'Do you?' King asked.
'I only want one thing.'
'What's that?'
'For you to be true to yourself and come home safe.'
'Go on off to school.' King squeezed her hand.
'Bye, love.' She raised their entwined hands and kissed them.
'Bye, baby.'
CHAPTER TWO
Detective Lee McCarrell scanned the periphery of the scene, not listening to anyone in particular: the chatter, the radio squawks, the idling engines, the occasional horn or siren blare dissolved into a susurrus of a crime scene symphony. Though he hadn't had a drop all shift, his mean, green eyes appeared liquorheavy. His protruding jaw dominated his profile followed by his high forehead. His long, slack hair threatened to bloom into a full-blown mullet, a hairstyle choice which did not combine well with his thin mustache, which made him look like he stepped right off a porn set.
'You're up.'
'I know.' As much as his last partner, Octavia Burke, put him off, better her patient brand of ballbusting than the too-eager grind of his latest one. Of course, bumping Octavia up to captain left a 'brother' slot available which they quickly filled with one Cantrell Williams. African-American. Average height. Shaved bald. Clean-cut. Cigarette smoker, Kools his brand of choice. Leather hat. Leather trenchcoat. Young, smart, and arrogant — worse, he was good enough natural police to back up his arrogance. He handled each case as if it might serve as an opportunity for a grade promotion. The only things he lacked were people skills and experience. His 'aggressive assertiveness' — evaluation speak for pushy — earned him a rep as a glory hound, a rep he did little to dispel. He doubleparked in front of the playground at the Phoenix Apartments, his face caught in the slightly haloed gleam in the emergency lights.
'You ready to handle this on your own?' Lee turned off the ignition and let the engine cool for a minute.
'Am I ready to go solo after being under your capable tutelage for a few cases? Yeah, I think I got this.'
'All you had to say was 'you're up'. Fuck me for caring.'
Moldy brown leaves puddled along the base of the black chain-link fence which ringed the outer boundaries of the apartments. Weeds and broken glass choked a sea of cracked pavement. Empty bottles of Colt 45 littered the dilapidated equipment that passed for a playground. Rust held the monkey bars together. The swings had been thrown over the top of the metal frame of the set, out of reach of any would-be user. The yellow school bus jungle gym had been tagged. RIP Alaina. RIP Conant. Nobody wanted to be here — not the police, not the media, not the paramedic, not the tenants — all equally prisoners in a cycle of well-meaning benevolence.
'I take this seriously,' Cantrell intoned a little too earnestly. Try as he did to keep an open mind about his partner, he recognized the half-a-cracker scent of festering resentment. 'We speak for the dead. That's the job.'
'Screw this job. Screw the dead. Screw this neighborhood. You watch, no witnesses, nothing useful. We'll be lucky if we can even ID the vic. They don't care about these animals, even when they prey on them much less when they get killed.'
'Animals?' Cantrell arched an eyebrow.
'You watch.'
Before he got out of the car, Cantrell muttered a prayer for the victims, the survivors, and their families. And then his partner. Though it was half-full and lukewarm, he gripped a Starbucks cup, toting it with the consciousness of an affectation.
The city took on an entirely different pallor at night. Darkness had a way of enveloping any crime scene. No matter how many street lights, flashing lights of emergency services vehicles, the brightness of the moon, or lights from the surrounding buildings, shadows swam in deep pools around them. Where there was darkness, there was mystery. Lee studied the shadows, uncertain of the trick of the ambulance's lights on his eyes. Pairs of red dots glimmered at him. A half-dozen sets at least. Hate-tinged flecks glaring at him. He blinked. The dark remained a smooth velvet sea of ebony.
Like red boxes in white trim, every bit like bricks in the wall of the Phoenix Apartments, three ambulances remained in front, without sound, with only their lights' intermittent flash acknowledging their presence. Police tape had been strung from tree to fence. Lee only grew irritated by the welling quiet he knew would soon settle on the gathering looky-loos. Full of sideways glances and growing stillness, as if a cloud of innocence descended on them with a spiritual anointing of silence.
'I see angels. Snow angels.' A homeless guy, in a tinfoil cap no less, waved his arms flapping in the snow only seen in his head.
'I bet you do,' a uniformed cop said as Lee and Cantrell approached the scene. 'That kind of crazy had to be steeped in whiskey.'
The uniformed officer had that young cop look about him: thin, but muscular; dark sunglasses, and eager, with an arrogant bossiness to his manner. The rookie raised the tape to let them through. Cantrell ducked under. Shards of glass vials crunched underfoot. He paused to survey the remaining landscape.
'I ain't ruining my new shoes stepping in that shit,' Cantrell said.
'You worried about this? Some of the shit you'll be walking through, you'll be begging for a scene this clean,' Lee said.
'We got a live one here,' the uniformed officer said.
'There was a survivor? He conscious?'
'Uh, no. I meant it was a lively scene.'
'Look here, rook…' Lee rolled his eyes, the preamble tell to an apoplectic fit Cantrell usually found entertaining if not useful.
'Why don't you stick to telling us what we got?' Cantrell cut him off and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. The red light bounced from their faces. The first body slumped against a wall. At first glance, he looked like a panhandler waiting for change. But his clothes were too new, clean-cut, fresh look. High forehead, eyes sunken in regret, thick-faced, heavy lips. Blood flared against his yellow vest.
'Looks like multiple shooters. Don't know if these guys even got off a shot,' Lee said.
'Where are their guns?'
'Exactly.'
'So, no guns recovered,' Cantrell said.
'Not even theirs?' Lee asked.
'Someone needed souvenirs.'
'I doubt memories of spring break is what they have in mind.' Annoyed by Cantrell's tight-assed fastidiousness, Lee strolled around the scene.
The second body leaned out of the car, his blood mixed with a puddle that drained into the sewer. Thin, bright-eyed, the red lights caught in them making him appear possessed. His white teeth spread in a harlequin sneer across his face.
Lee leaned over the body. At first he thought the dead boy was Juneteenth Walker, would-be assailant of Green, the former muscle for the Night organization. He had the same semi-scowl, the same years of hurt worn into his skin, worn like an ill-fitting jacket off the rack from Good Will. The images hit him all at once. The blood. The bodies. The death. Lee pictured Green lumbering toward him, holding a severed head in his hand. Bullets flying. His thigh ached, his body remembering its violation. Noting the boy's ashy knuckles and a short bus necklace, he was certain of only one thing: this mutt didn't deserve a cop standing over him.
'What's his name?' Lee asked.
'Don't know,' the uniformed officer said.
'Dob?'
'Don't know.'
