Frank Zafiro - Some Degree of Murder

A door opened to a back room and a haggard looking woman in her fifties ambled out. Her grey hair was a mess and she wore a pink night coat with a large feather fringe. The belt barely kept the coat closed over her belly.

“What can I do for you?” she rasped.

“I want to rent a room.”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“What?” I repeated.

“You don’t look the type to get a room down here. You a cop or something?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I’ve had my fill of cops this week.”

“What do you mean?”

“A detective came in here and gave me the third degree about one of my tenants. She was found dead someplace else but he wanted to search her room. He was an asshole.”

“You ever meet a cop that wasn’t an asshole?”

She smiled at me. “Room’s thirty-nine bucks a night and I’ll need some ID.”

“How much is it without ID?”

“Seventy-five a night.”

I pulled out my money clip. “I want to pay for two weeks in advance.”

She pulled out a map of the small hotel. “How about a room here?” she asked and pointed at the map. The room sat directly behind the manager’s office on the first floor. The line of sight for the BSC clubhouse would be nonexistent.

I pointed at the map. “How about over here? And on the second floor.”

She shrugged and turned to her occupancy board. “I got one up there for you,” and she lifted the key.

“It’s not the dead girl’s room, is it?”

“I haven’t gotten that one cleaned up yet. You want it?”

”No.”

She handed me the key for room 204.

The door to the room that the manager walked out from earlier opened up and an older black man peered out. He was naked except for a towel around his waist. The woman peered over her shoulder at him.

“You comin’ back, Peggy?”

“I’m workin’ here.”

He shrugged his shoulders and quietly closed the door.

“Sorry about that,” Peggy muttered and scribbled some notes into a ledger. She slapped some keys on a calculator and gave me the total for the room.

I peeled a number of bills from the money clip and laid them on the counter.

With the key in hand, I left the manager’s office and continued walking back downtown to the Davenport.

TOWER

The house was silent when I slipped in through the kitchen door. The kitchen was clean as usual. The smell of popcorn hung in the air.

I shed equipment as I walked slowly down the hall. The weight of the handcuffs came off my waist but did little to lighten my step. I shrugged my shoulder rig off my shoulders.

I moved into my bedroom and dumped my gear on top of my dresser. Then I poked my head into Ben’s room. He lay in his bed, sleeping, perfectly still. It always concerned me, how still he lay while he slept. Only his shallow breath moved the blankets slightly.

After the collision, I used to wonder if Ben had always slept so stilly. The only other person who might have known was my sister. She wasn’t around to answer that question.

I closed his door and started toward my own bedroom, then paused. Directly across from Ben’s room was the spare room. The door was partially open. I swung the door open slowly, wincing when it gave a small creak.

Teri lay on her back in the small twin bed. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow. The blankets came to her waist and I could see her turquoise nightgown. She was breathing deeply and I felt a tinge of shame as I watched her. Asleep, she didn’t press her lips together so tightly. They pouted like a 1940s movie star.

Teri moaned softly and rolled onto her side, facing the door. I took in the curve of her body under the blanket, beginning at her feet and following it up her legs, over her hips, to her bare shoulders and to her face. When I reached her eyes, I saw her looking back at me.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

“I just got here,” I half-whispered. “I tried to be quiet. Sorry if I woke you.”

“S’alright,” she murmured. “You check on Ben?”

“Yeah. He’s sound asleep.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. Never moves when he sleeps.” She snuggled down into her pillow. “Everything okay?” she asked sleepily.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mmmm-kay.” She closed her eyes. “’Night, John.”

“Goodnight,” I said and pulled the door closed. I stood and stared at that closed door for several moments before turning and trudging toward my bedroom. I knew that sleep would evade me again.

VIRGIL

A jagged headache pushed inward from the temples, making me uncomfortable and angry as I wandered along Sprague in the early morning sun. The newspaper predicted it would be abnormally warm for the day. At nine o’clock in the morning, I was already roasting in my jacket with beads of sweat rolling down my back underneath my shirt.

Sprague Avenue was pretty quiet at that time of the morning. The locals were still sleeping off their highs from the previous night and the few honest business folks in the area were tucked quietly away inside their shops. The gnawing headache convinced me that I needed something to eat and a caffeine injection.

I stopped at the Lazy J diner. An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was finishing up when I walked in for breakfast. One of the female members collected their sign from the front entrance, flashing an embarrassed smile when she walked by me.

The smell of bacon grease and burnt coffee wafted around the room, over-powering the obligatory cigarette smoke that accompanies any recovering alcoholics meeting. I grabbed a table near the window and sat facing out at the activity on the street.

A white-haired waitress slowly ambled over to me. Her brown skirt fell below her knees, allowing the varicose veins in her thick, lower legs to show. The scuffed nurses shoes she wore looked several months past comfortable. Her orange nametag read Laverne .

“Morning,” she said with a slight southern drawl.

I nodded back at her and pulled out a pack of Camels.

“Something to drink?” she asked and laid a plastic menu on the table in front of me.

I lit up a cigarette and drew a deep inhale. “Coffee.”

Laverne had large crow’s feet with deep crevices near her eyes. Her dark eye shadow made her appear tired and haunted. “Need a moment to look at the menu?”

“Two eggs, bacon and an English muffin.”

“How do you want those eggs?”

“Sunnyside up.”

Laverne nodded and wandered off to the kitchen.

I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and massaged my temples, hoping to ease the headache.

From inside my jacket I pulled out Fawn’s picture and the article that Andie had sent me on her murder. I unfolded the article on the table and reread it.

GIRL FOUND MURDERED BEHIND BINGO HALL

Early morning discovery shocks neighborhood

A young woman was found murdered behind a dumpster in the parking lot of the Farmer’s Bingo Parlor in east River City. Her body was discovered by a patron leaving after an evening of Bingo.

The victim’s name was not released pending notification of the family. She was described as white and in her early teens. No further information regarding her description was released.

Vivian Marsh, the patron who discovered the body, was still shaken after finding the girl. “No one, especially a little girl like that, deserves to get herself killed that way,” said the sixty-seven year old grandmother. Marsh immediately notified the Bingo Parlor management, who called the police. Patrol units responded quickly.