County Line (3 page)

I listen, my breath tight in my throat. After a moment I hear a plop, a single drop falling into pooled water.

Maybe I should be heading for my car and dialing 911, but my instincts tell me no one is home. The emptiness is too hollow, the air too still, the darkness too complete. I catch a dank, faintly noxious scent like spoiled milk. I don’t like the idea of backing away without first knowing what I’m backing away from. If someone has busted into Ruby Jane’s place, I want to know how much damage they’ve done.

I want to know what’s causing the smell.

RJ’s apartment is a single oversized room, the bare concrete floor covered by big braided rugs, the high ceiling an expanse of exposed girders and foam insulation. I can’t see anything, not the bed on its platform at the far end of the room, not the regulation basketball hoop opposite the kitchen, not the bookcases or plush sofas. From where I stand, the passage leading up front is to my right through a door. The kitchenette is to the left, separated from the room by an island counter with a butcher block top. Past the refrigerator, I know a couple of doors open onto the bathroom, a closet and a small utility room. The main space is straight ahead, a looming cavern. I take a single, tentative step forward. The short hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the touch of open air.

A faint red light burns from the vicinity of the stove, an indicator of some type, providing no illumination. The dim glow shining through the high frosted windows on either side of the room is a little better. As my eyes adjust further, I make out the shape of RJ’s four-poster bed, and the sitting area with its two sofas facing each other across the broad coffee table. A basketball rests on the floor below the hoop. I’ve seen RJ drain three-pointers from any spot in the room, nothing but net.

I take a few more jittery steps, wishing I’d brought a damn flashlight. An echoing droplet falls again—
plop
—into water. The sound comes from the center of the room. I see the clawfoot bathtub I know is there less as an object than a formless shadow. Before Ruby Jane moved in, the tub had been a lone, modest luxury in what was an otherwise dreary studio apartment. Ruby Jane liked it so much she left it in place. I have no idea how often she uses it, though she’s boasted of hot baths, candlelight, and loud music after a hard day’s work. The tub has always been empty during my visits.

Not tonight.

As I ease closer, the tub takes shape, the pale porcelain catching what little illumination steals through the translucent glass. I make out a shadow next to the tub, a pile of clothes or maybe a blanket. Inside the tub, the water’s surface is broken by a pair of dark humps at the midline and a round lump at the far end.
Plop
. Something is in the water, a figure, unmoving. I suck air through my nose and catch the stench of urine amidst the spoiled milk smell.

I turn and stumble toward the wall, emit an involuntary keen. The one unconsidered, intolerable reason for Ruby Jane’s silence surges through my mind. The silence, the darkness, the still water in the tub all testify to my growing fear. I search for a light switch by touch, hands shaking—nothing—push along the cool wall until I pitch up against the refrigerator. Without thought I fling the door open. It crashes against the wall with a rattle of condiment bottles. A jar of pickles hits the floor and rolls to a stop against the island, trailing a thread of brine. The sudden light sears my retinas. I close my eyes and sag against the counter beside the fridge. I’m afraid to turn. Until I look, it’s not real—isn’t that how it works? As long as I hide behind Ruby Jane’s butcher block, eyes closed, the form in the tub remains but a faint, visual echo of my own fear.

If I learned anything during my twenty-five years as a cop, it’s that the body can’t be wished away. Schrödinger’s cat only lives and dies in the symbols of an equation. I push myself off the counter, flex my hands against a burning tingle in my palms. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. The fridge casts stark, leaping shadows as I edge toward the tub. Most of the room remains dark, but there’s enough light to show me what I need to see. I draw a ragged breath and look down into the still water.

Plop
.

The hair is a grey mat on the head, the body emaciated, the face a relief map of more years than my own five-plus decades. A man. It’s an old man.

Relief floods through me like falling tears. I sag to the floor. It’s not my Ruby Jane. But now I’m left with a new question to go with the one I came with. Where is she, and who’s the old guy, naked and dead, in her bathtub?

- 3 -

Suspicious Circs

After a moment, old instincts take over. I get up off the cold, bare floor and scan the walls. At the end of the kitchen counter, there’s a switch plate I skidded over moments before in the dark. I flick the switch and a cluster of emerald-shaded pendants cast a warm, yellow glow over the kitchen island. I put the pickle jar back and close the fridge, then cross the floor and turn on a couple standing floor lamps at either end of the couch.

I’ve seen a corpse or two in my time, but it’s been a while since one gave me the squirrelies. I leave it for the moment and walk the grid. Nothing formal, it’s not my job anymore. Just checking things out. I don’t know who this old fellow is, but I assume he didn’t come only for a bath. As I move through the room, I see signs he’s been around for a while. Throw pillows on the floor and a old, ratty sleeping bag spread across one of the soft sofas. A squadron of empty soup cans and dirty spoons on the coffee table, a spilled tomato crust dried onto the cover of a volume of Sharon Doubiago poetry. A dead bag of blue corn tortilla chips on the floor among the pillows. Ruby Jane must have been out of salsa.

Nothing else appears to be out-of-place. Ruby Jane’s not one for a lot of expensive gadgetry. The TV is a CRT model sitting atop a combo DVD/VHS player, both intact on their wooden stand. The small console stereo is on the sideboard. Books stand untouched in the pair of bookcases against the wall. Her microwave oven is still on the kitchen counter, her clock radio still on the bed stand. Behind the curtains of the four-poster, the bed is made. I wonder why the dead guy camped on the couch when he had a big comfortable queen-sized bed twenty feet away. Same reason he ate cold soup out of the can in sight of a stove maybe. The bathroom is a disaster, toilet seat up. He hadn’t bothered to flush. If it’s yellow let it mellow, maybe, but when it’s brown, flush that bad boy down.

Plop
.

The body remains. A voice in the back of my head tells me it’s not my problem. I’ve been retired for nearly two years. Even if I wasn’t, it would be verboten to investigate a death so close to home. But nobody’s giving me orders anymore, no policy directives rule my life. I rub the bridge of my nose and turn my attention to the tub.

No one looks their best after they stop breathing, but I’m guessing the last time this guy looked good Carter was still president. His dark, mottled eyelids are at half-mast, but I can see that post-mortem corneal clouding competes with ante-mortem cataracts. His skin is blotchy and yellow, and livid lesions streak his chest. An old scar below his left nipple reminds me of my own healed gunshot wound. Even after an untold period soaking, he looks filthy, from his greasy, dandruff-flecked hair to his gnarled fingers and toes. I place his age in the upper sixties, though I won’t be surprised if I’ve underestimated by a decade. The bath water seems to be cool, but I’m not dipping my hand in to find out for sure. His clothes heaped on the floor next to the tub emit the piss smell; the spoiled milk is all bathtub.

I don’t touch anything. I’ve been Ruby Jane’s guest often enough my prints could be anywhere. Doesn’t mean I want them on some dead squatter’s heap of shit. I turn away from the tub, swipe my arm across my forehead. There’s more to see, but I don’t feel like I can delay the call to 911 any longer. Just because I didn’t see anyone on my way in doesn’t mean no one saw me. Some witness turning up with a suggestion I spent a suspiciously long time alone in a house with a dead body is the last thing I need. I pull out my cell. I tell the dispatcher there’s no rush.

Even if the cavalry charges, I’ve got a few minutes. I head into the old shop through a short corridor with a unisex bathroom on one side and a nook on the other, home to the dish sterilizer during the coffee house days. Both are dark and empty. Up front, industrial shelves stacked with beans and miscellaneous inventory. I got through the office door beyond the roaster.

Dust drifts in air tangy with the scent of raw coffee beans. The fluorescent light overhead hums. Ruby Jane’s desktop is clear, a rare sight. The message light blinks on the office phone. Pens and pencils poke out of an old coffee mug. Her laptop is gone, but her cell phone is plugged into its charger next to the office phone. I move around behind the desk and slump into her squeaky old chair. A spring prods my ass. I pick up the cell phone, turn it over in my hands. Its presence troubles me more than anything else I’ve seen tonight, including the dead bastard in the tub. For reasons I can’t fathom, she wants to be not merely out of touch, but out of reach. She could have avoided unwanted calls by not picking up. Leaving the phone behind suggests a more radical need.

I don’t like the hollow anxiety tightening my chest, the sense of helplessness I feel. No note, no call. Nothing. I shake my head. The chair squeals as I stand up again. I pocket RJ’s phone, then glance through the desk drawers, at the notes on the cork board behind the desk. Ordinary shop stuff, schedules, invoices, payroll. Nothing which tells me why Ruby Jane has vanished.

I turn off the lights, return to the apartment. The cops still haven’t arrived, but they won’t be long. I exit through the foyer and pull the door shut without latching it. The street is wet, but overhead I can see stars through shreds of cloud. The breeze smells fresh and clean after the stale, funky air inside. Across the street, a moving shadow catches my eye and I look up to see a figure moving away from me. Tallish, hoodie under a jacket. Familiar. I step off the curb as a patrol car rounds the corner from Sandy, light bar flashing. I turn back to the figure, but he’s gone. The car rolls to a stop a foot from my knees and a uniformed cop pops out.

“You the one who called?” His hand rests on his weapon, a reflex gesture I hope. His expression is alert, without undue tension.

“Yeah. I’m Kadash. The body’s inside.” I wave a hand over my shoulder toward the door behind me.

“Anyone else in there?” A second unit pulls up behind the first and another uniform climbs out, cover for the first. He points a flashlight at the closed door.

“No one.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I cleared the place.”

“Cleared.” The covering uniform aims his light at my eyes.

“I’m an ex-cop, retired.” You never lose the lingo. “Go through into the big room. You can’t miss him.”

“All right. Please wait out here.”

Half an hour later, the street is crawling. There’s more people than necessary for what I’m guessing will turn out to be a pretty routine D.B. I prop my ass against the hood of a patrol car, nannied by the first responders. They try to make small talk. I’m not feeling talkative, but they carry the conversation fine without me. One of them found some dope in his kid’s room. The other wonders if he’ll ever get another blow job. Maybe if you ask the chief real nice, I suggest. They laugh, but it’s uneasy. As an ex-cop, they’ll grant me permission to listen, but I’m not welcome to participate.

The only surprise, such as it is, is the appearance of Susan Mulvaney—my former partner, now lieutenant in charge of Person Crimes. Slender and self-possessed in jeans, t-shirt, and a tailored jacket, Susan looks like she stepped away from a casual brunch with friends. She nods to me, then stops in RJ’s doorway to chat with the medical examiner as he rolls the gurney out. They talk quietly for a couple of minutes, then Susan approaches me.

“Skin, if you have a moment, we’ve got a few questions.”

No
hello
, no
how are ya
. I’m not surprised. Under normal circumstances Susan wouldn’t even get a phone call over a random stiff found in an empty apartment. She’s here as a courtesy to me, as is pretty much everyone else, but that doesn’t make it a social call. She guides me through the door and back into Ruby Jane’s apartment. A couple of homicide dicks I knew back in the day are waiting next to the tub. Empty now. The spoilt scent lingers.