“Might want to keep the media trolls out of here, if any show up,” I said. “And comb your hair ’cause those rotten sons of bitches use telephoto and they won’t give you a do-over.”
He grabbed me by an arm, got me to my feet, and hauled me around behind the house and across the dusty yard to the back fence. I stumbled along, still in handcuffs.
“What the hell are you doin’ here, Angel?” he hissed, hitting me with a fine mist of spittle. He’d taken me far from the proliferating mass of cops now flooding the place.
Something of an overreaction, I thought. Then again, he might still be recovering from last summer’s media circuses in which I’d played a prominent role and he hadn’t.
“Sleuthin’,” I said.
“What, why, why, why, why here?”
Lots of anxiety, and a powerful emphasis on the here. I looked around. “Why not here? Seems like as good a place as any. And these cuffs are pretty tight, Russ. I promise I won’t sprint off and leave you in a cloud of dust.”
He spun in place. “Je-sus Christ, Angel!”
Uh-huh. Big overreaction, and he hadn’t even seen the body yet. Something was up. “How about we go talk to the other guys, Detective?” I didn’t like the look in his eyes, or the gun on his hip.
He hauled me into the farthest corner of the yard. “What the fuck is goin’ on?” he whisper-shouted. “This is my kid’s place.”
“Your kid?”
“My daughter, asshole. She lives here.” Oh, shit.
“Shanna’s your daughter?”
He slammed me up against the fence. He would’ve put his face an inch from mine if he’d been seven inches taller, but he got up on his toes and gave it a good try.
“Not Shanna—Danya. Where is she, you son of a bitch?”
Danya? She was at least half black. Half, Mort. Might give that another pass through the brain. Well, son of a gun. Twenty minutes ago, this day was looking bad. Now it was worse. Danya had said her father didn’t like me, said I was an unprofessional maverick. And dear old dad was my good buddy, Fairchild. Perfect. Last summer, about the time I’d stumbled across my third decapitated head, I thought he was going to hook me up to a transformer and turn out my lights right there in the interrogation room, say, “Oop,” and call it good. Now, I thought his stare might accomplish the same thing.
“How about you dial it down a notch, Russ,” I said.
Officer Day—last summer’s behemoth—lumbered around the corner of the house, gun and a nightstick on his belt, cuffs, baton, radio, sandwich. Five minutes late, but coming on strong.
“Detective Fairchild,” one of the responding officers called to us from the garage. “You better take a look at this.”
Officer Day—Clifford—lumbered over to Russ and me.
I turned my back to Russ and looked over my shoulder, held my wrists out a few inches. “Cuffs?”
Fairchild’s eyes were like marbles. “I oughta keep ’em on you till day after tomorrow.” He stared at me for a moment, then said to Day, “Yeah, take ’em off. He ain’t goin’ nowhere, but Taser him if he blinks.” He headed for the garage.
“He was just kidding,” I told Day.
“Don’t blink, Angel,” he said, but I think he smiled, sort of. He popped off my cuffs. He was six-six, three hundred thirty pounds. Every time I saw him, he’d gained another ten. I rubbed my wrists. Now that he had me by a hundred twenty pounds, I didn’t think he would need a Taser to put me on the ground—if he could catch me, which wasn’t likely.
“You oughta go see what’s in the garage,” I told him.
“In a while. Right now I’m watchin’ you.”
“You ever heard of Jo-X?”
“Guy’s a shitbug. If it turns out you squashed him, I’ll buy you lunch.” He looked around. “Where’s your partner?”
“Maude? On her way to Memphis.”
“Too bad. Unlike you, she brightens up the day.”
“Ma? Maude Clary? You gotta be kiddin’.”
“She and I go back a ways. You don’t.”
Maude and Officer Day? Maybe I just got some dirt on her. If so, and I tried to use it to get a raise, she would just laugh at me, so this was going to take some thought.
“You two go back a ways? How far back?”
Day stared at me. “I haven’t Tasered anyone this week yet.”
“That far back, huh?”
Fairchild exited the garage and walked over to us. He looked shaken. “That is . . . one ugly fuckin’ sight in there.”
“Thought you’d like it,” I said. “How’s the air in there?”
“Seventh circle of hell.”
He’d calmed down a little, but his eyes were still jittery. He jerked a thumb at the garage and said to Day, “Have a look, but take a deep breath before you go in.”
Day went. Fairchild glared at me. No one else was within forty feet of us. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Gettin’ tangled up with you again.”
“If you think this is a karmic tie, Russ, you’re wrong. This is your fault.”
“My fault? How’d you come up with that?”
“You told your kid I was an unprofessional maverick. Turns out that’s what she thought she wanted, so maybe she listens to you, God only knows why. She came into the Golden Goose last night, the Green Room, and asked for help. Didn’t say what for, and I still don’t know, but it looks like she and Jo-X have got—”
He shoved me against the fence again, hard, but couldn’t figure out precisely why or what to say. He turned and looked at the garage. “Aw jeez, Angel. What the hell . . .”
“Anyone know this is your daughter’s place?” I asked.
“That’ll come out soon enough.”
“What I mean is, does anyone know you are connected to this place? Someone who doesn’t like you?”
He stared at me. “What? You think someone’s tryin’ to get at me through my kid?”
“It’s a thought, you being such a nice guy and all.”
“Doesn’t make sense. That’s too . . . complicated.” He stared at the garage again. “Je-sus Christ. Jo-X of all
