Streets of Fire (3 page)

*

Luther was waiting for him when Ben got back to his desk. He was sitting in his chair, his hair lifting lazily with each pass of the large rotating fan that stood near the back of the room.

‘When you left the ballfield, where’d you go, Ben?’ he asked immediately.

‘Back on surveillance,’ Ben said.

Luther rose slowly from the chair, then eased himself onto the top of Ben’s desk. ‘You mean King?’

‘Yes,’ Ben said. He pulled the small notebook from his jacket pocket and handed it to Luther.

Luther glanced at it idly. ‘Anything new?’

Ben shook his head.

Luther pocketed the notebook. ‘So what did you do then?’

‘I came back here,’ Ben said. ‘I talked to Sammy.’

‘About what?’

‘That little girl.’

Luther looked pleased. ‘Good. What then?’

‘I went home for a rest, and then the phone rang.’

‘So then you came back to headquarters?’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said.

‘Okay,’ Luther said thoughtfully.

‘What’s this all about, Captain?’ Ben asked. ‘All these questions, I mean.’

Luther looked at Ben as if he were a small child in need of basic instruction. ‘Well, like I said at the ballfield, this little girl could be a problem for us. If you want to know the truth, she could be a problem in several ways.’ Luther lifted his hand and shot a finger into the air. ‘First, they’ll be certain people who figure this is some sort of KKK killing or something like that. We have to make sure that it’s not.’ A second finger poked the air. ‘And we also have to make sure that we’re looking into this killing, that we’re not just letting it go because the victim is colored.’ The two fingers curled back into Luther’s fist. ‘See what I mean? We want to cover ourselves in both directions.’ He smiled quietly. ‘That’s why it’s important that you really work this case, Ben,’ he added. ‘That’s why it looks good that you checked with Sammy. But that’s also why it looks bad that you went home and took a nap after being at the ballfield. That makes it look like you don’t give a shit one way or the other about this girl.’ He looked at Ben closely. ‘You see what I mean, don’t you, Ben?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not like we’re checking you out in particular,’ Luther said. ‘It’s just that things being the way they are, everybody has to be careful.’

‘I understand,’ Ben said.

Luther rose slowly, then squeezed Ben’s upper arm affectionately. ‘I knew you would.’ He stepped away, stopped suddenly, then turned back toward him. His face seemed suddenly strained, and his voice took on a tense and apprehensive tone. ‘Things are going to be real hard over the next few days, Ben,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you the truth, the closer you stay to this little case, the better off you’re going to be.’ He turned again, and this time pressed forward without stopping, head down, his back slightly hunched, his feet slapping loudly against the checkerboard tile floor.

FOUR

There was a note on Ben’s desk when he got back to the detective bullpen. It was written on a plain square of white paper, and it was from Leon Patterson, one of the medical examiners in the Coroners Office. It said that he’d finished with case number three-zero-six, which Ben figured was the number he’d assigned to the little girl, and that he’d be in his office at Hillman Hospital until six.

Patterson was already on his way out when Ben met him in the hallway.

‘I came over to see about that little girl,’ Ben said.

Patterson glanced at his watch. ‘Can it wait till tomorrow, Ben?’

‘No.’

Patterson looked puzzled. ‘Why? She kin to somebody important?’

‘I don’t know who she’s kin to, Leon,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.’

Patterson shrugged heavily. ‘All right, then,’ he said wearily. ‘Come back in and I’ll show you what I got.’

Ben followed Patterson as he walked back down the hallway and into a small room where two stainless steel tables rested beneath a bank of fluorescent lights. An old black man, gray-haired and somewhat stooped, was hosing blood from one of them. It flowed in a broad swath into the drains on either side of the table, then washed down into the two separate buckets beneath them.

‘Woman out in Bush Hills,’ Patterson explained. ‘Sudden death. Big insurance policy. DA wanted a full autopsy.’

‘Did you do a full one on the girl?’ Ben asked.

Patterson laughed. ‘Come on, Ben. What for? Anybody could see what happened to her.’ He walked over to a large metal file cabinet and pulled out a plain manila envelope. ‘Read it for yourself. It won’t take you long. Just about three lines. Death by gunshot wound. You could have figured that out yourself.’

‘I want a full autopsy,’ Ben said.

Patterson’s eyes widened. ‘For God’s sake, Ben, didn’t you see the back of her head?’

‘Full autopsy, Leon,’ Ben told him. ‘Orders from the top.’

Patterson’s eyes narrowed. ‘From the top?’ he said unbelievingly.

‘I’d like for you to do it now, Leon.’

‘I’ve got this woman to do first.’

Ben shook his head. ‘She’ll have to get in line.’

Leon stared at Ben piercingly. ‘Who is this girl, anyway?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Nobody knows.’

‘Well, I don’t believe that, Ben,’ Patterson said, ‘but I’ll go along with you anyway.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Just understand that it’s going to be a quick cut-and-paste job.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Can’t do it, Leon. It’s got to be thorough.’

‘Thorough?’

‘That’s right,’ Ben said firmly.

Patterson shrugged. ‘Okay, I’ll call you when I’m finished.’

Ben did not move. ‘I’ll stay and watch,’ he said.

Patterson smiled. ‘Oh, yeah? You ever seen a full autopsy before, Ben?’

‘No.’

The smiled broadened. ‘Well, you’re in for a treat,’ Patterson said. He stepped around him and called to the old man. ‘Bring me that little girl in the freezer.’ He looked back at Ben, the smile now large and mocking. ‘Step right over, Ben. You want a full autopsy? By God, I’ll give you one.’ He walked over to one of the tables, then motioned for Ben. ‘Well, come on over,’ he said teasingly. ‘I want you to have a ringside seat.’

Ben stepped over next to Patterson and stood, his hands folded in front of him, while the attendant carefully laid the girl’s body onto the bare table. It was naked, and against the bright, blue steel it seemed infinitely dark and pliant. Rigor mortis had already reached its peak, and was now diminishing, so that the legs lay nearly flat on the tabletop, and only a slight arching upward could be seen along the spine.

‘Well, let me suit up,’ Patterson said. He pulled on a white lab coat which had been draped over a stool at the table, then sunk his hands into a pair of transparent rubber gloves. ‘Beginning to get the idea, Ben?’ he asked with a slight laugh.

Ben said nothing.

Patterson looked at the body for a moment, then swept his hand out over it. ‘Well, as you can see, Sergeant, there is no lethal trauma to the body.’ He placed his large hands on either side of the girl’s face and twisted her head sharply to the left. ‘Except for this hole right here.’ He moved his index finger in a circular pattern around the dark, reddish hole. ‘Now I’ll do a scraping if you want one,’ he said, ‘but as you can see, we got powder burns all around the wound, which indicates that she was shot at extremely close range, probably no more than a couple of inches.’ He poked his finger into the hole. ‘From the size of it, I’d say a twenty-two-caliber slug, maybe a short, maybe a long. I’ll have to dig it out to determine that.’ He looked up at Ben and smiled. ‘Ready?’

Ben nodded.

‘Okay,’ Patterson said. He took a long, slender scalpel and inserted it into the hole, pressing it deeper and deeper as he twisted it gently. ‘Pay dirt,’ he said after a moment. Then he dug a pair of tweezers into the wound, maneuvered it slightly and pulled it out. ‘There it is,’ he said, as he lifted it toward Ben’s face. ‘Twenty-two long, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yeah.’

Patterson grinned teasingly. ‘Look like it might be the cause of death to you, Ben?’

Ben said nothing.

Patterson dropped the slug into a metal tray and handed it to the attendant. ‘Bag this and label it,’ he said. ‘Case three-zero-six.’ He looked back at Ben. ‘Now we can go on to the really good stuff.’ He took up the scalpel once again, and held it poised above the girl’s small body. ‘You want a nose clamp, Ben?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Well, if you ask me, the human body’s not much even from the outside,’ Patterson said, ‘but on the inside, it’s a real mess.’ He glanced down at the girl. ‘She’s got undigested food, bile, feces.’ He stopped and looked back up at Ben. ‘You want a nose clamp?’

Ben shook his head. ‘No.’

Patterson shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

By the time Patterson had finished, the body looked as if a hand grenade had exploded beneath it. The chest, stomach and abdomen were slit open and their cavities exposed. Large flaps of skin hung over her sides like pieces of torn cloth, and a continual stream of blood and other fluids trickled down the drainage spouts and into the buckets below.

Patterson peeled the rubber gloves from his hands and dropped them into the wastebasket beside the dissecting table. ‘Well, we learned two things, Ben, both of which I could have told you without all this.’ He looked at Ben haughtily. ‘She was shot in the head. And she was raped.’

Ben continued to stare at the ravaged body. The face remained intact, but the skin over the rest of the head had been peeled back, the skull sawed open, and the brain removed. She seemed even more exposed, her body open like a blasted fruit, her small naked buttocks now pressed flat against the cold blue of the tabletop.

‘What’d you do with her clothes?’ he asked as he glanced back up at Patterson.

‘They’re in a box in the other room,’ Patterson said. He stepped over to his desk and put on his jacket. ‘We’ll bury her in them.’

‘Did you vacuum them?’ Ben asked.

Patterson laughed. ‘You must be kidding, Ben. Till the front office got on it, we were treating her just like any other case.’ He straightened the knot of his tie. ‘You want to vacuum them? Go ahead. Just get them back to me by tomorrow morning.’ He moved to the door and opened it. ‘Unless you want her buried in a bag.’ He looked back toward the adjoining room. ‘I’m finished out here, Davey,’ he called. ‘Just put a sheet over it and put it back in the cooler.’

The old man appeared at the door, his milky brown eyes staring silently at Patterson.

‘I’m going to take a break,’ Patterson added, ‘then I’ll come back and sew up.’ He looked back at Ben and politely touched the brim of his hat. ‘And with that final word, Ben, I’ll say goodnight.’ He smiled thinly, then disappeared behind the door.

Ben continued to stand by the table, and after a moment the attendant walked out of the back room and over to the opposite side of the body.

‘You want me to take her now?’ he asked.

‘I guess,’ Ben said. He stepped back slightly and watched as the attendant draped a clean white sheet over the body.

‘We found her over on Twenty-third Street,’ Ben said.

The old man did not seem to hear him. He walked to the rear of the table, grasped the handle and began to tug it backward toward the adjoining room.

‘What part of town do you live in?’ Ben asked as he followed along.

‘Thirty-second Street,’ the attendant said dully.

‘That’s not too far from where we found her,’ Ben said. ‘You know that old ballfield around there?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s where she was. Buried under a goalpost.’

The old man said nothing. He continued to tug the table slowly forward, maneuvering carefully toward the open door behind him.

‘What’s your name?’ Ben asked him.

‘They calls me Davey.’

Ben grasped the edge of the table, stopped its movement, then pulled the sheet back to reveal the girl’s face.

‘You ever seen this little girl, Davey?’

The old man gave the small face a quick glance. ‘Naw, sir.’

‘Maybe playing in the park, something like that? Maybe just walking along the sidewalk?’

‘I ain’t never seen her,’ the man said. He drew his eyes from the girl’s face and gave a tentative pull on the table.

Ben held it firmly in place. ‘Who runs things over in Bearmatch?’ he asked.

The attendant kept his eyes downcast. ‘The Black Cat boys,’ he said quietly.

‘I don’t mean them,’ Ben said. ‘I mean your own people.’

The old man said nothing.

‘Lots of things go on in Bearmatch,’ Ben said. ‘Somebody has control of it.’

The attendant shook his head. ‘It ain’t my business,’ he said softly. He waited a moment, then gave another tug on the table.

Ben released it, then followed it into the adjoining room. He leaned against the wall and watched as the old man opened the freezer door and pushed the table inside. When he turned back around, he seemed surprised to find Ben still lingering in the room.

‘You ask the Black Cat boys what you wants to know,’ he said. ‘You one of they own.’

Ben smiled quietly. ‘You trust them, Davey? You trust the Black Cat boys?’

The old man said nothing, but he looked at Ben knowingly.

‘I don’t either,’ Ben said. ‘That’s why I want to talk to somebody else about this girl.’ He paused, letting it sink in. ‘Give me a name, Davey. Just one name.’

The ancient brown eyes squeezed together slowly as he turned it over in his mind.

‘They’re going to bury that little girl tomorrow,’ Ben added. ‘I think her mama ought to be there.’

The old man’s face lifted slightly, as if with sudden pride. ‘Roy Jolly,’ he said.

FIVE

Night had begun to come down over the city by the time Ben left the chill, white corridors of Hillman Hospital. The sirens which had filled the air all day were now silent, and as he walked to his car in the pinkish-blue light, he could almost imagine that the worst was over. But he knew that it wasn’t, and the evening quiet only reminded him of the sort he remembered from the war, when, after a day-long assault, Japanese and Americans would retire to their encampments and wait nervously for dawn. He knew that that was more or less what was happening now, and when he pulled into the cavernous basement of the station house, he was not at all surprised-to find ragged lines of state troopers oiling their rifles, checking their cartridge bags, or edgily adjusting the plexiglass shields of their helmets.