Guilt By Degrees

8

I called Melia, the unit secretary, and told her I’d be going out to a crime scene. Then I pulled on my coat, reached into the pocket for my.22 Beretta, flipped off the safety, and headed out.

I found Bailey standing at the corner of Hope and Fourth Street, her short sandy-blond hair barely ruffled by the heavy wind. Only the tall and lean Bailey could pull off a midcalf-length camel-hair coat. The day was cold enough to make even the weatherproof detective wrap a scarf around her neck, and its jewel-toned colors brought out the green in her eyes. If she weren’t one of my besties, I’d hate her guts.

“According to the report,” I said by way of greeting, “our John Doe was slightly more than halfway between Fourth and Fifth when they found him.”

We headed toward the spot.

“I didn’t leave my cozy cubby just to walk a scene with you. What the hell happened in court?”

I filled her in.

“Jeez,” she said with a sigh when I’d finished. “Poor Stoner. He’s had it rough lately.”

“So you know him?”

“We worked together in Hollywood Division a while back. Really good guy, and a great cop.”

“So I should believe him when he says he won’t give me grief if the case goes south?” I asked.

Bailey hesitated. This did not reassure me.

“What?” I asked impatiently.

“Yeah, he’ll probably be okay,” she said, then stopped and looked off down the street. “It’s just that he’s going through a real bitch of a divorce. It’s got him a little…unhinged. Otherwise he never would’ve gone off on some dumb-punk DA, no matter what he said.” Bailey put her hands into her pockets and looked at the ground for a moment. “But you did him a solid-pulled his case out of the Dumpster. I’d think you’d be bulletproof where he’s concerned.”

I didn’t care for the choice of words, reminding me as it did that if Stoner lost it, I might literally need to be bulletproof.

A group of men in business suits who were trying to navigate the sidewalk and talk at the same time created a moving roadblock, so I stepped to the curb to avoid a collision. They never even broke stride or seemed to notice that they’d commandeered the sidewalk. They’d probably walked around my John Doe with equal oblivion.

“Anyway, it may all be moot,” Bailey continued. “If that DDA beefs Stoner, they’ll make him ride a desk until it all gets sorted out.”

“So who’ll I get?”

“Depends on who’s up.” Bailey shrugged, then gave me a little smile. “But I’d take the hit and work with you for Stoner’s sake.”

Bailey and I had met and bonded over a serial-killer case we’d worked together six years ago. We’d wound up becoming best friends and had finagled our way into working more than our fair share of cases together. But then Bailey got transferred into the elite Robbery-Homicide Division, and we didn’t need to finagle anymore. It was common practice for Robbery-Homicide to funnel nearly all of their cases to the Special Trials Unit.

Bailey thought a moment. “I could probably get clearance to babysit the case until Stoner’s beef is settled. That should be long enough to at least get it through the preliminary hearing.”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet no one’s going to fight to get their hands on this one.”

“True story.” Bailey sighed and shot me a sour look. “Seriously, Knight, would it kill you to get me in on an easy one for a change?”

“Apparently,” I said with a shrug. I did seem to have a habit of sticking us with some of the nastier messes. “You want to call Stoner and let him know we’re out here?”

“Probably be the smart thing to do.”

Bailey opened her cell, and I looked around at the businesses on this stretch of Hope Street: a travel agency advertising low-fare tickets to Costa Rica, a dry cleaner whose window afforded a view of racks filled with men’s dress shirts, a bank, a liquor store, and a Subway sandwich shop. I watched a man in a flannel lumberjack coat bite into a thick, juicy meatball-and-cheese submarine and remembered that I’d been too angry to finish my wafer-thin turkey-and-lettuce sandwich. I felt my stomach rumble as I watched the tomato sauce drip onto the paper wrapper he’d spread on the table. I was just about to throw caution to the wind and go order one for myself when Bailey snapped her phone shut. Her expression was grim.

“What? Is he pissed?” I asked. Maybe we should’ve gotten his okay before invading his turf.

“Apparently that asshole, Averill, already beefed him. Stoner’s gonna be stuck at his desk for a while.” Bailey shook her head. “The good news is, he’s glad to have me help out. For now anyway.”

This had clearly put Bailey in one funky mood, but since there was no chance she’d get a whole lot happier in the next hour or so, I decided the only thing to do was to roll on with the business at hand.

“Most of these places have surveillance cameras, don’t they?” I asked.

“They should.” Bailey looked up and down the street for a moment, then stopped and gazed at a storefront near the northwest corner of Hope and Fifth. “Especially that one.”

I followed her gaze and saw that there was a check-cashing store across the street. I hadn’t noticed it before, because the sign was so small. I figured that was a testament to the business’s popularity. I peered at the building and thought I could see a camera mounted above the storefront window.

It was the start of rush hour, and traffic was beginning to get serious, so we walked up to the corner and waited for the light. Between the commuters in a hurry to beat the bottlenecks and the homicidal taxi drivers, jaywalking was tantamount to a death wish.

“Wouldn’t you think Stoner would’ve done this already?” I asked.

“Maybe he did and just didn’t have the video in time for court.”

“Or maybe he got it and it didn’t help,” I said.

Bailey nodded. Neither of us voiced the third possibility: that Stoner had dropped the ball because his life was falling apart. That was definitely not Bailey’s style. Or mine. We were great at what shrinks call compartmentalizing. Frankly, I think being able to keep your worlds separate is a great thing. Keeps me sane. Or close to it.