Steve Martini - The Judge

“Like who dumped the body?” says Tony. He shakes his head. “Our man was too far into a paper bag and the bottle inside of it to notice. Cars come and go in the alley. He says he doesn’t pay any attention.”

“Maybe he’s afraid,” says Lenore.

“This guy’s too far gone for fear.”

“How did he find her?” says Lenore.

“You kiddin’?” Tony gives her a sideways glance. “A metal Dumpster, roof over your head, and four walls. Street of dreams. Half a dozen bums sleep in there on any given night. If a truck picks it up and dumps it that day, the place is Triple A approved.”

“Only today it wasn’t empty?” I say.

“No.” Tony eyes me warily. I think perhaps he has been counseled by Gus Lano so that I am now persona non grata, no longer to be trusted.

“He found the body just dumped in there? Must have been quite a shock,” I say.

“It was wrapped.” Tony says this as one would describe a tuna sandwich in a lunch box. “Rolled up in a blanket. They pore through the shit like rodents.” He’s talking about the homeless men who make this particular metal box home.

“He thought maybe he found some treasure when he saw the blanket,” says Tony. “We’re lucky he didn’t sleep with her for a couple of nights before he called us.” Tony does not think much of the underclass.

“How did she die?” asks Lenore.

“Could be strangulation. Some marks on the throat. The M.E. hasn’t made a call yet. She wasn’t exactly overdressed,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“She was wearing a pair of panties and a cotton top. Had a small towel wrapped around her head like a turban.”

“Washing her hair, perhaps?” says Lenore. “Maybe she was going out, or getting ready for bed.”

Arguillo raises an eyebrow, a little tilt of the head, as if to say, “Read into this whatever you want.”

“Any evidence of sexual assault?” says Lenore.

“Your guess,” he says. “Half-naked woman, dumped in a trash bin, young, good-looking. I wouldn’t put it out of my mind,” he tells us. “But we’ll have to wait for the M.E.,” he says.

He motions for her to come a little closer, something private.

“If you have a second I wanna talk to you alone,” he tells Lenore. He motions her to one side of the alley, just out of earshot, where they talk. This exchange seems to take a while, and it is not a monologue by Tony. At one point there is a clear display of some surprise by Lenore. This, followed with more animated gestures by Tony and then raised voices that I can almost hear, until they both look in my direction. Finally Lenore seems to end this, walking away, leaving Tony standing there.

When Lenore comes back her face is more ashen. I am thinking that perhaps Tony has imparted a few more grisly details of death, the sort of particulars in a criminal case that you don’t want floating in the public pool of perceptions.

“There’s nothing more he can tell us right now.” For Lenore this is a little white lie. She tells me it’s time for us to go.

“I wanted to give you the heads-up,” says Tony, following.

“Right,” says Lenore.

“I thought maybe you’d be handling the case,” he says.

“I doubt it,” she says. Lenore hasn’t told him she’s been fired. More deception.

Tony starts to walk us toward the tape and my car.

“I knew you’d be interested,” he says. “You worked with her, in the Acosta thing. It’s too bad. She was a good kid.” Tony starts to turn a little teary. “We’ll get whoever did this. She knew a lotta guys on the force. They’ll be out for blood, turn over every stone.” This is becoming Tony’s mantra. One more reminder that cops take care of their own.

The details of Tony’s face are suddenly lost in the glare of headlights on high beam, a car nosing into the alley at the other end, large and dark.

“I’ll keep you posted,” he says, moving down the alley now, back toward the fold.

“Hey. We need to talk,” I tell him.

“Yeah. Later.”

“It’s time we should be getting along,” says Lenore. She’s at my sleeve again, retreating to the tape, as I see the tall, slender silhouette exit from the rear of the vehicle, with uniforms trailing behind, it as though on the tail of a comet: Coleman Kline.

“There’s something I have to see,” she says. “Turn here.”

I’m on my way home and Lenore wants to take a detour. It’s late and I have Sarah. I tell her this, but she insists that it will take only a minute. I follow directions down Harris, away from the downtown area toward the interstate.

I ask her what it was that she and Tony discussed.

“I can’t say right now,” she tells me.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. Make a left at the next intersection.”

I do as I’m told. She’s checking the painted addresses on the curb as I drive, and a few seconds later she has me pull over under an aging elm, massive and looming, home to a million crows. Their saturation bombing of the street gives it a dalmatian-like quality.

It is one of those older neighborhoods, with turn-of-the-century homes, most of which have seen better days, elevated for the floods that once inundated the city each year, pilings concealed behind a facade of rotting latticework. There are a few apartments and a four-plex or two mixed in, built during the late sixties and early seventies, when the city made a brief attempt at renaissance, before crime and white flight nailed a stake through the heart of urban America.

Three men or boys, I cannot tell which, are at the corner, hoods up, doing various renditions of the pimp roll, talking to someone in a car, engine running with parking lights, the commerce of the night.

Before I can say a word Lenore’s door is open.

“Where are you going?”

Her only response is a slammed car door, as she heads across the street. Left with the accomplished fact, there is nothing I can do but follow. By the time I lock the car, Lenore has disappeared into a dark passage up a narrow walkway, the ground floor of one of the four-plexes. If I hadn’t turned to look in time I would have lost her completely. As it is, I follow her across the street.

In the dark, deep in the bush of somebody’s front yard, I cannot see her, but I can hear her fumbling in her purse, the rattle of keys.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“ Shhh. ”

“Who lives here?”

“Put a cork in it.”

Then, suddenly, a faint beam of light, like Tinkerbell in an inkwell. Lenore has found what she was looking for, a small penlight on her key ring. I approach down the walkway.

“I hope this is a good friend,” I tell her. I glance at my watch, with its luminous dials. It is nearly one A.M.

Lenore is working the handle of the front door. It is not until I see the handkerchief lining her hand that my apprehension runs to fear. The sobriety of the moment settles on me like white-hot phosphorus, and as the door latch clicks, dark intuition tells me who lives here.

In a neighborhood like this, that anyone would leave their door unlocked is a curiosity on the order of fire eating and sword swallowing.

“We’re in luck,” she says.

Not any kind that I would recognize.

Lenore slips through the door and pulls me in after her.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I tell her.

More shushing, a finger to her lips as she closes the door, à la handkerchief. I have visions of sirens and red lights.

“It can’t take them long to figure this out,” I tell her.

“We won’t be here long.”

“We shouldn’t be here at all.”

“Then go sit in the car,” she says. With this I am left in darkness as Lenore moves and takes the dim illumination of the penlight with her.