“Have you seen an ice pick since the last time we were here?” Fraley said.
Marie shook her head and blew out a long stream of gray smoke.
“How about a necklace? A gold cross on a gold chain.”
Marie stared down at the table in front of her, saying nothing. Fraley moved towards her.
“Lying to a police officer is a felony, Ms. Davis.”
“I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t say nothing.”
“Have you seen a gold cross on a gold chain or not?”
“I ain’t telling you nothing.”
Fraley looked at her. She was obviously in poor health, hiding behind tinted glasses, her skin as pale as a full moon, liver spots covering her bony hands. He imagined her sitting alone in a dark, silent house, her perception clouded by drugs, waiting for Natasha to return, wishing that death would take her. He might have felt sorry for her, but how could he feel sorry for someone who had brought a cancer like Natasha into the world? And now it appeared Marie was protecting her.
Norcross, who had gone to the back to retrieve the other two agents, walked into the kitchen.
“Ms. Davis here says Natasha’s sleeping,” Fraley said. “I’ll go first. Thor, you’re right behind me, Danny behind you. Jimbo, you stay here and keep an eye on Ms. Davis. If she moves, shoot her.”
“What happened to the other dog?” Jimbo said to Marie. “There were two last time I was here.”
Marie shrugged her shoulders, staring down at her cigarette.
Fraley moved cautiously down the darkened hallway, gun raised. The door to Natasha’s room was closed, so he reached out and carefully turned the knob. The door opened silently; the room was as dark as black ink. Fraley stepped soundlessly inside. He could hear steady breathing in the corner. He looked over his shoulder to see Norcross’s frame filling the doorway and slid his hand along the wall to find the light switch. He flipped it on.
Natasha was lying on top of the bedspread on her stomach, sound asleep. A black T-shirt covered her to midthigh. Her arms were beneath the pillow under her head. Fraley turned to Norcross and gave him a hand signal. Norcross took the handcuffs from their pouch on his belt and crept towards the bed. Fraley stepped to the foot, ready to grab Natasha’s ankles as soon as Norcross made his move. Danny provided cover. Fraley holstered his weapon and nodded, and Norcross dropped his knees into the small of Natasha’s back and grabbed both of her forearms.
“Police!” Norcross yelled. “Stay facedown!”
Natasha screamed as Norcross wrenched her arms behind her back and snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. She tried to squirm and kick, but Fraley had a solid hold on her ankles, and the sheer weight and strength of Norcross rendered her helpless.
“Bastards!” Natasha screamed. “Motherfuckers!”
Fraley watched as Norcross lifted her off the bed and dragged her down the hallway. Once he got her to the den, he laid her on her stomach in the middle of the floor and straddled her.
“Don’t move,” Fraley said. “We have a warrant to take a hair sample from you and to search the house.”
“I hate you!” Natasha screamed. She continued to struggle. “I hate fucking cops! I hope your children burn to death!”
“Danny, hold her legs,” Fraley said. “Norcross, turn her head to the side and hold her still.”
Natasha continued to rail as Fraley pulled a small evidence bag and a pair of tweezers out of his jacket pocket.
“Hold still, sweetie pie,” Fraley said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Fraley knew that the best DNA sample would come from the roots of Natasha’s hair, so he maneuvered the tweezers close to Natasha’s scalp as she struggled and spit and cursed. He plucked five hairs, put them in the bag, and sealed it. He was just starting to get off of his knees when he noticed the chain around Natasha’s neck. It was gold.
“Hold her right there,” Fraley said. He got up and went back to Natasha’s bedroom, rifled through a couple of drawers until he found a T-shirt, and went back into the den.
“Put this over her head and turn her over,” he said to Norcross. “I don’t want her spitting all over me.”
Norcross did as Fraley said. When he turned Natasha over, Fraley saw that a gold cross was indeed hanging on the chain.
“Look, guys,” Fraley said. “Isn’t that nice? She’s put a personal touch on it. The cross is hanging upside down from the chain. We’re going to take this, Natasha. I’m sure you don’t mind.”
Fraley fumbled with the clasp while Natasha let loose a steady stream of expletives. It took almost a minute to get it unhooked. He pulled the chain from beneath Natasha’s neck. When Fraley had bagged the necklace, he looked at Norcross’s face. The big man was flushed and beginning to sweat.
“Turn her back over and get the cuffs off of her,” Fraley said. “I think we have everything we came for.”
Natasha went silent as Norcross rolled her over. Fraley held his gun on her while Norcross unlocked the cuffs, pulled the T-shirt off of her head, and stepped carefully away.
“Don’t leave town,” Fraley said as the agents began to back towards the kitchen. Jimbo opened the door, and light seeped into the dim interior of the room. “As soon as we get the results from the lab and figure out where this necklace came from, we’ll be back to get you.”
Suddenly, the lightbulb in the lamp that Marie had turned on exploded with a loud pop! Fraley heard the bits of glass fly against the inside of the lamp shade, and when he looked towards the lamp, he could see smoke rising.
Natasha slowly pulled herself to her knees and glared at Fraley. She began to speak, and Fraley felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her freakish eyes boring into him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Tuesday, November 11
Fraley looked up at the clock as he walked through the door of the small house he rented on Cranston Street. Almost midnight. It had been an exhausting day, beginning with the raid at Natasha’s. As he opened the closet door to hang up his coat, Fraley heard the familiar meow of his golden-eyed tabby. He felt the cat rubbing against his leg and reached down to pick it up.
“How’s Clementine tonight?” Fraley said, scratching lightly around her ears and down her back. “I’ll bet you’re hungry. Sorry Pops was so late getting home.”
Fraley walked into the kitchen, set the cat down gently, and opened a can of food.
“How about tuna and bacon tonight?” he said. “Good for your ticker.”
Fraley scraped the food into a plastic bowl and stood watching as Clementine enthusiastically went about devouring it.
“Pops is gonna get out of these smelly clothes. You let me know when you’re ready to go out.”
Immediately after the raid, Fraley had made the hundred-mile drive to Knoxville to hand-deliver Natasha’s hair samples to the lab. While he was there, he managed to convince the lab supervisor to give the DNA comparison top priority, which meant Fraley should hear something by tomorrow afternoon.
After driving back, Fraley set about trying to identify the necklace he’d taken from Natasha. The cross was somewhat unique in that it had been manufactured in the form of a ribbon with a small diamond at its center. He began by driving to Gladys Brockwell’s daughter’s home. He showed her the gold cross, but she said she’d never seen it. She also said her mother had become an avid Internet shopper. If she’d purchased the necklace over the Internet, Fraley knew the forensic computer analysts could find the transaction. The problem was it could take days, even weeks.
So Fraley hit the streets. He showed the necklace to eight different jewelers before he found someone who recognized it and could identify the manufacturer and the regional distributor. Once he had the distributor’s name, Fraley tried to contact them by phone, but by that time it was nearly seven o’clock and no one was manning the company’s switchboard. It would have to wait until morning.
After grabbing a bite to eat, Fraley had gone to the hospital to see Dillard. He found him in the intensive care waiting room looking haggard and worried. He hadn’t shaved, the lines in his forehead looked drawn and rigid, and there were dark circles beneath both eyes. Though Dillard barely spoke, Fraley had stayed until eleven forty-five. He remembered the agony of his first wife’s death, the feelings of emptiness and loneliness, and he knew it was better for Dillard to have someone around. Besides, Fraley lived only a couple of blocks away.
