W. Griffin - The Last Witness

“Well, look at that,” Payne then said, “at least we’re just in time for high tea.”

Byrth pulled to the curb across the street from the flophouse. As he put the SUV in park and turned off the engine, they took in the scene.

Ten women, standing close together on the snow-packed sidewalk, formed a crooked single-file line that began at the door of the house. They appeared to range in age from their late teens to maybe early forties. Some were smoking, some talking-all of them clearly bitter cold despite wearing multiple layers of ill-fitting thrift shop clothing.

A ragged group of a half dozen men-mostly brown-skinned and gaunt, with sullen looks-milled near the end of the line.

A few of them glanced at the dirty SUV. They quickly lost interest. They were focused on the opening door, obviously more concerned with getting inside, out of the cold.

“First come, first served?” Byrth said.

“Yeah, some places will give women priority. But if they don’t get here early, and before they later lock the door, they’re going to have to find another place, even if they’ve paid for the month. Demand for an empty bed far outstrips supply.”

“Like that guy?” Byrth said.

Just up the street a gray-haired man, his clothes filthy, was curled up on the stoop of a row house. He clutched a brown liquor bottle to his chest. On the front door above the uneven hand-painted lettering that read “House of Lord Fellowship” there was a simple golden crucifix.

“A church across the street from a flophouse?” Byrth then said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Amen to that, Brother Byrth,” Payne said. He pointed over his shoulder, adding, “And there’s a middle school two blocks thataway. Think any of these pillars of the community ever stagger past the playground? Is it any wonder the kids growing up here think that crackheads, drunks, and hookers are the norm of society?”

Matt pushed back the tail of his coat and pulled his.45 off his right hip.

Like Byrth, he was sitting on his seat belt, its tang inserted in the buckle behind him. The practice of securing the belts in such a way-which of course violated Section 4581 of the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code requiring the wearing of passive restraints, and accordingly was “officially” prohibited by the department-not only stopped the damn seat sensor from incessantly sounding its annoying ding-ding-ding warning. It more importantly also allowed them faster access to their pistols and to exiting the vehicle.

With a shooter fast approaching, being “safely” strapped to a seat could turn a vehicle into a coffin.

Payne, aiming at the floorboard, thumbed the hammer back, then flipped up the lever to lock it, then slipped the pistol back behind his waistband.

Looking out the windshield and studying the crowd, Matt said, “You ever hear that a pistol is like a parachute?”

Byrth grinned. “Tell me. How?”

“When you need one, and you don’t have one, you’ll never have the need for one again.”

Byrth chuckled.

“Pabody,” he said, “the sheriff who found this Cusick girl’s ID in that trailer in the woods? He served in Special Forces and had his share of jumps-he’ll appreciate that one.” He looked at the group of men. The tallest one-who wore a multicolored knit cap and had thick dreadlocks and a scraggly beard-was jabbing his finger in another man’s face. “It’s like having to deal with the pissed-off Rastafarian there. Pabody’s always saying, ‘We’re trying to win hearts and minds, but we’re willing to splatter ’em if necessary.’”

At the end of the line were two Latinas who looked about thirty but could have been younger. One had on an oversized faded blue sweatshirt, the hood covering her head. The heavier one wore a patched black knee-length woolen coat. They were passing a stub of a joint between them. After a moment, the heavier of the two took the last toke, a very short one, and tossed the sliver of glowing paper to the ground, crushing it into the snow with the toe of her once white sneaker.

The Jamaican walked over and said something to the girl in the sweatshirt. She impatiently waved him off and turned her back to him. He had the last word, an angry one, then went back to the other men.

Byrth glanced at Payne.

“Call me a skeptic,” he said, “but I’m guessing neither girl-or any of them, for that matter-is going to be rushing across the street to confess their sins of the day. . ”

Payne grunted. “If you mean the pot, the times they are a-changin’, as someone once said. They know nothing’s going to happen. These days the SOP for that would be to charge them with personal possession. Less than thirty grams. That would get them a night in jail, and they’d just pay the fine.”

“That’s what happened with the Cusick girl?”

“Yeah. Twice, as I recall. But she skipped the option of being sent to SAM-Small Amount of Marijuana program. It’s another couple hundred bucks to take a one-day drug class, and then the charge is expunged from the record.”

“All but decriminalized.”

“All but. In these austere times, the powers-particularly the DA, who’s pretty outspoken about it-have decided that spending thousands to prosecute someone with twenty bucks of weed isn’t exactly efficient. They say it’s a money-saver. Frees up courts for bigger cases. Keeps cops on the street, not filling out paperwork or waiting to testify in court and collecting overtime.”

“A couple hundred? These people don’t look like they have a couple bucks.”

“No argument.” He slipped his phone into his pocket and grabbed the door handle. “Come on. Let’s see what they have to say. If anything.”

Byrth cocked and locked the.45 from his hip holster, then pulled his Stetson from the backseat.

As they crossed the street, Payne wasn’t surprised that now all eyes were on them.

“Damn, this cold is miserable!” Byrth muttered.

Like Payne, he had left his coat unzipped. Suffering the wicked weather-like not wearing a seat belt in the event of a wreck-was the trade-off for faster access to their weapons.

Toward the front of the line, they walked past a pale-skinned girl with dark hair. She looked maybe eighteen and, though it took a little imagination to see it, had a pretty face. Across her white cheeks was a disturbing pinkish brown web of scarring that looked not quite healed. The lines cut from near her temples to her chin, and from ears to nose. She lowered her head and turned away.

After they passed, Payne looked at Byrth and answered the unasked question: “That’s called a ‘buck-fitty.’ She pissed off someone, probably by saying no to some gangbanger’s girlfriend who was trying to recruit her as fresh meat for her gangbanger buddies. Or maybe to pimp her out. Probably both.”

“She dissed them?” Byrth asked, but it was more a statement.

Payne nodded. “And to make the point you don’t disrespect the gang, they disfigured her. Held her down so the dissed gangbanger’s girlfriend could carve her up with a box cutter razor blade. Buck-fitty is a hundred fifty, the number of stitches they hope it will take to close the wounds.”

Byrth exhaled audibly. “I’ve heard of that happening in Houston’s Third Ward and in south Dallas, just not called that. Barbaric beyond belief. .”

Payne and Byrth reached the two young women bringing up the end of the line. They reeked of marijuana. Expressionless, they looked numb from the cold, if not the pot, and seemed slow to focus when Payne held out his badge. He saw that under the blue hoodie the woman had a black eye, one that was almost faded.

“Evening, ladies,” he said. “I’m Sergeant Payne. Need to ask you a couple quick questions.”