J Bertrand - Back on Murder

“It’s not about me.” I hand it back to her. “Trust me, when you’re at your prime, the last thing you want is for someone to capture it like that. You’ll always be reminded of what you used to be.”

She fingers the book contemplatively, then stashes it away. She has questions to ask, I can tell, but I’m not in the mood to answer them. With Evey Dyer taken care of for the moment, I still have Thomson to worry about. I excuse myself from the table and go in search of a telephone directory.

I wait until the shift ends, then call from behind the wheel of my car. A woman’s voice answers.

“Is Joe there?”

“No, I’m sorry. Can I take a message?”

“Is this his wife?”

A pause. “Yes, it is.”

So what Wilcox said is true. He really has put his marriage back together. The same woman who divorced him is now waiting at home by the phone. I can’t quite fathom how a life so shattered can be put back together like that, but remembering Charlotte’s words this morning, the idea gives me hope.

“Do you know where I can reach him?” I ask.

“Ah… can I ask who’s calling?”

“Just a friend.”

She’s about to hang up, and for some reason I don’t want her to. I have this crazy notion all the sudden that she can tell me something.

“I didn’t catch your name,” I say.

“Stephanie.”

“Hi, Stephanie. Listen. I heard Joe’s taken up sculpting?”

She clears her throat. “Yeah…”

I can tell from her tone that she’s a little perplexed by my call. Nix’s words about sneaking up come to mind. Time to end this.

“Never mind,” I say. “I was just thinking… Anyway, it’s great that you two are back together. It’s great about the… art.”

“Thanks.”

After I hang up, a strange laugh echoes in the car. It’s me, only I can’t think what’s so funny all the sudden. Maybe it’s the desperation of my phone call, trying the guy at home instead of waiting for him to touch base. Now that I’ve put in an appearance at the office and chatted with his wife, Thomson’s bound to come out of the woodwork. When he does, I’ll tell him what Wilcox said. Putting the Morales case down is all well and good, but there are bigger fish to fry. If he wants the written assurances I collected from Internal Affairs, he’s got to give me nothing less than Reg Keller.

Perhaps the reason I’m laughing is because, for the first time, I’m starting to believe Thomson will actually be able to deliver.

Working cases from behind a desk, while some might consider it an art form, requiring as it does the carefully orchestrated ferrying of witnesses back and forth, the adept use of fax and phone – not to mention a comfortable chair with adjustable lumbar support – has never been my style. Task force headquarters is starting to resemble a teenager’s bedroom, paperwork and debris stacking up on every available surface, including a tower of mostly empty pizza boxes from I don’t know when. Cavallo and I have staked out a corner, but even here the chairs aren’t comfortable and the white noise of nonstop conversation grows increasingly difficult to tune out.

I’m ready to get out on the street, to go anywhere for almost any reason, but my partner seems glued to the interviews. She hunches over her dwindling stack, head propped on hand, her face veiled behind a curtain of hair. She stares at the page, but I’m pretty sure her eyes don’t move.

“Cavallo,” I say. “Are you even reading those things?”

She flips the page, ignoring me.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“And go where?”

“How about the school?” I throw it out there, a random suggestion, the first thing that comes to mind. “We could re-interview some of these people. Instead of just rereading the original notes.”

“Something’s here,” she says. “We just need to keep looking.”

“No, what we need is to shake things up.”

She leans back in her chair, throwing her arms into a leonine stretch. “What we need,” she says, “is more coffee. It’s your turn.”

At the far end of what we’re jokingly calling the catering table, two chrome vats of lukewarm coffee beckon, the constantly diminishing regular and the untouched decaf. While decanting the leaded version into Cavallo’s styrofoam cup, I glance through the open door of Wanda Mosser’s temporary office, a converted conference room. She and Villanueva watch Nancy Grace on a portable television, volume muted, while a series of angry voices on the other side of the speakerphone carry on an indecipherable argument.

Noticing me, Wanda slips out for a refill, not mentioning her departure to the superiors downtown. Behind her, Villanueva mimes a cup with one hand, pointing with the other for emphasis. I give him a nod and pull a fresh foam vessel from the nearby stack.

“How’s it going, cowboy?” Wanda asks.

“I’m gonna hang myself if I don’t get out of here soon. My new partner thinks they’re handing out toy surprises for whoever gets through the most paperwork.”

She laughs. “I told you she was uptight. And those interviews aren’t the only thing she’s been reading.”

“You mean The Kingwood Killing? I already know.”

“She was asking me all kinds of questions this morning.”

“Spare me,” I say. “Though come to think of it, I’d rather she ask you than me.”

I refill her cup, then hand it over along with the one for Villanueva, who still listens silently to the squawking phone. Before I can make good my escape, though, she steps closer.

“You know something, Roland? It’s nice to see you putting your heart into the work again.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Looks that way to me.”

She goes back to her crisis management meeting, leaving me to ponder her words. If this is my heart in the work, I have to admit it doesn’t feel much different. Rather than an increase of passion, or a single-minded focus, what I’m left with is more frustration spread thin along a wider front. The Morales killing, Hannah Mayhew, Thomson’s pending defection, all of it promising enough, but so far nothing has actually delivered. Charlotte’s unexpected announcement yesterday morning, her declared aims for our future relationship, pending apparently on a solution to the tenant crisis – a problem which, after Tommy’s assist at the Paragon the other night, I’m reluctant to even address. No, if this is my heart in the work, I’d just as soon keep it out.

Cavallo accepts her coffee in both hands, as if they need warming in spite of the temperature outside, which is threatening to creep into the lower nineties, with a heaping side order of humidity. She sips while giving me an interested look, like her off-duty reading is coming back to her.

“March,” she says, “can I ask you something?”

I fumble for a response, but then the ringing in my pocket saves me. With an apologetic shrug, I flip the phone open and press it to my ear.

“Detective March,” I say.

“You the one assigned to Octavio Morales?” The words are precise, though heavily accented, a male speaker probably in his twenties, I’m guessing.

“That’s right.”

“I got some information for you, okay?”

“May I ask who’s speaking?”

My tone arouses Cavallo’s interest. She puts her cup down and leans forward, eyebrows raised. I motion for a pen.

“You want the information or not?” he asks.

“Go ahead. I’m just getting something to write with.”

He gives me an address on Fondren not far from the Sharpstown Plaza shopping center. “I’ll be on the side of the road with a red bandanna. You pick me up. And come alone or I’ll just walk, okay?”