Part 3 (1/2)
”If this is a murder,” he says, ”I'll be the primary.”
Worden looks at him. ”You don't want to see if someone's been locked up first?”
”No, babe. I need the money.”
”You're a wh.o.r.e.”
”Yeah, babe.”
James rolls the car down the garage ramp, over to Fayette, then north on Gay Street to Greenmount, preoccupied with the complex computations of antic.i.p.ated overtime. Two hours at the scene, three hours of interrogation, another three for paperwork, four more for the autopsy; James thinks about how sweet twelve hours of time-and-a-half will look on his pay stub.
But it is not a murder on Greenmount; it isn't even a straight shooting. Both detectives know that after listening to a sixteen-year-old witness rattle through an incoherent three-minute monologue.
”Whoa, start from the beginning. Slowly.”
”Derrick came running in ...”
”Derrick who?”
”That's my brother.”
”How old is he?”
”Seventeen. He come running through the front door and upstairs. My older brother went up and found him shot and called nine-one-one. Derrick said he was at the bus stop and got shot. That's all he said.”
”He didn't know who shot him?”
”No, he say he just got shot.”
Worden takes the flashlight from James and walks outside with a patrolman.
”Are you the first officer?”
”No,” says the uniform. ”That's Rodriguez.”
”Where is he?”
”He went to shock-trauma with your victim.”
Worden shoots the patrolman a look, then walks back toward the front door of the house and turns the flashlight on the floor of the porch. No blood trail. No blood on the door handle. The detective scans the brick front of the rowhouse with the light. No blood. No fresh damage. One hole, but too even to be from a bullet. Probably an old drill hole for a light fixture.
Worden takes the flashlight back down the front walk toward the street. He walks back inside the house and checks the rooms upstairs. Still no blood. The detective walks back downstairs and listens to James questioning the sixteen-year-old.
”Where'd your brother run to when he came in the house?” Worden interrupts.
”Upstairs.”
”There's no blood upstairs.”
The kid looks at his shoes.
”What's going on here?” says Worden, pressing him.
”We cleaned it up,” the kid says.
”You cleaned it up?”
”Uh-huh.”
”Oh,” says Worden, rolling his eyes. ”Let's go back upstairs then.”
The kid takes the stairs two at a time, then turns into the clutter and disarray of a teenager's room, replete with pinups of models in bikinis and posters of New York rappers in designer sweats. Without further prompting, the sixteen-year-old pulls two bloodstained sheets from a hamper.
”Where were those?”
”On the bed.”
”On the bed?”
”We turned over the mattress.”
Worden flips the mattress. A red-brown stain covers a good quarter of the fabric.
”What jacket was your brother wearing when he came in?”
”The gray one.”
Worden picks up a gray puff jacket from a chair and checks it carefully, inside and out. No blood. He goes to the bedroom closet and checks every other winter coat, throwing each on the bed as James shakes his head slowly.
”Here's what happened,” says James. ”You were in here playing around with a gun and your brother got shot. Now if you start telling the truth, you're not going to get locked up. Where's the gun?”
”What gun?”
”Jesus Christ. Where's the G.o.dd.a.m.n gun?”
”Don't know about no gun.”
”Your brother has a gun. Let's just get the gun out of the way.”
”Derrick got shot at the bus stop.”
”The f.u.c.k he did,” says James, simmering. ”He was f.u.c.king around in here and you or your brother or someone else shot him by accident. Where's the f.u.c.king gun?”
”Ain't no gun.”
Cla.s.sic, thinks Worden, looking at the kid. Truly cla.s.sic. A prime example of the Rule Number One of the guidebook of death investigation, the page 1 entry in a detective's lexicon: Everyone lies.
Murderers, stickup artists, rapists, drug dealers, drug users, half of all major-crime witnesses, politicians of all persuasions, used car salesmen, girlfriends, wives, ex-wives, line officers above the rank of lieutenant, sixteen-year-old high school students who accidentally shoot their older brother and then hide the gun-to a homicide detective, the earth spins on an axis of denial in an orbit of deceit. h.e.l.l, sometimes the police themselves are no different. For the last six weeks, Donald Worden has listened to a long series of statements by men wearing the uniform in which he has spent a lifetime, listened to them as they tried to get their stories straight and explain how they couldn't possibly have been anywhere near that alley off Monroe Street.
James begins moving toward the bedroom door. ”You tell us what you want,” he says bitterly. ”When your brother dies, we'll be back to charge you with the murder.”