Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You (19 page)

I put myself 10-8 as I walked out the door, and the dispatcher immediately said he was holding, could I copy. I sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

We get it drilled into our heads early on never to use the term
routine patrol
because in just one second everything can change. Nothing is routine. You start thinking “routine,” that's when you get hurt. But the truth is, most days are routine—a series of never-ending calls that you fill out the paperwork on. The truth is, most of police work is boring.

The rest of the shift passed in a blur of calls—a few thefts, a loose dog, three traffic accidents, a disorderly person who turned out to have a warrant for fraud, an unknown disturbance that remained unknown because no one ever came to the door, and a quick run through four different supermarket parking lots netting five tickets for parking in a handicapped zone to keep Sergeant Mosher happy and off my ass.

I managed to write up my report on Jeannette in between calls, propping my clipboard up against the steering wheel, carefully detailing everything I did and saw, except using my pocketknife on the screen and not announcing myself. By the end of shift I wanted a strong drink, a cold shower, and a hot bubble bath, preferably all at the same time.

Gwen was already in the precinct, sitting in one of the old school desks that always struck me as incongruous for the setting, signing a stack of reports. Her out-of-the-box blonde hair was mashed down from hours under a police hat and way too much hairspray. My own probably didn't look much better.

“Motherfuckers, Sarah; they're all motherfuckers.”

I nodded and threw my reports into Mosher's in-box, all signed. Davy, thank God, had already left. I think I would have throttled him. Something funny, indeed.

Gwen shifted in the small desk. “Stopped this gal hauling ass down Florida Boulevard. Claimed she didn't know how fast she was going because she had her baby's picture up in front of the ‘speedthermometer.' Speedthermometer! Jesus!” Her laugh sounded like a burro with hiccups.

I barely smiled, busied myself with checking in my portable radio and shotgun, conscious she was studying me.

“Tell me about it, girl.” She got up from the desk, swiveling her hips to avoid catching her holster on the arm of the chair. “I'll buy you a so-dee pop.”

Under all her gruffness, Gwen was a mother hen; she relished
fussing over me and covering my ass when I needed it. Which I had upon occasion. Nothing serious—backing my unit into a ditch when I was miles outside my assigned patrol zone; firing my weapon at a fleeing burglary suspect whom I had no chance in hell of hitting, but I was pissed he'd run; calling in sick when Ricky persuaded me a day in bed together was infinitely more interesting than work; drinking a little too close to shift time. Gwen hadn't flinched. She'd gotten two other units to help push mine out of the ditch; she'd convinced the sole witness to my shooting three rounds into the air that no shots had ever been fired; she told the Lieutenant she'd checked on me earlier that day, and boy was I sick; she loaded me up on coffee and suggested none too mildly that I stick to drinking after shift, not before. Her loyalty was fierce despite her rough edges.

We leaned up against my unit out on the back lot and watched the evening shift leave for their tour of duty as I quickly filled her in on the basics of Jeannette's demise. Despite the increased humidity from the usual afternoon threat of clouds hovering to the south, I welcomed the heat. It took me out of my brain.

“That's a sick motherfucker. Gotta be the husband.” Gwen methodically worked her thumb down each knuckle of her right hand until it popped.

“Most likely. Too much anger, too much passion to it.”

“Unless it's some wacko serial killer.”

“I wouldn't bet on it. Facts don't add up. They usually dump the bodies somewhere else.” I kicked at the gravel. “And they aren't that sloppy.” Time to polish my Red Wing boots. Again. The Lieutenant liked his officers spit-shined.

“Not always. That's all we need, some sicko scumbag torturing women.”

“Well, we got it. One woman at least. And I'm betting on the husband.”

“You don't think she was a hooker, do you? We've got that guy been raping and killing hookers off North Airline.”

“Jeannette was not a hooker.” I finished my soda and tossed it through the open window of my unit.

“You never know about these women, Sarah.”

“Gwen.”

“Come on, she could've been.”

I raised an eyebrow.

She snorted, the one that meant “You're such a fuckin mama,” and shook her head. “All right, all right,” she said. “Ms. Jeannette was not a hooker.”

“I want the group to do this one,” I said, expecting her usual grumbles. Gwen figured it was an exercise in futility, called it “touchy-feely shit we shouldn't be dredging up.” Said it made more sense to go light a candle at St. Joseph's.

Gwen started in on the knuckles of her left hand. “Talk to Tracy about it?”

“Yep.”

“And?”

“She's got the heejies about it for some reason.”

“Can't discount those. Remember that call over on North Street?”

“This is different. We aren't the target. The woman's already dead.” I pushed my lower back harder against my unit, relieving some of the pressure from the gun belt digging down on my hipbones and into my kidneys.

“You aren't going to do anything foolish, are you, girl?”

“I'm just going back there.”

A couple of uniforms came out the back door carrying shotguns. We watched them stow the shotguns in the crevice between the unit's seat and floor, slip their five-cell flashlights into the gap between the prisoner screen and the inside roof, pull rain gear out of the trunk. I looked up at the sky. The afternoon storm was about to hit.

Gwen leaned up against me, bumped my shoulder. “I'm with you, you know.”

“I know.” The smile I gave her was only my second real smile of the day. “I know.”

 

I lived in an area of town that had no real name, no clearly defined neighborhood. It was on the wrong side of Government Street to be considered the Garden District—an eclectic collection of mansions, bungalows, and renovated shotgun houses—and on the wrong side of
Acadian to be part of the upwardly mobile Capitol Heights area. My garage apartment sat back from the road, a huge live oak full of ball moss sheltering one side, in the middle of a cluster of short streets inhabited mostly by older widows. With the exception of the Medi-Vac helicopters flying in and out of the BRG Hospital four blocks away, it was quiet.

I'd been here nearly three years, and despite Gwen's occasional attempts to get me to buy my own place (“a woman over thirty should own her own house, Sarah”) and Ricky's recent less-than-subtle hints that we should live together (“I'm over here most every night anyway”), I had no intention of leaving. I didn't want the responsibility of owning, and I liked picking and choosing the time I spent with Ricky. I felt safe here, safer than any of the apartments and duplexes I'd lived in during my ten years as a cop. There was only one access point: a massive, solid-wood door on the ground floor with three locks. A second solid-wood door at the top of the stairs with two locks. And anyone who wanted to come through the windows either had to throw an extension ladder up against a wall or possess Spiderman-like qualities.

I passed my landlady's tiny stucco house and pulled up to the garage. As I got out of my unit, I heard the familiar whir and click of the electric shuffler my landlady and her friends used for their Monday-afternoon bridge game. The game was less about bridge and more about the gin and tonics and neighborhood gossip that flowed faster and deeper than the Mississippi. I'd sat in on a couple of hands at their invitation soon after I moved here and quickly determined those old ladies could run circles around me—and drink me under the table.

They yoo-hooed and waved at me to join them on the sun porch, but I smiled and shook my head. Upstairs, I let my shoulders slump, tossed my keys on the couch, started unzipping and unsnapping, letting the edges of my cop persona start to dissipate as I ditched my gun belt—blessed relief of the absence of weight—stripped to underpants and camisole, walked to the bathroom, pulled the bobby pins out of my hair, combed it back with a wet brush, filled the sink up with cold water, and submerged my face in it.

I wandered aimlessly around the apartment, trying to figure out
what to do next. I hated day shift; the hours stretched out in front of you. At least on evening and dog shifts there was work and there was sleep, with a few hours for play crammed in and no energy left for much of anything else.

Eventually, I fixed a bourbon straight up and sat out on the porch off my kitchen and tried not to think. I briefly considered going out to City Park and blasting the hell out of the backboard as I so often did after day shift, but the sight of my racquet made my stomach quiver. When the afternoon shower hit with a vengeance, I made a second drink and carried it to the bath, where I soaked for a long time, dozing.

Later that evening Ricky and I sat at an old table from my parents' house and peeled shrimp, dipping them in the aioli he'd made, talking mostly about the former governor's latest shenanigans, which were considerable; about the mayor's attempts to keep Catfish Town financially feasible. Ricky teased me about my insistence on deveining each shrimp before I ate it. He'd taken off his shirt and shoes, and I watched the muscles bunch and relax in his arms and down his chest, eyed the thin tuft of dark hair that trailed below the waistband on his jeans. For the first time that day I felt soft.

The storm had cleared out and a light breeze smelling of wet grass came in through the windows. Ricky's massive Rhodesian Ridgeback sprawled on the floor snoring, her head resting on my foot. She was a beautiful grayish-tan dog named, for reasons Ricky could never explain, Peacock. She didn't have an arrogant, showy bone in her body. He frequently accused me of loving the dog more than him.

“That would be an affirmative,” I'd reply. I didn't much care for cats, but dogs I had a soft spot for. They trusted so implicitly and loved unconditionally, the only creatures that had those characteristics as far as I could determine, besides babies. The only time I'd ever teared up at a scene was on a burglary off Barber Street where the perp had shot and killed the complainant's two gorgeous German shepherds, which had been gated off in the kitchen. The guy stood there, shaking his head, and said, “Why'd they have to kill my dogs, man?” I'd had no answer to that one.

“You hear about the letter they found?” Ricky asked.

“Who?” I said, still staring at Peacock, wondering what she was dreaming about with all those nose twitches.

“The one that woman wrote.”

I tensed slightly, remembering Barker's earlier comment about a letter. “From today?”

He nodded.

“Her name was Jeannette,” I said softly. “What about the letter?”

“Jeannette.” He nodded again, got up, washed his hands, then pulled a sheaf of oversized colored photographs out of his backpack, sifted through them, and handed me one.

“They found this letter in a desk drawer with a bunch of other stuff,” he said.

I stared at the photograph. Two pages of narrow, spiral notebook paper were barely readable. They lay on top of other papers and two paperback books, one of which I could just make out the title of:
Night of the Assassin
.

“How'd you get this?” I said.

“Kirk. I went down to HQ while they developed the stuff.” He started peeling shrimp again.

I looked at him. “Why?”

“I thought it was interesting.”

“Did you?” I turned the photograph sideways. Her handwriting was painfully childish: big curvy letters, tiny circles over the
i
's, fat loops, self-consciously styled
e
's and
a
's, spelling and grammar errors. I started with what she'd numbered page (2); only four lines were visible:…
if it was going to ruin our marriage. For the past two weeks I have been home waiting on you and you are still…

Page (4) lay crosswise over page (2). I turned the photograph upside down and continued reading:…
after a hard days work and talk to me about nothing in particular but everything in general. I would like a husband that doesn't put that much important on sex. I want a husband that I can sit down and express my likes and dislikes, my fears, and my disappointments with true understanding not just be listening because I'm telling. I would like to do the same with you. Honey I sorry this letter is so long. I have a lot on my mind. I want this marriage to work because…

I put the picture to one side, took a sip of white wine, and
methodically peeled another shrimp, deveined it, dipped it carefully in the aioli so it was completely covered, then put it in my mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

“Interesting, huh?” Ricky was careless as he peeled and often had to spit out pieces of shell still clinging to the shrimp, which he did now, grinning at me as he wiped his face with the back of his hand. Peacock groaned and stretched, licking my bare foot once before she returned to her dreams.

“What we think is that she wrote that letter and gave it to him, her husband. The whole thing reads like that. Mentions him hitting her and stuff too. It was dated a week ago.” Ricky chewed noisily as he talked, drank from his Abita Turbodog with enthusiasm. “He got pissed, went back out on the road, thought about it awhile, stewing away, came back, she tried to talk to him, and he started torturing her, figured he'd show her who was boss, and eventually he just went too far and killed her.”

“Is that so?”

Ricky stopped, a shrimp halfway to his mouth. “What'd I say?”