Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

Looking around the kitchen, I found my keys hanging on a hook next to the light switch. The key in Lucy's purse matched my key to the house. The finish on mine was dull from years of use while her key was shiny. I ran my fingers across the teeth, examining my skin for any loose metal shavings from a newly cut key, perhaps made at the drugstore in Brookside that was next to the bagel shop, opened at six A.M. and had a self-service key machine but there were none.

"Find what you were looking for?" Lucy asked.

It was the day after Wendy's fifteenth birthday. She was on probation for a minor in possession charge and had been out all night, breaking her curfew and her probation. Her purse was stashed under a pile of dirty clothes on the floor in her bedroom. I waited until she was in the shower to go through it, finding three joints in a plastic bag.

"Find what you were looking for?" my daughter asked.

She was wrapped in a towel, hands on her hips, the bathroom door across the hall open, the shower running.

"Where'd you get the dope?"

"You're treating me like a criminal. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"Ashamed and right."

I didn't know how to be both a cop and a father. We had that conversation too many times to count as she migrated between rehab, school, and halfway houses and back to her mother and me.

"I said, did you find what you were looking for?" Lucy repeated.

"Where'd you get this key?" I asked Lucy.

Dressed in jeans and a turtleneck, her hair damp and her eyes on fire, she snatched the key from my hand, scooped everything else back into her purse, and jammed it under her arm.

"From my father. He sent it to me when he knew he was dying. Now get out of my house."

She wasn't Wendy. I was embarrassed but not ashamed at being caught, my gut telling me that I could still be right.

"Get a lawyer. What were you doing snooping around in my bedroom?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She didn't look away and her cheeks didn't turn red but she swallowed hard and blinked like I'd slapped her.

"You're sloppy. You didn't straighten the books after you opened my gun case and you wiped the gun down. You should have left it the way you found it."

She squared her shoulders, arms tight across her chest. "It's my house. I'm entitled to know who's living in it."

"Why were you taking pictures last night?"

She bit the inside of her mouth. "I didn't think you noticed."

"You're lucky I did and Ammara Iverson didn't. She would have ground you and your cell phone under her boot if she'd caught you."

"But she didn't. And I knew you wouldn't bust me." Her aggravation gave way to a satisfied smile that spread across her face.

"How did you know that?"

"An ex-FBI agent gets called out to a crime scene. There's got to be a reason. Odds are the feds won't tell you everything even if they want your help. That's the way you guys roll. I figured you'd want to know why and that the pictures might help. I downloaded them to my computer. Give me your e-mail address and I'll send them to you."

I studied her, coming up with more questions than answers, then tore a corner off the bagel bag and scribbled my e-mail address on it. She grinned again and stuffed it in her pocket.

"Why take a chance like that to help someone you don't know and who you're kicking out of your house?"

"I don't have a job and I can use the rent money. Besides, I wasn't going to kick you out until I caught you going through my purse. How's that supposed to make me feel?"

Wendy's voice echoed in my head. Lucy's anger was genuine and justified and her read of last night's situation was on the money. The combination was disarming.

"You're not the only one who wants to know who they're sharing a roof with. You show up out of nowhere. I've got questions too."

She pulled a chair away from the table, sat, and stretched her long legs out. "Like what?"

"Like who are you? You act like you've been on the job. What's your story?"

"Montgomery County Maryland Sheriff's Department. I was a deputy for five years."

"Why'd you quit?"

She stood, folded her arms across her chest, and aimed her chin at me. "They're real picky. They make you quit when they send you to prison."

When she bounced off the couch the night before, loose, ready, and confident, I thought that she'd been on the job. Her eagerness to go behind the yellow tape and her refusal to be intimidated by Ammara confirmed it. I saw those things because they were familiar and because it was all she showed me until now. Her eyes narrowed, hard and cold, into a prison yard stare, daring me to push.

"For what?"

"Stealing diamonds, loose stones I found lying on the floor next to a dead body. Victim was a jewelry salesman. Put up enough of a fight to get killed. I got there first. Stuff was scattered all over the room. I didn't think anyone would notice if a few rocks stayed lost."

"But somebody noticed."

"Somebody usually does. The employer had a detailed inventory. We caught the perp the same night before he had a chance to unload any of it. Took all of twelve hours before it got back to me."

"How long were you gone?"

"Thirty-eight months at the Jessup Correctional Facility for Women. Another six months in a halfway house in Bethesda. Plus, I did another year of supervision, peeing in a cup and looking for someone who'd hire an ex-cop, ex-con thief. Not a lot of demand for that. Got my full release last week and decided to come home, start over."

"Why'd you do it? You don't look the type."

"What's the type supposed to look like? One thing I learned on the job and in the joint is that the only thing you need to screw up is a pulse. I was there. The diamonds were there. I knew it was wrong. I knew what I was risking. And then I picked up the stones and got a rush that shut down every rational cell in my brain. It was easy. Next thing I knew, the scene was swarming with deputies and the rocks were burning a hole in my pocket."

"So now what?"

She shrugged. "They say that America is the land of second chances. All I want is mine."

It was an all too familiar refrain that confused need and hope for commitment and effort.

"What happens when that second chance turns out to be another easy score and you want the rush more than the chance?"

The light drained out of her eyes, her mouth quivering. "That's what scares the hell out of me."

The pictures Lucy took at Walter Enoch's house testified to the limits of surreptitious cell phone photography. They were off-centered, grainy, and focused like the camera's eye was half-opened. Enoch's body was recognizable but the pictures showed little else of interest. I put that case aside for the one I'd been hired for.

The police reports on Delaney's and Blair's deaths would be the best source of information about how they died. Despite my misgivings about Harper, I was glad for the chance to do what I knew how to do and there was no reason to wait until Monday to get started. I found the business card for Detective Paul McNair that Milo Harper had given me. He answered on the third ring.

"Homicide. McNair."

It was Saturday afternoon, not a prize shift. McNair sounded distracted. I heard a basketball broadcast in the background, probably a radio on his desk.

"It's Jack Davis. I don't know if you remember, but we worked a joint task force a few years back. I was with the FBI."

The radio broadcast faded but McNair didn't perk up. "Yeah. Bunch of meth labs out in eastern Jackson County. Couple of crank heads shot each other up."

"Right. Been a while. How you doing?"

"How you think I'm doing? I'm in here jacking my meat on a Saturday afternoon instead of being home watching Kansas kick Missouri's ass up and down the court."