairs and locked the door. I said, “This isn’t exactly a safe house. I mean, hell, we work here. Even Buffy could track us here, and she is the worst dog ever when it comes to dog stuff.”
“Let’s have a Dr Pepper and then figure it out,” Leonard said.
“I still need to get rid of the gun.”
“I want a Dr Pepper first.”
“Will you kick and scream if you don’t have one?”
“Probably.”
“All right, Dr Pepper, then we get rid of the gun, and then I’m going to check on Brett and Chance and the ever-vigilant Buffy.”
Leonard pulled a Dr Pepper from the fridge and I got a bottled water. We sat at the desk with our chairs turned so we could look out the window through the gauzy curtains. We had the lights off. We could see out, but as long as the light was off, no one could see in.
“You know what would be nice?” Leonard said.
“Winning the lottery?” I said.
“That’s good too. But I was thinking of cookies.”
“People in hell want ice water.”
“I don’t know about that, but I could sure use a cookie.”
“Sounds like a personal problem,” I said.
&n
bsp; I pulled out my cell and called Brett.
She answered on the first ring, sounding less sick.
“So,” I said, “you’re healing?”
“Both of us are doing pretty good,” Brett said. “And just so you know, we’re not home anymore. I decided to take your advice. We were too sick to wrestle a paper bag and win. Anyone had come for us, most likely we would have been asleep.”
“What about the ferocious Buffy?”
“Most likely she too would have been asleep.”
“So where are you?”
“Safe house where you and Leonard stayed,” she said. “I called Marvin and told him I didn’t want to worry you two, but way I was feeling, I ought to go somewhere safe and take Chance and our hound with us. He set it up.”
“He didn’t mention it to me,” I said.
“Probably thought I told you.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Glad you and Chance and Buffy are there.”
“There’s a pretty big yard, and Buffy likes that.”
“And there’s a barn across the road from the house?”
“There is,” she said.
“Yep,” I said, “that’s the one where we stayed a while back, along with Jim Bob, Vanilla, and the cosmopolitan Booger.”
“One other thing.”
“Shoot,” I said.
“Chance lost her job at the paper. Since she was part-time, she doesn’t have sick leave, and with her out as long as she’s been with the flu, they let her go.”
“Ah, shit.”
“She says she wants to work for us,” Brett said.
“Hell,” I said. “I don’t want to work for us.”
“She thinks it might be exciting.”
“It might be,” I said, “which is why I don’t want her to do it.”
“What say we kind of go at it on a trial basis? I can give her donkey work to do, and if she holds up to that, she can maybe move into other areas. She could make a bit of money that way.”
“We barely make a bit of money,” I said. “But sure. I don’t want her not to have a job. She’ll most likely bore of it anyway.”
“So it’s a go?”
“Yep. But for right now, you two just get well.”
I heard Chance squeal in the background.
“She’s been listening, hasn’t she?”