J. Kerley - The Broken Souls

“You see anyone near the Mazda?”

Dell made a whistling noise, like laughing or choking. “An ape jumped out of the car, ran straight at my headlights, then cut to the side and jumped into the shadows.”

“Ape?” Harry said.

Dell said, “I climbed from the rig and looked in the car. When I saw what was inside, my heart grabbed in me like a fist. I made it back to the cab, called 911.”

“Tell me you didn’t really see an ape.”

“It was a hairy guy.” Dell patted his cheeks. “Furry face, long hair. Like an ape. Or the thing in those Star Wars movies.”

“A Wookiee?” I asked.

Dell shrugged. “Ape. Wookiee. Or maybe one of those guys from ZZ Top.”

“I hate a bearded perp,” Harry said as we left the hospital and aimed the Crown Vic for WTSJ, the victim’s employer. “The bastard shaves and he’s got a brand-new face.”

I’d been replaying Dell’s recollections in my head, picturing myself high above the ground in a cab-over Mack. “You know what really got me, bro? The perp ran straight for the rig, then juked at the last second, disappearing. He ran a dozen feet directly into the truck’s headlights.”

Harry tapped his thumbs on the wheel. “Headlights, engine rumble, windows like eyes …the truck should have scared the hell out of a guy just committed a capital crime. Standard response is haul ass the opposite direction.”

“Maybe he thought he could attack the truck,” I said. “Roaring on crack or PCP. Or maybe insane.”

“He’d already pitched his knife. It was on the other side of the vehicle. If he was going to war with the semi, he was going at it bare-handed.”

“Ballsy son of a bitch,” I said. “Or a full whack-out.”

“Never a good thing,” Harry noted. “Either choice.”

WTSJ was in a squat concrete-block building near Pritchard, a town abutting Mobile to the north. The receptionist’s eyes were shadowed with grief, but she forced a smile.

“Lincoln’s the station manager. He’s on the air two more minutes.”

She put us in a small anteroom. Lincoln Haley was in the adjoining studio, visible through a thick window. Haley was mid-forties, square-jawed, a neat beard. His forehead was high and protruding, like it was filled with songs. Racks of CDs were at his back. He wore a black headset and spoke into a microphone the size of a beer can. He saw us looking, flashed two minutes with his fingers, leaned over the microphone. Speakers filled the anteroom with his voice.

“ …coming up on the hour, time for Newsbreak. After the hour it’s the Queen Bee, Miss Pearlie Winston, bringing you the best in funk’n’blues in the whole United States …Now I’m gonna take you to the top with Marlon Saunders …”

Music kicked in. Haley stood, set the headset on the table, rubbed his face. A man worn past the tread. The studio door admitted a large and brightly dressed woman. She gave Haley’s hand a squeeze. He appeared in the anteroom seconds later, khakis, sandals, sweater, hands in his pockets.

“I’ll do anything if it helps find the animal who hurt Teesh.”

Through the glass I saw the woman put on the headphones, pull the microphone close. She took a deep breath, a big fake smile rising to her face.

“This is Pearlie Winston, queen of the funky scene …”

Haley reached to a switch, killed the speakers.

“Pearlie’s heart is broken, but she sounds like she’s about to break into song. It’s tough. Taneesha was like my daughter, everybody’s daughter. She was …w-was …”

“Tell me about Ms Franklin’s job,” Harry said. “At your own pace.”

Haley nodded, composed himself.

“We’re a small station, Detective. When Pearlie’s not on the air, she’s selling advertising time. When I’m not broadcasting or managing things, I’m the electrician. Teesh was our reporter, but sometimes wrote ads.”

“You’re probably not ripe for a takeover by Clarity Broadcasting,” I said. Clarity owned Channel 14, Dani’s employer.

Haley’s eyes darkened. “Everything Clarity touches turns to garbage; profitable garbage, but soulless.”

“Ms Franklin worked here how long?” Harry said.

“Started as an intern two years back. That girl had boundless enthusiasm.”

“Did she want to be a DJ or whatever, on the air?”

“She did the midnight show for several months. But talking between tunes was too tame for Teesh. Her dream was to be a reporter. Teesh had the aggression, the drive. She just needed more polish. I moved her into our tiny news department. You would have thought I’d given her a job on CNN.”

Harry said, “Was she working a story last night?”

“Not an assignment. But Teesh was always looking to break that big story, find something no one was supposed to know, putting the light on it. I told her we didn’t have money for investigations. But she thought of it as training, kept at it on her own time.”

“Self-propelled,” I said.

“Know who she wanted to be like? That investigator on Channel 14, uh, I can’t recall names …blonde, big eyes, kind of in-your-face, but sexy with it …”

“Uh, Danbury?” I said.

Haley snapped his fingers. “DeeDee Danbury. Teesh spoke with Ms Danbury a few times, asked questions. Teesh called her a kick-ass lady with a mind all her own.”

“I’ve heard that about Ms Danbury,” I said.

We left the station and headed for Forensics. We walked into the main lab and found deputy director Wayne Hembree sprawled across the white floor, tie flapped over his shoulder, glasses askew on his black, clock-round face, one bony arm beneath the small of his back, the other flung above his head.

“I’ve been shot,” he moaned.

“Who did it?” I asked. Detectives get paid to ask insightful questions like that.

Hembree nodded to the far side of the room where an older guy in a neon-bright aloha shirt held a dummy gun and grinned like he’d just discovered orgasm pills.

“Not Thaddeus over there,” Hembree said. “From his angle the momentum would have flung me the opposite direction. My arm wouldn’t have been beneath my back, but across my belly.”

I grabbed Hembree’s hand, pulled him up. He brushed down his lab coat, made notes on a clipboard, then told the shooter they’d act it out from another angle in a few minutes. The Thaddeus guy flicked a salute, faked a couple shots at Harry and me, retreated from the room. Hembree scanned a report and gave us the preliminaries.

“Reads like a robbery gone bad. The car stops at the intersection, the perp runs from the shadows, busts the driver’s-side window, takes over.”

“Why the torture?” I asked.

“Motivation’s not my bailiwick,” Hembree said. “Maybe she said something that set him off.”

“Must have been a hell of a something,” I said.

Harry had been listening quietly. He stepped up.

“I got something feels off, myself. How long had she been dead when your people got there, Bree?”

“Under a half-hour, I’d bet. Your trucker saw the perp jump out when he arrived. Why?”

“The driver’s-side window, the busted one, was windward,” Harry said. “Close, anyway.”

Hembree frowned. “I’m not getting you.”

“I stuck my finger down on the floor. There was over two inches of rain there. I mean, it was raining like hell last night, but four inches an hour?”

Hembree frowned. “Rain fell in moving pockets, the storm-cell effect. If a string of cells went over that location, three or more inches an hour is possible. But a location a mile away might get an inch or less.”

“Makes sense,” Harry said. “One less thing to think about.”

I heard my ring tone, grabbed the phone from my pocket. The call was from the front desk at headquarters.