Time Clock Hero (2 page)

Phoenix felt and heard his phone go off in his pocket for the second time as he hurried down June’s stairs to the front door.  When he reached the front entrance hall, also emptied of its furniture, with the corner of the wall dinged and the molding cracked and hanging by a finishing nail, he stopped and took another breath.  He pulled out his phone again, saw the same number he’d seen earlier, and then he answered it.

“Detective Malone.”

“All right, where have you been?” the person on the other end demanded.  “You’re late, late, and late.”

It was Detective Alaia Jenkins, a newly appointed detective at NPD.  Alaia had a permanent scowl about her voice, a dark mood turned sound wave that seemed to drain Phoenix’s energy whenever he listened to it.  That voice, harsh and distant, seemed to loom over him in a domineering kind of way, so much so that he nearly turned to see if she was standing behind him.  A voice that, if it had arms, would have flapped at him in dismissal while smacking him down at the same time.

“Are you my mother?” Phoenix asked.

“Sorry you’re late again on this one – and yes, I might as well be your mother, white boy.”

“Why don’t you start singing to me how you want my job?”

Alaia Jenkins didn’t respond.

“What’ve you got?” Phoenix asked.  “I know it’ll be hard for you to be precise in any intelligible way, but that’s why you report to me, and why I report to Cobb.”

Alaia Jenkins had an attitude since the day she arrived at the department.  Must have been the new angle in criminology, the “bad girl” thing, or something else they were teaching the kids over at UT.  But Chief Cobb loved her, and that’s why Phoenix thought he’d better pretend to love her, too – but, so far, he was failing the gig.

“If you’d answer the phone like you’re supposed to, you’d know what I have, now wouldn’t you?” Alaia shot back.

Phoenix opened the door of June’s condo, stepped outside, and locked the door behind him.  He jogged across the small, private parking lot and noticed June’s yellow Corvette, the pride of Nashville, was missing.  His Ford Focus sat by itself in her single, guest parking space.  “I’m nearly listening, so do your worst.”

“We’ve got a half-dressed woman matching the description of a June Buckner holed up in a bathroom at the Nippur’s Corner Dollar Theater,” Alaia said.  “And she’s gettin’ pretty ugly.”

Phoenix took a deep breath and placed his left hand on top of his head.  “June Buckner?  Do we have a positive ID?”

“What did I just say?”

“Is there anybody with her?”

“Did I say that?”

“Half dressed?” Phoenix asked.  “And what does ‘she’s getting pretty ugly’ mean?”

“We’ve got her locked in the men’s room,” Alaia said.  “If you can get here faster than your brain works, it’ll be a miracle.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“And you’re talking hours or days?”

Phoenix ended the call.  He jumped into his standard, office-issue Focus, hit the blue lights, and sped out of the condo parking lot.  He came to Edmondson Pike and turned left.  He arrived at Nippur’s Corner in seven minutes, parked, and got out.

The press standing outside the Dollar Theater, a larger, snarlier pack of wolves than usual, probably on the prowl because June Buckner’s name had been heard over the scanners, were held at bay by more than fifteen officers.  If the press was here, all of Nashville’s stations would be carrying the story live.  June Buckner, wife of wealthy banker and financier Ronnie Buckner, found half-naked at, of all places, The Dollar Theater.  Such a story might have been news had the woman been a nobody.  But this was something epic – a novel in the making – not only because it involved June, but also because everyone would shortly learn that she’d been cheating famously on her husband with NPD’s brightest detective only hours before.

Phoenix cringed when he rolled that picture through his brain.  There’d be a medical exam for sure, invasive and intimate, as intense as the one June had probably given him the night before.   They’d take samples and do DNA scans; and the computer results would show that she’d been all over him – or he on her – like white on nice.

Phoenix pushed his way forward.  Some in the press recognized him without his dark blazer.  Those that did showed restraint, knowing that he’d just arrived at the scene and that he hadn’t a clue.  The last the thing they wanted was to make his job more difficult.  They’d done it once before, with the missing persons case that seemed to devour his entire schedule; and Phoenix had completely cut them off for two-weeks.  Now, Phoenix’s relationship with the press was a dream come true, that is, if they didn’t crowd and harass him, and if they let him do his job.  If they’d just back off and let him through, he’d throw them a nice treat once he’d gotten his hands dirty.

Detective Alaia Jenkins was looming in the doorway of the theater, pushing the glass door open when she saw him arrive.  The scowl Phoenix heard in her voice a few minutes ago had now become a red flash of contempt in her eyes.  He stared back at her.  Twenty-eight, the single mom of a ten-year-old boy, barely making ends meet – the perfectly-jilted black woman who would’ve loved hating Phoenix more if only he’d been black. 

Chief Cobb was standing behind her with his eyes glued to his OnTimex.  He’d been a few blocks over having a couple of drinks, Jack and water – mostly Jack, with the usual Friday night set at the Blue Bayamon, a little Puerto Rican dive known locally for its sandwiches and tight skirts.   Phoenix might have been late, but Chief Cobb had probably driven himself all over the road getting here, probably driving over the speed limit and missing a few stop signs.  Not because of the situation at hand, but because Detective Alaia Jenkins, a nice squeeze on all accounts, had called him.   Phoenix slipped past him, and his boss dropped an inhaler into his front left pocket.

“Looks like June Buckner, as far as we can tell,” Alaia whispered gracefully, with a perfectly-glossed smile over a perfectly-sloped overbite.  She turned around and wiggled through the theater lobby with Cobb trying to catch her and Phoenix hurrying to throw up.  The smell of theater butter, some of it coming fresh from the popper and some of it emanating from the dark, lush carpet, reminded him of moldy, week-old vomit.

“We already said it was June Buckner on the phone,” Phoenix said.

“But this woman is nothing like
the
June Buckner I remember, though,” Alaia said.

“Nothing like?”

“Three people taken away in ambulances, another refused treatment and just walked away,” Alaia said.  “She put up a hell of a fight.  We’re talking
cat
-tastrophe here.”

“And June Buckner is involved with this?  What, like she shot somebody? Stabbed somebody?  Beat somebody with a stick?”

Chief DeAnte’ Cobb, the six-foot-four, two hundred-thirty-pound Titan linebacker-turned-cop, loved by friend and foe alike, even though he’d arrested a few of the former, corroborated every word Alaia had just said.  “Nothing like the celebrity you know from the news – that’s why we’re suspicious.  Now, I’m just here to observe,” he said, putting his hands up.  “And we’ll talk later about your missing the meeting today.”

“I’d be glad to give Phoenix what we have up to now, DeAnte’,” Alaia said, as if she really wanted to share any of her findings, which Phoenix knew was very doubtful.  “And we didn’t need him at the meeting this morning anyway.  I gave you his stuff.”

“
DeAnte?
” Phoenix asked.  “We’re doing first names now?
Alaia
?  Is that okay now,
DeAnte’
?”

Alaia and Chief Cobb didn’t respond.  They must have been giving Phoenix’s little observation a good chew over – she because of how it looked for her to use the chief’s first name, and he because he’d always insisted on formalities, even when off duty.

“And you were saying,
Princess Alaia
?”  Phoenix asked, with his light-colored eyebrows raised and his head cocked.

Alaia stopped and threw her arms up in the air.  “You know?  Fine.  You can do all of this by yourself, Phoenix Malone.  But, you know what?”

Chief Cobb shook his head and rolled his eyes.  He liked Detective Alaia Jenkins.  He’d even gone so far as to tell Phoenix this new girl he’d hired was built like a brick house – something he’d made him promise he wouldn’t joke about.  But Chief Cobb and Phoenix had been best friends since the eighth grade; and Phoenix, when push came to beat-down, had his friend’s back.

“You can’t do this all by yourself, Phoenix Malone,” Alaia said.  “You need a woman’s touch – somebody whose detail-oriented.  Something you ain’t got.”

“You’ve always been the big-picture guy,” Chief Cobb said, taking her side.  “What can I say?”

“You can start by backing me up,
DeAnte’
.”

A reflective silence followed, a loud one, which Phoenix interpreted as a train conductor blowing a whistle and yelling, “all aboard!”  It ended when Detective Jenkins took a deep breath and let it out like some pissed little millennial who couldn’t decide between an ice cream cone and her five-dollar-a-month college loan payment. 

Phoenix, now the ‘big picture guy’, suddenly understood the scale of his dilemma:  Detective Alaia Jenkins wanted his job; and she’d gotten some leverage going, probably a pelvic tilt, with Chief Cobb.  Chances were good she’d get his job eventually, just as long Chief Cobb could “get it” after the investigation tonight.  He raised his eyebrows at Chief Cobb, swung around, and headed towards the restrooms with Alaia in quick pursuit.

“Now, you can’t just walk in there like I know you’re going to do,” she said.  “This woman will attack you.”

So what’s new? 

“How long has she been in there?”

“A minute before I called you the second time,” Alaia said.  “Chief Cobb wanted you to handle this by yourself for some reason – and we both know that that’s a mistake.”

“That’s because you can’t handle yourself, sugar,” Phoenix shot back with a smile and a swat to her perfectly heart-shaped rear end.

Dang you look nice girl.

“Do that again and I’ll---”

“What, follow me home from the next office party?”  Phoenix noticed four police officers standing ready as he made his way towards the restrooms.  One held a shotgun, one of the new tactical weapons NPD had just purchased, and the other three held their black batons ready.  

All of this for June Buckner?  All one hundred-fifteen pounds of her?

Chief Cobb’s phone went off, cranking out another of his Isley Brothers’ ringtones.  He stopped dead in his tracks.  Phoenix shook his head and turned, expecting his old friend to break into some kind of boogie. “You two got this,” Cobb said, with his phone to his ear.  “I gotta take this call.  And try to act like a twosome, okay?”  He turned and walked back towards the lobby talking a blue streak.

Alaia quickly spouted off the absolutely appalling details of the evening’s events, every one of which Phoenix refused to believe, leading up to the time when the theater manager pushed a woman, a woman loosely matching the description of June Buckner, into the men’s restroom, locking her inside. 

“You’re telling me – let me get this straight – that this woman attacked four people, three of which are now at St. Thomas,” Phoenix said, as he rolled his eyes.  When he reached the restroom door, he pushed on it.  The deadbolt hadn’t been unlocked.  “You’re telling me June Buckner
bit, with her teeth,
four people and---”

“We’ve got the photos, Detective Malone,” Alaia interrupted with convincing firmness.  “And you’re going to need to be ready before you open that door.  But what the hell do I know? Just you go on in there then.  See if I care.”

Convinced he had to do this alone, mostly for his own preservation, Phoenix paused for a second with his ear to the door.  He reeled in the fearful reek.  If June Buckner was in there, he only had to knock on the door, call out her name, and wait for her to answer.  And she’d answer because she’d recognize his voice.  Then he’d open the door and step inside, alone, and lock the door behind him.

What’s going on June?

You’re being set up, honey – you know you are.

Who’s behind this?

They’re doing this for a reason, Phoenix my love.

Phoenix didn’t move.  He remained still, listening to what little sound he could hear coming through the crack in the door.  Maybe June would cough or something.  He’d recognize the noise if she did.

The police sergeant handed Phoenix the key.

Maybe that’s the shuffling of June’s feet, but maybe not.

“If you’re going in alone, you’ll need this,” the sergeant said, handing Phoenix a nightstick.

The creak of a stall door on rusty hinges.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Phoenix?”  The sergeant asked.

A bump, heavy and weighted, against a wall.

Phoenix inserted the key into the lock. He turned it counterclockwise, retracting the bolt smoothly into the door.  Silence followed, like the roar of a city street without traffic, or the ear-shattering pop of gunfire after a shootout.

The police officers readied their nightsticks and took a few steps backward.  The sergeant looked at Phoenix, flat-lipped and eyebrows raised, and gave him the nod.