Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You (20 page)

I took a deep breath and was about to launch into a withering attack when the phone rang.

Ricky laughed and bit into the shrimp. “Saved by the bell,
cher.
”

“Fuck you,” I said as I went back to the bedroom, picked up the phone.

Tracy spoke quickly. “I'm not thrilled about doing this.”

“Tracy—”

“Save it. We'll do this one. Tomorrow night, eleven-thirty. Park on the levee, across from the T-intersection. We'll go on to her place in two cars, park beyond her house.”

“I'll call Gwen,” I said.

“No talking about this at work tomorrow, okay?”

“Thank you.”

“We're in and out, ten minutes tops, understand?”

“Thank you,” I said again, but she'd hung up. I punched in Gwen's number, and told her the plan.

“We're not going in the fuckin' house, right?” she asked.

“Do we ever?”

“Done. Pick you up?”

“You're on the way. I'll swing by and get you.”

“Ricky over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Plant a big wet juicy one on him for me.”

“Oh, please.”

Her burro hiccup laugh blasted out of the earpiece as I hung up. I turned around and jumped to see Ricky's outline standing in the doorway, backlit from the kitchen.

“Girls' night out?”

“How long you been standing there?” I spoke sharply, still pissed at his enthusiasm over Jeannette's crime scene.

He walked over, put his arms around my waist. “Long enough to know you're deserting me for a bunch of women tomorrow night.”

I stood stiffly under his touch. “Gwen and I are going out for drinks with a few others after they get off shift.”

“I'll be here, if you want.”

“We'll be back really late.”

“Trying to get rid of me,
cher
?” Just an undertone of teasing to his voice.

Yes, no, I thought. It was unsettling sometimes to realize how much he cared.

“About earlier, I was insensitive.” He kissed my hair, rubbed his hands up my back. “That woman, Jeannette, she got to you today, didn't she?”

I nodded into his chest, fighting the urge to sink into his warmth, trying to hold on to the more familiar feeling of irritation. He trailed his tongue down to the place where neck becomes shoulder and bit lightly. He lingered there, kissing and licking and nibbling until I gave in, moaned, brought my hands up, and pulled him hard against me, losing myself in the firm curves of his body, his smell, the taste of his flesh, remembering that this was why I stayed with him.

We undressed each other quickly and collapsed onto the bed, me saying, “Hurry, hurry,” and him saying, “Slow down,
cher
, slowly, hush,” as his fingers and lips traveled over my body. Peacock lumbered onto the bed, licking bare flesh, taking up most of the available
space, and we tumbled to the floor, me on top of Ricky, and I didn't think for a long, long time.

Much later, when Ricky was sleeping soundly, still on the floor, and Peacock was snoring crosswise on the bed, I slipped into Ricky's shirt and went to the kitchen porch, lit a cigarette, and watched the sky, too bright from the city's lights even at this time of night to see many stars, watching the nearly full moon bob in between the leaves of a tulip tree, thinking about Jeannette and her longing to be heard, her desire for a deeper connection, how being lonely in a relationship was the worst kind of lonely, those silly romance novels in her car, her impish grin in the picture on her dresser, her mangled, tortured body. I imagined what it must have been like for her, what she was thinking as he came at her with the pliers, the cigarette, the tennis racquet, what he might have said to her—and what he didn't. Round and round until I pulled the wastebasket over and threw up, dry heaves wracking my body as the tears finally came. I sat against the wall and sobbed. Peacock appeared and leaned heavily against me, licking my face, her breath stale and doggy, trying to catch each tear. By the time I'd finished, my cheeks and nose and chin were sticky from her tongue. I wiped my face on Ricky's shirt, lit another cigarette, and contemplated all the ways I'd like to torture that sumabitch Vince Durham.

 

Gwen was in a full-out snit when I picked her up the next night. Seemed her husband, Joe, was not pleased she was going out with the girls, thought she should transfer out of uniform so she could work a straight day shift, didn't care for the chicken casserole and mirlitons she'd fixed for dinner. He thought she might have gained a little weight.

I nodded and said “uh-huh” at the appropriate times as Gwen vented. I was used to it. The job was hard on marriages.

Ask any cop why he or she became a cop and half of them will say, with a wry grin, it seemed like a good idea at the time; the other half will say they knew someone on the force—and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Only a handful will claim they'd always wanted
to be a cop; those are the ones to watch out for. The job often eats them alive, or they eat up the job.

Gwen had started as a civilian in Traffic Records, a common entry point for women back then. Her brother had been a cop for a short time; now he ran a service station off Jefferson and made good money.

I'd dreamed of being a veterinarian. My daddy'd had a small piece of land in east Texas that didn't yield much—he was always fixing somebody's car or tractor or refrigerator to pay the bills. After my mother died from ovarian cancer when I was eleven, he'd laid out our choices: stay and probably go under, or move and have a fighting chance. We drew up a list of pros and cons, weighed our options, and faced the facts: the farm would have to go. We moved to Port Arthur so Daddy could work on a shrimp boat. He keeled over from a heart attack my freshman year at LSU. I hung in for two more years, but the science classes were hard, and, to be honest, I'd discovered my body and was more interested in sex than in studying.

I worked retail jobs for a couple of years, but I was bored, restless. Then a boyfriend, a parish deputy with a good smile and even better hands, whom I'd been dating for several months, suggested I try the police department or the sheriff's office; even the State Police, he said, were hiring.

“People shooting at you? I don't think so,” I'd told him.

He'd laughed. “Nah, not as a cop, honey, as a dispatcher or working in Records. It's decent pay, good benefits.”

On a lark, I took the civil service exam and scored surprisingly high. When there was an opening, I joined the city police as a dispatcher, working rotating shifts. I liked both the simplicity and complexity of the job, matching up units with calls as if I were working some enormous chessboard. I was also very good at it.

I broke up with the deputy, but his comment stayed with me. Why had he laughed at the notion of me as a cop? The longer I worked in the subterranean level of the Governmental Building where Communications was housed, the more I realized I wanted to be out there, on the streets, not just sitting behind some desk. I wanted to work the source, not function as an intermediary.

I pulled myself away from my thoughts when Gwen snorted.

“What?” I said.

“You've said barely a word since I got in this car,” Gwen said. “Something bugging you?” She'd pulled her hair into a loose ponytail and wasn't wearing her wedding ring. But her face was made up for an evening out, her diamond studs were in, and her perfume was suffocating. I rolled both our windows down farther.

I glanced at her quickly and smiled. “Nope.”

“You're not saying much.”

“You've been doing all the talking,” I pointed out.

“And what've I been saying?”

I shrugged sheepishly. “I was thinking about when we joined the department.”

“What the hell for?”

“Wandering mind.”

“Girl.” She shook her head and popped two knuckles on her right hand. “This shit isn't good for you.”

“Thinking?”

She snorted. “That too. I meant going out and praying over dead people you don't know.”

“Fuck you.” I lingered on the vowels, grinned at her to take the sting out. “I don't pray.”

She grinned back. “Right.”

We were quiet as I drove down Dalrymple, the university lakes shimmering off to our left despite the cloud cover.

“Remember Letticia Baldin?” I said.

“Who?” Gwen lit a menthol cigarette and hung her arm out the car window.

“The little girl in Tigerland last winter.”

“That was a fucking mess,” Gwen said, rubbing a thumb across her brow. “Jesus. You're on a roll. What's eating at you?”

You, partly, I thought, and realized that was more than half true, and it made me sad. Gwen had never done wrong by me. If anything, I owed her. But there was a place inside me that was restless, raw, crowded, and had been for some time. I couldn't put my finger on the cause. Find the cause, you correct the problem. I sighed, shifted in my seat. We passed by the sorority and fraternity houses, crossed Highland, swung around the Indian Mounds. Gwen popped more knuckles, took deep drags on her cigarette.

We'd just driven past the tiger's cage, LSU's real live mascot pacing somewhere in its concrete cave, when she said, “How the hell do you remember their names?” and for a second I thought she meant the tiger.

I glanced over at her. “How the hell can't you?”

“I remember the motherfuckers who do it. The rest is as much of a blur as I can make it. James Duncan.”

I nodded. “The stepdad.”

“That felt good, catching him.” She pitched her cigarette.

“Gwen!”

“What?” Her tone was just as testy as mine.

I pointed at the ashtray, and she scowled, gazed out the window. I wondered if she really didn't remember Letticia Baldin's name. We'd worked it together, brought the group out two nights later to the parking lot that faced her first-floor apartment.

Letticia Baldin had been a vivacious nine-year-old with poor vision, dyslexia, and an aptitude for art. She'd been the oldest of five children and frequently ran the household, or attempted to. Her mother was a drunk, her stepdad a crack addict. Her mother, in a moment of lucidity, had thrown James Duncan out several weeks before. He came back to the apartment one night, strung out and looking to steal something he could sell to support his habit. He thought everyone was gone, but Letticia was there, sleeping in the front bedroom. We knew from his statement that she stood up to him, told him to get out. We knew from the crime scene that she fought and fought hard. He beat her, stabbed her multiple times with a pocketknife, tried to strangle her with his hands. He hit her so hard on the chest with a hammer that her heart was bruised from its impact with her spine. Still she fought: she clawed him, broke two ribs, and left three bite marks in his arm and upper back. Finally he took an electrical cord, stood on her body, and pulled it tight around her neck until she stopped kicking and breathing.

“You know, I worry about you,” Gwen said as we turned onto River Road.

“You back on that again?”

“You work this shit over too much.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah you do.”

“No, I do not.”

“You're doing it right now. I can see it in your face, girl.”

“Gwen.”

She gave a small strangled laugh. “You know what I do out there? I pray we catch whatever pissant fucker did it and hope we don't get caught ourselves.”

“Then why do you do it?”

She looked at me like I was stupid. “Because you ask me. The more important question is why
you
do it.”

I shrugged.

“Like beating a dead corpse,” she muttered, then did her burro's hiccup laugh. “Sick pun, huh?”

I bit back a reply as she pointed, said, “Look, they're up there.”

We drove up the dirt road that led to the top of the levee. Four cars were pulled off in the grass. Tracy, Cathy, and Angie leaned up against one car. Marge and Beth, partners out of Plank Road Precinct, leaned against another, a study in contrasts: Marge was wide and solid with dark wavy hair and thick features; Beth was tiny, delicate almost—the gun on her hip was almost bigger than her forearm and gave her an unbalanced look—her blondish-white hair was cropped as short as a man's. Like Gwen and me, everyone wore jeans, sneakers, and dark sleeveless tops or T-shirts. All of us had been on the job for seven years or more except Angie, whom I didn't know well but thought had too quick a smile. The others I liked and trusted: Beth for her steadiness and practicality, Marge for her grittiness and humor, Cathy for her decency and integrity.

Tracy walked up looking tired. Somehow she always looked diminished in civilian clothes, more middle-aged too. “Marge and Beth will ride with you; the rest will come with me. No lights once we hit the road.”

“Anyone else coming?” Gwen asked.

“They're working or couldn't make it.”

“Smart move,” Gwen muttered as Beth and Marge climbed into the backseat. “What's new, ladies?”

“Cathy thinks her husband's drinking again,” Beth said.

“Yeah,” I said, “I heard.” Cathy's husband, Ray, worked in Auto Theft and could be a morose jerk.

“Really?” Gwen leaned forward and studied Cathy through the windshield. “You never said anything.”

“Knowing Ray, it's possible,” Marge said.

“You think?” Beth said.

Marge nodded. “Good detective, though.”

“They make a strange couple,” Beth said.

“He's an arrogant fucker,” Gwen said.

Angie passed in front of our car, raised a hand in greeting. She looked as if she were promenading down sorority row: her steps bouncy, arms swinging, whistling an unrecognizable tune.

“She's different, isn't she,” Beth said, more comment than question.