Death of a Washington Madame (9 page)

"Cause it looked cool is why," the boy croaked.

Fiona looked up at Roy. Keep an open mind, she cautioned
herself. Perhaps, along with the beating, he had brainwashed the boy into
confessing. Oddly, the boy did not seem at all reluctant to tell his story. She
allowed herself to remain open to the idea despite her instincts and despite
the fact that the boy's presence at the scene could be determined by
fingerprints and blood and semen DNA matches. The saddest part of it was that
the boy had absolutely no sense of right or wrong.

At that point, they heard the sound of chimes ringing.

"They're here," Gail said. "Thank God."
She hurried up the stairs.

"We'll have to take you in as well, Roy," Fiona
said.

"You ought to be ashamed," Roy said, his eyes
roving from Fiona to Gail. "I've done your work for you and this is my
reward." He turned to Gloria. "Gloria. Justice is dead."

"Maybe so, Roy. Maybe so," Gloria said.

"And him?" Roy said angrily. "He's
confessed. What happens to him?"

"First things first," Fiona said. "We have
to check out his condition. Then his story. He's a minor and has to be treated
as such."

"It didn't matter to Madame," Roy sighed.
"Minor or not."

Fiona studied Roy for a moment. His eyes seemed to have
sunken deeper into his cadaverous face. She could understand his bitterness.

"Justice will be done, Roy," Fiona said.

Roy shook his head in despair. He
looked at Gloria.

"Give it to him Gloria," he sighed.

Gloria took a white plastic bag out of the pocket of her
dress and gave it to Fiona. It had more heft than Fiona had expected.

"The knife," Roy said. "He had it on
him." He paused. "And don't ask me how I know it was the one."

"He told us," Gloria said, looking at Roy with imploring eyes.

"I should have killed the little bastard," Roy hissed.

"Prints match," the Eggplant said. "Semen
matches the blood type. A DNA will probably confirm. Even the murder weapon
seems to check. It's a switchblade. The penetration fits. We found the woman's
blood type in the slot. The kid's the killer. A fourteen year old." He
moved his head from side to side. "Are we so far gone?"

They were sitting around the conference table in the
Captain's office.

"Let's not lose sight of the fact that the real
culprit is the person who put him up to it," Gail said. "The boy
obviously has a deficit."

"Who's losing sight of that!" the Eggplant
barked.

"Or the motive of the man in the car," Fiona
interjected.

"And the manner in which the so-called confession was
extracted," Gail said.

"It doesn't change the facts," Fiona snapped.
Gail was growing increasingly irritating. "Whatever the legal aspects
concerning minors. Dead is dead, whether by the hand of a fourteen year old or
a ninety year old."

"He was only the instrument," Gail muttered.

"Are you saying we should condone it?" Fiona
pushed. "Absolve him of all blame. Give him a slap on the wrist, and tell
him all is forgiven?"

"Might not have to. The system has been known to do
that in cases like this," the Eggplant sighed.

Roy had been arraigned on
assaulting a minor. A public defender had been appointed and he was out on his
own recognizance. Gloria had not been charged. Martine was in the hospital. His
injuries were painful but not critical. In a few days he would be released and
remanded to the Juvenile Detention Center.

There was no hiding the story and it was now running on a
regular cycle on CNN and FOX the network television news shows. Although Roy had been warned not to discuss the matter with the media, he was shown being
interviewed with Mrs. Shipley's house as a backdrop reiterating his theory
about American justice. The camera had been cruel, making him look like a man
who had just risen from a coffin after a long interment.

"What have we become as a society when a fourteen year
old boy, a child really, lured by money, brutally murders and rapes an old
woman? How could this happen? What's happened to America? And what will the
system do? He will surely be out on the street to kill again. And again and
again."

The again and again motif played everywhere and, in a
miracle of quick time, the boy's grandmother was interviewed. Apparently the
mother was a crack head and had persuaded the boy to get her some money for her
habit.

"He was a good boy," the grandmother, a graying
matriarch insisted. "Bad people used him. He didn't know better. He not
very bright."

Footage of the Governor and his wife going into and coming
out of the Shipley residence was also shown repeatedly, but no new shots, and
commentators were saying that the Governor and his wife were in seclusion on
their Middleburg horse farm.

"But the fact that the perp was a juvenile only clouds
the issue. He was a street kid with an obvious problem upstairs," the
Eggplant said.

"Like Forrest Gump," Fiona said.

"Forrest Gump was biologically retarded," Gail
said, as if it were a sudden revelation. "This boy's deficit is in his
environment not necessarily in his brain."

"Forrest Gump was a fantasy creation about a lovable
loser who wins and harmed no one," Fiona muttered, growing openly
irritated by Gail's attitude.

"Who was white," Gail snapped. The Eggplant
looked at her, frowned briefly, then shrugged. Fiona shook her head.

"Okay then," the Eggplant said, ignoring the
racial comment. "What have we got? A man drives up in a car, dark car,
maybe a black man. He's wearing shades and a knitted cap pulled low. He asks
the kid if he wants to make five hundred dollars. Probably pulls out a wad.
Easy money. The kid's eyes pop. The kid bites. Got a knife kid? The kid pulls
one out of his pocket. Maybe he tried other kids first. We'll have to check
that, but it's a long shot to find anyone who will cooperate. All you got to
do, boy, the man says, is tomorrow at ten to do the old lady lives in that
house. Shows the boy the money. Yours for the asking. And if you take this
bread and don't do it, I'm going to come back and do you boy." The
Eggplant paused, his eyes shifting from Gail to Fiona. "Went something
like that." He rubbed his chin. "Whoever he was knew the routine of
the household."

"That it was maid's night out," Fiona said..

"So whoever puts the kid up to it knows the
schedule," the Eggplant continued. "Also knows that Roy sleeps without
his hearing aids."

"Knows the layout of the house," Gail said
suddenly.

"On the tape, Martine never said the man offered that
information," Gale pointed out.

"So you think he could figure it out for himself? No
way. Not that kid." the Eggplant muttered. "Someone gave him a road
map." The Eggplant paused and grew thoughtful. "On the other hand
there is the possibility that the whole damned neighborhood knew the routine of
that house, knew the maid took Thursday's off. Came back late. Figured old
what's his name was a pushover and stone deaf."

"And knew the watch dog is dead." Gail said with
a touch of belligerence.

"Easy," the Eggplant said. "Dogs are street
people. He doesn't show up for his regular peepee, people know."

"And he doesn't know that Roy wouldn't put on the
security," Fiona pointed out.

"Doesn't even know there is security," the
Eggplant said.

"It's too obvious," Gail argued. "Someone
put him up to it."

"Which is what he said in the confession." Fiona
shot back.

"What I object to is the way it was extracted and the
idea that a fourteen year old would have conceived this by himself. He was
manipulated by an adult."

"Nobody's walking away from that theory,
Prentiss." the Eggplant sighed, still maintaining his tolerance.

"No muss no fuss no bother," Fiona said, trying
to placate her. "The kid does the dirty work."

"For who? And why?" the Eggplant asked.

"Bottom line, right Gail?" Fiona asked. Gail's
nod was barely perceptible. "The kid was a pawn," Gail mumbled.

"A willing instrument," Fiona said.

"A victim," Gail shot back.

"Christ, Prentiss," the Eggplant muttered. Up to
then, Captain Luther Greene had been remarkably tolerant of Gail's attitude,
obviously not wishing to prod the sleeping dragon awake. Blind mindless
unreasoning black solidarity was the Eggplant's poisoned thorn. We are
colorblind here, he had intoned often. We're not social workers. We're killer
finders.

The fact that it was Roy who found the boy and beat him
into confession seemed lost in the hubris of the moment, although Fiona knew it
would resurface again when it became apparent that there was no way the
incident could be quietly squelched.

In contrast with the Captain's "up" mood, Gail
seemed definitely "down" and heading further into the abyss. So far,
Fiona and Gail had only skirmished, but Fiona knew that there was a moment of
reckoning ahead. She hated the prospect.

"However bizarre," Fiona said, "it appears
to be a contract killing."

"It is definitely a contract killing," Gail said
with a flash of indignation.

"Hardly drug related. Not in a direct sense. The boy
was clean," the Eggplant mused. Fiona noted that he was so calm, he had
not taken out a panatela and his ashtray was totally spotless. "An old
lady, practically a recluse. With two loyal retainers. Makes no sense."

"The boy's description of the man who paid for the
hit.... hit seems so ridiculous in this context.... is still too sketchy. We'll
have to probe further," Fiona said.

"The poor kid was manipulated," Gail persisted.
"Let's not lose sight of that."

"Poor kid! Come on Gail. He stabbed an old lady and
raped her. Maybe she was dead or dying when he did the deed. Pretty heavy
stuff. As for manipulated. That's a given," Fiona said, troubled by her
partner's continuing uncompromising attitude. "He was paid to kill
someone. Manipulated sounds somehow benign as if he was corrupted. The fact is
that he was predisposed to such action and hadn't a clue that he was doing
something that was morally reprehensible. In other words he was already primed,
whatever the reason, and ready to be engaged for this purpose. I agree. The man
got lucky and struck paydirt."

"The boy was as much a victim as Mrs. Shipley,"
Gail snapped.

Fiona looked toward the Eggplant, who seemed equally
surprised at Gail's comment. His tolerance appeared on the verge of crumbling.

"Gail. Mrs. Shipley is dead," Fiona said.

"So is that boy. Good as dead. His life shot."

"In this business, I believe we deal in legal
definitions," Fiona said.

"It's a question of perspective," Gail said.
"This is a child, we're talking about, a black kid that never had a chance
and never will. He's as much a victim as the old woman."

"Prentiss," the Eggplant said, his patience
finally cracking, "We cannot bleed for the perps in this department,
whatever their age, whatever their sex, whatever their color, however terrible
their upbringing. You know that Prentiss. A killer is a killer is a killer.
We're here to catch them. That's it. How they become bad guys is not our
mission."

"Maybe it's a dimension that we're neglecting,"
Gail persisted.

"We're going nowhere here," the Eggplant said
with obvious disgust, his mood darkening.

"I think we are. I think it's time we begin to rip
away the facade..." Gail's voice rose.

"Cool it Gail," Fiona said.

"This poor black boy has been abused. He hasn't had a
chance. His mother's a crack head. He has no idea who his father is." It
struck Fiona that she had delved much deeper into the boy's background than she
had revealed. "How can he be responsible? He is a victim. A man offers him
five hundred dollars...."

"Okay Prentiss," the Eggplant said raising his
hand. "I've heard enough. You want to be a social worker in the Juvenile Detention Center, I'll give you a reference. This is homicide." He pulled out
a panatela, unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth.

"What's going on here Gail?" Fiona asked. There
was no way to avoid the collision.

"The white Princess asks..." Gail muttered,
lowering her eyes.

"Oh God no. Not that," Fiona shook her head in
frustration.

"How could a white person possibly understand ...
"?

Gail looked toward the Eggplant as if seeking support for
her position.

"You're out of line Prentiss," the Chief snapped,
testy now. "Get into race crap and everything gets distorted."

"How did we get on that kick?" Fiona interrupted.
It was a puzzling rhetorical question since race had never been a divisive
issue between her and Gail Prentiss. Or was she in denial? Wasn't there a
gender bond here, a class bond? And friendship? Had she deluded herself into
believing that Gail Prentiss was a real friend? Fiona was confused. There was a
genuine sense of racial hostility here. Had it been there all along? Just
beneath the surface?

"Don't you people feel any compassion for that sad
boy?"

"Compassion Gail?" Fiona said. "You're in
the wrong pew."

"You can't relate Fiona," Gail continued.
"For obvious reasons. That's your problem."

"My problem!"

"Now I'm getting riled," the Eggplant shouted. He
turned to Prentiss. "We don't do race garbage here."

"But we sure as hell think it," Prentiss said,
her voice rising.

"Don't tell me what I think woman," the Eggplant
said smashing out his unlit panatela.

"You're way off base, Gail."

"You keep out of it, Fiona."

"You mean keep your white ass out of it, is that what
you mean?"

"You got a point."

"Dammit, girls," the Eggplant hissed, using the
hated word as he slapped the table. "Keep this up and this arrangement is
busted. Just say the word and this tent folds." He looked pointedly at
Prentiss. "Is this what you want?"

Gail, whose nostrils had swelled with anger, lowered her
eyes and began to fidget with her fingers.

"Well?" the Eggplant said, calming.

Gail shook her head. The Eggplant turned to Fiona.

"You?"

"No chief."

His eyes flashed with anger as he pointed a finger at
Prentiss.

"I want none of that race crapola again, Prentiss.
Ever. You both capeesh?"

Gail looked up, exchanging glances with Fiona. They both
nodded. In her eyes, Fiona detected little remorse. Had this outburst spoiled
everything between them? Fiona hoped not, searching her heart for understanding,
knowing that sooner or later the issue between them would have to be
confronted.

"Good. Now let's get to the cream cheese. Who wanted
this biddy iced?"