Stephen White: Missing Persons

Slocum stopped writing.

Darrell Olson took a step back so that his partner wouldn’t spot the smile that was forming on his face.

I said, “I’m going home now, Detective. I think you know how to reach me if you have any more questions.”

Slocum made a quick move toward me-or at me-but Darrell stepped forward and spoke before his partner could do something he would regret. “Warrant’s here, Jaris. Come on, let’s go inside and see what we have.”

I didn’t go right home. I found Raoul, Diane’s husband, pacing outside the crime-scene tape and filled him in on all that had happened late that afternoon. He was almost too agitated to attend to my words. Raoul Estevez had a roster of relatives who had not survived Franco’s reign in Spain, and the sight of his wife squeezed into the back of a squad car being peppered with questions from law enforcement authorities wasn’t sitting particularly well with him.

“She is not under arrest?” he demanded, his words causing little cartoonish puffs of steam in the cold air. Although it’s his second language-actually, his fourth or fifth-Raoul’s English is better than Prince Charles’s, but the American legal system still perplexed him at times. English is my only language, isn’t in Prince Charles’s league, and the American legal system still perplexed me at times, too. Still, since I was the natural-born citizen, I assumed the responsibility of translating the proceedings for Raoul.

“No, they’re just questioning her about what happened, what she saw, that’s all. She’ll be done soon. She didn’t see much; I found Hannah’s body.”

As if on cue, Slocum, who had not taken his partner’s advice about going inside and looking around, hopped out of the cruiser and, I thought, reached in to help Diane from the backseat.

“See?” I turned to Raoul. “It looks like she’s done.”

Diane suddenly yelled, “Get your goddamn hands off me!”

Raoul’s voice grew hard. “It doesn’t look that way to me.”

I turned back to the cruiser. Slocum had Diane completely out of the car and was twisting her ninety degrees so he could shove her face-first up against the rear fender of the black-and-white. Instantly he had her legs spread past shoulder width and in seconds he had her arms behind her back and handcuffs on both her wrists.

I was shocked. “Don’t, Raoul.” I had to stand in my friend’s path to keep him from crossing the yellow tape and joining the fray. I planted my feet on the ground and both my hands on Raoul’s hard chest. Finally, he stepped back.

Ten seconds later I had Lauren on the phone. “Get Cozy down here fast. I think Jaris Slocum just arrested Diane for something.”

Lauren said, “Slocum? God help us, he’s such an asshole lately.”

The verdict, it appeared, was unanimous.

Cozier Maitlin lived, literally, around the corner.

From my sentry position just outside the crime-scene tape, I spotted Cozy on the sidewalk as he was descending the final steep section of hill that drops down from Maxwell toward Broadway. Despite the crowd of gawkers gathered around the yellow police tape, he wasn’t that hard to spot. Cozy stood six-feet-nine.

I checked my watch-no more than seven or eight minutes could have passed since Jaris Slocum had cuffed Diane and shoved her rudely back into the rear seat of the black-and-white.

Pointing toward the corner, I said to Raoul, “That’s the defense attorney Lauren called.”

“That was fast. He’s tall.”

“He’s good. He helped Lauren with that thing, you know, a few years ago. Hey, Cozy!”

Cozy didn’t break stride as he approached, or wave. Maybe he elevated his chin an additional millimeter or two, but that was the only indication that he’d heard me calling his name. He was wearing the same suit I imagined he’d worn to his downtown office that morning-the blue was a navy that shared a lot of DNA with black, and it was lined with the palest of gray pinstripes. His white shirt appeared freshly starched and his black shoes were the shiniest things on the block.

A nice, full-length umbrella or a walking stick would not have been out of place accessorizing his outfit.

We shook hands. “Good evening, Alan. At least the location is convenient this time. And the weather is delightful for December. No blizzard. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”

“Thanks for coming so quickly, Cozy. This is Raoul Estevez. Raoul, Cozier Maitlin.”

“A pleasure, Mr. Estevez. I’m aware of your work.” That was Cozy’s way of communicating that he wasn’t worried about his fee. “It is your wife who is being detained?”

“In that car.” Raoul pointed at the squad that was parked at an angle on the lawn in front of the building where Hannah lay dead.

“Do you want to know what happened?” I asked.

“I understand someone died here under suspicious circumstances. Beyond that, not really. If either of you was an intimate of the deceased, please let me offer my condolences,” Cozy said, insincerely. He lifted one of his long legs, stepped over the crime-scene tape, and somehow managed to adopt an even more imperial deportment as he moved out onto the lawn. He paused, turned back to Raoul, and said, “Give me a moment or two to sort this out. Everything will be fine. It will.” After one more step, Cozy looked back over his shoulder at me. “Lauren said I’d be speaking with Jaris Slocum. That’s true?”

I nodded. I considered the wisdom of editorializing about Detective Slocum’s apparent personality flaws, but decided that I didn’t need to do anything to inflame the situation any further.

“Slocum is… difficult,” Cozy said. He said it in such a way that it sounded more damning than Sam Purdy informing me that Slocum was an asshole, or than Lauren concurring.

“That’s been my experience so far this evening,” I replied.

I was feeling a million things. Grief, anger, frustration, fear, even some relief, now that Cozy was there. Still, my anticipation of what was to come next was so sharp that I would have yanked out my wallet and maxed out all my credit cards for a ticket to the production I was about to get to witness for free.

Cozy immediately marched over to the cruiser and confronted the patrol cop assigned to keep watch on Diane, who was continuing to fume in the backseat. Cozy’s approach wasn’t tentative, and didn’t have any excuse-me-please in it. He moved in until he stood toe-to-toe with the cop, a young black man who was about six-two, 210.

Cozy dwarfed him.

Cozy’s introductory gambit to the officer consisted of a few words that caused the man to react by trying to step back to create some breathing room. But since the cop was already leaning against the car there was no place for him to go and he had to crane his neck upward to even see Cozy’s face. I imagined that the view was like gazing up from below Mt. Rushmore.

The patrol cop listened to Cozy for only another beat or two before he raised his voice and barked, “Step back, sir! Step back ! Now! That’s a warning!”

The cop’s hand gravitated ominously toward his holster.

I held my breath and instinctively grabbed Raoul’s arm so he wouldn’t do something valiant, and stupid. I’d known him a long time, and knew that Raoul was capable of both.

Cozy, of course, didn’t step back an inch. He was daring the cop to get physical with him. And if the young cop preferred to do loud, Cozy could do loud just fine. With volume that matched the patrol cop’s do-what-I-say voice and then raised a few decibels for good measure, Cozy announced, “I am her attorney and I would like to speak with my client, officer. Officer”-Cozy leaned back at his waist so that he could read the cop’s name tag-“Leamer. It’s a pleasure to meet you. My client-that is she, by the way, that you are protecting -won’t, will not, be answering any more of the detectives’ questions tonight.”