Bodies in Winter

TWO

We made a pair of stops before interviewing the witnesses. The idea was to alert the two sergeants on the scene, Murrano and Gutierrez, to the victim’s celebrity. Gutierrez thanked us for the tip, then went back to supervising his workers, one of whom was photographing the shoe impressions leading to the victim’s body.

Vinny Murrano was more informative. ‘That woman who ran down the block,’ he told us before we could deliver our message, ‘is Ellen Lodge, the vic’s spouse.’

‘You put her on ice?’ Adele asked.

‘I told her you’d be wantin’ an interview. Seems like she runs a day-care center out of her house and won’t be going anywhere until the parents come by to fetch the kiddies.’

A flurry of movement drew my attention away from the conversation. I turned just in time to see a cardinal land on a telephone wire across the street. The bird’s red feathers were puffed out against the cold, lending it an almost round profile, like an escaped Christmas ornament. It sang once, a complex song that seemed expectant to me, as though it anticipated a response. But when the only response was a gray morgue wagon turning onto the street, the bird flew into the upper branches of a sycamore thirty feet away.

When I looked back, Adele was explaining the significance of Lieutenant Sarney’s arrival. Murrano listened closely, then said, ‘So that’s what the wife meant when she told me her husband just got out of jail yesterday morning.’ He ran his fingers through his hair as though checking to make sure he hadn’t lost his most precious asset. In his mid-thirties, Murrano’s wavy brown hair was thick enough to be fur. ‘Anyway, I appreciate the heads-up. If there is something I can do…’

‘As a matter of fact,’ I quickly responded, ‘you could lend us Officer Aveda over there to start a canvas of the neighborhood. Sarney asked us to get back to him as soon as possible and it would definitely speed things up. Of course, I could always phone the lieutenant and ask for help. If you can’t spare anyone.’

Murrano’s narrow lips expanded into a wry smile. He should never have opened his big mouth and he knew it. ‘Anything else?’ he foolishly asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The way it looks right now, the shooters were waiting for the victim. That means they had to be within sight of Lodge’s house. Two men sitting in car? On a block like this? The locals would most likely notice, especially if the shooters were Black or Hispanic.’

‘Fine.’ Murrano waved us away before we could voice another request. ‘I’ll make sure the question is asked.’

The witnesses lived on the second floor of the two-family home Lodge had been crawling toward when the coup de grace was administered. They were Otto and Eva Hinckle, in their early seventies and retired from the work force. The story they told was simple. They’d been watching television in their living room when they heard a series of small explosions. Eva described these sounds as similar to popcorn in a microwave. Oscar suspected kids setting off fire crackers.

Foolishly, as both admitted, they went to the front window and looked out just in time to see a man wearing a ski mask and gloves fire a single shot into David Lodge’s skull.

‘The guy, the one who got shot, was trying to turn his head away,’ Oscar explained, ‘and the other guy was leaning way over with his gun turned around like this.’

Oscar twisted his wrist to the right, exactly as Adele had done twenty minutes before. I glanced at her and she flashed me a quick smile. Adele loved to be right.

‘The gun was gigantic,’ Oscar continued. ‘It looked like a machine gun, only without the…’ He tapped his shoulder several times, then said, ‘The wood part.’

‘The stock?’

‘That’s right. And the other thing, the thing that holds the bullets?’

‘The magazine?’

‘Yeah, it was a foot long and it was in front of the trigger. And believe me, it caught my full attention. I was concentrating so hard on the guy with the gun that I didn’t even notice the other guy who was with him until the first guy ran back to the car. The second guy was also wearing a mask and gloves. And he had the same kind of gun.’

‘Describe the men,’ I said. ‘Were they short, tall, slim, heavy..?’

Although the initial image the Hinckles carried, of cold-blooded murder, was indelibly imprinted in their memories, they disagreed on most of the smaller details. Height, weight, who got into the car first, who was driving, what the men wore besides gloves and masks. They didn’t remember any of these things clearly and their hesitant answers reflected their confusion. But they did agree on the dark-red color of the getaway vehicle, which was why Murrano had put out an alert.

‘Did you notice anything else about the car?’ Adele asked. ‘Maybe a logo?’

Oscar shook his head. ‘When I was a kid, I could tell you the year, make and model of any car drivin’ down the street. Now they all look alike.’

‘How about damage to the exterior. Dents or rust?’

Oscar and Eva stared at Adele for a moment, then shrugged. They just didn’t remember. Myself, I would have let it go at that point. In my experience, when you push friendly witnesses, they fill the blank spaces in their memory with false details simply because they want to please. Better to leave a business card, or come back a few days later, when stray recollections surface on their own.

But Adele had other ideas. ‘Think hard,’ she told her witnesses. ‘Is there anything else you remember? I don’t care how insignificant.’

The Hinckles exchanged the sort of pregnant look only possible between long-married couples. Then Eva crossed her arms over her chest before turning to Adele. A decision had been made.

‘I think they were black.’ Eva again looked at her husband, her expression this time defiant. ‘The way that gun was twisted around, it’s how black gangsters hold their guns. You know, in the movies.’ She gave her husband a poke. ‘And the way they walked back to the car, with that shoulder thing they do, and bouncing up and down? That swagger? That’s a black thing.’

Oscar Hinckle was quick to reply. ‘I didn’t see nothin’ like that.’ He ran a finger across his snow-white mustache, the wiry hairs rippling beneath his touch like an animal seeking affection. ‘Those two guys, they were all business. They didn’t say one word to each other. They just got in that car and peeled the hell outta there.’