Wrong Chance (12 page)

She imagined his handsome face: square jaw, sharp goatee, seductive eyes, dreamy smile that she often got lost in. An erotic sensation swept through her stomach as she pictured him. “Did you see the morning paper?” She jogged like she was born to run.

“Not yet. I was wrapping my mind around Thursday's again. Why, what's up?”

“Put it this way: you'll be hearing from Chief Eisenhower.” Translation:
Boy ole boy, I'd hate to be you 'cause your black ass is in big trouble.

Hakeem said nothing. Translation:
Damn, what did I do this time?

Aspen said, “So what did Thursday's do for you?”

“Nothing as far as I can tell.”

“Didn't do a damn thing for me either.” Then: “We're back at covering the face implying that the victim and the killer aren't strangers.”

“I'm not fixed on anything.”

Aspen said, “A detective by name of Leonardo Scott is flying in from Denver today.”

“He wants to see if John Doe was murdered by his guy.”

“Yep. Won't budge a lick on sharing any info with us 'til he's sure.” Aspen stepped off the treadmill and popped a fertility pill in her mouth. “He doesn't believe the Hieroglyphic Hacker has left his jurisdiction. He thinks we have a copycat on our hands.”

“A cop with instincts, knowledgeable about pattern killers.”

“Hakeem, I've been thinking about the victim all night.” She went into the bathroom and turned the shower on. She poked her belly out in the mirror, imagining herself pregnant, and frowned. “We've got to identify this guy. His family must be worried.”

“I feel you. I really do. But I also want to pick someone's brain who has a Ph.D. in Egyptology.”

Aspen considered his statement.

“It came to me while laying in bed this morning,” Hakeem said. “The Hieroglyphic Hacker wrote on John Doe's body in a language I don't understand. I want to know what he's writing.”

H
akeem wondered what Aspen had given him the heads-up about. He also wondered what spurred her to hit the treadmill this morning. He heard the
thump…thump…thump…thump
of her sneakers hitting its pad as they spoke, heard her elevated breathing, imagined the rise and fall of her breasts. The muscles in his stomach tightened. He put the cordless phone on the countertop and forced himself to stop thinking of her before his imagination went too far. One cold shower was enough.

He spied through his kitchen window to make sure the coast was clear. It would really be awkward bumping into Drew right now. He hurried out the kitchen door and went around the house to his front porch so that he could purposefully avoid going through the living room to the front of his house. Hakeem hadn't been in that part of the house since
it
happened. It was still too painful to see the family photos lining the living room's and entrance hall's walls. The framed memories sitting on the mantelpiece over the fireplace were turned face-down like he did all others.

He plucked the morning's paper from the shrubbery—the paperboy missed the porch as usual—as a black couple came out of the Thompsons' house. The black woman French-kissed Mr. Thompson while the black man tongued Mrs. Thompson. Some gossip is true, Hakeem thought. He unrolled the paper and his hemorrhoids flared when he read the bold headline:

HIEROGLYPHIC HACKER HUNTS HEIGHTS

The alliteration told Hakeem that Gus Hobbs was the author behind this morning's headline. He scrolled down the article and found the two independent clauses that Aspen alluded to:

An official source very intimate with the case confirms that the unidentified black male was slain by the Hieroglyphic Hacker, and he swears by his badge that he won't rest until the killer is brought to justice.

“Son of a bitch!” Hakeem said in desperate need of his tube of Preparation H. “You flat-out lied. You should've just quoted my name in the piece.”

“Outside the fact that I'm really feeling you,” Drew said, coming up behind him, shaking her head, “I tried to give you some empathy pussy to help you get back on track, but talking to yourself is beyond my help.” Then she peeked at the headline and her eyes grew wide. “That's who Sharon Reed was talking about?”

Hakeem said nothing.

She pointed. “I live in that big house by myself.”

“You'll be fine.” He took in the view of Lake Erie while mentally kicking himself in the ass for not sending Keebler to get the newspaper.

“Do you know what this fool does to people? I can't stay by myself until someone figures out how to catch him.”

He whistled. “Keebler, come.”

Keebler, obedient, came and sat beside him.

“Keebler will keep you company. She's a man-eater and a highly trained police dog. Trust me, she won't fail you.” Hakeem knelt beside Keebler and stroked her coat. “Protect Ms. Drew, girl,” he said, pointing at Drew.

Keebler barked, then sat beside Drew. Hakeem stormed off.
Empathy pussy? Am I that bad?

Drew said, “When are you coming back?”

Hakeem didn't look back or break stride. “When I catch him.”

•  •  •

Hakeem was dressed in a two-button—always two buttons—summer-weight Givenchy suit, a silk shirt, and a pair of alligator shoes when he left the house. While threading his customized Hummer H1 through traffic, his Palm Treo rang.

“Communicate,” he said.

“Have you lost your goddamn mind, Eubanks?” It was Chief Eisenhower.

“No, sir.”

“You don't talk to the goddamn press unless I okay it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This thing was supposed to have a goddamn lid on it.”

“I know, sir.”

“Who do you work for, me or the goddamn
Plain Dealer?”

“You, sir.”

“Then toe the goddamn line or I'll throw you out on your fancy pansy ass.”

“Okay, sir.”

“Do I make myself goddammit perfectly clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chief Eisenhower hung up.

Hakeem thought about how much he hated Gus Hobbs.

A
spen Skye stepped off her Honda 1200 VFR motorcycle looking like a superstar, as Hakeem pulled onto the parking apron of the Cuyahoga County Coroner's office. The sun was her spotlight. The cigarette dangling from her lips was strangely attractive. It was hard for Hakeem to look at Aspen as just his partner and not identify with her as a gorgeous woman, to not admire her feminine attributes, to ignore the confident sway of her hips. He thought it cute how she religiously wore one designer from head to toe. She wouldn't be caught dead wearing mismatched fashion designers. This morning she was clad in Dolce & Gabbana, evident by the D&G logo repeatedly printed on her apple cap.

Hakeem eased off the car seat and took even easier steps toward her. The Preparation H wasn't doing a damn thing. His heart pounded in his ears as he approached her. He had an impulse to tell her how good she looked to him but chickened out. That was his problem. He never said the things that needed to be said to the people he cared about. He assumed they automatically knew, an assumption he'd spent many sleepless nights regretting. Instead of conveying his inner feelings, he said, “Good morning.”

She worked her supermodel strut up to him, nodded, and got right to it. “County Prosecutor Marcus Jefferson was gunned down this morning.”

“Caught the tail end of it on FM-108 a few minutes ago.”

“Detective Omar Madison is heading up the investigation. Large caliber. They're thinking a forty-five. Did a lot of internal damage.” Then: “No eyewitness. No suspect. Professional hit.” She thumped the cigarette.

Hakeem said nothing. Translation:
That's fucked up.

“Doctors don't expect him to make it through the day.”

“No one assassinates prosecutors these days except the Zetas cartel. The mob doesn't even pull stunts like that anymore.”

Aspen shrugged. “I don't know. Between the Long Wood boys, the Seven All crew, and them hustlers from West a Hundred Thirtieth, I'd place my bet on local drug dealers. They're still bitter about how things played out with the Lee Lucas scandal.”

“Sure hope this new assistant county prosecutor, Scenario Davenport, has a huge set of nuts on her. If Jefferson doesn't live through this, it'll be her dog and pony show. She'll need a lot more than good looks to pursue justice in this city.”

“Talk to Chief Eisenhower?” Aspen said, eyeing him.

“Seven goddamns in under a minute.”

“That's a new record.”

“Yeah.” Hakeem nodded. “I had to be the one who managed to piss the chief off the worst during his tenure with the department behind Gus' lies.”

“Your hemorrhoids are acting up again.”

Hakeem clearly understood that as a statement and not a question. “I don't know how I feel about you knowing me so well.” Then: “How'd you know?”

“You walk like it hurts.”

“Gus Hobbs is a literal pain in my butt.”

“No, post-traumatic stress and insomnia are the cause of your hemorrhoids. Learned it on a medical online chat room.”

“My hemorrhoids are not a subject open for discussion.”

They went inside the squat-brown building. The air conditioning chilled their skin. It had to be set on Arctic Circle. An ominous scent deceptively lingered beneath a pleasant industrial deodorizer. The sensory ambiguity was dizzying. Stephanie, the twenty-something receptionist with black lipstick and an eyebrow piercing, spoke and waved them through. They navigated the narrow halls to the autopsy suite.

Here, the presence of death and flesh rot didn't linger; it overpowered. Aspen grabbed a bottle of mentholatum sitting on a stand near the entrance and rubbed some under Hakeem's nose to mask the scent, then rubbed it beneath her own nostrils. An internal speaker system played Bruno Mars' “Die For You
.”
The autopsy suite was colder than the rest of the building. Aspen hugged herself and rubbed her bare arms. Hakeem, eager to offer her comfort, wrapped his suit jacket around her slender frame. Forensic Pathologist Aura Chavez, MD was hosing blood and bodily fluids—the leftovers of a drunk driver—down the drain of a soiled autopsy table while eating a turkey club sandwich. Her age showed itself with each chew.

Chavez snapped off her rubber gloves. “Top of the morning, Detectives. I was just finishing up breakfast.” She popped the last bite of turkey club in her mouth.

Hakeem and Aspen greeted her.

“Terrible, terrible thing about Marcus Jefferson,” Chavez said. “I always wanted to see him naked, but doing an autopsy on him wasn't what I had in mind. From what I'm hearing, looks like that's how things are going to play out.”

Hakeem said nothing.

“Let's hope not,” Aspen said. “He's one of the good guys.”

“Well, don't be bashful. Come over here and let me tell you what Mr. John Doe told me.” Chavez led them across the stainless steel room to a gurney. She sang along with Bruno as she unzipped the body bag.

C
hance extracted thirty cubic centimeters of tetrodotoxin from the Blue-ringed octopus—more than enough venom to down an elephant—then put the creature back in the aquarium with the others. He carefully capped the syringe and placed it with his murder tools. Next, he changed into clothing more his speed: a
Free Lil' Wayne
T-shirt, loose-fitting jeans with no underwear, and a pair of Vans sneakers. No socks. Then he went to the building's incinerator to dispose of his previous outfit. After he watched the Nike get-up burn to ashes, he returned to his apartment for his murder tools. Now it was time to pay another so-called friend a visit that he'd never forget.

•  •  •

Chance sat at an RTA bus stop directly across the street from the Yoga Wellness Center on Superior Avenue. While keeping an eye on the center, he read about Yancee's murder in the newspaper. He hoped it was Detective Hakeem Eubanks who was the “official source” who had sworn to put him behind bars. Hakeem doesn't have enough intelligence quotient to catch me if I purposefully made mistakes, Chance thought.

A top-heavy sister with even heavier knockers sat down on the bench beside Chance. She was sweating and wearing a Burger King uniform and smelling just like the Hamburglar. She stuck her nose
in Chance's newspaper like they were buddy-buddy. Chance peeped her out through his peripheral vision and thought, fat ass.

“Now that's just a damn shame,” Fat Ass said. “They ought not waste taxpayers' dollars. Soon as they catch that lunatic, they should shoot and kill 'em on the spot. Get it over with; that's what I'd do.”

“Then your position is no better than his.” Chance watched as Anderson unlocked the center.

Fat Ass snorted. “What you mean?”

“You share the same morals as the person who whacked this twit.”

“Boy, you done lost your mind.” She rested her arms on top of her knockers.

“For whatever depth of pain is driving this guy, it's obvious it's his way of righting a wrong done to him. And your way of righting a wrong is to kill. You said that.”

“You act like you support 'em.”

“Morally, so do you, Fat Ass.”

She was taken aback. The bus rolled to a stop in front of them; its doors hissed open. Fat Ass hauled her wide load off the bench and onto the bus.

Chance tossed the newspaper and pushed his hands inside a pair of leather gloves. Two minutes later he slipped into the Yoga Wellness Center. He secured the door, closed the blinds, and hung a sign he had written last night that read:
Closed, Family Emergency.
The place was nothing more than an empty room with seven rows of mats across and six back on the floor. Paneled walls boasted vanity-driven pictures of Anderson in the scorpion position, downward dog, sun salutation, and numerous other yoga positions that Chance didn't give a fuck about. The few windows were blocked by venetian blinds for intimacy and privacy, because Anderson offered naked yoga to his more spiritually free clients.