DIRTY SALLY
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Sweet Homicide
11:30
A.M. APD Homicide Squad Briefing Room
A
newspaper story on police brutality prompted the Fifth
Floor to bring in a conflict avoidance consultant
who lectured us on the levels of force. He left his
chart on the wall:
1. COMMAND PRESENCE: BEING THERE.
2. VERBAL DIRECTIVE:
"PUT
YOUR HANDS ON THE WALL."
3. PHYSICAL
DIRECTIVE: PUSHING
SUSPECT AGAINST WALL.
Jeffries
added a final level in grease pencil:
4.
Beating suspect to death.
Senior
Sergeant Lloyd "Buck" Jeffries, lead cracker,
waddled in, tossing a sneer in my direction, followed
by sidekick Milsap, and sat opposite me. Both wore
cowboy boots, their badges and guns cleverly concealed
under Buddha-size guts. Jeffries slicked his reddish-brown
hair back from his ruddy face with what could have
been lard. He was the bigger and fatter of the two,
but no bigger than our CO. "I
weigh more, but Jeffries is fatter, " Miles told
me once. "He thinks fat. Jeffries has
a fat soul."
I
assaulted Jeffries a few weeks earlier for a comment
he made during our last full-squad case, the ice cream
killings. Somebody robbed an ice cream joint at closing,
then covered his trail by torching the place and killing
the staff, four teenage white girls, what the press
likes to call "innocent victims."
In the months after Joey died I drank every night.
When my number came up on the ice cream thing, I couldn't
pull it together to take charge. Miles pulled me from
the case, the first black mark on my record. The second
came a week later when I found Jeffries in a taco
joint, letting loose with some ideas about Mexicans.
I told him to cool it. Jeffries jolted to see me,
then grinned, oozing malice. "Didn't mean nothin'
by it, Reles. I like Mexican barbecue!" Suddenly
the image of Joey Velez's charred body flashed across
my eyes. My skin ran hot, the fury bubbled up in my
chest and it burst to the surface before I saw it
coming.
Jeffries
was out of commission for two days. "I didn't
do nothin'," he told Miles. "Damn
Jew walks in and goes psycho on me." Miles suspended
me immediately. The rage I'd learned as a kid, that
had cost me my marriage, now jeopardized my job. Jeffries
always hated Joey Velez for being Mexican, marrying
a white woman, making Senior Sergeant first, and God
knows what else. He hated me from the day Joey mentored
me onto the squad, a New York Jew college boy. And
now he hated me for knocking the shit out of him in
front of witnesses. And fresh back from suspension,
I had two strikes on my record—fucking up on
the case and assaulting Jeffries. He'd do anything
to help me get that third strike.
The
secret about the rumor of my insanity was that it
was partly true. In the months after Joey's death
there were days I couldn't form a whole sentence,
nights I woke up screaming from my dreams. I'd see
flashes of Joey everywhere. A moment's thought made
me realize it was just my imagination, but my imagination
was as vivid as my nightmares: I dreamed almost as
much awake as I did asleep. Sometimes it was hard
to know the difference.
So
after suspension I vowed to pull it together. I couldn't
make myself sane, so I decided to act sane. What cop
would know the difference? If it seemed like people
were laughing at me, I'd act like they weren't. No
way of knowing if I imagined it or not. And if I saw
Joey I'd remind myself he wasn't there. But when acting
crazy might give me an advantage, I wouldn't pass
it up.
Internal
Affairs determined the squad had "internal rancor"
and bounced Jeffries's buddy, Marks, back to Vice.
Velez and Marks got replaced by Lonnie Waller from
Vice and James Torbett from Narcotics. Torbett was
black—you could hear jaws drop the first time
he walked into the squad room. No surprise he didn't
laugh off the nigger jokes Jeffries liked to tell
when he was feeling warm and friendly.
The
squad settled into the Briefing Room. Torbett sat
on the left, solid build, five-ten, thirty-nine, gray
suit and tie, every muscle in his face clenched high-blood-pressure
tight. In interviews he put on this "don't mind
me I'm just a sleepy cop" face. But his silences
during bullshitting sessions won him the suspicion
of the squad and the nickname "Reverend"
behind his back.
Between
Torbett and me sat Lonnie Waller, a neat, goofy, low-key
brownshoe with plastic-frame glasses, thinning sandy
hair, forty or so; divorced, no kids, no accent. Born
in Utah, Waller might have been considered suspect
by the squad of Texans, but my New York accent and
swarthy complexion took the heat off him so I think
he was grateful. He was sharp and quick-witted in
a way that no one else on Homicide was, and it made
me want to see him as a co-conspirator, two immigrants
on a squad of shitkickers.
Torbett
and Waller got partnered together a lot since they
joined Homicide at the same time, but nothing between
them smelled like friendship. Partnerships on the
force were unofficial: you could get teamed with someone
for as little as a ten-minute interview if it suited
the case. I didn't stick with anyone for more than
a day after Joey died and I didn't plan on it. But
if I did, Waller was first in line.
Jake
Lund was a wiry computer information search specialist
with a badge and a gun. A fresh haircut gave away
the forceps marks in his skull-the outside world didn't
interest him from the start—and he sat across
from Torbett with a Dr. Pepper and a box of Jujubes.
He traded regular duties when he could for the privilege
of chasing information on the computer or the phone.
These trades were strictly verboten but he
was worth more in the office so the brass let it slide.
Our
CO sat down last, on my right. Lieutenant Miles Niederwald,
head of Homicide, forty-six but could pass for sixty,
two-hundred and fifty pounds under a stooped back
and wisps of white hair flaked with dandruff specks
the size of maggots. A professional drunk, Miles white-knuckled
it until lunch, then painfully rationed enough drinks
to get through the day without passing out or getting
the shakes. Once I asked him if he ever drank water
and he grimaced. "Fish fuck in it."
At
Joey's memorial, Miles kept me from following Joey's
wife, Rachel, when she walked out on the eulogy, delivered
by newly appointed police chief Lucille Denton: "...years
of service, shining example." Denton didn't say
Joey was a credit to his race but I could tell she
wanted to. When she got up to her friendship with
Joey (they never met), Rachel made a good clip up
the aisle and pushed out the double doors. Miles's
fat hand grabbed me as I jumped up to follow. "Don't,"
he said. "Everyone'll think you're screwin' her."
Miles wore the look of defeat you see on older cops
outranked by women, in this case Chief Lucille Denton,
a fifty-something heel-clopping office-manager type
from California. Her name brought a scowl to his face.
She was at APD less than a year and her strong suit
was looking good on TV: most of APD wanted to see
how good she looked on pavement, outlined in chalk.
Miles
Niederwald the CO, Jeffries and Milsap the crackers,
Jake the geek, Torbett the reverend, Waller the joker
and Reles the nut: all present and accounted for.
Used to be Joey would lead the briefing and I'd toss
in useful details. Not today. The room reeked of ammonia.
Jake chewed Jujubes, Waller flicked the flint on his
lucky Zippo lighter, Jeffries spit tobacco juice into
a Coke bottle, all watching to see what crazy Reles
would do. Waller leaned toward me with a grin and
whispered, "I bet Jake twenty bucks you'd flip
out before the end of the briefing. Do it and we'll
split the difference." I swigged coffee, killed
half the fluorescents and lit up a slide of the underpass.
I said, "Case Number 88-09-12-H-OO26."
"25,"
Jeffries said.
"Waller's
murder-suicide was 25, this is 26. Victim found in
the ravine
under the 700 block of East Twelfth, arms, legs and
head missing, neck missing, skinned around the midriff."
I lit up the autopsy slide, the mutilated torso on
Hay's table, the strip around the middle exposing
a four-inch-high view of her stomach, intestines,
et cetera. Not a sound in the room. "All we got
is female, white or possibly light-skinned Latina,
likely brunette, late teens or early twenties, and
blood typing info. ABO: A-negative. PGM: one neg.
Genotype: AH. Phenotype: A. EAP: BA. Date of birth:
say '65 to '71 at the outside. Dead three or four
days, refrigerated. Keep an eye out for more parts
we can match, similar actions in the past."
Miles
moved close to me, but not so close as to keep anybody
from hearing him. "Tell 'em the rest."
"Thanks,
Miles. From the damage to her uterus," autopSy
slide, "she had human papilloma virus and chlamydia,
and she had 'em for a while." I could see them
mentally putting on rubber gloves.
"Tell
'em the rest."
I
made a note to scratch Miles off my Christmas card
list. "Enlarged liver and kidney discoloration,
likely alcohol and drug abuse." Their interest
in the case was already slipping—cops want to
think they're avenging an innocent—but I couldn't
let Miles prompt me again so I gave them the works.
"Multiple strains of semen in the vagina, no
violent penetration. And multiple strains of semen
in her stomach." Burst of laughter from the squad.
Belly full of spunk, just another whore killing. "We
don't assume she was a whore," I said as the
chuckles wound down. "And if she was, there's
still a law against killing her."
We
took turns being in charge, but most homicides were
more straightforward and didn't warrant more than
one or two officers. This was my first full-squad
case without Joey, not counting the ice cream killings.
If we didn't nail it fast, I'd be rotated off the
squad before the file got closed—unsolved. I
left the lights off, the projector humming and the
autopsy slide on the screen. "Whoever left these
remains in Shit Creek had no trouble getting rid of
the rest of the body. Al's Corpse Disposal and Dog
Food Factory wasn't gonna take the arms and legs and
refuse the torso. And if they did, no one would drop
it in a heavily trafficked area six blocks from HQ
unless they wanted it to be found."
Torbett:
"You saying he was trying to get caught?"
I
shrugged.
Waller:
"Maybe he's a psycho."
Jeffries:
"Or just really stupid."
Me:
"Who'd be smart enough to cut up the body that
neat and stupid enough to leave it where he did?"
No answers. "Think out loud. No points off for
stupid ideas."
Jake:
"Someone trying to send a message?"
Me:
"To who? No one would know who the victim was."
Torbett:
"Gang related?"
Everyone:
"There are no gangs in Austin." Universal
laughter, except Reverend Torbett.
Jake:
"Sex crime?"
Me:
"Maybe. She could have been kidnapped and used
for a sex slave, but for how long? Factor in the advanced
stages of multiple sexually transmitted diseases,
absence of violent penetration." Jeffries chewed
that thought, then spit a long stream of tobacco juice
into his bottle.
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