“Old people break easily,” said Virgil. “You don’t have to fall off anything, all you need is to trip.”
“You’re an expert?”
“Yeah, if you want to know. My grandmother broke her hip last year. Lionel’s age, you can break bones if you just trip and fall over, stumble on the ice, slip. It happens. But does that give you a stroke? Does it make you bleed like that?”
“No. Listen, I saw your father,” I said as Virgil started for the door.
“He told me.”
“Yeah?”
“He called. He liked you. I guess he told you his story. He tells everyone.”
“Those were lousy times when he was in college.”
“Hard to imagine, for us, I mean. These guys, my dad’s age, they suffered such fucking absolute segregation. Guys like Lionel Hutchison. Jesus, Artie. This is bad. I’ll go up.”
“You called your house?”
“Yeah, and I also managed to get through to the chief at home,” said Virgil. “Soon as I got your call.”
I’d been expecting Virgil to ask about the party. He didn’t, not about the party or about Lily. Maybe he knew not to. Maybe he was preoccupied with Lionel Hutchison. I felt guilty about Lily and me, but I didn’t sleep with her to get at him. I wanted her. Needed her. Maybe for her, it had been a one-time thing, a party, the booze and music. I didn’t want to think that.
I just leaned against a garbage can and waited for the ambulance, the cops, the whole gang of assorted characters who would arrive, each with a different part to play, a traveling troupe of death.
The first cops to arrive, a couple of uniforms in a cop car, unreeled a spool of yellow CRIME SCENE tape, marking off the area, as if it was their stage.
A few minutes later, the ambulance came. Somebody from the ME’s office followed. She was young; she looked like a kid in her purple parka.
A yellow cab pulled up and a couple of detectives climbed out-there’s plenty of detectives these days who use customized yellow taxis. It’s useful in neighborhoods where a four-door sedan would stick out like a sore thumb.
From the back door of the building, Diaz emerged, alerted by the noise of the sirens. He stood, looking down, his back against the wall. With him was a teenager, tall, gangly, head too big for his body. Goofy, Diaz said. The Goof.
“Hey, Goof, help the detective if he asks you, right?” He tapped the boy on the back.
“I’m fine,” I hurried to the other side of the parking lot.
“Celestina wasn’t home,” said Virgil. “I went upstairs, no one answered the door. I’ll try her sister. They took the body?”
“Yes.”
“Go find out what they’re doing with it,” said Virgil to a young detective, who looked at me because I was obviously the senior guy.
“Just do it,” I said, then turned back to Virgil. “What about that damn dog,” I said. “Lionel said he had to get back to the building because of the dog.”
“When was this?”
“He came to the party looking for me around two in the morning. He said he needed to talk.”
“Yeah, and?”
“He looked cold and tired, he was confused, he rambled on about something, and then I asked him to wait so I could take him home and I left the room for a minute, and when I got back I discovered he’d just gone. Bartender said he had pulled himself together and left.”
“Then you can’t be feeling too good.”
“I’m not,” I said. “So you went inside the apartment?”
“I called, I buzzed, I yelled and hammered on the door. Loud enough to wake the dead, since you’re asking. If the dog was there, it would have heard. I would have heard it. You want me to just go on in, Artie?”
“What about keys?”
“I can find a way without keys.”
“It’s your call.”
“You found him,” said Virgil. “You want me to check out whoever gave Lionel a ride home?”
“I think the apartment comes first. Virgil?”
“What’s that, Artie?”
“You want me to try to work this with you? Or not. Just spit it out. This is your part of town, you work homicides here. It’s your call.”
“Thanks for asking,” said Virgil. “Yeah, I could use your help. If Wagner agrees,” he added. “You think it is a case? You don’t think Lionel could have just fallen over?”
“Do you? Lionel Hutchison was in good shape. Looks like a case to me. First Simonova, now Lionel. Lot of dying, wouldn’t you say? Listen, you get along OK with Jimmy Wagner?”
“He treats me OK, but I don’t think he likes me,” Virgil said. “He thinks I’m a cocky overeducated son of a bitch, and I’m black, which doesn’t help if you’re from the captain’s background. No offense, but Wagner is old school. He can’t help it.”
“Right. I’ll talk to him,” I said.
CHAPTER 34
B undled up in a North Face jacket, Jimmy Wagner pumped my hand. “I’m really glad to see you, Artie, man. But how come you’re here?”
I said I’d been visiting somebody. To Radcliff he said, “What the fuck’s going on?”
Virgil told him what had happened.
“Poor bastard,” said Wagner. “I met the old man once or twice at community meetings. He was a pistol. He didn’t put up with no shit whatsoever. He fought for his community. I liked him. You think he just slipped, Artie?”
“I have no fucking idea, Jimmy. I had a good look at the area around the garbage can, that stuff, but we’ll need the ME to figure it. Hutchison was old, maybe bad heart, he smoked like a chimney, the ground was icy.”
“You believe that, Artie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you meet him before?”
“Yeah. Couple times.”
“You got a lot of interest in this building, that right, man? Some friend of yours was wanting to buy an apartment, something like that?” Wagner said. “You got a lady here or something? Nice girl?”
Radcliff looked at me.
I kept my mouth shut.
The woman from the ME got up from beside the body, came over to talk to Wagner, told him her preliminary thinking. Then Wagner huddled with some of his guys-a detective, a couple uniforms, the women from the ME’s office. It was hard not to notice most of them were white except for Virgil.
Some people who had emerged from the building, wrapped in sweaters and jackets, stopped to watch. Then I saw Wagner motion for Radcliff to join his group. I waited. A few minutes later, he turned to me. “I’m gonna need you, man,” he said. “Radcliff is cool with it. He’ll work it with you. I’ll call whoever it takes to get you the time off.”
I told him not to bother. It was Sunday morning early, and what was the point of waking people up. I told him I was mostly on fraud cases these days, Russian stuff; nobody went in on Sundays for that. He didn’t need to call anybody.
“But if I work with Radcliff, it’s his case, right? His precinct?” I said.
“For chrissake, man, yeah, fine, all them fucking niceties, man,” said Wagner. “Also, I only just heard an old
