J Bertrand: Back on Murder

“Did anyone see this?” I ask.

When I glance up, nobody’s looking my way. If they heard me, they’re giving no sign. I scoot to the foot of the bed, running my hand over the frame. Sure enough, another knot. This time it’s sliced close, leaving no dangling end. Returning to the other side, I push the sheets up and continue the search. My pulse hammering away so hard I can’t believe no one else hears it. Two more knots, one at the foot of the bed, and another at the head.

I rise slowly, examining the mattress with new eyes.

Morales lies sprawled at the foot of the bed, legs off the side, arms thrown back. From above, the blood rises like a cloud, ascending several feet above his head. The pattern in the sticky sheets is not quite right.

“Sir.”

I glance toward Hedges, who’s nodding impatiently at Aguilar.

“Sir.”

He turns to me, relieved at the interruption.

“What is it, Detective?”

Lorenz and Aguilar both turn with him, and so do the others. They blink at me, like I’ve just appeared out of nowhere. Even the technicians look up from their work.

“Come and see.”

I get down on my knees, motioning him to follow. After a moment’s hesitation, he does, careful not to get his pants dirty. I guide his hands to the knots, watching realization dawn on his face. We both cross to the opposite side of the bed, all eyes on us. He kneels without waiting for my encouragement. When his hand touches the dangling cord, he lets out a long sigh.

“Good work,” he says.

Lorenz pushes his way forward. “What is it? What’s under there?”

Hedges doesn’t answer, and neither do I. As the detectives take turns under the bed, we exchange a glance. He looks at me in a way he hasn’t for at least a year. Not since Wilcox left the unit. Even longer than that.

“When you’re done here,” he says under his breath, “I want you to swing by my office.” Then, to the room at large: “I want a briefing in two hours. Lorenz, you better get on top of this. We’ll need a blood expert to look at all this – assuming he hasn’t already. And Lord help him if he already has and he missed this, that’s all I can say.”

And then he’s gone, leaving the room deathly still in his wake.

The next moment, Lorenz has me by the sleeve, dragging me over to the corner. His voice barely a whisper. I half expect him to chew me out, so his real motive comes as a shock.

“I don’t get it.” He casts a glance over his shoulder, making sure no one’s listening. “What’s the deal with the rope?”

It takes me a second to find my voice. “They’re restraints, J One at each corner, like somebody was tied spread-eagle to the bed. The blood on those sheets, it’s probably from two victims. Morales and somebody the shooters took with them, after cutting her loose.”

“Her?”

“Just a guess.”

He takes all this onboard, then backs away, patting me on the front of the shoulder. But the pat feels like a push, too. As if he’s distancing himself from me. Or from his own ignorance.

“All right,” he says to the room. “Here’s the situation.”

Before he can launch into his speech, I’m out the door. One of the advantages of invisibility.

Outside, layers of garbage tamp down the knee-high grass out front, some bagged but most of it not: sun-bleached fast food packets, thirty-two ounce cups, empty twelve-pack beer boxes, all of it teeming with flies. The house is broad, one of the street’s larger residences, complete with a double-wide carport and a driveway full of cracked concrete, rust stains, and a shiny black Escalade. The keys are probably still in Morales’s pocket.

The perimeter line is being held by one Sergeant Nixon – Nix to his friends – a cop who can remember back far enough to the time when Texas produced lawmen instead of peace officers.

“Look who it is.” He gives my shoulder a pat, but it’s nothing like the heave-ho from Lorenz. “What are you doing at an honest-to-God murder scene? I thought you were putting in time with the cars-for-criminals team.”

“I came out for old times’ sake.”

“Roland March,” he says, looking me over. “The suicide cop.”

“Don’t remind me. Anybody talking around here? Neighbors witness anything?”

He glances up and down the street, like he’s worried the nearby uniforms will overhear. “The lady down the way might be worth a talk. See the yellow house?”

“I think it’s supposed to be white.”

Nix isn’t a fat man, but whenever he shrugs, his head retracts turtle-like, giving him a double chin. “We got a statement off her already, but she sure was talkative. If you’re looking for the full canvassing experience, you might give her a try.”

Ducking under the tape, I head for the yellow-white house. The neighborhood must have been nice once, before it was sandwiched in by apartment complexes. In southwest Houston, the complexes serve the same purpose as inner-city housing projects in other parts of the country. They’re easy to secure, so gangs move in and start doing business. Colombian heroin and coke, Mexican meth, crack – it all comes through along the I-10 corridor, and the complexes serve as weigh stations.

A decade ago, there were places along here a patrol cruiser couldn’t go without taking fire from one gang or another. We cracked down, and the dealers got the message. Now they stick to doing business. Everybody gets along, more or less, except for the ones in neighborhoods like this, where the trouble can’t help but leak over. But there’s a tension out on the streets, a lot of rumors about the Mexican cartels and the kind of trouble that might be around the corner.

I adjust the badge around my neck. Give the door a good knock.

When it opens, I’m greeted by a ripe young thing in her early twenties, bursting out of a tank top and pink shorts, pushing the door open with her foot. Glitter polish on the toenails, a flip-flop dangling. Her features are two sizes too big for her face. Huge eyes, a terrifyingly wide mouth marked out in brown liner.

I glance back at Nix, who’s smiling at a cloud pattern overhead.

“Excuse me, but… I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions?”

“About that over there? I didn’t see nothing.”

“What about earlier?” I ask. “You notice them driving up in that SUV?”

“Last night you mean? I was out there in the yard. Octavio pulled up, and he had some others with him. Little Hector, I think, and someone else. They rolled down the window and whistled.” If she was flattered by the attention, she gives no sign now. “They don’t stay there or nothing like that. It’s just their party pad.”

“Did they have a woman with them?”

“People’s always coming and going. I told the other policeman already.”

“Well, thanks.”

On the way to my car, I give Nix my best Clint Eastwood glare.

He smiles back at me. “Anytime, Detective.”

I don’t know which I prefer more, being ignored or jerked around.

In spite of my reptilian tolerance for heat, the air-conditioning back on the sixth floor feels great, especially given the white Freon my car’s been spitting out in lieu of cool air. This is Homicide, the nerve center, humming as always with quiet intensity. The clack of keyboards is a constant, the hum of conversation. For the most part, though, the cubicles stand empty. Only a few detectives have trickled back in, filling mugs with coffee, combing the break room for anything not too stale, reviewing notes in anticipation of the big briefing.

We aren’t what you’d expect. Watching television, you might think we’re all scientists with guns, working our cases with calibrated precision. But we make mistakes just like anyone, and all that technical jargon can be a coping mechanism, an alternative to dark humor. Some guys like to crack jokes over the corpse, and others like to talk about castoff and trajectories and residue. We’re only human, after all, and the job gets to us sometimes.