J Bertrand - Back on Murder

“I doubt that. Remember, I spoke to him. The kid’s got no accent. If he wasn’t born here, he definitely grew up here. It’s not like he just crossed the border. I saw his driver’s license.”

“And illegals can’t get those.” Ordway smiles at my naiveté.

“Well, if he is south of the border, Mack, we’re sending you down to get him.”

“Be my guest. I’m overdue for a vacation.”

Back at my desk, I stare at the computer awhile, then find myself flipping through Joe Thomson’s sketchbook, tracing the lines of the now-familiar face with my fingertip. While I’m daydreaming, Aguilar taps me on the shoulder and says the captain wants to see me. I knock on the boss’s door and he summons me inside.

“March, we’ve had our differences. You haven’t always made things easy for yourself around here, not recently. But I’ve had a good feeling about you the past couple of weeks. Kicking you down to the task force was probably the best thing I ever did.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’ve talked to Bascombe about this, and we’re on the same page.”

I nod uncertainly.

“To make a long story short,” he says, “I’m putting you back on the board. Starting tomorrow, you’re on rotation like everybody else. No more special assignments. No more loaning you out. You’ve proven yourself.”

He reaches across the desk to shake my hand.

“No more suicide cop?” I ask.

He hesitates at first, then smiles. “Right. No more.”

The heavens haven’t exactly opened up and no choirs of angels sing, but the firm pressure of the captain’s handshake goes a long way. Light-headed, I turn toward the door.

“Sir,” I say, pausing on the threshold. “My cases aren’t down yet. We don’t have Keller. We don’t have Rios. The way Wilcox is handing out immunity, Salazar will walk.”

“It’s a matter of time, that’s all. Your work on this… everything before pales in comparison.” He glances around, retrieving his copy of The Kingwood Killing from the shelf behind him. “This pales in comparison. Really. Good work.”

“Thank you.”

The door closes behind me. The farther I get from it, the less his confidence reassures me. We know what happened and we can pretty much prove it, and by some standards that’s enough, even if no one spends a day behind bars. The detective work is the same, either way. But there are things you can live with and things you can’t.

If Rios left his girlfriend behind as part of a payment to Octavio Morales, and then he put three bullets into Hannah Mayhew for trying to help her friend, the idea of him walking away, growing old somewhere in Mexico or under another name here in the States, in this very city where a man can walk in plain sight for decades without being recognized for who he is, that concept is unacceptable. If the world works that way, I want no part of it.

But it does work that way.

The guilty walk, it happens all the time, either because people like me can’t make the charges stick, or we can’t even find the suspect to stick them to.

Cavallo comes through the squad room door, flicking a strand of hair behind her ear, not yet noticing me. I fall in behind her, overtaking, prompting a surprised smile.

“I’ve just been patted on the back,” I say, “but I don’t feel like a good boy.”

“Maybe this will make you feel better. I just saw Wilcox in the elevator. The case against Keller lost one of its legs. The hospital called. Salazar flatlined this morning.”

“He’s dead?”

“Some kind of blood clot,” she says. “It got in the lungs.”

“I need to sit down.” I slump into the nearest chair, pulling my tie loose.

“Are you all right?”

“Let’s see. I’ve been shot. I got a bad cop with a conscience murdered. I killed a rent-a-cop and just found out I killed a real one, too, even if he was dirty. And I’m still missing both of my murder suspects. But I’m doing a great job, and they’re putting me back on rotation – ”

“Which is what you wanted, right?”

“What I wanted,” I say, “though I was never foolish enough to think it could happen, what I wanted was to find that girl alive. And instead I’ve found two of them dead.”

But that’s not right. I know it’s not. I never wanted to find her alive. All along I wanted her dead, I wanted to be the one who made the connection, the one to point the finger and say, The girl you’re looking for? She was here all along. And in a way, that’s exactly what I’ve gotten. I’m only whining because, having gotten it, I find I don’t want it anymore.

“Hollow victories are still victories, at least on paper, but I find them a little hard to celebrate.”

“You were almost killed,” she says, pointing to my leg. “And if you hadn’t shot the rent-a-cop, he’d have killed you – or worse, me. The same goes for Salazar. He dealt the hand, not you. Tonight you’re going home alive, and you get to sleep in your own bed. Tomorrow, you can get up and hunt the bad guys again. In my book, there’s nothing hollow about any of that. So if you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, why don’t we get back to work?”

She charges down the aisle, heading for the crowd near the interview room. I climb off the chair, brush my pant leg off, and follow.

Days have passed, Coleman’s list of haunts is long exhausted, and the hunt for Frank Rios continues. His face is plastered all over the news. The tip lines are flooded with dead-end sighting reports, pinpointing him all over Houston, in Mexico, and as far away as California. Patrol drags in a young illegal who more or less fits the description, then another, but it’s all for nothing. Rios is in the wind.

At first, Bascombe lets me slide. This isn’t homicide work, after all. He ignores my riding out with the surveillance teams, knocking the same doors I knocked yesterday and the day before. He doesn’t raise an eyebrow at Cavallo, who’s still camped in my cubicle even though our case is technically down.

Then he appears at my desk, coffee mug in hand, and says, “All good things come to an end.”

We troop down to the captain’s office, where chairs are already set out, and I’m congratulated again for the good work. Hedges gives Cavallo a sideways glance, like he wants to check her out without seeming to. She’s busy tracing her fingertip along her pant leg, following the course of a pinstripe. Not looking up, just waiting for the inevitable heave-ho.

“I think Wanda wants her detective back,” Hedges says. “And I’m feeling the same way about you.”

I clear my throat. “Finding Rios is a top priority. The chief said so himself on the news.”

“Which is why there’s a full-court press out there. But let’s face it, your talents can be put to better use. It’s time. Right, Lieutenant?”

Bascombe’s grunt is open to interpretation, but the captain takes no notice. Later, outside the office, he puts a big hand on my shoulder, shaking his head in commiseration but not saying a word.

Cavallo perches on the edge of my desk, arms crossed, blowing a stray hair out of her eyes. She blinks a lot, then tries to smile.

“Oh well.”

“I’ll talk to Wanda,” I say.

“And tell her what?”

“She’s closer to this thing. She’ll understand.”

“No,” she says with a resigned sigh. “Hedges is right. We’ve done all we can do for now. When Rios comes up for air, they’ll grab him, and then we’ll take this thing to trial. In the meantime – ”

“We’ll keep working it, you and me. After hours. They can’t dictate what we do on our free time.”

But Cavallo’s not buying it. She gets up, twists her purse over her shoulder, and gives me what’s meant as a reassuring smile.