Part 42 (1/2)

”Hey, I'm deciding now.”

”Maybe you want to see if there's a lockup first?”

”Hey,” says Brown again, ”I'm deciding now.”

Worden shakes his head. Protocol demands that when two detectives are in a car and heading for a scene, one detective signs on as the primary before anything about the murder is known. By this unspoken agreement, those unseemly arguments in which one detective accuses another of grabbing dunkers and dumping whodunits are kept to a minimum. By waiting until the scene is within sight, Dave Brown is trampling around the edges of the rule, and Worden, true to form, is letting him know it.

”Whatever happens,” Worden says, ”I'm not helping you with this case.”

”Did I ask for your f.u.c.king help?”

Worden shrugs.

”It's not like I got a look at the body.”

”Good luck,” says Worden.

Brown wants this murder for no other reason than the location of the crime scene, but as reasons go, it's pretty good. For one thing, the Cavalier is now parked in the 1900 block of Johnson Street in South Baltimore's bottom, and South Baltimore's bottom is deep in the bowels of Billyland. Stretching from Curtis Bay to Brooklyn and from South Baltimore on through Pigtown and Morrell Park, Billyland is a recognized geographic ent.i.ty among Baltimore cops, a subculture that serves as the natural habitat for the descendants of West Virginians and Virginians who left the coal mines and the mountains to man Baltimore's factories during the Second World War. To the chagrin of the established white ethnic groups, the billies swarmed into the red brick and Formstone rowhouses in the southern reaches of the city-an exodus that defined Baltimore as much as the northern movement of blacks from Virginia and the Carolinas during the same era. Billyland has its own language and logic, its own social framework. Billies don't reside in Baltimore, they live in Bawlmer; it is the Appalachian influence that gives the language in the white sections of the city much of its tw.a.n.g. And although the advent of fluoride has allowed even the truest of billies to retain more of their teeth with each pa.s.sing generation, nothing prevents their allowing their bodies to be treated like virgin canvas by the East Baltimore Street tattoo artists. Similarly, a billy girl might feel compelled to call police when her boyfriend throws a National Premium bottle at her head, but she will just as surely leap with claws bared on a Southern District uniform's back the moment he arrives to take her man away.

For Baltimore's cops, hard-core billyness is generally regarded with as much disdain and humor as the hard-core ghetto culture. If nothing else, this att.i.tude provides some proof that it is cla.s.s consciousness, more than racism, that propels a cop toward a contempt for the huddled ma.s.ses. And in the homicide unit in particular, the working coalition of black and white detectives tends to drive home the point. Just as Bert Silver is excepted from the general dislike of female officers, so are Eddie Brown and Harry Edgerton and Roger Nolan regarded as special cases by white detectives. If you are poor and black and your name is floating around somewhere in the BPI computer, then you are a yo and a toad and-depending on how unreconstructed the mind of the cop-maybe even a brain-dead n.i.g.g.e.r. If, however, you are Eddie Brown at the next desk over, or Greg Gaskins down at the state's attorney's office, or Cliff Gordy on the circuit court bench, or any other member of the taxpaying cla.s.ses, then you are a black man.

A similar logic applies in Billyland.

You may come from the same mountain stock as the rest of Pigtown, but by a detective's reasoning, that alone doesn't make you a true billy. Maybe you're just another white boy; maybe you finished twelfth grade at Southern High and nailed down a decent job and moved out to Glen Burnie or Linthic.u.m. Or maybe you're like Donald Worden, who grew up in Hampden, or like Donald Kincaid, speaking in a mountain drawl and sporting that tattoo on the back of one hand. On the other hand, if you've spent half your life drinking at the B&O Tavern on West Pratt Street and the other half shuttling back and forth from the Southern District Court for theft, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and possession of phencyclidine, then to a Baltimore detective you most certainly are a billy boy, a white-trash redneck, a city goat, a dead-brained cul-de-sac of heredity, sp.a.w.ned in the shallow end of a diminis.h.i.+ng gene pool. And if you happen to get in the way of a Baltimore cop, he'll probably be happy to tell you as much.

Whatever their views on billy culture, the Baltimore detectives all agree that the best thing about working a murder on the white side of the tracks-aside from the sheer novelty-is that the billies talk. They talk at the scene, they talk in the interrogation rooms, they actually look up the number for the homicide office and then talk on the phone. And when asked whether he wants to remain anonymous, a good billy asks what the h.e.l.l for. He gives up his real name, his correct address. He offers his work number, his girlfriend's name and phone number, his girlfriend's mother's phone number and every thought he's had in his head since the ninth grade. The code of the street-the ghetto rule that says a man never talks to a police under any conceivable circ.u.mstance-just doesn't mean as much in Billyland. Maybe it's because the cops have a little good ol' boy in them, maybe it's because the high-spirited Baltimore billy never managed to incorporate lying as an art form. Whichever, a detective working a white murder in the Southern or Southwestern District usually has more information than he knows what to do with.

Dave Brown knows all this, of course. As he takes in the swirl of blue-tops surrounding his crime scene, he also knows that he needs a clearance to balance some nasty red on the board. He's been carrying a couple of open ones, most notably the Clayvon Jones killing, which can't be put down without a witness no matter how many anonymous callers offer up the suspect's name. Ordinarily, he might have shrugged young Clayvon off as a hard luck case, but the return of Corey Belt from the Western District for the Geraldine Parrish detail was, in Brown's mind, a reason for genuine angst. No doubt, Belt had obviously impressed McLarney in the Ca.s.sidy investigation, and now Belt was happily teamed with Donald Waltemeyer, Brown's usual partner, in a probe of the Parrish insurance killings that might take months.

Only last night, Brown had gone so far as to joke weakly about his status. Sitting at an admin office typewriter at the beginning of the overnight s.h.i.+ft, he concocted a short, plaintive memorandum to McLarney, which he left in the sergeant's mailbox: With Officer Corey (I'm a superstar) Belt looming on the horizon, I thought I'd take just a moment to reintroduce myself to you. With Officer Corey (I'm a superstar) Belt looming on the horizon, I thought I'd take just a moment to reintroduce myself to you. Until I came to your squad, I was just another long-haired, drug-infested, raving h.o.m.os.e.xual. Working under your knowledge, talent, skill, kindness and love I have become a detective of barely questionable means. Keeping this in mind, and to include the great feelings of my squad toward me (Worden: ”He's a useless f.u.c.k”... James: ”He never pays his f.u.c.king bar tab”... Ed Brown: ”I doesn't even know the motherf.u.c.ker”) I was wondering what plans you had in mind for my CONTINUED service to you. Until I came to your squad, I was just another long-haired, drug-infested, raving h.o.m.os.e.xual. Working under your knowledge, talent, skill, kindness and love I have become a detective of barely questionable means. Keeping this in mind, and to include the great feelings of my squad toward me (Worden: ”He's a useless f.u.c.k”... James: ”He never pays his f.u.c.king bar tab”... Ed Brown: ”I doesn't even know the motherf.u.c.ker”) I was wondering what plans you had in mind for my CONTINUED service to you. I will remain ever vigilant, awaiting your response. Respectfully (everyone takes advantage of me), I will remain ever vigilant, awaiting your response. Respectfully (everyone takes advantage of me), David John Brown, Detective. David John Brown, Detective.

CID? Homicide? (Forever, Please G.o.d) McLarney found the memo about an hour into the midnight s.h.i.+ft and read it aloud in the coffee room, giggling at the more obsequious pa.s.sages.

”Amusing,” he declared in conclusion. ”Inatrulypatheticsortof way.”

Fred Ceruti's troubles had not gone unnoticed, and Dave Brown, in his own, feverish brain at least, was feeling a little of the same heat. Driving out to Johnson Street, he had reasoned that an investigative sortie into Billyland might be just the cure.

”Well, Brown,” says Worden, getting out of the pa.s.senger seat, ”let's see what you've got.”

She is face down in the hard mud and stone, a pale figure framed by a semicircle of radio cars. A short woman with straight reddish-brown hair, her red-and-white-striped tank top is pulled up to expose most of her back; her white corduroy cutoffs are torn at one side, revealing the b.u.t.tocks. A pair of cream-colored panties, also torn from the left side, are down between her knees, and a single sandal rests a few feet from her right foot. Around her neck is a thin gold necklace and a pair of gold hoop earrings lie in the gravel on either side of her head. On closer inspection, one of the earrings is b.l.o.o.d.y, apparently because it was torn from the woman's left earlobe, which shows a laceration and some dried blood. Scattered near the body are a few coins; working carefully, Worden manages to liberate $27 in bills from a back pocket. Jewelry, money-if it was a robbery, it didn't get far.

Dave Brown looks at Worden, conscious of the fact that the Big Man is partic.i.p.ating in this scene reluctantly.

”How old would you say, Donald?”

”Twenty-five. Maybe a little older. Can't really say until we roll her.”

”I'd say twenty-five might be high.”

”Maybe,” says Worden, bending over the woman. ”But I'll tell you what my first question is.”

”Lemme guess. You want to know where that other sandal is.”

”You got it.”

The scene is a gravel lot that serves as a tractor-trailer turn-around and loading dock for an aging, red brick warehouse at the edge of the Chessie System railbed. Three trucks are parked at the eastern edge of the lot, but their drivers were sleeping in the rear of their cabs before the warehouse opened and they heard and saw nothing; whatever happened on the lot happened quickly or quietly enough that they stayed asleep. The body is on the western side of the lot, near the warehouse itself, perhaps ten or fifteen feet from the concrete wall of the loading dock. At the edge of the dock is a truck trailer that blocks any view of the body from Johnson Street.

She was found by two teenagers who live a few blocks away and were out running a dog at dawn. Both of them have already been sent downtown by uniforms, and McLarney will soon be busy taking statements. Both are billies tried and true, with Harley-Davidson tattoos and minor police records, but nothing about their story will arouse any suspicion.

While Worden deals with the lab tech, Dave Brown begins walking the length of the gravel lot, from the loading dock to the overgrown gra.s.s at the edge of the railbed. He jumps up on the concrete dock, then walks around both sides of the warehouse. No sandal. Brown walks a block and a half down Johnson Street, checking the gutter, then walks back to the southern boundary of the lot, where he jumps down to the railbed and searches a few hundred feet of the tracks. Nothing.

By the time he returns, the lab tech has recovered the money and jewelry, photographed the body in its original position and sketched the scene. The ME's attendants have also arrived and taken their Polaroids, followed by two television news cameras that are perched at the lot's entrance, shooting a few seconds of tape for the noon broadcasts.

”Can they see the body from up there?” asks Worden, turning to the sector sergeant.

”No. The trailer blocks the view.”

Worden nods.

”We ready?” Brown asks.

”Let's do it,” says the ME's lead attendant, putting on his gloves. ”Slow and steady.”

Gingerly, the two attendants roll the corpse, turning the dead woman slowly onto her back. The face reveals itself as a b.l.o.o.d.y, fleshy pulp. More surprising, black treadmarks cross the left upper torso and head in a consistent diagonal.

”Whoa,” says Dave Brown. ”Road kill.”

”Well, what do you know,” says Worden. ”I guess it's a whole new ball game now.”

The older detective walks back to the Cavalier for one of the handheld radios and opens the citywide channel.

”Sixty-four forty,” says Worden.

”Sixty-four forty.”

”I'm down at this homicide scene on Johnson Street and I need to get a supervisor in the traffic investigation section down here.”

”Ten-four.”

Half a minute later, a TIS sergeant is on the wire, explaining to the dispatcher that he is not needed on Johnson Street because the incident is a homicide, not an automobile accident. Worden listens to the conversation with growing irritation.

”Sixty-four forty,” says Worden, interrupting.

”Sixty-four forty.”

”I know it's a homicide. I want someone from TIS down here for their expertise.”

”Ten-four,” says the traffic man, cutting back in. ”I'll be out there in a few minutes.”

Unbelievable, thinks Worden, a perfect ill.u.s.tration of the not-my-job reflex. Traffic section handles any auto fatalities, including hit-and-runs, so they are reluctant to send a man down if it means they might get stuck with the case. McAllister and Bowman encountered something similar back in March when they called for traffic while working a body found mauled by the shoulder of Bayonne Avenue in the Northeast. The detectives were walking around that scene looking for chrome and paint chips; the traffic man was looking for sh.e.l.l casings.