Triptych (2 page)

“Police,” he said, holding up his badge. “Don’t be afraid.”

The door opened wider. She was wearing a floral apron over a stained white T-shirt and jeans. “I ain’t afraid’a you, bitch.”

Clustered behind her were four old women, all but one of them African-American. Michael knew they weren’t here to help. Grady, like any small community, thrived on gossip and these were the mouths that fed the supply line.

Still, he had to ask, “Any of y’all see anything?”

They shook their heads in unison, bobbleheads on the Grady dashboard.

“That’s great,” Michael said, tucking his badge back into his pocket as he headed toward the stairs. “Thanks for helping keep your community safe.”

She snapped, “That’s your job, cocksucker.”

He stopped, his foot still on the bottom stair as he turned back toward her, looking her straight in the eye. She returned the glare, rheumy eyes shifting back and forth like she was reading the book of his life. The woman was younger than the others, probably in her early seventies, but somehow grayer and smaller than her companions. Spidery lines crinkled the skin around her lips, wrinkles etched from years of sucking on cigarettes. A shock of gray streaked through the hair on the top of her head as well as the ones corkscrewing out of her chin like dreadlocks. She wore the most startling shade of orange lipstick he had ever seen on a woman.

He asked, “What’s your name?”

Her chin tilted up in defiance, but she told him, “Nora.”

“Somebody made a nine-one-one call from that phone booth outside.”

“I hope they wash they hands after.”

Michael allowed a smile. “Did you know her?”

“We all knowed her.” Her tone indicated there was a lot more to be told but she wasn’t the one who was going to tell it to some dumb-ass white cop. Obviously, Nora didn’t exactly have a college degree under her belt, but Michael had never set much store by that kind of thing. He could tell from her eyes that the woman was sharp. She had street smarts. You didn’t live to be that old in a place like Grady by being stupid.

Michael took his foot off the step, walking back toward the cluster of women. “She working?”

Nora kept her eye on him, still wary. “Most nights.”

The white woman behind her provided, “She an honest girl.”

Nora tsked her tongue. “Such a young little thing.” There was a hint of challenge in her voice when she said, “No kind of life for her, but what else could she do?”

Michael nodded like he understood. “Did she have any regulars?”

They all shook their heads again, and Nora provided, “She never brought her work home with her.”

Michael waited, wondering if they would add anything else. He counted the seconds off in his head, thinking he’d let it go to twenty. A helicopter flew over the building and car wheels squealed against asphalt a couple of streets over, but no one paid attention. This was the sort of neighborhood where people got nervous if they didn’t hear gunshots at least a couple of times a week. There was a natural order to their lives, and violence-or the threat of it-was as much a part of it as fast food and cheap liquor.

“All right,” Michael said, having counted the seconds to twenty-five. He took out one of his business cards, handing it to Nora as he told her, “Something to wipe your ass on.”

She grunted in disgust, holding the card between her thumb and forefinger. “My ass is bigger than that.”

He gave her a suggestive wink, made his voice a growl. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed, darlin‘.”

She barked a laugh as she slammed the door in his face. She had kept the card, though. He had to take that as a positive sign.

Michael walked back to the stairs, taking the first flight two at a time. All of the buildings at Grady had elevators, but even the ones that worked were dangerous. As a first-year patrolman, Michael had been called out to the Homes on a domestic disturbance and gotten caught in one of the creaky contraptions with a busted radio. He had spent about two hours trying not to add to the overwhelming smell of piss and vomit before his sergeant realized he hadn’t reported in and sent somebody to look for him. The old-timers had laughed at his stupidity for another half hour before helping get him out.

Welcome to the brotherhood.

As Michael started on the second flight of stairs, he felt a change in the air. The smell hit him first: the usual odor of fried foods mingled with beer and sweat, cut by the sudden but unmistakable stench of violent death.

The building had responded to the fatality in the usual way. Instead of the constant thump of rap beating from multiple speakers, Michael heard only the murmur of voices from behind closed doors. Televisions were turned down low, the halftime show serving as background noise while people talked about the girl on the sixth floor and thanked the Lord it was her this time and not their children, their daughters, themselves.

In this relative quiet, sounds started to echo down the stairwell: the familiar rhythms of a crime scene as evidence was gathered, photos taken. Michael stopped at the bottom of the fourth-floor landing to catch his breath. He had given up smoking two months ago but his lungs hadn’t really believed him. He felt like an asthmatic as he made his way up the next flight of stairs. Above him, someone laughed, and he could hear the other cops join in, participating in the usual bullshit bravado that made it possible for them to do the job.

Downstairs, a door slammed open, and Michael leaned over the railing, watching two women wrangle a gurney inside the foyer. They were wearing dark blue rain jackets, bright yellow letters announcing “MORGUE” on their backs.

Michael called, “Up here.”

“How far up?” one of them asked.

“Sixth floor.”

“Mother
fuck
,” she cursed.

Michael grabbed the handrail and pulled himself up the next few stairs, hearing the two women offer up more expletives as they started the climb, the gurney banging against the metal railings like a broken bell. He was one flight away from the top when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Sweat had glued his shirt to his back, but some sort of sixth sense sent a chill through him.

A flash popped and a camera whirred. Michael stepped carefully around a red stiletto shoe that was flat on the stair, looking as if someone had sat down and slipped it off. The next step up had the perfect outline of a bloody hand gripping the tread. The next stair had another handprint, then another, as someone had crawled up the stairs.

Standing on the landing at the top of the fifth flight was Bill Burgess, a seasoned beat cop who had seen just about every kind of crime Atlanta had to offer. Beside him was a dark pool of coagulating blood, the edges spreading in rivulets that dropped from one step to the next like falling dominoes. Michael read the scene. Someone had stumbled here, struggled to get up, smearing blood as she tried to escape.

Bill was looking down the stairs, away from the blood. His skin was blanched, his lips a thin slash of pink. Michael stopped short, thinking he’d never seen Bill flustered before. This was the man who’d gone out for chicken wings an hour after finding six severed fingers in the Dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.

The two men did not speak as Michael carefully stepped over the puddle of blood. He kept his hand on the rail, making the turn to the next flight of stairs, thankful for something to hold on to when he saw the scene in front of him.

The woman was partially clothed, her tight red dress cut open like a robe, showing dark cocoa skin and a wisp of black pubic hair that had been shaved into a thin line leading down to her cleft. Her breasts were unnaturally high on her chest, implants holding them up in perfection. One arm was out to her side, the other rested above her head, fingers reaching toward the handrail as if her last thoughts had been to pull herself up. Her right leg was bent at the knee, splayed open, the left jutting at an angle so that he could see straight up her slit.

Michael took another step, blocking out the activity around him, trying to see the woman as her killer would have seen her. Makeup smeared her face, heavy lipstick and rouge applied in dark lines to bring out her features. Her curly black hair was streaked with orange, teased out in all directions. Her body was nice, or nicer than you’d expect from what the needle marks on her arms indicated she was: a woman with a habit she fed between her legs. The bruises on her thighs could have come from her killer or a John who liked it rough. If it was the latter, then she had probably willingly endured it, knowing she’d be able to get more money for the pain, knowing more money meant more pleasure later on when the needle plunged in and that warm feeling spread through her veins.

Her eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the wall. One of her fake eyelashes had come loose, making a third lash under her left eye. Her nose was broken, her cheek shifted off center where the bones beneath the eye had been shattered. Light reflected against something in her open mouth, and Michael took another step closer, seeing that it was filled to the top with liquid and that the liquid was blood. The light overhead glinted off the red pool like a harvest moon.

Pete Hanson, the medical examiner on call, stood at the top of the stairs talking to Leo Donnelly. Leo was an asshole, always playing the tough cop, joking about everything, laughing too loud and long, but Michael had seen him at the bar one too many times, his hand a constant blur as he slammed back one scotch after another, trying to get the taste of death out of his mouth.

Leo spotted Michael and cracked a smile, like they were old pals getting together for a good time. He was holding a sealed plastic evidence bag in his hand and he kept tossing it a couple of inches in the air and catching it like he was getting ready to play ball.

Leo said, “Hell of a night to be on call.”

Michael didn’t voice his agreement. “What happened?”

Leo kept tossing the bag, weighing it in his hand. “Doc says she bled to death.”

“Maybe,” Pete corrected. Michael knew the doctor liked Leo about as much as everyone else on the force, which was to say he couldn’t stand the bastard. “I’ll know more when I get her on the table.”

“Catch,” Leo said, tossing the evidence bag down to Michael.

Michael saw it in slow motion, the bag sailing through the air end over end like a lopsided football. He caught it before it hit the ground, his ringers wrapping around something thick and obviously wet.

Leo said, “Something for your cat.”

“What the-” Michael stopped. He knew what it was.

“Lookit his face!” Leo’s shotgun laugh echoed off the walls.

Michael could only stare at the bag. He felt blood at the back of his throat, tasted that metallic sting of unexpected fear. The voice that came out of his mouth did not sound like his own-it was more like he was under water, maybe drowning. “What happened?”

Leo was still laughing, so Pete answered, “He bit off her tongue.”

CHAPTER TWO

FEBRUARY 6, 2006

When he had returned from the Gulf War, Michael had been haunted by his dreams. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw the bullets coming at him, the bombs blowing off arms and legs, children running down the road, screaming for their mamas. Michael knew where their mothers were. He had stood by helplessly as the women banged the closed windows of the schoolhouse, trying to break their way out as fire from an exploded grenade burned them alive.

Aleesha Monroe was haunting him now. The tongueless woman in the stairway had followed him home, worked some kind of magic in his dreams so that it was Michael chasing her up the stairs, Michael forcing her back onto the landing and splitting her in two. He could feel her long red nails sinking into his skin as she tried to fight him off, choking him. He couldn’t breathe. He started clawing at his neck, her hands, trying to get her to stop. He woke up screaming so loud that Gina sat up in bed beside him, clutching the sheet to her chest like she expected to see a maniac in their bedroom.

“Jesus, Michael,” she hissed, hand over her heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He reached for the glass of water by the bed, sloshing some on his chest as he took large gulps to quench the fire in his throat.

“Babe,” Gina said, touching the tips of her fingers to his neck. “What happened?”

Michael felt a sting on his neck and put his fingers where hers had been. There was a rent in the skin, and when he got up to look in the mirror over the dresser, he saw a thin trickle of blood dripping from the fresh cut.

She stood beside him. “Did you scratch yourself in your sleep?”

“I don’t know.” He knew, though. He still hadn’t caught his breath from the dream.

Gina wrinkled her nose as she pulled his hand to her mouth. For a second, he thought she was going to kiss it, but she asked instead, “Why do you smell like bleach?”

He’d had to scrub it off him-that smell, that stickiness, that came from being around the dead. Michael didn’t tell her this, didn’t want to open up that conversation, so instead he squinted at the clock, asking, “What time is it?”

“Shit,” she groaned, dropping his hand. “Might as well get dressed. My shift starts in two hours.”

Michael picked up the clock to see for himself. Six-thirty. After processing the crime scene, tossing the woman’s apartment and going through the paperwork, he had gotten maybe four hours of sleep.

The shower came on, pipes rumbling in the wall as the hot water heater kicked in. Michael went into the bathroom, watching Gina slip off the shirt she’d slept in.

“Tim’s already up,” she said, taking off her panties. “You need to make sure he’s not getting into anything.”

Michael leaned against the wall, admiring her flat stomach, the way the muscles in her arms stretched as she took the band out of her hair. “He’s fine.”

Gina gave him a look, noticing him noticing her. “Check on him.”

Michael felt a smile on his lips. Her breasts had kept their fullness after Tim, and his mouth was almost watering at the sight of them. “Call in sick,” he told her.