Hornet's Nest (6 page)

Mildred was very big and all the other girls on her floor were afraid of her. But not West. She saw Mildred as an opportunity because Mildred was from Miami. Mildred’s parents had sent her to King College to get saved, and to straighten out. Mildred found someone in Kingsport who knew someone in Johnson City who had dealings with a guy at Eastman Kodak who sold pot. West and Mildred lit up one night on the tennis courts where no one could see anything except tiny orange coals glowing and fading by a net post on court two.

It was awful. West had never done anything this wicked, and now she knew why. She lost control, belly laughing and telling outlandish stories while Mildred confessed she had been fat all her life and knew precisely what it felt like to be black and discriminated against. Mildred was something. The two of them sat out on red and green Laykold for hours, finally lying on their backs and staring up at stars and a moon that looked like a bright yellow swing swelling with the round shadow of promise. They talked about having babies. They drank Cokes, and ate whatever Mildred had in her pocketbook.

Mostly this was Nabs, Reese’s Cups, Kit Kats, and things like that. God, how West hated to think about that wretched time. It was her luck that, in the end, marijuana made her paranoid. A couple tokes into the third joint, she wanted to run as fast as she could, dive into her dorm room, punch in the lock, hide under the bed, and come back out in camouflage, a Tec-9 ready to go. When Mildred decided that West was physically attractive, the timing wasn’t good.

West believed women were great. She’d loved every woman teacher and coach she’d ever known, as long as they were nice. But there were a couple of problems here. She had never really contemplated the possibility of what Mildred’s interest might mean about West, or West’s family, or of West’s possibilities in the afterlife. Plus, Mildred grabbed West no differently than a guy would. Mildred didn’t even ask, and this was unfortunate, since West was in camouflage, at least in her mind. West turned into the LEC parking deck for visitors.

“You can’t do anything with that,” West said to Brazil in an accusing tone.

“With what?” Brazil asked in a measured voice.

“You know
what
. In the first place, you had no business talking to a witness,” West said.

“That’s what reporters do,” he replied.

“In the second place, the hourglass is something only the killer knows. Got it? So you don’t put that in the paper. Period.”

“How can you say for a fact the killer’s the only one who knows about it?” Brazil was about to lose his temper. “How do you know it won’t trigger information from somebody out there?”

West raised her voice and wished she had never met Andy Brazil. “You do it, and the next homicide in this city’s going to be you.”

“Yours,”
he helped her out.

“That’s it.” West turned into the police deck. She was not going to have this squirt correct her grammar one more time. “You’re dead.”

“I believe you just threatened me.” Brazil drew attention to it.

“Oh no. Not a threat,” West said. “A promise.” She jammed the car into park. “Find someone else to ride with.” She was the maddest she’d ever been. “Where are you parked?”

Brazil yanked up the door handle in a murderous reply. “Well, guess what?” he said. “Fuck you.”

He got out and slammed the door. He stalked off into the dark, early morning. He managed to write his stories in time for the city edition, and he pulled off I-77 on his way home and bought two tallboy Miller Lites. He managed to drink both as he drove very fast. Brazil had a frightening habit of pushing his car as far as it would go. Since his speedometer didn’t work, he could only guess how fast he was going by the RPMs. He knew he was flying, going close to a hundred miles an hour, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done this. Sometimes he wondered if he were trying to die.

At home, he checked on his mother. She was unconscious in bed, and snoring with her mouth open. Brazil leaned against the wall in the dark, the night-light a sad dim eye. He was depressed and frustrated. He thought about West and wondered why she was so heartless.

West walked into her own small house and tossed keys on her kitchen counter as Niles, her Abyssinian cat, appeared. Niles was on her heels, much like Brazil had been all day, and West flicked on her sound system and Elton John reminded her of the night. She hit another button, changing to Roy Orbison. She walked into the kitchen, popped open a beer, and felt maudlin and didn’t know why. She went back into the living room and turned on the late-night news. It was all about the killing. She plopped on the couch at the same time Niles decided she should. He loved his owner and waited for his turn as the TV played bad news about a dreadful death in the city.

“Believed to be another out-of-town businessman simply
in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Webb said into the camera.

West was restless, worn out, and disgusted, all at the same time. She wasn’t happy with Niles, either. He had climbed up her bookcases while she was out. She could always tell. How hard was it? He leapt up three shelves, just high enough to knock down bookends and a vase. As for the framed picture of West’s father on the farm, well, what did Niles care about that? That cat. West hated him. She hated everyone.

“Come here, Sweetsy,” she said.

Niles made his ribs rattle, knowing how much it pleased her. It worked every time. Niles wasn’t stupid. He reached around and licked his hindquarters because he could. When he looked at the lady who kept him, he made sure his eyes were very blue and crossed. Owners fell for that, and predictably, she snatched him up and petted him. Niles was happy enough.

West wasn’t. The next day when she got to work, Hammer was waiting for her deputy chief, and everybody seemed to know it. West left her Bojangles breakfast without even opening the bag. She dropped everything and hurried down the hall. West almost ran into Hammer’s outer office and felt like giving Horgess the finger. He very much enjoyed West’s negative reaction to being summoned like this.

“Let me call her,” Horgess said.

“Let me let you.” West didn’t disguise how surly she felt.

Horgess was young, and had shaved his head. Why? Soon he would dream of hair. He would lust after it. He would watch movies starring people with hair.

“She’ll see you now,” Horgess said, hanging up the phone.

“I’m sure.” West gave him a sarcastic smile.

“For God’s sake, Virginia,” Hammer said the instant West walked in.

The chief was gripping the morning paper, shaking it, and pacing. Hammer didn’t wear pants often, but today she was in them. Her suit was a deep royal blue, and she wore a red and white striped shirt and soft black leather shoes. West had
to admit, her boss was stunning. Hammer could cover or show her legs without gender being an issue.

“Now what?” Hammer railed on. “Four businessmen four weeks in a row. Carjackings, in which the killer changes his mind, leaves the cars? Robberies? A weird hourglass symbol spray-painted on the victims’ groins? Make and model, names, professions. Everything but the damn crime-scene photos right there for all the world to see!”

The headline was huge:

BLACK WIDOW KILLER CLAIMS FOURTH VICTIM

“What was I supposed to do?” West said.

“Keep him out of trouble.”

“I’m not a baby-sitter.”

“A businessman from Orlando, a salesman from Atlanta, a banker from South Carolina, a Baptist minister. From Tennessee. Welcome to our lovely city.” Hammer tossed the paper on a couch. “What do we do?”

“Letting him ride wasn’t my idea,” West reminded her.

“What’s done is done.” Hammer sat behind her desk. She picked up the phone and dialed. “We can’t get rid of him. Got any idea how that would look? On top of all the rest of it?” Her eyes glazed as the mayor’s secretary answered. “Listen, Ruth, get him now. I don’t care what he’s doing.” Hammer started drumming polished nails on the blotter.

West was in a worse mood when she left her boss’s office. It wasn’t fair. Life was hard enough, and she was beginning to wonder about Hammer. What did West know about her, anyway, except that she had come to Charlotte from Chicago, a huge city where people froze their asses off half the year and the mob had its way with public officials. Next thing, Hammer sailed here, that housewife husband of hers tagging along.

Brazil wasn’t pleased with his circumstances, either. He was punishing himself again this morning, pounding up bleacher steps in the stadium where the Davidson Wildcats lost every
football game, even some they hadn’t played, it seemed. He was going at it and didn’t care if he had a heart attack or was sore tomorrow. Deputy Chief West was a lowlife cowboy and as insensitive as shit, and Chief Hammer wasn’t at all what he had fantasized. Hammer could have at least smiled or glanced at him and made him feel welcome last night. Brazil headed back up the steps again, sweat leaving gray spots on cement.

Hammer wanted to hang up on the mayor. She had just about enough of his unimaginative way of solving problems.

“I understand the medical examiner believes these murders have a homosexual connection,” he was saying over the phone.

“That’s one opinion,” Hammer answered. “The fact is that we don’t know. All the victims were married with children.”

“Exactly,” he slyly said.

“For God’s sake, Chuck, don’t pile this on me so early in the morning.” Hammer looked out the window and could almost see the bastard’s office from where she sat.

“Point is, the theory is helpful,” he went on in his South Carolina drawl.

Mayor Charles Search was from Charleston. He was Hammer’s age and often considered what it might be like to bed her. If nothing else, it would remind her of things she seemed to have forgotten. Her place, for starters. If she wasn’t married, he would swear she was a lesbian. He sat in his leather judge’s chair, headset on, and doodled on a legal pad.

“The city, out-of-town businesses, won’t be as bothered by this . . .” he was trying to say.

“Where are you so I can break your neck,” Hammer said over the phone. “When was your lobotomy? I would have sent flowers.”

“Judy.” This doodle was really good. He focused on it, putting his glasses on. “Calm down. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Maybe she was a lesbian, or bisexual anyway, with a grating Midwestern accent. He reached for a red pen, getting excited over his art. It was an atom with orbits of little molecules that looked weirdly like eggs. Birth. This was seminal.

To make matters ever so much worse this morning, West had to go to the morgue. North Carolina didn’t have the best system, it was West’s opinion. Some cases were taken care of locally, by Dr. Odom and the police forensic labs. Other bodies were sent to the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill. Go figure. It was probably all about sports again. Hornets fans stayed in Charlotte, Tarheels got their lovely Y-incision in the big university town.

The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s office was on North College Street, across from the award-winning new public library. West was buzzed in at the glass entrance. She had to give the place credit. The building, which was the former Sears Garden Center, was brighter and more modern than most morgues, and had added another cold room the last time USAir had crashed another plane around here. It was a shame that North Carolina didn’t seem inclined to hire a few more M.E.s for
the great state of Mecklenburg
, as some sour senators were inclined to disparage the state’s fastest-growing, most progressive region.

There were only two forensic pathologists to handle more than a hundred homicides a year, and both of them were in the necropsy room when West arrived. The dead businessman didn’t look any better now that Dr. Odom had started on him. Brewster was at the table, wearing a disposable plastic apron and gloves. He nodded at her as she tied a gown in back, because West didn’t take chances. Dr. Odom was splashed with blood, and holding the scalpel like a pencil as he reflected back tissue. His patient had a lot of fat, which looked worse inside out.

The morgue assistant was a big man who was always sweating. He plugged an autopsy saw into the overhead cord reel, and started on the skull. This West could do without.
The sound was worse than the dentist’s drill, the bony smell, not to mention the idea, awful. West would not be murdered or turn up dead suspiciously in any form or fashion. She would not have this done to her naked body with people like Brewster looking on while clerks passed around her pictures and made comments.

“Contact wounds, entrances here behind the right ear.” Dr. Odom pointed a bloody gloved finger, mostly for her benefit. “Large caliber. This is execution style.”

“Exactly like the others,” Brewster remarked.

“What about cartridge cases?” Dr. Odom asked.

“Forty-fives, Winchester, probably Silvertips,” West replied, thinking about Brazil’s article again and all that he had revealed. “Five each time. Perp doesn’t bother picking them up, doesn’t care. We need to get the FBI on this.”

“Fucking press,” Brewster said.

West had never been to Quantico. Her dream had always been to attend the FBI’s National Academy, which was rather much the Oxford University of police training. But she’d been busy. Then she kept getting promoted. Finally, the only thing she was eligible for was executive training up there, for God’s sake. That meant a bunch of big-bellied chiefs, assistant chiefs, and sheriffs, out on the firing range trying to make the transition from .38 specials to semiautomatic pistols. She’d heard the stories. All these guys blasting away, dumping brass into their hands, and taking the time to stuff it neatly in their pockets. Hammer offered to send West last year. Forget it. West didn’t need to learn a thing from the FBI.