Thomas Cook - Sacrificial Ground

He did not know why. The school psychologist had called it “congenital loneliness,” as if, by giving it a name, he had solved the mystery. But it remained a mystery to Frank, one that sank into him like water into the open veins of broken wood. For two years he’d thought of almost nothing else, thought about it as his cases lay unsolved on his desk, as his esteem in the department shrank to nothingness.

Now, it seemed to him, he had only the city and its unending streets. From his position on the small porch, he could see the skyline as it rose like a wall of stars against the night. There was still a kind of magic in its life which appealed to him. There was something wondrous in the concentration of so much humanity in such constricted space, and it was this amazing compression which created the wild, insatiable energy of the streets, an energy which spilled into them each summer night and held there, hour after hour, as if certain that the life which generated it could go on this way forever. At times, as he stood alone on the porch, gazing out at the glittering city, Frank thought that he could actually comprehend its people, as if the diverse and hidden forces which drove them forward were the product of a single, central longing that, by some tragic and mysterious code, urged one man to save his brother, and another to destroy him.

6

Frank awoke early the next morning, just as the first gray light had begun to inch its way into his room. He showered, dressed quickly, then headed for his car. The early morning traffic was lighter than he’d expected, and because of that he found himself alone in the detective bullpen. He pulled out the lab report and read it once again. He was still reading it when Asa Brickman, the head of Homicide Division, walked up to his desk.

“Morning, Frank,” he said.

“Morning, Asa.”

Brickman nodded toward the lab report. “That about the girl over on Glenwood?”

“Angelica Devereaux,” Frank said.

“Yeah, that one. Gimme.”

Frank looked at him, puzzled. “You want to read it?”

Brickman laughed. “Naw, I don’t want to read it,” he said. “I want to give it to somebody else.” He reached down and took the edge of the folder in his huge black hand.

Frank did not release it. “Why?”

Brickman shook his head. “Oh, come on, Frank, you know when a rich white girl like this gets wasted, we got to jump on it fast.”

“I am on it.”

“We’re talking old-time white money here, Frank. This Devereaux piece is not just some whore in a back alley.”

Frank said nothing. He still did not release the folder.

Brickman let it go and straightened himself. “You going to give me shit on this?” He looked at Frank menacingly. “We’re talking old white money, goddamnit.”

“That what you are, Asa?” Frank asked. “Old white money?”

Brickman sighed heavily. “Yeah, right. And don’t I look it?” He shrugged. “Look, the fact is, the bluebloods’ll be watching us on this one. I want my best men on it.” He smiled knowingly. “And your record’s spotty to say the least, my man. Know what I mean?”

“I have a feeling about this one, Asa,” Frank told him.

“A feeling?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean? You got something on this case already?”

Frank shook his head.

“Then forget it,” Brickman said. He reached for the report again, but Frank did not let it go.

Brickman’s voice hardened as he once again released the folder. “What the fuck you think you’re doing, Frank?”

“I want this case.”

“Since when does it matter to you what case you’re on?”

“Since right now.”

“You got some connection to it?”

“No.”

“Some special expertise, something like that?”

“No.”

“Any reason I could give for keeping you on it? I mean one that would hold up on the top floor?”

“Nothing. Just a feeling.”

Brickman stared at him quietly. “You know Harry Gibbons?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you say he’s the best detective in Homicide?”

“Yeah, I guess he is.”

“Takes these special goddamn courses all the time, right? Goes to night school? A real top-gun?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Just like the Mounties, always gets his man.”

Frank nodded.

“Well, Gibbons wants this case, too, Frank,” Brickman said. “Now what would you do in my situation? Think about it. You’ve slouched around here, pissing away month after month.” He stopped. “And by the way, what the fuck happened to your face?”

Frank said nothing.

“Ran into a swinging door?” Brickman asked dryly.

“Personal business,” Frank said. “It has nothing to do with my work.”

“Uh huh,” Brickman said unbelievingly. “Anyway, if you had a case you needed to break, wouldn’t you hand it to Gibbons?”

“Probably,” Frank admitted.

“So why shouldn’t I?”

“Because in his heart,” Frank said, “Gibbons doesn’t give a damn about anything.”

“That don’t mean a goddamn thing to me, Frank,” Brickman said.

Frank looked steadily into Brickman’s eyes. “Years back, Asa, if some peckerwood mayor had told Gibbons to go waste some big-mouthed, agitating nigger, what do you think he’d have done?”

Brickman’s face softened slightly, and a slow smile stretched across his lips. “All right, Frank,” he said, after a moment, “I’ll let you hold on to it for a while. But I don’t want you on it alone.”

“I won’t work with Gibbons,” Frank said flatly.

“How about Alvin?”

Frank shook his head. “Caleb Stone.”

“That old fart?”

“Yeah.”

Brick laughed lightly. “That old bastard have a feeling for this case, too?”

Frank shrugged. “I can work with him, that’s all.”

“Okay. I’ll put Caleb on it. You want to tell him, or you want me to?”

“I will.”

“You working anything else?”

“That guy who killed his wife over on Highland.”

“That’s pretty open and shut, right?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I throw it to Gibbons?”

“No.”

“Okay, done,” Brickman said. “You just work this one, nothing else. But don’t fuck it up, Frank. You won’t get another chance.” He turned quickly and walked back out of the room.

Frank returned to the lab report and began to scan its findings once again. Slowly, his mind shifted from Angelica to her sister, and he remembered the forceful way in which she had managed to control herself. He wondered if Angelica had shared that characteristic, if she had been able to sit in a chair and calmly inject her own body with poison seven times. It seemed beyond anyone’s capacity, no matter what the lab report said. The method was too protracted, the results, as he imagined them, too unendurably painful. He had seen his share of deaths: crudely slashed wrists deep in bloody water, faces blown away by shotgun blasts, bodies slumped limply to the side, the smell of gas still rising from their clothes. The reasons were almost always the same, a loneliness and isolation so complete that it closed them off from the rest of the world, locked them in a dark drawer from which they could not even imagine an escape.

He tried to picture Angelica with the hypodermic needle in her hand, but found he could not. He saw her picture in the yearbook and her body sprawled on the ground, but could imagine nothing between the ordinariness of the one and the perversity of the other.

He was still struggling to find some line that might connect the two when Caleb walked up to his desk.

“Saw Brickman downstairs,” he said, his lips fluttering around the stem of his pipe. “He said you wanted to see me.”