Freaky Deaky

Chapter 13

The scene was back of the house, behind a police barricade across the drive, where the rear end of the limo was glued to the cement, gray metal scorched black, tires burned off, both doors and the trunk lid gone. The car had been blown in half, the front end driven thirty feet across the backyard where it lay nosed into a bed of shrubs. Fragments of glass, upholstery, torn bits of rusted metal were scattered about the drive in puddles of water. The evidence techs were packing up, getting ready to leave. The morgue wagon was pulling out as Chris arrived.

Jerry Baker had waited. He told Chris Homicide was still here, that's all, inside talking to Woody Ricks and his chauffeur. Jerry asked him if he'd stopped at 1300 on the way.

Chris said, "What for? To give myself up?"

He had parked in front and walked up the drive watching a TV newsman dramatizing to a camera, arm raised to the mansion, describing this scene of murder, foul play, a devastating act of destruction. . . .

Two of the garage doors, scorched black, were closed when the bomb exploded, protecting a gray Mercedes sedan parked inside. The third garage door was raised. Jerry told Chris that Mark Ricks had come out of the house from the kitchen and through the garage. He said that according to Donnell Lewis, the chauffeur, Mark was getting his brother's peanuts he'd left in the car. He must have unlocked the driver-side door and pressed the button to unlock the rear door. Then when he opened it, Jerry said, Mark was blown into the garage with the door in his hand, only the hand was no longer attached to Mark. They brought Woody out to look at the body, make a positive I.D., and he couldn't do it. He kept squinting his eyes, saying, What is that? The chauffeur, Donnell, very casual, wearing these sporty athletic shorts and jogging shoes, told him it was his brother. Jerry said the guy was burned but wasn't exactly what you'd call a crispy critter. He looked more like some giant hand had picked him up, squeezed him good and thrown him in the garage. Jerry raised his face to the overcast sky and sniffed.

"You smell it?"

"Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil," Chris said. "Somebody knew what he was doing. What else've you got?"

"A burnt-up battery, a spring off a clothespin. Let's see, I got safety pins from both the rear doors, stuck in bits of upholstery. We'll find out it was dynamite, I'm pretty sure. See if any's been stolen from around."

Chris looked up at the back of the house, taking in its size, all the chimneys rising out of the slate roof, more like a venerable ivy-covered institution than a home. He believed you'd have to be a millionaire just to heat the place. At the other end of the house French doors opened onto a terrace with an ornamental cement rail around it. The swimming pool was probably inside there. Chris said, "You know what it reminds me of in a way? Booker's, last week."

"It does me too," Jerry said. "It went through my mind there could be a nexus."

"Maybe it's the French doors. Or what you said about Donnell wearing jogging shoes made me think of it."

"I'm going more by my nose," Jerry said. "Walk in the house and take a whiff. They aren't smoking Kools in there. If this one's dynamite it'll give Homicide something to think about. They like to get into motives and all that shit," Jerry said. "I'm through here."

"Who's working it?"

"Half of Squad Seven's out doing a house-to-house. Wendell's inside. Wendell Robinson, dressed like he's going to a party."

"Wendell is a party," Chris said. "If I have to talk to anybody I'd just as soon it's Wendell."

After Jerry left, Chris waited by his dad's Seville, parked behind two identical medium-blue Plymouth sedans. It was a quiet street of old trees and homes built of old money. From the front, Woody's house seemed more like a residence, except for the two cement lions sitting on either side of the entrance, guarding the place for Woody and his chauffeur. Just the two of them, according to Jerry, living in this great big house.

The front door swung in. Now Wendell Robinson appeared with Donnell, two black guys against the dark of that arched opening: one with hands on his hips showing his brown bare legs, the other in a beige three-piece suit, the Homicide lieutenant. Chris watched Wendell come past the stone lions now and down the slate walk adjusting his vest, buttoning the beige suit coat, Wendell with his cool, pleasant expression, paisley tie in rust tones against a soft ivory shirt. No way of telling a nickel-plated Smith auto was wedged in tight to his right hip. Chris said, "You're looking fine," and couldn't help smiling. There was something about Wendell that made him feel good. "I understand you want to talk to me."

"So you come here in your Cadillac and grin at me," Wendell said, "think it's funny. I like your style, Mankowski. You gonna confess or I have to beat it out of you?"

"I didn't do it, I swear."

"Okay, that's enough of that shit. But there other people, I'll tell you right now, probably gonna talk to you."

"Why?"

" 'Cause they upset. I'm talking about people on the third floor. They want this one closed before it's barely open. See, what happened, the inspector gets the call on this while he's in the deputy chief's office. He calls me to give it to Seven. I go down there, now your Major Crimes commander is also present and some other brass happen to stop in. You see the picture? They all in there theorizing their ass off who could have done it. Nobody's even gone to the scene yet. Your name comes up. Hey, what about Mankowski? On account of the business you had with Mr. Ricks. One of them goes, Mankowski, man, he's hotheaded. Another one says you cold-blooded, tough cop who don't take any shit."

"You serious?"

"A man was blown up. Okay, and you been around people that have got killed and you know how to make a bomb."

"Jesus Christ."

"It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does. You understand? Somebody mentions maybe Internal Control ought to look into Booker again."

"They think I did Booker?"

"They not thinking, man, they theorizing, trying to put little pieces together, see what fits, get it closed. They wonder, What about that girl the man was alleged to have raped?"

"Yeah, it was her," Chris said. "She sneaked out of the hospital and wired the car."

"Or does she know somebody could have wired it? Like they picking lint off their clothes. They nervous is what they are."

" 'Cause the guy's important," Chris said, "Woody. You have money, you have clout."

"That's what it might seem," Wendell said, "but that's bullshit. They nervous 'cause we had six hundred and forty-six homicides last year. We closed better than half, sixty-one percent. But the FBI, they tell everybody seventy-four percent is the average nationwide. So they nervous we don't look so good. Man, they don't give a shit about Woody Ricks or his brother, it's how they look. They think this one should be easy. Man gets a bomb put in his car, there must be somebody doesn't like him, right? Simple."

"Or somebody gains by it," Chris said.

"Yeah, except the only one would gain, according to Woody, is the one that got blown up. Least that's what I think Woody told me. The man's hard to understand. He has Donnell like interpret for him, say what he means."

"What about this," Chris said. "What if Mark was putting the bomb in the car, doing the finishing touches, and it blew?"

"I'm told he wasn't out there two minutes. How's a man like that know how to make a bomb? The man wasn't qualified. Look at it another way. If it was Mark hired it done, he wouldn't have gone near the car, would he?"

Chris looked at the house. "What about Donnell?" The front door was still open. "If he isn't on the computer it was erased."

"I don't have to look up Donnell," Wendell said. "The man's been arrested for assault, robbery, extortion, causing disturbances. . . . Did federal time back when he was a member of the Panthers, wore the little beret? They got him for possession of a machine gun and other contraband kinds of shit in his house, hand grenades and such."

"I think he's watching us," Chris said.

Wendell looked at the house. "Sure he is, thinking I'm gonna try to set him up. Which I might have to, 'less I find me a bomb maker someplace."

"How'd he get next to Woody?"

"Claims they known each other a long time. Says Mr. Woody took him in and it changed his life."

"That's what he calls him, Mr. Woody?"

"There is something peculiar," Wendell said, "how it is between those two. I said to him, 'You the man's chauffeur. Where's the rest of the help?' Donnell gives me his look, says, 'I'm all the help the man needs.' "

"Maybe the Panther lets Woody go down on him," Chris said, "and Woody lets the Panther do whatever he wants. He ever deal drugs?"

"Now you come to another theory," Wendell said, "tie it some way to Booker. I don't mean with you, I mean two bombs all of a sudden go off in a week. So we ask ourselves, who did Booker? Was it the people supply him?"

"He was leaning that way," Chris said.

"Okay, what if Woody was financing Booker, setting him up to go independent? How's that sound? The people up above find out and take them both out."

Chris said, "You want it to be dope-related, don't you?"

Wendell said, "I want it 'cause if it ain't, what the fuck is it? People kill each other in this city, if it ain't over pussy or fussing over who owes money or a parking place, then it's dope. Killing over turf or a busted deal. The vans they go around in? They call 'em gunships. Drive by a house and spray it with an Uzi. And you know what?"

"Half the time it's the wrong house."

"And when they do get the right one they shoot the wrong people. They shoot little kids happen to be in the room."

"This was a bomb."

"That don't bother me. They'll throw a pipe bomb in the house. You've seen it done. They can make a pipe bomb, they can make any kind. What's the difference?"

"What's Donnell say?"

"Somebody wired the wrong car."

"He tell you that with a straight face?"

"Why couldn't it happen?"

"Wendell, the guy'd have to come to the wrong house first. Look at it. With the fucking lions sitting out in front. A guy's gonna plant a bomb he scouts the place, knows exactly where he's going."

Wendell, hands in his pockets, stared at the house. The front door was closed now. He said, "Or, Donnell thinks it could've been wired when the car was someplace else. You know, parked with some other limos. They all look alike. Jerry say you have the package ready, you could hook it up in five minutes."

"Maybe Jerry could," Chris said. "I'd want to take a little more time myself. But where's Donnell go without Woody? I don't mean to the store, I mean where there'd be other limos. But if Woody's along--he gets out, the guy wires it and Woody gets back in, that's where it blows, right? Not in the backyard."

Wendell was nodding, resigned. "I suppose."

Chris looked at the house again, wondering what they were doing in there, right now. He said to Wendell, "How come Mark went to get the peanuts, not Donnell?"

"Donnell says Mark wanted to do it."

"What if Woody had his own car wired," Chris said, "and sent Mark out to get the peanuts?"

"He couldn't have, he didn't know Mark was there. The man doesn't seem to know much of anything. Eyes all watery like a skid-row burnout."

"Psychosocially debilitated," Chris said.

"I like that," Wendell said, "I'll put that down. I talk to him, here's his brother blown to shit just a while ago, the man hardly seems to realize it. I don't mean 'cause he's in shock, either. Man has a wet brain."

Chris was looking at the house again. "What if it was Donnell that set it up? Somehow he talked Mark in to getting the peanuts."

"I'm gonna collect my people and leave," Wendell said. "I'll tell them on the third floor I interrogated you and found you psychosocially debilitated, couldn't think of nothing but peanuts. How's that sound?"

Chris was still looking at the house. He nodded and said, "Planters Peanuts, in the blue can."