Hell To Pay

she’s gonna tell him to get his shit together and get himself out the house.” Strange looked at the needle on the speedometer. “You can get there quicker, we might still catch him in.”

“I’m already doin’ seventy-five. Wouldn’t want us to get pulled over. You might go showing that toy badge of yours to a real police officer, get us into a world of hurt.”

“Funny. C’mon, Terry, speed it up. Car’s got a three-fifty square block under the hood, and you’re drivin’ it like a Geo and shit.”

“You want me to drive it like a race car, I will.”

“Pin it,” said Strange.

LUCILLE Carter lived on a number street off North Dakota Avenue in Manor Park, in a detached bungalow fronted by a series of small roller-coaster hills that stopped at a stone retaining wall before they reached the sidewalk. There were plenty of cars parked along the curb on this workday. This, along with the condition of the raked lawns and the updated paint on the modest houses, indicated to Strange that the residents were mainly retirees holding on to their properties and sheltering their extended families.

Strange and Quinn went up the concrete steps to the porch of Lucille Carter’s house. Strange knocked on the front door, and it soon opened. Carter, short, bespectacled, narrow in the hips, and not yet completely gray, stood in the frame. She knew who they were. Her eyes were unsmiling and her body language told them that she wasn’t about to let them in. As agreed, Quinn stepped back and let Strange take the lead.

“Derek Strange. This is my partner Terry Quinn.” Strange opened his badge case and closed it just as quickly. “Like I explained to you on the phone, we’re investigating the Lorenze Wilder homicide. We need to speak with your grandson Edward.”

“He already talked to the police.”

“I told you we needed to speak with him again.”

“And I told you, Mr. Strange, that he was on his way out. As I am about to be, shortly.”

“Any idea where we can catch up with him?”

“He went out to his job—”

“He doesn’t have a job, Miss Carter.”

“He went out to his job search. If you had let me finish—”

“All due respect, I don’t have the time or the inclination to let you finish. You told Edward that we were on our way over here, and now he’s gone. So let me make this easy for you and tell you how it’s gonna be. Me and my partner here are gonna be back in an hour with a subpoena. Edward’s not in, we’ll come back the hour after that. Same thing the hour after that. We have to, we’ll be here on the hour around the clock. Now, what do you suppose your good neighbors gonna think of that?”

“This is harassment.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Would you like me to call your supervisors?”

“I can’t stop you.” Strange looked at his watch. “We’ll see you in about sixty minutes, then. Thank you for your time.”

They heard the door close behind them as they were walking down the steps.

“That was nice,” said Quinn. “The Gray Panthers are gonna give you their humanitarian award for that one.”

“You want to find a man in this city, shake down his grandmother,” said Strange. “Black man like Diggs always gonna respect the matriarch who treated him right. Plus, she’s stronger than he is, and the last thing he’s gonna want is to incur her wrath.”

“That cop knowledge?”

Strange shook his head. “My mother always said it. ‘Kick the bush and the quail comes flyin’ out.’”

“So Diggs flies out of the bush. Then what? I mean, the cops have already talked to this guy.”

“They didn’t know how close he was to Lorenze. And they didn’t talk to him the way I’m gonna talk to him.”

“Okay, what now?”

“Let’s get my car out of view so we can regroup.”

Strange pulled the Caprice around the corner and parked it a block south of the Carter residence and out of its sight lines. He phoned Lamar’s apartment and this time he got him on the line. Strange made a writing sign in the air and snapped his fingers. Quinn handed him a pen. Strange wrote down a series of numbers, asked Lamar some questions, nodded as he listened to the answers, and said, “Good work, son,” before ending the call.

“What?” said Quinn.

“Lamar saw one of those boys last night, one of the three who rolled up on him at Park Morton.” Strange was punching numbers into the grid of his cell as he talked. “Said this boy was wearing the same bright shirt he had on when he saw him the first time.”

“Lotta bright shirts out here.”

“His face was hard to forget, had a nose like an anteater.”

“And?”

“Boy had a duffel bag in his backseat and a road map in his hand when Lamar saw him coming out the market, over there near the Black Hole. Looked to Lamar like he was runnin’.”