J Bertrand - Back on Murder

I open the door, easing my leg out. “I already have the results.”

“And?” She rattles her hands in the air, like she’s shaking a tightlipped kid. “And?”

“And nothing.” I step outside, pushing the door shut.

Cavallo jumps out after me, rounding the hood, and we stomp off in the general direction of Salazar’s house. Moving down the sidewalk, we set off one motion detector after another, lighting our way in stages.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, it won’t solve anything,” she says. “I understand now. This is your anger talking. You wanted there to be a connection and there isn’t. But taking it out on a house or a car, that’s not the way to cope. You’ll make trouble for yourself, and it won’t help anyone.”

“It’ll help me.”

“Will it really? March, look at me. Will it really help?”

She grabs my arm and pulls. I could twist free. I could whip my arm away and start running – limping, anyway – but I know she’s right about this.

“I want to hurt him,” I say. “I want to hurt them all.”

She stares at me, breathing hard, moving her hand in a calming but tentative way, as if she’s working herself up to touch something that might scald.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says.

“Not yet.”

I walk up the driveway, bending over to catch the bottom of the tarp, pulling it free to reveal a shiny patch of red metal. I hike the crackling fabric all the way to the windshield, then flick the wiper up.

“What are you doing?”

From my wallet I slip out a business card, tucking it under the wiper. Then I slide the tarp back in place, giving the hood a tap. I pause to eyeball the video camera. I don’t know whether the feed goes to tape, but if it does, I want there to be no mistake.

After dropping Cavallo off, I head home, pulling up the driveway at a little past three. On the way to the back door, my foot hits something round and glassy, sending it spinning across the concrete. A beer bottle by the sound. I glance up at the garage apartment entrance, but there’s no crack of light under the door.

Charlotte’s asleep in bed, the covers pooled at her knees as if, feeling warm, she’s unconsciously kicked them down. I undress quietly and slip beside her. Overhead, the fan turns, lulling me to sleep.

I dream about Hannah Mayhew. She’s younger than her picture, a little girl, walking around our kitchen like she owns the place. Charlotte pours a glass of milk, makes her sit at the breakfast table, ruffling her hair with exaggerated tenderness. I pause in the doorway, frozen by the pretty scene.

“You’re here,” I say. They both look up at me in surprise. “They told me… never mind what they told me.”

And she gets up, bouncing toward me, bare feet slapping the tile. “What did they tell you about me, Daddy? What did they say?”

The phone starts ringing. I open my eyes. The nightstand clock says four hours have passed and there’s a faint brightness behind the closed window shades. I reach for the sound, miss, then try again. I can’t quite find the handset. The next ring prompts Charlotte to vault over me, elbow digging into my side. She grabs the phone and presses it into my hand before remembering my injuries.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

I push a bunch of buttons but with no effect, then open my eyes wider to locate the right one. Is this Templeton calling at this hour? If so, I’ll wring his neck. On the other end of the line, though, a serious-sounding Captain Hedges starts asking questions about my fitness.

“You looked all right yesterday, all things considered.”

“I’m fine, sir.”

“The thing is, something’s come up. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, and you’re entitled to a little time after what happened yesterday – not to mention the strings I’d have to pull to get you cleared for work this soon. But under the circumstances, and knowing how the task force assignment wasn’t what you wanted… I know you’re looking for a way back into the squad, so – ”

“Yes,” I say, sitting up straight. “Whatever it is, yes.”

“You haven’t even heard what I’d like you to do.”

“I don’t need to, sir. I want back in.”

“It’s not exactly what you’re looking for,” he says. “I know you’re tired of these peripheral assignments, but – ”

How much clearer can I be? “I’ll do it, sir.”

He exhales long and hard, either relieved or despondent, I can’t tell which. “Before you say yes, I need you to know it’s a suicide, March.”

“Ah.”

“I know you don’t like the nickname, and I can’t argue with you that the assignment was originally not, well, not very complimentary. But if you’re serious about getting back in…”

“I am serious. And no I don’t like the name, but I realize somebody’s got to do it. We owe something to our people, even when they…”

My voice trails off. When somebody takes a shot at one of us, like what happened yesterday, it doesn’t matter if you like the guy or not, if you think he’s a solid officer or a lightweight, crooked or straight.

When they come after one of us, they come after us all. We hit back quick, and we hit back hard. Because that kind of thing, it could happen to any of us.

When one of us tops himself, though, when a sworn officer sticks a service piece under his chin and lets off a live round, then suddenly we’re all tongue-tied and bashful. It has to be handled, and as with the other, quick and hard is the only way. But woe to the detective who pulls the duty. He’ll get no sympathy or slack. Because this kind of thing, we have to believe, it could never happen to us. We could never sink so low as to eat a bullet. Nobody wants to get close to that.

So it falls to one man, typically the lowest, which over the past few years, ever since I fell off the captain’s good books, has been me. Roland March, the suicide cop. If you wear a badge in the city of Houston and decide to put a gun to your head, the first face you’d see, assuming you could ever open your eyes again, would be mine.

I ease my legs onto the floor, running my hand over the now-familiar bandage. My holstered pistol sits inside the half-open nightstand drawer.

“Where do you need me?” I ask.

“Good,” he says. “Thanks. I really mean it. The body’s in a truck parked over on Wayside, close to where it crosses Harrisburg.”

“Near Buffalo Bayou?”

“Sort of. There’s a bunch of warehouses. Looks like he just pulled over to the side of the road and did it right there. There happens to be a fairly decent golf course not far down the road – I don’t know if you play, but…”

I’m not sure what to say to that, so I don’t say a word.

“I could send a car by for you, if that would be easier.”

“No, just give me the address and I’ll find it.”

I jot down the specifics on the pad next to the phone stand, then go over the obvious details. Patrol has already sealed off the road, redirecting traffic, and the crime scene unit is en route. Even an obvious suicide gets the full treatment. This one sounds pretty straightforward. Officers on the scene say gunshot wound to the head, he’s holding what appears to be his duty weapon, empty bottles kicking around in the foot well.

“All right,” I tell him. “I’m on my way. Just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Who is it? Anybody I know?”

It never has been. I’ve shepherded half a dozen of these things through the process, never anybody I’d worked with or even knew by sight. We’re a big department, so there’s nothing strange in that.

“You might know this guy,” Hedges says. “A narcotics detective, or used to be. Guy by the name of Joseph Thomson – ring any bells?”