Ten minutes later, a beefy young deputy climbed from his still-running cruiser and when Brad came around the house, he handed the sheriff a folded search warrant. Brad and Winter moved swiftly to the porch as the deputy went around to the back.
After Mrs. Jefferson opened the door, Brad handed her the warrant and led Winter inside while she stared down at the folded paper in her hand with no expression on her face.
“You people better not make no mess you don’t put straight. And you don’t take nothing neither. I know everything what all’s in here.”
How anyone had managed to pack so much into a small house without it collapsing was an engineering feat worthy of the ancient Romans. The TV set and two mismatched recliners filled a small nest to the right of the front door. A path of sorts existed between shoulder-high walls of newspapers, old books and magazines, which allowed limited access into the rest of the home-based storage facility.
“Reminds me of a prairie dog town,” Brad said in a whisper, referring to several house cats lounging like skeletal panthers on the canyon walls. The first room, which contained a bed, held enough items of clothing and accessories to start a Salvation Army dry-goods distribution center. There were also stacks of electronic appliances, most of which looked like they had been salvaged from the side of the road. A man in his sixties sat up from the bed and blinked at the two men staring into his space.
“Huh?” he asked.
“Sheriff’s department,” Brad said. “We’re executing a search warrant.”
He ran his hands over his hair in an attempt at collecting himself. “We ain’t hiding nothing,” he said in a tone that told Winter the man wasn’t at all sure that was the case.
“We’re looking for Alphonse’s room, Mr. Jefferson,” Brad said.
“Next room, but I don’t think he’s in there.”
“Where is he?”
“Sommer else probably.”
“Mr. Jefferson,” Brad said. “How can you live like this?”
“Axe her,” the man said sadly. “City makes her keep the yard up some. You think you can git ’em to come up in here and ’complish the same thang?”
“I expect I could call the fire chief and tell him this is a fire hazard and maybe he can make her clean some of this out,” Brad said.
“At be good, if you can.”
Alphonse Jefferson’s room was by far the least cluttered room in the house. They searched the room, but there was no gun of any kind to be found, only a few pictures of a man at different ages, a wallpapering of nudes torn from magazines, and a framed less-than-honorable discharge sheet from the U.S. Army.
The clothes hanging in the closet were neatly ordered, with each of the articles in its own dry-cleaning bag. The closet floor was covered with pairs of shoes in every imaginable style and color. Chains and other items of ornamental gold-plated jewelry had been laid out on the dresser as if for display.
“No rifles,” Winter said after he’d looked under the mattress.
“I doubt he would keep it here,” Brad said, moving out of the room toward the kitchen.
A sink hung on the wall in the kitchen beside a rusted refrigerator. Three mismatched chairs surrounded a table piled with food-encrusted dishes. A gas stove, its surface covered with stacked pots and pans, was positioned below partly closed cabinets. On the floor by the back door-beside an overflowing box piled with more dried bits of feline offal than litter-several bags of trash that had been chewed open by tiny teeth waited to be put on the curb.
Winter saw the bags shift slightly-a movement so subtle he almost missed it. Pulling out the Reeder.45, Winter nudged Brad.
“I’ve seen enough,” Brad said, taking out his Python.
Winter and Brad reached down and each took the corner of a trash bag. They jerked the bag up and aimed down at the man curled into a ball on the floor.
“Okay, Alphonse,” Brad said, “It’s time to take a ride. I want you to stand up slowly. I don’t want to shoot you, but if you do anything but get up slowly and come with us, I will.”
The young man dressed in a black jogging suit turned his head up slowly, peered at the handguns, and grinned.
17
“I ain’t did nothin’,” the surly young man said when Brad and Winter came into the interrogation room.
“I haven’t accused you of anything, Alphonse,” Brad said. The file folders under his arm caught Alphonse’s attention briefly.
“And you better not. I got my rights, and I know a lawyer. Gone sue you and make me a rich man.”
Alphonse Jefferson was taller than his grandmother. His almond-shaped eyes were an unnaturally light gray, and he had mocha skin with freckles running like a stream of rusty BBs across the bridge of his nose. His lips parted to reveal teeth that were large and even, each one capped with gold-plated snap-ons. His black velvet running suit had burgundy stripes up the pant legs and sleeves of the jacket, which was unzipped to show his hairless chest.
“You can say it. You know.” He plucked his lapels. “I look good in black.”
“How do you think you’ll look in prison dress whites?” Brad asked him.
“Me in prison?” Alphonse barked laughter at the ceiling. “Aw, man. That’s all you know? You ain’t charging me, then I’m on jus’ walk on out of here and get on back to the bid’ness of doing my bid’ness. You dig?”
Brad placed the file on the table in front of him. “I want to ask you a few questions.”
“Uh-uh. I’ll be talking to you through the Johnny Cocoh-ran legal firm. Case you missed it, it was him that got O.J. off.”
“Johnny’s dead. You sure you want to go that route?” Brad asked.
Alphonse placed his hands flat on the table. “I don’t gots to answer no questions. ’Bout what?”
“About Sherry Adams.”
Alphonse turned his attention from Brad and glared up at Winter, who stood arms crossed with his back against the concrete block wall, looking down at Alphonse.
“What about her?” he asked suspiciously.
“You’ve been harassing her, Alphonse.”
“Who told you that? Them fools are all a bunch of no-count lying player haters, ’cause I’m a smooth dude. What I said was, ‘If she had some of what I got, she would be ruint for everybody else.’ You dig?”
“I have your Army records,” Brad said, opening a folder and pointing to the faxed pages he’d received before the interview. “They kicked you out for possession of marijuana. At least that was the straw that broke the mule’s back. They obviously didn’t want you bringing down the average IQ of the armed forces.”
“Those fools got they heads up they asses. Always tellin’ a brother what to do. Racist haters.”
“It looks like you were deficient in every possible area. Your whole short career was a stack of inadequacy, petty criminality, and impulsive behavior. These records say you shot a rifle like a girl. Except all of the girls in the Army could shoot better than you.”
“I can shoot a fly off your lily-white butt from far as you can see.”
“And you stalk women who see you for the loser you are. Can’t let that go, can you?”
“Sherry Adams’s full a’ herself, prissy ass be-otch. I ain’t never laid a hand on her. Ain’t no crime wanting to change a girl’s mind. She just needs to come around and see what she’s missing.”
Brad opened the folder and tossed a picture of Sherry Adams’s ruined head onto the table so Alphonse could see it. He stared down at it and frowned, looking away. “What that is?”
“That
“Naw, it ain’t! You lying!”
Winter understood why Alphonse didn’t recognize her. The bullet had literally exploded her head, and the result looked like pizza topped with almost human features, torn and splattered on the bricks. Her black hair was
