The Cold Room (11 page)

Taylor touched his arm. “I know it's hard. Just bear with us a little longer.”

They drifted toward the kitchen as they talked.

“Are you a fan of Dvořák?” she asked.

He cocked his head to the side. “Actually, not so much. I'm more of an Outlaws type—good old country music.
Did you know that John Rich built that house down the street? He's a very nice man. I'm not a big fan of his music, there's a bit too much ego in it, but he's been a good neighbor. Raised the property values, at least.”

“That always helps. Do you have any Dvořák CDs?”

“No.” Bangor sat heavily at his kitchen table. “Why?”

“There was a Dvořák CD in your wall system here, playing on a loop last night.”

“Now that's one I know I had nothing to do with. I left it on Lightning 100. Sebastian likes alternative rock, I usually leave it on for him while I'm away. Maybe it's his?”

“The cat?” McKenzie looked serious all of a sudden, but Taylor laughed.

“Now there's a scenario I haven't encountered in a murder investigation. The cat did it.”

McKenzie got the joke and joined the laughter, a little too strongly.

“Maybe the cat will solve it. Do you know where Sebastian is?” Bangor asked.

“Your neighbor took him to her house last night.”

“Too bad I'm not a cat whisperer. That would make life easy. He could tell me what he saw.” Bangor grew serious. “I'm sorry for that girl, whoever she is. Do you know her name?”

Taylor nodded at McKenzie, who replied, “It's Allegra Johnson.”

Bangor shook his head. “I don't know anyone of that name, though it's beautiful. Maybe I'll put her in a piece one of these days, as a memorial. My God. Did she die right here?”

He was staring at the invisible column as if he could imagine the scene from the previous night. Taylor was glad that he couldn't; it wasn't one she'd soon forget.

“No, sir. I don't believe she did. Do me a favor and take
a quick look around. If you don't see anything else out of place, we're going to get out of your hair.”

Bangor searched the house for five minutes, then returned to the kitchen shaking his head. “Nothing. It's all here except for the book from my coffee table. Do you think I'm in any danger?”

Taylor shook her head. “We took the Picasso monograph for examination. I don't think you're in danger, but I can't say one way or another. I'm reluctant to jump to the conclusion that someone was sending you a message, but that may be the case. I'd appreciate it if you did some sleuthing of your own, look into your e-mails and correspondence for the past few days, see if anyone made threatening gestures. Maybe someone involved in your screenwriting didn't like what you had to say about their work?”

Bangor smiled. “I'm actually to the point where young screenwriters fight to have me play with their words. They are usually more sycophantic rather than threatened. But I'll give it some thought.”

“Okay, then. I appreciate your cooperation. And I'd appreciate you keeping the information I gave you to yourself.”

“Can I go back to the coast?”

“Stick around for another day or so, while we check some things. We'll be in touch.”

Bangor walked them out. “I'm going to go get Sebastian, bring him home. Thank you for being so cautious. I appreciate how difficult this must be.”

They shook hands. Taylor and McKenzie got into the vehicle. She watched Bangor knock on Carol Parker's door and go inside, heard the loud meowing of the cat in the background. A happy homecoming for one member of the family, at least.

“He didn't have anything to do with it, did he? He seems like a really nice guy.” McKenzie was fiddling
with the crease in his slacks, running his thumb obsessively over the edge.

“Probably not, but that doesn't mean someone wasn't sending him a very clear message.”

“Made him an offer he couldn't refuse?”

“Why McKenzie, I never pegged you for a
Godfather
fan.”

She put the car in gear and drove. Someone was sending Hugh Bangor a message. And she needed to find out who it was before he tried again.

T
he J. C. Napier Homes were one of Nashville's nastiest projects. Many of the city's homicides happened there; Napier and its fellow, the Tony Sedekum Homes, accounted for half of the arrests in all the housing projects in Davidson County. Poverty begat deeper levels of poverty. Guns were rampant. Some murders and assaults were fueled by drugs, most others by desperation. Whatever the cause, the effect was that the Napier projects saw nearly thirty percent of all the murders in Nashville in a given year.

The patrols in these projects were on bikes—the streets were few and far apart, running lengthways. There was little to no access between the buildings and courtyards. On bikes, they had a chance. But it was dangerous work. The residents didn't have much hope, anyway. Taking potshots at cops was a favorite pastime.

Taylor's window was down; she heard the usual catcalls. She smelled burning garbage: another boredom-killer on warm summer days, setting fire to the Dumpsters. In these projects, men, women and children roamed the streets aimlessly at all hours of the day and night,
talking, watching, being. The typical crowd gathered around her Caprice; McKenzie grew pale under his already light complexion.

“Ignore them. They're just playing.” But she put the window up.

“It's not that. How can people live like this?”

Taylor glanced at him. “Do you think they have another choice?”

“Yes. They could try. They could get a job instead of having babies so they can collect more food stamps for beer. Have you ever been inside one of their apartments? They've got better electronics than most yuppies. Where's the money coming from? Certainly nothing legal. And if they have enough to trick out their homes, why in the world would they choose to live here? I've never understood it.”

That was quite a speech.

“To use a terrible cliché, McKenzie, it's not that black and white. I want all of them to get jobs, as well, to stop running crack and heroin, to clean this shit place up and try to make a better life. You give them driveways and pretty houses, the crime rates dwindle. Look at what HUD did with the Hope IV grants—John Henry Hale, Preston Taylor, Vine Hill are all clean, safe places. It's amazing the difference architecture and bright colors can make. But down here, they're still in the land time forgot. The power of a few overrides the desires of the many. They're scared. They've been brainwashed not to trust anyone who wants to help them. The dealers and pimps threaten the women, rape them, force them into this life. They terrorize the children, conscript them into the game by making them run the drugs from the buy to the sale. I agree, they should want out, and I applaud the ones who try. It's sad, but it's out of our hands. All we can do is enforce the law to the best of our abilities.”

Father Victor's Chevy Lumina slid in behind Taylor's Caprice. She and McKenzie got out of the car and met him by the trunk. It was department policy that a clergy member attend all death notifications. It was a welcome policy; having a spiritual guide along certainly helped.

“Ready?” she asked the chaplain.

“As I'll ever be. Detective McKenzie? I'm Father Victor.” The two men shook hands. The chaplain's blue eyes were sad, and Taylor realized that he'd started to go gray. His predecessor, Father Ross, had been stolen away by a diocese in Maine just two weeks earlier. Father Victor had been the backup chaplain. But Taylor knew the Father from around town. He'd been a fixture in the archdiocese for years, was a priest at the Cathedral. She knew he was in his late forties, but didn't know his exact age.

“It's good to meet you, sir,” McKenzie replied. Taylor glanced at him sharply. He seemed deferential to the priest. Catholic, maybe? With a name like McKenzie, it was a good chance.

They turned to the building that hopefully housed some answers about Allegra Johnson.

Taylor ignored the rude gestures, the propositions and threats. She walked through the manufactured similitude of the run-down buildings to the front door. The screen was cut. The wooden door stood open. The homes had been renovated just a few years earlier; they were already falling in on themselves again. No one cared enough to worry about upkeep.

They knocked. A cracked voice yelled, “Come in.”

Taylor rested her hand lightly on her weapon, just force of habit entering a strange building. They entered the cramped ground-floor apartment. The walls were paneled with dark walnut. Lace curtains, yellowed with cigarette smoke, hung limply over the window. Taylor
could see a bullet hole in one pane. The carpet was a dirty orange shag, about a million years old, that didn't quite reach the four corners of the room. Fetid despair hung from every corner like deserted cobwebs.

Wrinkling her nose, Taylor took the four steps that led her into the kitchen. Small things scuttled away from her feet—mice, roaches, silverfish? Taylor didn't know, didn't want to know. She immediately realized why the home was such a mess—there was an old woman sitting at the tiny, unstable kitchen table. Her eyes were milky white, made more opaque by the contrast with her blue-black skin. She was old, very, very old. Her blind eyes searching for her guests. Taylor bit back a curse. The woman should be in a home with people to take care of her, not living on her own.

There was something akin to recognition behind the woman's blank eyes. For a moment, it seemed they were alone, just the two of them in the putrid little kitchen. She looked right into Taylor's soul. Taylor got goose bumps, rubbed her hands up and down her arms to shake off the creepy feeing. She stopped a foot away and didn't stretch out her hand to shake.

“Ma'am? I'm Detective Jackson with Metro Homicide. This is Detective McKenzie, and our chaplain, Father Victor. Do you know a young woman by the name of Allegra Johnson?”

“She dead?” the woman asked.

“Ma'am, are you related to Miss Johnson?”

“She my grandbaby. She dead?” she asked again.

“What's your full name, ma'am?” Father Victor asked softly.

“Ethel Johnson. My girl's dead,” she said with finality, then started to cry, silent and haunting, tears slipping unchecked down her mahogany cheeks.

Taylor recognized the tone in the old woman's voice. Despair, tinged with irony. With the knowledge that there would be no other reason for a police officer to be in her home other than to inform with bad news. Her shoulders slumped a little, and Taylor moved closer. She hated that she had to bring a lonely old woman so much pain, but she had to press on, needed to get as much information as she could.

“Yes, ma'am. We found Allegra's body late yesterday. We matched her fingerprints to prints in the system this morning.” Taylor had brought a picture to do the notification, a morgue shot, but that was a moot point. “Is there any way we could do a formal identification? A picture of Allegra, perhaps? We want to be absolutely sure we're talking about the same girl.”

“Gots a picture in her bedroom down the hall. That should do it for you. That Tyrone finally beat her to death, huh?”

“Who is Tyrone, ma'am? Her boyfriend?”

“Haw,” the woman spit out. “Boyfriend. Girl, child like that, she got herself a pimp. A sugar daddy. Tyrone Hill been whoring her out, give her the drugs. Allegra been acting a fool for a while now. I told her it would come to no good. I told her that man would kill her, one way or the other. She don't listen to her Gran, though.”

“Do her parents live close by?”

“Her daddy's in Riverbend. Three strikes. Her momma done died when she was ten. I been raisin' her since. Best I can, leastways. The good Lord don't always give us the right tools to do His bidding.” She waved a hand toward her face. Prophetic blindness, it seemed.

A young woman, probably in her late teens, came through the front door into the kitchen with a baby on her hip. Curiosity was obviously getting the better of the neighborhood.

She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. “Miss Ethel, what's dis about? Why da police here?”

The grandmother just snorted. Taylor reintroduced herself.

“May I ask your name, miss?” Taylor said.

The woman regarded her suspiciously for a few moments, then said, “D'Andra. I'm her cousin. Allegra be dead?”

“Yes,” Taylor answered.

“She hurt bad?”

Taylor glanced at the grandmother, who was leaning forward a bit. She had no intention of going into detail, but she still hated this part.

“Allegra was very, very thin. We don't have all the answers, but it seems she starved to death. Did she ever have any issues with anorexia?”

D'Andra just looked at her like she was an idiot. The baby started to squirm, and she set it down on the filthy floor. It scooted under the table on all fours. Jesus.

“Let's back up. When was the last time you saw Allegra?”

“She been gone for ages,” D'Andra said.

“How long is ages? Weeks? Months?”

“'Bout three weeks.”

“And you didn't report her missing?” McKenzie asked.

This time both women laughed joylessly. D'Andra spoke first. “Why would we go and do something like dat? Din't know if she were off with her man, or what. Like you'd ever even give a shit to look for her? Come on, brother. I weren't born yestaday.”

Taylor looked into the woman's eyes. The whites were yellowed and bloodshot, the brown coagulated. Track marks cruised up and down her arms. Lacking hope, so many of these women sought refuge in drugs.
It usually became so bad that they'd do just about anything to get their fix.

“I would have looked for her, if I'd known,” Taylor said.

“Yaw, sure. I believe that. Where Allegra be now?”

“At the medical examiner's.” Taylor turned back to Allegra's grandmother. “Once we're finished, she can be released to you, ma'am.”

She looked confused. “To me? What would I do wit her?”

“Bury her, perhaps. Give her some peace. She deserves that much,” the chaplain said.

They both shook their heads. D'Andra spoke quietly. “Ah, hell, preacher man, we don't have money for dat. You folks get her in the ground. She be your problem now.”

Taylor watched as she scooped up the baby, who was gnawing on its dirty fist, and walked out into the sparse backyard. Shoulders slumped, head down. Another generation oppressed by drugs and poverty. God, it was depressing out here in the projects.

McKenzie was busy scribbling in his notepad, actively avoiding the situation. Father Victor sat at the table, took one of the old woman's hands in his. She grasped onto him like he was a tiny bit of flotsam in a wide ocean. Starved for a touch of kindness.

“Is there anyone we can call to come be with you?” Father Victor asked.

“No. There's just me. I take care of myself. The girls come round, D'Andra and her momma, look after me some. One of the neighbors takes me to church and gets my groceries.”

“Do you mind if we look at Allegra's room?” Taylor asked.

The old woman waved toward the hall off the kitchen. The apartment was a two-bedroom with a single bath at
the end of the hall. Maybe eight hundred square feet, if they counted inside the cabinets and closets.

The tiny room to the right was the grandmother's; it smelled of urine and sandalwood and dark things. The one on the left was smaller, but less fragrant. A black cloth, draped half on and half off the window, let little bits of sunlight stream into the room. A single, unmade bed was pushed into a corner; the pink-and-white striped sheets looked like they needed a wash. A wooden cross hung over the bed, and a yellowed photograph of a smiling young girl, maybe eight, with her arms wrapped around an older version of herself. The picture was definitely of the same woman at the medical examiner's office. Taylor stared at it without removing it from the wall. The older woman must have been Allegra's mother. They had the same nose, the same tilt to their eyes.

The picture and the cross were the only adornments on the gray walls. There was nothing superfluous in the cheap decor—a bed, a small wooden dresser with a scratched top, clothes on the floor. They moved systematically through the room, looking in drawers, under the bed, sifting through the small pile of clothes in the corner. Taylor found what might have started as a diary but had turned into a doodle pad. She set the journal on the desk.

“We need a crime-scene tech to go through here. See if there are any foreign prints or DNA that we can trace to her abductor,” Taylor said.

“I'll make the call.”

The bathroom had the usual female accoutrements, cold cream and lotion, makeup, mascara, a crumpled box of yeast-infection treatment, all the things that would signal a young woman used it. There were two syringes in the makeup kit, a little spoon, and a crack pipe. Allegra's tox screen would be interesting. She was defi
nitely into narcotics. And she hadn't taken them with her, which was a surprise. It told Taylor that Allegra wasn't planning to be away from home for very long.

So how does a girl from the projects end up hung on a column in a house on Love Hill?

“Damn shame,” McKenzie whispered.

“No kidding,” Taylor said. “Get the crime lab on this and let's get back to them.”

She walked down the short hallway into the kitchen. Father Victor was saying a prayer of solace over Mrs. Johnson.

“May Christ support us all the day long, till the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and holy rest and peace at the last. Amen.”

Taylor watched until he made the sign of the cross and stood before she addressed the woman again. She was almost afraid to speak. She didn't want to invalidate the prayer, chase away whatever goodness might be hovering around the woman, if only for an instant. Then the old woman coughed—hard, sharp, barking catches—and the moment was gone.