Cop Town (26 page)

“That wasn’t from bombing.” Kate was aware that her tone was terse, but she couldn’t stop herself. “The Nazis cut off supplies. People were starving to death. It was the hardest winter on record. They dismantled the buildings for fuel.”

Terry started shaking his head before she was even finished. “I was there, sweetheart. They were bombed to hell and back. Half the city was gutted.”

“It’s called the
Hongerwinter
.” Kate hit the syllables as hard as she could. “Over twenty thousand people starved to death.”

“I read about that.” Maggie glanced nervously at Kate. “Audrey Hepburn did an interview. She was there when it happened.”

“Audrey Hepburn’s English, you ditz.” Terry grabbed another beer. “You wanna talk about people starving, you shoulda seen those camps.”

Bud mumbled something Kate forced herself not to hear.

Terry said, “You could see the bones underneath their skin. Hollowed-out eyes. Teeth falling out. No hair. Dicks shriveled up. Tits hangin’ down like sandbags.” He popped the top off his beer can and threw the ring into the yard. “They were begging us for food, but you couldn’t feed ’em. They had to have those what-do-you-call-its when the doctor puts the needle in your wrist?”

“IVs.” Kate’s voice was shaking. Her legs were shaking. Every part of her was shaking.

“Yeah, IVs.” Terry stared at his beer can. “Me and one of my buddies, we saw this old chick—she got ahold of some bread or something. We tried to stop her, but two seconds after she swallowed it, she just dropped to the ground. Started having a seizure. Foam coming out of her mouth. Pissing herself. Doc said her stomach exploded.”

“Jesus,” Rick mumbled. “I thought Nam was bad.”

Bud spit on the ground. “Guadalcanal was bad. Nam was a walk in the park for you pussies.”

“Damn straight.” Chip raised his beer in agreement. “Give me a gook over a Nip any day.”

Rick stood up. He went into the house. The door closed behind him.

No one said anything for a few moments. Kate looked down at the broken concrete. Tears blurred her vision. She saw her grandmother on the ground clutching her stomach. She saw her mother begging for bread. Terry was a brutal man, but he’d painted too vivid an image. Kate needed to get out of here so she could collect herself.

She told Maggie, “We should go back to work.”

“Work,” Terry echoed. “That what you doin’ in there, tough gal?” He was talking to Maggie. His expression had turned dark. His tone had a knife behind it. “You following up on those Shooter cases?” He grinned at the surprised look on Maggie’s face. “I know what you been up to, sweetheart. You smooth-talked Rick into getting those files. Dutch over here flashed her tits to make your brother look the other way.”

Kate tasted blood on her tongue. He wasn’t going to get to her. She wouldn’t allow it.

Terry said, “You think you found something twenty detectives can’t spot?”

“It helps if you’re sober.” Maggie dodged the half-empty beer can he threw at her head. The metal hit the wall with a hard thump. “We found something.”

“Yeah?” Terry chided, “Come on, tough gal. What’d you two geniuses find?”

Maggie seemed to hesitate. “Their radios were unplugged.”

Jimmy’s head turned. “What?”

“All four of them. Their radios were unplugged.”

Terry obviously hadn’t heard the information before, but he asked, “So what?”

Maggie explained, “In both cases, the last call each unit made was for a meal break. And then their radios were unplugged, probably so they wouldn’t be able to call out.”

Jimmy asked, “They took a twenty-nine? On a night shift?”

Terry looked at his watch. “Three hours of your morning and that’s what you came up with? They unplugged their radios before clocking out to eat?” He laughed along with Bud and Chip. “They were probably taking a shit. Am I right?”

Oddly, Jimmy wasn’t dismissive. He told Maggie, “He didn’t talk to us. The guy who took the shots. He didn’t talk. He just pulled the trigger.”

“And he slashed their tires,” Terry said. “Nobody else had their tires slashed, right, Columbo?”

Kate watched Maggie deflate under the scrutiny. She’d been so sure of herself in the house. Kate had felt the same sense of purpose. They were doing something useful. They were trying to accomplish something.

“Go back to parking tickets, sweetheart.” Terry got a fresh beer. “Another two or three days of us banging up the streets, some asshole will come in begging us to arrest the guy.”

“Better hurry.” Bud flexed his swollen hand. “My interrogator’s starting to hurt.”

Good-natured chuckles followed.

Maggie looked down at her feet. She kept working her jaw. She was trying to come up with something else, but there was nothing.

“He was dragged.” Unbidden, Kate had said the words out loud. Everyone was looking at her. “Mark Porter was dragged.” She wanted her notes, but only for a crutch. She’d finally figured out what had been bothering her. “The heels of Porter’s shoes were worn on the back, not the bottom. There was a scratch on the back of his neck, probably from being grabbed. The fingernail on his right middle finger was broken. His keys were found fifteen feet from his body.”

They all stared at her with blank looks on their faces.

Maggie turned it into a story. “Porter made a break for it. He was grabbed by the collar, which is why he had the scratch on his neck. Porter fell, probably with the Shooter on top of him. He had his keys in his hand. The impact broke his fingernail. He was going for the car but the
Shooter stopped him. Maybe Porter was knocked out or at least dazed. The Shooter dragged him back to Keen, put him on his knees, and shot them both in the head.” She answered Terry’s question. “The Shooter is adapting. He slashed the tires because the last time, someone almost got away.”

Jimmy sat back in his chair. He scratched his chin in thought.

Terry muttered, “Leave it to a coupla broads to zero in on a broken fingernail.”

The laughter was different from before. This time, the men sounded almost relieved.

Maggie held on to the theory. “In all three cases, they were dispatched out because of an anonymous call reporting a possible break-in.”

Terry shook his head. “You know how many of those calls we get a month?”

“Three,” Maggie said. “I checked with dispatch this morning. That time of day in that area, they get about three bogus calls a month.”

Jimmy wouldn’t let go of his point. “He didn’t talk to us, Maggie. He just came around the corner and started shooting. He was so fast I barely had time to look at him.”

Maggie stared at her brother, almost begging him to understand. “It’s too coincidental. Maybe the Shooter didn’t expect you guys to be there when he turned the corner. Maybe he thought he was going to surprise you, but you surprised him.”

Jimmy looked down at his beer can.

Kate knew what he was thinking. The Shooter had been the one who was surprised. He was expecting two cops on foot, not both of them on the ground
in flagrante delicto
. All of the killer’s plans went out the window the moment he saw them.

None of which Kate could say to the assembled crowd.

A car horn beeped in the street.

Terry scowled. “What’s that stupid slit doing here?”

Maggie told Kate, “Go get in the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Kate didn’t ask questions. She walked through the carport. The sun cut into her retinas. She stared at the ground ahead of her. She tried to
blink away the stars, then she tried to blink away the awful images that came into her head again. Her grandmother writhing in pain. Her mother begging for scraps of food. Terry Lawson watching the whole thing with a can of beer in his hand.

Kate’s chest felt tight. The muscles in her throat tensed. Tears welled into her eyes again. She had to shake this. She couldn’t just break down every day. She had to be tougher. Her family was counting on her. They wanted her to be strong.

Kate made herself look up.

Her stomach dropped.

Gail Patterson was behind the wheel of a two-door Mercury. She gave Kate a toothy grin through the open window. “Hop in, Sheep.”

19

Maggie left by the front door rather than go through the carport. Her hands were loaded down with equipment. The stair treads creaked under the additional weight. She moved fast because she didn’t want Terry to ask them what they were up to. Gail was supposed to be out trapping johns. Maggie and Kate were supposed to be writing speeding tickets. All three of them would be in a world of shit if her uncle found out they were going to Colored Town to talk to a pimp about a girl.

She saw Lee Grant jogging up the sidewalk. He was wearing a gold tracksuit with green stripes down the legs. The plastic box for his hearing aid was tucked into his jacket pocket. He was the Boo Radley of the neighborhood—a little older than everybody else, a little quieter, a little strange. When Maggie was a kid, they’d called him Deaf Lee, which turned into Deathly, which everybody thought was no big deal because it wasn’t like he could hear you making fun of him.

Lee waved, but Maggie pretended not to see him. All she needed was for Terry to get the wrong idea. He was obviously spoiling for a fight.

“Hey, mama.” Gail pushed open the passenger-side door. Her eyes were bruised from the whore yesterday, but she still had a grin on her face. She was dressed in her regular clothes. Her yellow skirt was hiked up so she could hold her flask between her legs. She wore matching gold lamé ankle boots with pointy high heels. A vivid blue fedora was tight on her head. Her dry black hair hung like straw around her shoulders.

Gail said, “Deathly’s givin’ you the eye. Ain’t ya, son?” She turned to Kate in the back seat. “Maggie’s secret boyfriend. Deaf as a doornail.” She raised her voice. “Ain’t that right, Deathly?”

Maggie burned with shame. The only thing to do with Gail was ignore her. She dropped the equipment on the floorboard.

Gail revved the engine several times. “Hold on, chickies!”

Maggie jumped in before she was left on the street. The car burned rubber as it streaked away from the house. Gail roared with delight. She turned up the radio—Rolling Stones—and lit a new cigarette off the old one.

“Here.” Maggie passed back Kate’s utility belt, a pair of Jimmy’s old shoes, and one of his hats. “Sorry about the smell.”

Kate quietly laid the items on the seat beside her. She looked pale and weepy. Terry had obviously pushed her buttons. Or maybe it was the way Bud Deacon stuck his hand down his pants. Or the stench of puke coming off Jett Elliott. Or Cal Vick’s inability to look anywhere above a woman’s chest. Or the way Chip Bixby had leered at Kate like he wanted to drag her into the woods and ravage her.

Maggie couldn’t worry about other people right now. She had her own wounds to nurse. She was embarrassed by her family. Mortified by her house. Terrified that Terry would take the clues she and Kate had scraped together and bust open the Shooter case.

It was supposed to be her and Jimmy. He’d said so last night. They were going to take all the Shooter files and go over them together. Work together. After what Jimmy had said to her in the hospital—apologized, no less—Maggie thought it was all going to be different. For the first time in her adult life, Jimmy was actually going to treat her like a fellow officer.

And then he’d woken up this morning with his same shitty attitude, and Maggie had realized it was all a dream.

Gail whooped as the car fishtailed around a turn. Maggie gripped the sides of her seat. The Mercury Cyclone was an expensive car for a cop. Knowing Gail, she’d probably stolen it from a pimp. Trouble, her husband, had souped up the engine and added a sound system that shook the windows. The seats were upholstered in white leather. Red shag carpet was contoured around the dashboard and glued to the ceiling. A pair of dice hung from the rearview mirror. Or mirrors, more precisely. Instead of one, there were six mirrors across the top of the windshield that offered a one-eighty view of everything behind the driver.

Gail took a swig from her flask. There was a wide smile on her face. She was like every cop Maggie had ever met. No matter what came at her, she pretended it didn’t matter. This was Gail’s one true talent: perseverance. She got up every day and took on the world no matter how bruised and broken she was from the day before.

Maggie wanted to be that way. She strived for that level of self-denial. Unfortunately, the reset button was only passed through the male side of the Lawson line. For Maggie, everything accumulated. Kate was obviously the same way. She was still staring out the window. Her hand shielded her eyes, though the sun was on the other side of the car.

“Shit.” Gail turned down the music. “What’re you two gals sulking about?”

Maggie silently enumerated the list. Five cops had been murdered. Her brother had been shot. Her uncle was determined to drum her out of the police force.

“Jesus Christ, what a waste.” Gail took a swig of whiskey, then tossed her flask onto the dash. “Both of y’all need to find a man worth shaving above your knees for.” She playfully pushed Maggie’s arm. “Come on, kid. They ain’t so bad once you get their clothes off.”

Maggie thought of another list: Jimmy had kicked her in the teeth. Terry was a raging sadist. Jett Elliott was a disgusting drunk. Cal Vick was incompetent. Bud Deacon and Chip Bixby were practically Nazis.
Even Rick Anderson had barked at her when she’d walked back into the house.

Gail said, “You know ol’ Deathly’s cute in the right light. Got a Jagger thing going, but not in the face.”

“Gail, please.” Even if Maggie wanted it, there was no way anything would ever happen with Lee. Their families despised each other—the Lawsons because the Grants thought they were better than everybody else, the Grants because they knew that they actually were better. The situation was less like the Capulets and Montagues and more like the Hatfields and McCoys.

“I gotta treat for you.” Gail grabbed a cassette tape from the sun visor. “This’n’s a good one. Trouble’s brother recorded it out in LA a few weeks back.”