The main conceit of this story began as a science fiction idea. When that ended up going nowhere, I shifted it over to a contemporary crime setting. The first iteration of this clocked in at around 5,000 words, and when the editor of
NEEDLE, Steve Weddle, came back with a "no," he stated that there were some great things in the story, but that it might benefit from being longer. So, I nearly doubled it (to roughly 9,000 words), sent it back to
NEEDLE, when submissions opened again, and had it published in the Winter, 2014-15 edition of the magazine. Later in 2015, it was selected as an honorable mention for
The Best American Mystery Stories, 2015.
I'm really proud of this story and have meant to share it here for a while, now. Hopefully you'll appreciate it--enjoyment just doesn't feel like the proper word, here, considering the subject matter--and if you'd prefer a scan of its original publication, hit the
LINK.
Thanks!
Silence
by C.M. Beckett
Harry Dolan spied the dead body through his windshield. Covered in a stained sheet – some bullshit
metaphor that would end up in the local paper’s write-up. Dolan slammed the car into park and got out,
snapping on latex gloves as he stepped under the police tape.
“What do we
got?”
Sam Henderson –
short, balding, with a lazy eye that made the skells underestimate him – turned
to greet Dolan. “Didn’t realize the lieutenant
let you out this late.”
“Got a special
dispensation to work past my bedtime, asshole,” Dolan said. “Just fill me in.”
“Female vic, shot
three times in the chest. No purse, no
jewelry, no ID. Robbery gone bad by the
looks of it.”
Dolan bent down
and lifted the sheet. The woman appeared
to be in her mid-twenties – dark complexion, pretty face, utter tragedy. He scanned the body, caught the bruising on
her neck and a sharp pain stabbed the backs of his eyes; memory flashed; Dolan
stuffed it back down and took a breath.
“Quite a looker,
ain’t she?” Henderson asked. “Wouldn’ta
minded stickin’ it to her while she was still talkin’.”
Dolan stood up and
walked over to Henderson, urged the shorter detective back with his bulk. His voice was low, even: “You don’t disrespect a woman can’t defend
herself no more. I’d prefer not to have to
include that shit in my report.”
Henderson snapped
his heels together and gave a high salute.
“Jawohl, Herr Commandant!”
Dolan turned
away. “Start canvassing. I’ll take the lead, since you seem unable to
treat this with any seriousness.”
“Yes sir!” Henderson gave a second salute, turned and
slunk away.
Two hours later,
Dolan was back at his desk, on the phone with the coroner. “Yeah, okay,” he said into the receiver. “Thanks a lot, Brightman; you’re a
peach.” Dolan winced at the reply and
hung up the phone. He could feel the
knot growing in the pit of his stomach.
This was gonna be a bad case.
“So, whaddawegot,
big man?” Henderson asked from the unused desk behind Dolan.
The other
detective swiveled his chair around.
“Victim’s a reporter with the Herald.
Marcía Vasquez. And the gunshots
were either a message or a cover-up.
Cause of death was asphyxiation caused by strangulation.”
“On the bright
side, she don’t have to wallow in a profession ain’t gonna be around in ten
years,” Henderson said.
Dolan glared at
the detective, then turned and called across the room, “Hey, Jilly, get me a
coffee, willya?”
Jillian Tamaki
looked up from her latest case file – double homicide, two pre-teen boys, a
block up from her own apartment.
Half-Irish and half-Korean, Tamaki was all cop. At only twenty-nine years old, she had more
than acquitted herself in the six months since being promoted to
detective. She expected it was a
combination of her age and heritage that rubbed Dolan the wrong way. “I’m not your comfort woman, Dolan. Get it yourself. You could use the exercise.”
“Give me a goddamn
break,” Dolan said. “You’re two feet
from the damn thing. Just grab me a
mug.”
Tamaki stared at
Dolan, but he’d turned back to his own case file. She got up and moved toward the coffee
maker.
“That feminist
streak sure evaporates once we’re back in-house,” Henderson chuckled.
Dolan was
approaching fifty, but he was still quick.
Henderson had no time to get his feet off the desk before the larger
detective had his collar and threw him to the ground. Dolan got two punches
into the squat detective’s face before the rest of the night shift dragged him
off.
“I’m gonna sue
your ass,” Henderson barked, as he stood and straightened his jacket. “You’re a fuckin’ maniac.” He wiped at his mouth, noticed blood on his
knuckle, marched for the hall and the bathroom.
“Dolan!” Lieutenant Wallace’s voice silenced the
squad. “In my office.”
Fifteen minutes
later, Dolan stepped out.
“Coffee’s on your
desk, Dolan. Probably cold by now,
though,” Tamaki called.
“Shut up, ya damn
slope.” Dolan grabbed his hat and coat
and swept out of the office.
###
Dolan rapped on the weathered oak door of the modest brownstone, then pulled
his collar up against the breeze and the possibility of being recognized. He pulled out the business card again. Chinese characters covered the front of the
card (Dolan thought of them as Oriental).
The address, in English, was the only inscription on the back.
The door opened
and a short, Asian woman with the blackest hair Dolan had ever seen greeted
him. She wore a blue kimono with a
light-colored sash, and her round face had a broad smile on it.
“Greetings. How may I help you?” Her accent was thick, the words stilted as
she struggled over them.
“A friend
recommended you,” Dolan said.
“I sorry. No understand,” the woman said.
“I think you
understand fine.” Dolan pulled out his
detective’s badge. “I’m not here in an
official capacity,” he said, “as long as you don’t give me the runaround.”
The woman shook
her head, her mouth puckered in a silent no
as she stepped back into the darkened entry.
“Good.” Dolan pushed against the wooden door and
stepped past the tiny woman. “Now, let’s
see what you got.”
Lace curtains hung
in every doorway, like some ancient harem.
The woman offered Dolan a seat in the front room. He stood.
She bowed and
slipped through one of the curtains.
Dolan barely had
time to scan the room before she returned with three young ladies in tow. Each wore a long dress with a high slit up
one leg. They were all beautiful, all
Asian, and all unable to look Dolan in the eye.
“We have special
girls,” the woman said. “Very
special.”
“That’s what I was
told,” Dolan said.
“We no want
irritate guests, so we bring girls over who have tongue removed. Very common in China, but no talk about. Once happen, they no have chance at real
life. That why bring here. Give them chance at real life.” She looked up at him, her eyes sliding away
behind that broad smile. “You no here
for talk, just sex, yes?”
Dolan muttered an
assent.
“Which one you
like?” the woman asked.
They all looked
the same to Dolan. He walked over and
took the closest one by the arm.
“She take you to
room. You leave money on table
after. Here prices.” The woman handed Dolan another business card
– smaller than the other, and square. On
the front, in flowery script, was her name:
Madame Fāng. On the back were two
columns – thirty-minute increments on the left and a rising collection of
numbers, from 125 to 750, on the right.
“They all like
rough. Rougher, better,” Mrs. Fāng said,
and she chuckled nervously.
Dolan nodded and
pointed for the girl to lead the way.
###
The wooden stairs creaked as the detectives ascended to the third floor of Marcía
Vasquez’s apartment building. Dolan
labored to catch his breath at the top, before taking a final drag off his
cigarette.
Tamaki watched
him, hands on her hips. “Why did the lieutenant
stick me with you?”
Dolan blew smoke
in Tamaki’s direction, dropped the cancer stick and ground it beneath his heel,
imagining his young partner in its place.
“Experience. Role model. Teach you somethin’. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” He turned and headed toward the end of the
hall. “Ask me, I don’t know that I can
teach you much. You’d need the capacity
ta learn for that.”
“Not being a prick
might go a long way to helping impart knowledge,” Tamaki said, pushing past him
to knock on the door of 3B. Dolan
smiled.
A young woman in
her twenties, with short blond hair, a couple piercings in her nose and more in
her ears, and a soft, round face opened the door to greet them. She forced a smile. “You’re the detectives?” she asked.
“Yes,” Dolan said,
producing his badge. “Rachel
Deering?”
The woman
nodded.
“May we come in?”
Tamaki asked.
Rachel opened the
door wider and stepped back.
The apartment was
small, a kitchen-slash-dining area led directly into the main room, which had a
large window looking out at the brick edifice of the neighboring building. Photos covered the walls; plants, potted and
hanging, filled the room with the scent of the outdoors better than some
plug-in thing; and the furniture was all modern and, as Dolan like to put it,
skeletal. What stood out most to Tamaki,
though, was how clean the place was.
Rachel directed
the detectives to the couch – a thin, black frame with beige cushions tied down
to it. She sat in a matching rocker next
to them.
“We’re sorry for
your loss,” Dolan said, leaning forward.
“It’s a terrible thing to lose a mother.”
Tamaki looked up,
saw the confusion in Rachel’s eyes, then turned to Dolan, who gave no
indication he realized what he’d said. She
considered interjecting, but Dolan was already talking again, “We just want to
ask you a few questions,” and the moment had passed.
“Can you tell us a
bit about Ms. Vasquez? What she was
like. Habits, comings and goings,” Dolan
said. “Anything that might help us find
who did this to her.”
“I don’t know,”
Rachel said. “She was real
determined. Inspiring almost.”
“What do you
mean?” Tamaki asked.
“Marcía was always
working,” Rachel said. “Even if she
didn’t have her laptop open, you could see she was still focused on her
stories. Like, she could be sitting
there watching TV, and you might think she was into whatever was on, but if you
looked closer, you could see she wasn’t even looking at what was on the
screen. I wish I had that drive.”
“What do you do?”
Dolan asked.
“I’m a
receptionist with Sithe Global.” Rachel
stood up quickly. “Can I get you a drink
or something?”
“Thanks, no,”
Tamaki said. Dolan just shook his
head.
“Well, I need
something. Just a sec.” Rachel walked back to the kitchen and grabbed
a bottle of Evian from the fridge, then returned to the rocker. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem,”
Dolan said. “So, did Ms. Vasquez ever
discuss her work?”
“Not really. She was, like, real secretive about that
stuff.”
“Secretive?”
Tamaki asked.
“You know,” Rachel
said. “I guess that’s not the best
word. She just, she never brought it
up. And the few times I asked, Marcía
told me she didn’t want to bore me. I
don’t know, maybe that’s how she really felt.”
“Could be,” Dolan
said. “I realize her job wasn’t exactly
a banker’s, but did she keep regular hours, have any type of routine?”
“She liked working
at night,” Rachel said. “Or maybe she
just liked sleeping in. Not that she
could do that too much.” Rachel tugged
at a nail with her teeth, caught herself.
“I didn’t really see her that much.
My job’s pretty regular, nine-to-five and all that, so we didn’t cross paths
a lot except late at night or on weekends.
But when she did take a night off, she never left without inviting
me. Marcía was real…”
Rachel began to
cry. “Real good like that.”
Dolan got up,
rested a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he said. “This is
hard. I know. And it’s a pain in the ass there’s nothin’ we
can do about it.
“Just let it
out.”
Tamaki didn’t know
what to think.
Forty minutes
later, the two detectives left, with little to go on. Rachel had been unable to offer anything
useful, and a search of Marcía’s room turned up nothing, not even a laptop or a
thumb drive, which meant all her work was stored somewhere else.
Or it had been
taken by the murderer.
###
Lieutenant Wallace looked a lot like Sam Elliott – big, wavy hair stuck in the
eighties, bushy mustache, rugged but lean build, and eyes that seemed able to
shoot right through you. Dolan found it distracting. Tamaki didn’t know who Elliott was.
The lieutenant
stood behind his desk. A woman, thumbs
jumping across the face of her phone, stood in the corner. She looked to be in her twenties, with intense
eyes, her dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore a skirt that hugged her hips, but
came below the knee, with a matching button-up blazer. This woman expected to be taken
seriously. Tamaki appreciated that.
“Things are
working out,” Wallace said, more a statement than a question.
Neither
replied.
“Good.” Wallace smiled, took his seat. “So…” He
shuffled through some papers on his desk, then looked up. “How’s the Vasquez case coming?”
“Slow,” Dolan
said.
“That’s an erudite
response. Would you care to elaborate on
this slowness?”
“We got shit-all
to go on,” Dolan said. “Sir.”
Wallace leaned
back in his chair, scratched his chin.
“Sounds like every other murder case we’ve taken the last twenty
years.”
“Yes, sir,” Tamaki
said. “That is true.”
“You telling me
you’re not up to the job?” Wallace asked.
Tamaki leaned
forward. “No, sir.”
“Then I’m
confused.”
Tamaki glanced at
the woman, looked back to Wallace. “We
just haven’t found the right witness--"
Dolan interrupted. “What Tamaki
is trying to say, Lieutenant, is that a lot of people are refusing to
talk.”
“Or don’t have
anything to say,” Tamaki said.
Dolan’s jaw
clenched; he looked sidewise at his partner.
“Same thing. Anyway, this is troubling
on a number of levels. Obviously. Doesn’t mean we won’t crack the case. Just gonna take more time.”
“I put you two
together because I thought you could enhance each other’s strengths,” Wallace
said.
“Yes, sir,” Tamaki
said.
“I’m not usually
wrong about these things,” Wallace said.
“Don’t make me regret this decision.”
“No, sir.”
“Okay,” Wallace
said. “Back to work.”
The detectives stood
up from their chairs and exited the office.
The woman remained.
For the next few
minutes, Tamaki watched through the glass as the lieutenant and the woman
talked. She couldn’t figure what it was
all about – was that Wallace’s wife? His
daughter? What was she tapping out on
her phone?
“Quit worryin’,”
Dolan said.
Tamaki looked at
her partner, but his eyes were fixed on the file in front of him. “About what?” she asked.
“That lady,” he
said. “Unless it’s pertinent to the
case, drop it.”
Tamaki leaned
forward to argue, lost her train of thought as the lieutenant’s door banged
open. Wallace approached her and Dolan,
with the woman pacing him, still tapping her phone.
“This is Renee
Franco,” Wallace said. “She works for
the Times and is doing a piece on human trafficking. Ms. Franco will be riding with you today.”
Dolan swiveled his
chair around. “Why are you ditchin’ her
with us?”
The muscles in
Wallace’s jaw flexed, and Tamaki could see the blood rise in his face. “Because it’s your job,” he said. “And because Bivens is scheduled for court
today and Potvin and McIntyre are already out on another case.” He turned to Franco. “I apologize for the detective’s behavior,
but we don’t let him out to play with others too often. That’s probably my error. If you have any trouble, do not hesitate to
let me know.” Wallace turned back to his
detectives. “And unless you have a
worthwhile question, I’d suggest you keep it to yourself. Am I clear?”
Dolan grunted and
returned to the file on his desk.
Wallace marched back to his office, and Franco took a seat at Tamaki’s
desk.
“So. Where’d you want us to taxi you?” Dolan
asked.
Franco
paused. “Well,” she said. “The focus of the piece is human trafficking,
specifically the rise in Asian women being brought to America in this manner. A topic this big, my editor’s envisioning a
series of articles. But I don’t want to
take you from any pressing business. I’m
just here to observe, capture your daily routine, and if I can question you
about my focus during any down time, that works for me. So, I guess wherever you want to start.”
“Docks are always
a good place to hit first,” Dolan said, and stood up from his chair. Tamaki and Franco followed.
A half hour later, Dolan pulled the car in front of an old children’s park, the
rusted skeletons of play equipment leaning raggedly behind a chain link fence
that had long ago succumbed to age.
Franco and Tamaki both wondered about the wisdom of a playground so near
the docks, so far away from anything resembling a residential area. Dolan had only ever accepted the
anomaly.
The three stepped
out of the car. Dolan lit a cigarette
while the women scanned the area – weary trees sagged against a hazy sky as the
black water lapped against the shore, a succession of warehouses, square
behemoths with despondent paint scarred by streaks of rust, trailed off toward
the deeper end of the harbor where large container ships sat in the water. He waited a moment, took a long drag off the
cancer stick, then began walking. “Come
on.”
Soon, they were rounding
a giant pylon – one of many – that supported the six-lane bridge connecting the
city’s business district with its older, residential area. “They don’t make the best witnesses, for
official purposes,” Dolan said. “But if
you’re lookin’ for information from the street, someone here’ll have what ya
need.”
Franco’s attention
turned from the overwhelming architecture rising above them to the gathering of
human detritus now in front of her.
People – all kinds, all colors, with eyes hollow and suspicious, all
hope extinguished from their faces – dotted the landscape. Some sat in front of makeshift tents, others
just lay on the hard ground beneath a couple sheets of cardboard. She felt her skin prickle, unsure if it was a
result of guilt or sympathy or disgust.
“’Course, you
might consider doin’ a piece on them, if it weren’t something people’d rather
ignore,” Dolan said. Tamaki’s ears
burned, as much at this hard truth as the derision in her partner’s voice. “Wait here,” he said, and waded into the
crowd.
The two women
watched as Dolan moved from body to body, his demeanor almost
affectionate. Most wouldn’t look at the
detective, unable or unwilling to match his gaze, and a few tried to hit him,
attacks easily swept aside by the large man.
Finally, one of them stood up, his head nodding like a bobble-head doll. Dolan slipped him a couple of bills, and the
two walked back toward Tamaki and Franco.
“This is Jimmy
Two-Feet,” he said to Franco. “He’s seen
some Asians comin’ in. That’s what you
were lookin’ for, right?”
“Yes,” Franco
said.
“Well,” Dolan
said. “Get yer notepad out and start
askin’ questions.”
Tamaki saw the
spark in Franco’s eyes as she nodded and moved over to Jimmy. They sat on a huge block of concrete lodged
in the ground nearby. “Keep an eye on
‘em,” Dolan said, from behind Tamaki.
“Pay attention, make a note of anything we might be able to use. I got
someone to find.” And he walked off.
Most of an hour passed before Dolan resurfaced.
“You get anything we can use?” he called, from the edge of the homeless
camp.
Tamaki, seated on
the hood of the car, shook her head “no.”
“Goddammit.” Dolan pulled out a cigarette and lit it,
tugged on it a few times, then spat out a cloud of smoke. “What the hell you been doin’? Enjoyin’ the view?”
Tamaki slid off
the hood. “Didn’t find the guy you went
looking for, did you?”
“Fuck off.” Dolan took another haul off his
cigarette.
Tamaki ripped it
from his mouth, threw it in the dirt.
“No. You fuck off. Just because you’re a sour old fuck who
didn’t get what he came down here for doesn’t mean you get to take it out on
me.”
Dolan looked down
at the smoldering cigarette, then past Tamaki to the reporter, who was standing
on the opposite side of the car, trying hard to look like she wasn’t
listening. Dolan cursed under his
breath. “What did you get?” he asked.
Tension slipped
from Tamaki’s shoulders, but her face remained stern. She pointed a thumb toward Franco. “She seemed to get a lot from that guy, but I
couldn’t follow half what he said, which doesn’t take into account how many
times she had to pull him back into their conversation.”
Dolan nodded. “Sounds like Jimmy.”
“He apparently
confirmed that women have been coming through the docks. A lot of Asian, but dark girls too.”
Dolan looked
across the harbor, then bent down to retrieve his cigarette.
“Also. You ever heard of Jedna?” Tamaki asked.
The ridges stood
out on Dolan’s brow. “That some kinda
computer bullshit or somethin’?”
“It’s a person,”
Franco said. She walked toward the
detectives. “The one trafficking these
girls from Asia.”
“What the hell
kinda name is that?” Dolan asked.
“Slavic,” Franco
said.
“Don’t recognize
it.” Dolan turned to Tamaki. “But make sure you write it down, and note
Jimmy on it too.” He walked toward the
car. “I’m gonna drop you two back at the
station. You can grab a car and do a
re-canvas at the apartment. Or go do
woman stuff, if that floats yer boat.”
“Where are you
going?” Tamaki asked.
“Got somethin’
pressing to take care of,” Dolan said, without turning.
###
Dolan had her bent over the side of the bed, slamming into her as hard as he
could.
“Come on,” he
grunted, their slapping bodies echoing through the small room. “You like that big dick, don’t you? Tell me you like it.”
She was one of
Mrs. Fāng’s newer girls and took the vow of silence too seriously for Dolan’s
tastes.
“If you want me to
cum, you better scream like the other girls.”
He took her wrists in one hand and pressed her face into the mattress
with the other.
“Come on! Scream!”
Dolan pistoned faster, his breaths ragged as sweat dripped into his
eyes.
And she began to
moan – long aching moans that brought a smile to Dolan’s face. He came violently inside the young Asian,
tears staining her cheeks as she lusted for air.
Five minutes later
Dolan stepped into the hall. Shifting
through the lace curtains, he heard the accented trill of Mrs. Fāng behind
him.
“You have good
night, yes?”
Dolan turned and
bowed. “Yes, very good,” he said. “I left the money on the nightstand, like
always.”
“Oh yes. I have here,” Mrs. Fāng said. “You very good to us, Mr. Dolan. Very good.
That why we wish give you discount.”
“I don’t need
that,” he said.
“No. Please, take money.” Mrs. Fāng handed him one of the
Franklins.
“Are you
sure?”
Mrs. Fāng smiled
and nodded.
“All right,” Dolan
said and pocketed the bill. “I’ll see
you soon.”
“Very soon,” Mrs. Fāng
said. “We hope very soon.”
###
Detective Tamaki knocked on the door of apartment 3H. It was the last apartment on the floor – so
far, no one had answered their door, even when the sounds of a television or
children screeching could be heard within – and she hardly waited before looking
at Franco and nodding for the stairs.
They’d barely
taken a step when the door opened behind them.
The women turned back to the door.
An old woman with silver hair blooming across her head and a sparkle in
her eyes greeted them. “Hello,” she
said, her voice rattling a bit.
“Ma’am. I’m Detective Tamaki.” She showed the woman her badge. “And this is Renee Franco, who works for the
Times. We were curious if you knew Marcía
Vasquez? She lived down the hall from
you.”
“Oh,” the woman
said. “The Mexican girl. I didn’t know her name. But I guess she was nice enough.” The woman leaned forward, as if imparting
some secret knowledge. “You know.”
“I’m not sure I
do,” Tamaki said, her voice cold.
“She was
different. Not like the rest of them,”
the old woman said. “She would help me
with my groceries. And she always smiled
when I saw her.”
Tamaki could only
nod.
“She liked to stay
out all hours of the night. A young girl
like that, she must have been a dancer somewhere or looking for a man who would
take care of her. I never did see her
bring one home, though. I think maybe
she was a lesbian.” The woman smiled
broadly. “Not that I’m one to pry. I just feel it’s best to know what’s going on
around you. To keep safe.”
“Right,” Tamaki
said.
“Did you feel
unsafe here?” Franco asked. Tamaki shot
her a look, but the reporter ignored it.
“Every day,” the
old woman said. “But I haven’t lived anywhere
else since I was a child. So what else can
I do?”
“What is it you
fear the most?” Franco asked.
“The gangs,” the
old woman said. “Punks with guns running
around shooting up the neighborhood, raping old women so they can take their
life savings. It’s all those immigrants
we let in. Just look around. The graffiti all over the place – it’s code
for what they want to do. All foreign
signs and letters, so we don’t know what they’re planning.”
Tamaki leaned
forward. “Could we get back to Ms.
Vasquez?” she asked. “You said you didn’t
see her bring home any men, but did you ever see her with anyone?”
“Yes,” the woman
said. “Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep
and I was up getting some warm milk, I would hear her coming home and look out to
check on her. I saw her with an Asian
girl a few times. I don’t know if it was
always the same one or not, but she was young like her, and pretty. I figured it might be someone from her
work.”
“Do you know if
they were Chinese or Korean or another nationality?” Tamaki asked.
“Please, dear,” the
woman said, “you all look the same to me.”
Tamaki felt her
jaw clench. She took a slow breath and
allowed Franco to interject: “Can you
try a little harder? Think about the
women you saw with her. Did they have
different body types, different hair, anything that might signal whether this
was a regular friend or maybe something more?”
“You mean like an
orgy?” the woman asked.
“No,” Tamaki
snapped, immediately regretting the loss of composure.
The woman wrapped
her nightcoat more closely around her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Like I said, I don’t like to stick my nose
into other people’s business. I’m just
looking out for myself.”
“Right,” Tamaki
said. “Is there anything else you can
tell us about her?”
“No. I don’t think so,” the woman said.
“Okay,” Tamaki
said.
“Thank you for
your time.” Franco shook the woman’s
hand, then passed her a business card.
“If you remember anything else, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
“I will,” the
woman said.
Tamaki and Franco turned
for the stairs. “Is she in some kind of
trouble?” the woman asked. “Something
happen at the club where she works?”
“No,” Tamaki said
over her shoulder. “Nothing like
that.” And they left.
###
Renee Franco rode along with the detectives for three more days. Dolan couldn’t tell what she gained from the
exercise, and he was not happy about what little they progress they made in
that time. Just proved his point that
civilians interfering with police work, even when ostensibly staying out of the
way, always fucked things up, and it put him in a pissy mood.
A mood that was
exacerbated when, not forty minutes after seeing Franco off, he and Tamaki
caught a gang-related triple homicide (one victim the son of a state
politician) that bumped Marcía Vasquez off the priority list.
###
Dolan banged on Mrs. Fāng’s door as rain pelted down. He cursed the city for not including awnings
with the brownstones when they’d been built and pulled his hat down a little
tighter.
When the door
opened, he didn’t wait, barreled through into the dry entryway.
“Ah, Mr. Dolan. You back sooner than normal,” Mrs. Fāng
said.
Dolan shook the
water from his coat. “Yeah,” he
said. “I know.”
“We happy you
here, but I afraid no girls available right now,” she said.
“I can wait,”
Dolan said and pulled a Budweiser from his jacket pocket.
“No,” Mrs. Fāng
said. “They all booked up for day.”
Dolan drained half
the beer, then glared at the woman.
“What does that mean?”
“Girls go to
special party. No one left for
house. Bad day today. I so sorry.”
Mrs. Fāng bowed as she said this.
“Wish to help, but there just no way.”
“I don’t believe
this shit.” Dolan stared down at the
woman for a long moment, then walked past her into the sitting room.
“Mr. Dolan. Please, Mr. Dolan,” she called, heels
clicking on the hardwood floor as she tried to catch him. “I very sorry, but nothing can do.” She grabbed his arm, and Dolan was surprised by
the strength in her grip. “Make up to
you,” she said. “You come back when
girls not busy and we give you free fun.
How that?”
“There’s no one
here you can sneak me in with?” he asked.
“Book all full
today. I tell you,” she said, as she
released her grip.
Dolan took another
haul off the beer, cursed under his breath – “fuck” – then fell onto the
couch.
“You need
drink? Something to eat?” Mrs. Fāng
asked.
Dolan raised his
Bud. “Nope. Got all I need right here.” Finished the beer and chucked it across the
room.
Mrs. Fāng opened
her mouth to say something, but the large detective gave her little opportunity
as he stormed out of the brownstone, a string of profanities trailing in his
wake.
###
Dolan scanned the front page of the Times.
The headline read: HUMAN
TRAFFICKING IN OUR OWN BACK YARD. He
knew the byline. Renee Franco. His eyes flitted to the top of the fold, and
the date. June seventeenth.
“God. Dammit.”
He crushed the paper and threw it into the wastebasket next to his
desk.
“Mets lose again?”
Tamaki asked.
“Two fucking
months,” Dolan spat. “Two months that
girl’s been dead, and we haven’t done shit for her.”
“What?”
Dolan slammed open
the bottom drawer of his desk and tossed over the case file from the top of the
pile. “That.”
Tamaki looked at
the name – Vasquez, Marcía – then opened it.
‘April 5’ was written in the top right corner of the form, scrawl she recognized
as Dolan’s. She skimmed the file,
already familiar with it but unsure how to close the folder without sending her
partner into a bigger rage. Tamaki
allowed a minute to pass, then looked up.
“I don’t follow.”
Dolan shut his
eyes, rubbed at his temples. “Girl
deserved better,” he mumbled.
“A lot of people
do,” Tamaki said.
Dolan felt a
rawness in the back of his throat.
“We’re working this today.”
“What about the
Hammond case?” Tamaki asked.
“We been bangin’
our heads against that one for days.
Nothin’ll shake loose when you’re clenchin’ so tight to it,” Dolan
said. “You need a new perspective.”
“You aren’t
getting Zen on me?” Tamaki asked.
“Don’t act like a
stupid rookie.”
Tamaki bit her
lip, sat back in her chair.
“We haven’t been
back to the mother’s, have we?” Dolan asked.
Tamaki shook her
head.
“All right. You grab a car. Speak with the mother again; see if you can
get a look around this time. Maybe she
left somethin’ there.”
“You coming with?”
“I got other things
need lookin’ after,” Dolan said.
“What I thought,”
Tamaki said. “Stick me with the
three-hour round trip, while you hit the donut shop.”
Dolan glared at
her. Tamaki refused to look away. “Lieutenant says I gotta do this?” she
asked.
“Me tellin’ you is
the same thing,” Dolan said.
Tamaki stood
up. “When I get back, maybe you can
illuminate me to the finer points of this exercise.”
“It’s called doing
your job,” Dolan said.
Tamaki gave him
the finger as she marched out the door.
###
The sky was heavy with clouds, dull gray stretching in all directions. Tamaki could feel its weight pressing on her
shoulders as she approached the Vasquez home – a small, ranch-style that
mirrored the rest of the block, with yellow siding and black shutters, and a
poor attempt at a garden on either side of the concrete steps leading to the
front door. Tamaki knocked twice, then
turned and watched three kids – two boys and a girl – weave and hop along the
rutted sidewalk on skateboards, and the thought of losing a daughter scraped at
her heart with a surprising urgency.
The detective
jumped when the door opened. She turned,
forced a smile. “I don’t know if you
remember me…” She didn’t get to finish
her statement. “I do,” Mrs. Vasquez
said. “You’re the quiet detective.”
“Yes,” Tamaki
said. “May I come in?”
Shorter than
Tamaki, Mrs. Vasquez had skin dark and smooth, like a Caribbean beach, with
hair as black as night. She was petite
and could easily be mistaken for a woman far younger than her fifty years. Until one looked more closely – at eyes
carved deep by sorrow. A long sigh
escaped the woman, and she stepped aside.
It was dark
inside, blinds drawn on all the windows, and the walls were bare, lacking even
family photos, which struck Tamaki as sad.
An old couch, brown and orange plaid like one her parents had owned, sat
against a low wall separating the front room from the kitchen. A coffee table, scarred and stained, centered
the room, stacks of celebrity magazines sliding across its surface. The flat-screen TV was turned to Judge Judy,
the volume affording anyone in the home opportunity to listen in. Through the arch, the detective noticed a
pile of dishes in the sink, while boxes of crackers and cereals were scattered
across the counter like a devastated cityscape.
The ache of loss permeated the entire home, and Tamaki wanted to leave
before she’d even begun.
Mrs. Vasquez
pushed past the detective. “I was just
making tea,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Would you like some?”
“No, thank you,”
Tamaki said.
Mrs. Vasquez
shrugged, lifted the teapot from the stove, poured steaming water into a large
mug, dunked a tea bag four times, then pulled a vodka bottle from the
refrigerator and filled the mug to its brim.
She blew across it and bent for a tentative sip, then added a bit more
vodka and returned the bottle to the fridge.
Tamaki watched her walk back into the front room and sit amid the
sprouting threads of the old couch.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I was hoping I might
look around, see if your daughter left anything behind that could help us with
our investigation,” Tamaki said.
“You know she
moved out almost ten years ago,” Mrs. Vasquez said.
“Yes, ma’am. But she did visit for extended periods, to
get work done? Did she keep a room
here?”
Mrs. Vasquez
stared hard at the detective. “You won’t
find who did this.”
The silence was
painful, but Tamaki knew any response would just increase the tension. So she waited.
Mrs. Vasquez took
another sip of her tea. “It’s the room
at the end of the hall.”
Tamaki thanked her
and moved through the house. The short
hallway was even darker than the front room, all doors closed against prying
eyes. She stopped at Marcía’s room and
pressed her hand against the thin wood of the door, counted to five.
The room had not
been touched in years – shelves filled with stuffed animals organized by size
(biggest in back, smaller ones in their laps), a desk with only a boxed set of
the ‘Green Gables’ books on one corner and a lamp at the other, the comforter,
pink and white, pulled tight on the bed, photos and posters covering as much of
the walls as possible, everything dusted so that surfaces shined. The rest of the house might exhibit its
languishment, but Mrs. Vasquez refused to allow the neglect to enter her
daughter’s room. A chill ran up Tamaki’s
back. She hesitated, then entered and
closed the door behind her.
There was little
to discover. Mementos from Marcía’s
childhood. A small basket of used
cosmetics. A bookshelf full of titles
Tamaki recognized from her own youth. Discarded
notebooks of poetry. The sum of a life
that was missing a vital piece. There
was nothing from her time as a journalist.
No clippings. No scribbled notes
or thumb drives. No indication of the
profession she had pursued for almost a decade.
Tamaki reached the
desk, which was squeezed between the bed and the closet. She pulled out a drawer, discovered a
wireless keyboard there. Kneeling down,
she found an orphaned cable wire running in from the outer wall. But there was no computer. Which wasn’t necessarily strange. It was possible Marcía had traveled with a
tablet. But it verified that she had most
likely worked from here.
Tamaki moved to
the closet. Buried in a back corner – in
the one shoebox of twenty that did not hold shoes – were the notebooks she’d
expected to find, along with a stack of business cards. The notebooks were full of mostly
indecipherable scratchings. The few
words Tamaki could read made little sense lacking proper context. The cards were familiar – lawyers, academics,
businesses from the city and surrounding area.
But there were a handful she didn’t recognize. These she put on top.
The rest of her
search turned up nothing. Ten minutes
later, Tamaki stepped out to the front room.
Mrs. Vasquez was still watching Judge Judy, sipping at a refreshed mug
of tea. She didn’t look at Tamaki as she
spoke. “Don’t expect there was much you
could find to help.”
“No,” Tamaki
said. “But there was this box in her
closet.” She held it out to Mrs.
Vasquez. “Looks like notes from her work
and some random business cards. I think
it could prove fruitful.”
The woman turned
and looked at Tamaki, then slipped back to the TV. “I don’t want it,” she said, her voice distant.
“Okay,” Tamaki
said.
A pause. “I’ll just let myself out.”
“Yeah,” Mrs.
Vasquez said. “You do that.”
###
Two large coffees and too many blocks later, Dolan spied his C.I., Robbie
Willis, hangin’ where he shouldn’ta been – deep in conversation with a handful
of known felons. Not that it was illegal
for them to congregate. It was just
frowned upon by the local constabulary, in a sometimes-forceful manner.
When Willis caught
Dolan’s eye, the detective could see it in his face; he knew he was busted, and
he was not feelin’ it that day. The
others turned to watch as Dolan approached.
None of them made a move to bolt.
Dolan appreciated that. He also
enjoyed watching Willis get twitchy.
“You know there’s
a warrant out, don’tcha?” Dolan asked, looking directly at Willis. One of the toughs, went by the name of Rhino
on the street, moved into his path, sneered down at the old, overweight
detective from nearly a foot above his head.
Dolan glared up at Rhino. “I’ve
had a shit day. And it ain’t even
lunch,” he said.
“What chu want the
man for?” Rhino asked.
“His business,”
Dolan said. “You want me announcing your
shit when it comes down? Cuz most of it
is weak-ass.”
“Don’t be
disrespectin’, old man.”
Dolan raised his
arms, palms out. “You’re right, you’re
right. I’m an ass,” and a hand darted
out, bent back Rhino’s index finger, sent the behemoth to his knees before
anyone could react. Dolan stepped
closer, gaining more leverage, and stared down at the thug. “Now.
I would like to do my job without any more interest from your gang. Is that acceptable?”
“You askin’ for
trouble,” Rhino said, his words labored.
“Been doin’ that
over twenty years,” Dolan said. “And I’m
still here. So, do I need to call in
back up and throw all you shits into cells for the night? Or is Willis comin’ with me for questioning,
after which he can be home in time for dinner?”
Rhino motioned with his head toward Willis. “Take him.
This time.”
Dolan let go of
Rhino’s finger and took a step back.
The large man
stood up, rubbing at his hand. “But next
time, you better bring some more guys, or you gonna end up in a lot o’
pain.”
“Fair enough,”
Dolan said. He reached out to Willis. “Come on.
Quicker we go, quicker this gets done.”
Ten minutes later
they had crossed the Sawyer Bridge and parked beneath it. Dolan sat on the hood of the car, watching
the C.I. chuck rocks into the black water.
He was most interested in the shock of white on the man’s feet – new Air
Force Ones that contrasted sharply with the rest of his attire. Dolan took a sip of coffee. “Hey,” he called. Willis turned, arm mid-throw. “You gonna waste my time or am I gaining
somethin’ from this encounter?”
Willis let the
rock drop into the soft mud and shuffled toward the detective.
“Nice kicks,”
Dolan said.
Willis stopped and
looked down. “No shit.” He pulled up a pant leg, ragged and torn, to
better view the sneakers. “Got a old
lady takin’ care o’ me now. Sweet little
sugar mama. She cain’t get enough.”
“Seems likely,”
Dolan snorted. “So. Whaddayagot?”
“About what?”
Willis asked.
Dolan swung, hit
Willis’s face hard and sent the C.I. back a couple steps. “What the hell?!”
“Don’t bullshit
me.” Dolan was breathing heavy, but his
voice was even. “You said you’d look
deeper. But you never got back in
touch. I know you got info.”
Willis rubbed at
his cheek. “I don’t know what the hell
you’re barkin’ about, man.”
Dolan punched him
again. Harder.
“Fuuuuuuck.” Willis was on one knee. He pressed his palm against the throbbing at
his temple.
“The girl I was
askin’ about a couple months back.
Vasquez. Reporter. Strangled then shot. What’s the word on the street?” There musta been somethin’.” Dolan leaned back on the car, sipped at his
coffee.
“Goddammit! Why you always gotta play that mystery man
shit?” Willis stood up, hand still
against the side of his head.
“It amuses
me.”
Willis glared at
Dolan. “Good ta know where I stand,” he
said.
“Could be standing
behind bars,” Dolan said. “Might
consider that before you get wise.”
“A’ight,
a’ight.” Willis looked at his hand. No blood.
“So. Give.” Dolan set down his coffee as he stood away
from the car. Willis took a few steps
back, held up his hands in defeat.
“Yah. Okay. What I got, what I got.” He scanned the area, his eyes running over a
dead rat decomposing in the strangled grass before returning his gaze to the
detective. “Somethin’ about scratchin’
their ass. Or somethin’. I don’t know.” He eyed Dolan.
“Scratchin’ their
ass? What the hell is that?” Dolan took another step forward.
Willis’s eyes were
wide. “It’s what I got!” He looked around for anything to use as a
weapon, but there was nothing. His mind
raced, and he wished he hadn’t blown the last of his smack on that skank from
the bar. “Itchy bun. Itchy bun,” he cried. “I think it’s foreign, but that’s what I
got.”
“What does it
mean?” Dolan asked.
“Name o’ the new
man in charge,” Willis said. “Been
consolidatin’ the dockwork for months.
Heard he’s the one put the hit out on that reporter.”
“Why?”
Willis’s words
were a rapid staccato: “S’what I tol’ ya
before, too close with a story an’ all that shit, y’know?” He was scared. Or approximating a good facsimile.
But Dolan’s
sympathies lay elsewhere. He moved in
close on the C.I. “Where are they set
up?”
“Movin’, always
movin’,” Willis said. “Can’t say where
they be next.”
“But you can say
where they been most recent,” Dolan said.
Willis looked up
at the detective. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Warehouse ninety-four. Last I heard, that was where they was doin’
business.”
“Ninety-four.”
Willis
nodded.
“You put this down
on paper for me?” Dolan asked.
“Then I get my
cash?”
“Then you get your
cash.”
Willis
nodded. Dolan went to get a legal
pad.
###
Tamaki was reading one of Vasquez’s notebooks when Dolan came marching into the
office. She stood up, grabbed the one business
card she couldn’t place – all white with Asian symbols in one corner, the word
‘Ichiban’ dead center, and no other distinguishing marks – from the shoebox and
held it out to her partner. “Recognize
this?”
“No time,” Dolan
said, waving her off. “We hafta get over
to Judge Menken and get a warrant before he goes home for the day.”
“What?”
Dolan looked at
Tamaki. “My C.I. gave me somethin’. But we gotta act quick, before they’re
gone.”
“Who?” Tamaki dropped the card and followed
Dolan. He took four long strides,
reached the lieutenant’s office, and slammed through the door without
knocking.
“What the
hell?”
“Sorry, Loo,”
Dolan said. “But we gotta act fast on
this. I gotta tip says we need to hit warehouse
ninety-four, down at the docks. The ones
killed that reporter been holed up there, but they won’t be much longer.”
“How does this
pertain to the Hammond case?” Wallace asked.
“We put it
aside. To readjust our heads,” Dolan
said.
“So, this is the
Vasquez case,” Wallace said.
“Yeah. But there’s more to it than that. Asian girls brought in against their will to
work the sex clubs and brothels – it’s related to that too. We need a TAC team and a warrant and we need
it for tonight.”
Tamaki had never
seen Dolan so animated. She didn’t know
what to make of it.
“Okay,” Wallace
said. “I’ll see what I can pull
together.”
“Right,” Dolan
said, turning for the door.
“But you better be
right about this.”
“Don’t worry,
Loo.”
Water slapped against the boats, shunting their hulls into one another, an
oddly rhythmic beat that Tamaki found soothing as they knelt in the shadows
scanning the warehouse. They had been a
couple hours scrunched down in the dark, the only sound the startled cry of a
gull. She could feel the tension seeping
off her partner. She wasn’t surprised
when Dolan gave the signal, and they moved on the building.
The place was
huge. And bare. It took less than twenty minutes to search
all the levels and pronounce the place clean.
Which didn’t
surprise Dolan. He’d known as soon as
they entered the side door. All the dust
they kicked up and the vast emptiness of the building. Nobody’d been in this warehouse for a long
time.
Willis had sold
him out. Fucker.
Despite this,
Dolan inspected every room personally, with Tamaki right beside him, hoping for
anything that might offer a new path to follow.
But there was nothing.
In the last room –
on the fourth level, a large window looking down on the empty storage area of
the ground floor – Dolan lost it.
Standing in the doorway, he watched Tamaki peer into the drawers of the
cheap, metal desk in the far corner. She
examined the orphaned papers and office supplies, but it was all worthless
shit, and Dolan knew it. He took a sip
of his coffee, dropped the cup onto the floor, and walked over to the desk.
Tamaki saw him
from the corner of her eye. Even in the
dim light, she could see his jaw muscles clenched. She stepped away from the desk. Dolan swept around it and grabbed the chair
with both hands. Lifting it above his
head, he swung it against the window, the dull clang of thick glass echoing in
Tamaki’s ears.
Below, the
officers heard the noise and looked up. Moments
later, a piercing crash prefaced the launch of the chair, arcing out the window
four flights to the floor below, where it crumpled into a mass of metal and
plastic, skipping across the concrete to land only feet away from the beat
officers.
###
“Don’t tell me the girls are all busy,” Dolan said. “It’s been almost a month.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. Fāng
said. “We take care of Big
Detective. New girl arrive just other
day. When I see, I say, ‘this girl just
right for Mr. Dolan’. You trust me,
yes?”
Dolan
grunted.
“Good,” Mrs. Fāng
said. “Give minute. I be right back, take you to her.”
Shortly, Mrs. Fāng
led Dolan through the curtains and down the hallway to a door at the very
end. Mrs. Fāng opened it and showed the
detective in.
Dolan had never
been to this room before. The only
illumination was a small night-light against one wall. It cast everything in deep shadow. Dolan closed his eyes, allowed them to
adjust, then scanned the room.
There was little
in the way of furniture – a chair next to the door, bed on the opposite wall,
and nothing else, unlike the other rooms that seemed decorated for a Better Homes & Gardens photo shoot. On the bed was a young woman in a sheer
negligee. Her wrists and ankles were
tied to the bedposts and she had a ball-gag in her mouth. Slim, with small breasts, she writhed like a
snake, her pelvis undulating rhythmically to a silent tune. Something scratched at the back of Dolan’s
mind, but he ignored it.
“She like rough,”
Mrs. Fāng said. “No cum unless she get
hard and fast. See?”
Dolan said
nothing.
Mrs. Fāng slipped
from the room and closed the door.
Dolan undressed
and let his clothes fall to the floor.
He mounted the girl without preamble.
She was already wet (or previously lubricated). Lust rippled through the detective as he
slammed into her – the tension of the Vasquez case urging him on.
Five minutes
later, frustrations spent, Dolan rolled off the girl and worked to catch his
breath. ‘You’re too old to be fucking
like a crazy teenager,’ he thought.
Beside him, the girl was silent.
That was expected. Dolan
appreciated the quiet, stared through the dimness at the ceiling, his mind
clear for the first time in weeks.
The click of the
door made him sit up. It was Mrs. Fāng. Dolan reached down to cover his now-deflated
prick.
“Ah, Detective,”
Mrs. Fāng said. “How do you feel now?” Her accent was gone, replaced with a slight
Brooklyn one. She stepped over to the
bed, unclasped the ball-gag, pulled a damp rag from the girl’s mouth, and
tossed it onto Dolan’s lap.
Confusion masked
his rising anxiety. “What’s going
on?”
Mrs. Fāng
laughed. “Why, Detective. You’re performing your sworn duty – to serve
and protect.” She ran her fingers
through Dolan’s hair, flicked on a switch by the bed that turned on the ceiling
light. The worrying sensation at the
back of the detective’s mind started to burn.
He looked down and recognized the woman next to him. Renee Franco.
She wasn’t
breathing. A knot twisted in Dolan’s
gut, and he thought he’d be sick. He
turned away, tried to wipe the image from his mind.
Mrs. Fāng leaned
down, her lips brushed Dolan’s ear. “Now
you’re mine,” she whispered and put a business card into his hand. “This is the card I share with my most
special clients.”
Dolan looked at
the card – spare, simple, with Asian symbols in one corner and the word ‘Ichiban’
dead center. It was familiar, but his
mind couldn’t focus.
“It’s a Japanese
word, I know. But we all look alike to
you, anyway. Don’t we, Detective?” She kissed the top of his head. “And please, call me Jedna. All my closest associates do.”
Mrs. Fāng’s
laughter rang in Dolan’s ears for long minutes after she exited down the
hallway.
###
It was a week later when Dolan caught a headline on the city page of the Times
– REPORTER STILL MISSING. Sweat beaded
on his forehead and he turned the page quickly, but not before the name jumped
out at him. Renee Franco.
Bile welled up in
the back of his throat as he dropped the paper onto his desk and stood up,
launching his chair back ten feet. It
didn’t matter. Dolan ran from the office
for the bathroom.
Twenty minutes
passed. When Dolan returned to his desk
his face was slack and devoid of color, eyes sunk deep in their sockets. Tamaki watched as her partner sat down and
reached into the bottom drawer. He
pulled out a file folder and set it in front of him.
And stared at it
while the rest of the squad worked around him.
Tamaki brought him
a coffee. Dolan didn’t seem to
notice.
Finally, he picked
up the file and tore it in half, then dumped it into the wastebasket beside his
desk.
“What the--” Words caught in Tamaki’s mouth.
“The Vasquez
case,” Dolan said, his voice hardly a whisper.
“That’s a cold case now. We ain’t
solvin’ it.”
“What are you talking
about? We’ve worked our asses to close
that case. And now, because you say so,
we’re just going to let it out to pasture?
No way. No fucking way. That is not your call.” Tamaki reached into the wastebasket and
pulled out the torn file. “I’m going to
Wallace.”
Dolan looked up at
her. She could see he was about to
cry. “Please,” he breathed. “Please.”
Tamaki paused, but
only for a second, then shook her head. “No.
Putting us together was a mistake.
I knew that then. This only
confirms it.” She marched toward the
lieutenant’s office.
Dolan watched her
go. Watched it all go. Then he stood up. Slowly.
And walked out of the station house.
