Hornet`s Nest

Chapter Two

Patrol was the largest division of the Charlotte Police Department, but investigations was the most treacherous, it was Virginia West's belief. Citizens followed burglaries, rapes, and homicides with fearful eyes. They complained when violent offenders weren't instantly snatched off the street, as if the Rapture had come. West's phone had not stopped ringing all day.

The trouble started three weeks ago when Jay Rule, a businessman from Orlando, arrived in the Queen City for a textile meeting. Hours after Rule left the airport in a rental Maxima, the car was found abandoned in a dark, overgrown vacant lot off South College Street, in the heart of downtown. The interior bell was dinging its complaint that the driver's door was open and headlights on. A briefcase and overnight bag had been gone through in the backseat. Cash, jewelry, portable phone, pager, and no one was quite sure what else, were gone.

Jay Rule, thirty-three, was shot five times in the head with a. 45 caliber pistol loaded with a high-velocity, extremely destructive hollowpoint ammunition called Silvertips. His body was dragged fifteen feet into kudzu, his pants and undershorts pulled down to his knees, his genital area spray-painted bright orange in the shape of a large hourglass. No one, including the FBI, had ever seen anything like this. Then the following week, it happened again.

The second homicide was less than two blocks from the first, just off West Trade Street, behind the Cadillac Grill, which wasn't open at night, because of crime. Jeff Calley, forty-two, was a Baptist minister visiting Charlotte from Knoxville, Tennessee. His mission in the city was simple. He was moving his failing mother into a nursing home called The Pines, and staying in the Hyatt while he did so. He never checked in. Late that night, his rental Jetta was found, driver's door open, bell dinging, same modus operand!

Week three, the nightmare repeated itself when fifty- two-year-old Gary Luby visited from Atlanta. West was discussing his case over the phone when Brazil appeared in her doorway. West did not notice him.

She was too busy shuffling through large, gory scene photographs as she continued arguing with an assistant district attorney.

"That's not correct, I don't know where you got that, okay? He was shot multiple times in the head, contact. A.45 loaded with Silvertips Yeah, yeah, exactly. All within several blocks of each other."

She was beginning to get annoyed.

"Jesus Christ. Of course I've got people down there undercover, hookers, pimps, trolling, hanging out, whatever it takes. What do you think?"

She switched the phone to her other hand, wondering why she ever wore earrings, and irritated that anyone might question her ability to do her job. Checking her watch, she looked through more photographs, pausing at one that clearly showed the painted hourglass, which was rather much a solid orange figure eight. The base was over the genitals, the top over the belly. It was weird. The ADA continued asking questions about the crime scene, and West's patience was deteriorating. So far, this day had been shit.

"Just like the others," she told him emphatically.

"Every thing.

Wallet, watch, wedding band. " She listened.

"No. No. Not credit cards, anything with the victim's name… Why? Because the killer's smart, that's why." She sighed, her head beginning to throb.

"Jesus friggin' Christ. That's my point, John. If we're talking carjacking, then why wasn't his" rental Thunderbird taken? Not a single car has been. "

She swiveled around in her chair and almost dropped the phone when she saw the young male volunteer cop standing in her doorway, writing as fast as he could in a reporter's notepad. The son of a bitch was looking around West's office, taking down every confidential word being said about the most sensational, scariest murders the city had ever known. So far, sensitive details had been kept out of the press as political pressure gathered and darkened and swarmed.

"Gotta go," West abruptly said.

She slammed down the receiver, hanging up on the ADA. She pinned Brazil with her eyes.

"Shut the door," she said in a quiet, hard way that would have terrified anyone who worked for her or was about to get arrested.

Brazil was unflinching as he got closer to the desk. He was not about to be intimidated by this big-shot bureaucrat who had sold him down the river. He dropped Webb's stolen offense reports in front of her.

"What do you think you're doing?" West demanded.

"I'm Andy Brazil with the Observer," he said with cool politeness.

"Webb's swiping reports out of the press basket. In the off chance you might care. And I'm going to need to check out a radio. I was supposed to meet you at four."

"And what? Eavesdrop?" West shoved back her chair, got up.

"Looks to me like you already got your story."

"I'm going to need a radio," Brazil reminded her again, for he couldn't imagine being out on the street and not having a lifeline to the dispatchers.

"No you're not. Trust me," West promised him.

She angrily stuffed files into her briefcase and snapped it shut. She grabbed her pocketbook and stalked out. Brazil was on her heels.

"You've got your nerve," she went on furiously, as if she had been mad at this young man in uniform all of her life.

"Just like every other asshole out there. Give 'em a little, want more. Can't trust anybody."

West wasn't at all what Brazil had expected. He didn't know why he'd assumed the deputy chief would be over weight and overbearing, flat-chested, with a square, masculine face, and over processed hair.

But no. She was maybe five-six, five-seven, with dark red hair barely brushing her collar, and very good bones. She was almost handsome, and buxom, and not the least bit fat, but he didn't care and would never be interested. She was unkind and unattractive to him.

West shoved open glass doors leading into the parking lot. She dug into her pocketbook, heading to her unmarked Crown Victoria.

"I told everyone what a bad idea this was. Would they listen?" She fumbled with keys.

"Would you?" Brazil demanded.

West paused, looking at him. She yanked open the door, and Brazil blocked it.

"It might be nice if I got a fair trial." He shoved his notepad at her, flipping through scribbles he had made while West was on the phone.

"I was describing your office and you," he announced much like the ADA West had just been talking to on the phone.

She didn't have to skim much to know she'd made a wrong assumption.

She sighed, stepping back, looking volunteer officer Brazil up and down, wondering how it could be possible that a reporter was dressed like this. What had policing come to? Hammer had lost her mind. Brazil should be arrested for impersonating an officer, that was the reality of things.

"Where do you live?" West asked him.

"Davidson."

This was good. At least the next hour and a half would be spent in the commute. West might even be able to stretch it out. The longer she could keep him off the street, the better. She almost smiled as she climbed into her car.

"We'll go there first so you can change clothes," she gruffly said.

For a while, they did not speak as scanner lights blinked, and dispatchers and cops cut in and out on the radio like Rollerbladers.

The Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) beeped as it logged calls and displayed addresses and messages on its computer screen. West and Brazil drove through the city as rush hour peaked. It looked like it might rain.

Brazil was staring out his window. He felt stupid and mistreated as he took off his police tie and unbuttoned his collar.

"How long you been with the Observer" West asked him, and she felt a tug around her chest, as if her bullet proof vest were rubbing her wrong, except she wasn't wearing one. She felt a little sorry for this ride-along.

"A year," Brazil answered, hateful toward Deputy Chief West and wondering if she were going to let him ride with her again.

"How come I've never heard of you before now?" she asked.

"I didn't get the police beat until I finished the academy. That was the deal."

"What deal?"

"My deal," Brazil continued to stare sullenly out the window.

West tried to change lanes but the jerk next to her wasn't cooperative. She gestured angrily back at him.

"Same to you, drone!"

She stopped at a red light and looked at Brazil.

"What do you mean, deal?"

"I wanted the cop shop, told them I'd make it worth their while."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I want to know cops. So I can write about them. I want to get it straight."

West didn't believe him. Reporters always said shit like that, lied with pretty tongues, no different than people in general, really. She drove on, got out a cigarette, and lit it.

"If you're so curious about us, how come you didn't become a cop for real?" she challenged him.

"I'm a writer," Brazil said simply, as if this were his race, his religion, or family name.

"And we all know cops can't write." West blew out smoke.

"Can't even read unless there's pictures."

"There are pictures."

She threw up her hands and laughed.

"See?"

Brazil was silent.

"So why do you live way the hell in Davidson?" she asked.

"I went to school there."

"I guess you must be smart."

"I get by," he told her.

The gleaming Crown Victoria turned onto Main Street, which was what its name suggested in this charming college town. Homes were genteel, white frame and brick, with ivy and sprawling porches and swings. West had grown up outside of Charlotte, too, but heading a different direction, where there wasn't much but red clay and fathomless farmland. She couldn't have afforded to go to a college like Davidson, and doubted her SATs would have impressed anybody in a positive way.

Brazil's college was sort of like Princeton and other places West had only read about.

"While we're on the subject," she said, "I don't remember any police stories by you."

"This is my first day on the beat."

She couldn't suppress her growing dismay over what she had been saddled with this night. A dog barked and began chasing her car.

Suddenly, it was raining hard.

"So what'd you do for a year?" she investigated further.

"The TV magazine," Brazil added to his resume.

"A lot of overtime, a lot of stories nobody wanted." He pointed, releasing his shoulder harness.

"It's that one."

"You don't take your seatbelt off until I've stopped the car. Rule number one." West pulled into a rutted, unpaved driveway.

"Why are you making me change clothes? I have a right…" Brazil finally spoke his mind.

"People wearing what you got on get killed out here," West cut him off.

"Rule number two. You don't have a right. Not with me. I don't want anyone thinking you're a cop. I don't want anyone thinking you're my partner. I don't want to be doing this, got it?"

Brazil's house hadn't been painted in too long to tell the color. Maybe it had been pale yellow once, maybe eggshell or white. Mostly now it was gray and flaking and peeling, like a sad old woman with a skin condition. An ancient, rusting white Cadillac was parked in the drive, and West decided that whoever lived here didn't have taste, money, or rime for repairs and yard work. Brazil angrily pushed open the car door, gathering his belongings as he got out, and halfway tempted to tell this deputy chief to get the hell out of here and not come back. But his BMW was still in Charlotte, so that might pose a problem. He bent over, peering inside at her.

"My dad was a cop." He slammed the door shut.

tw West was typical brass, typical anybody who had power, Brazil fumed as he strode up the walk. She didn't give a shit about helping somebody else get started. Women could be the worst, as if they didn't want anybody else to do well because no one was nice to them when they were coming along, or maybe so they could pay everybody back, persecute innocent guys who'd never even met them, whatever. Brazil imagined West at the net, a perfect lob waiting for his lethal overhead smash. He could ace her, too.

He unlocked the front door of the house he had lived in all his life.

Inside, he unbuttoned his uniform shirt and looked around, suddenly conscious of a dim, depressing living room of cheap furniture and stained wall-to-wall carpet. Dirty ashtrays and dishes were wherever somebody had forgotten them last, and gospel music swelled as George Beverly Shea scratched How Great Thou Art for the millionth time.

Brazil went to the old hi-fi and impatiently switched it off.

"Mom?" he called out.

He began tidying up, following a mess into a slovenly old kitchen where milk, V8 juice, and cottage cheese had been left out by someone who had made no effort to clean up or hide the empty fifth of Bowman's cheap vodka on top of the trash. Brazil picked up dishes and soaked them in hot sudsy water. Frustrated, he yanked out his shirttail and unbuckled his belt. He looked down at his name tag, shiny and bright.

He fingered the whistle on its chain. For an instant, his eyes were filled with a sadness he could not name.

"Mom?" he called out again.

"Where are you?"

Brazil walked into the hallway, and with a key that no one else had a copy of, he unlocked a door that opened onto the small room where he lived. It was tidy and organized, with a computer on a Formica-topped desk, and dozens of tennis trophies and plaques and other athletic awards on shelves, furniture, and walls. There were hundreds of books in this complicated person's simple, unassuming space. He carefully hung up his uniform and grabbed khakis and a denim shirt off hangers.

On the back of the door was a scarred leather bomber jacket that was old and extra large, and looked like it might have come from some earlier time. He put it on even though it was warm out.

"Mom!" Brazil yelled.

The light was flashing on the answering machine by his bed, and he hit the play button. The first message was from the newspaper credit union, and he impatiently hit the button again, then three more times, skipping past hang-ups. The last message was from Axel. He was playing guitar, singing Hootie 8c the Blowfish.

"I only wanna be with you… Yo! Andy, it's Axeldon't axe-me. Maybe dinner? How 'bout Jack Straw's…?"

Brazil impatiently cut off the recording as the phone rang. This time the caller was live and creepy, and breathing into the phone as the pervert had sex with Brazil in mind, again without asking.

"I'm holding youuu so haarrrddd, and you're touching me with your tongue, sliiiidiiing…" she breathed in a low tone that reminded Brazil of psycho shows he sometimes had watched as a child.

"You're sick." He slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

He stood in the mirror over his dresser and began brushing hair out of his eyes. It was really bugging him, getting too long, streaks from the sun catching light. He had always worn his hair one of two ways, short or not as short. He was tucking an obstinate strand behind an ear when suddenly the reflection of his mother boiled up from behind, an obese, raging drunk, attacking.

"Where have you been?" his mother screamed as she tried to backhand her son across the face.

Brazil raised an arm, warding off the blow just in time. He wheeled around, grabbing his mother by both wrists, firmly but gently. This was a tired, old drama, an endless rerun of a painful play.

"Easy, easy, easy," he said as he led his besotted mother to the bed and sat her down.

Muriel Brazil began to cry, rocking, slurring her words.

"Don't go.

Don't leave me, Andy. Please, oh pleassseee. "

Brazil glanced at his watch. He looked furtively at the window, afraid West might somehow see through shut blinds and know the wretched secret of his entire life.

"Mom, I'm going to get your medicine, okay?" he said.

"You watch TV and go to bed. I'll be home soon."

It wasn't okay. Mrs. Brazil wailed, rocking, screaming hell on earth.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry! Don't know what's wrong with me, Andyeeee!"

"W West did not hear all of this, but she heard enough because she had opened car windows to smoke. She was suspicious that Brazil lived with a girlfriend and they were having a fight. West shook her head, flicking a butt out onto the weed-choked, eroded drive. Why would anyone move in with another human being right after college, after all those years of roommates? For what? She asked no questions of Brazil as they drove away. Whatever this reporter might have to say to explain his life, she didn't want to hear it. They headed back to the city, the lighted skyline an ambitious monument to banking and girls not allowed. This wasn't an original thought. She heard Hammer complain about it every day.

"W West would drive her chief through the city, and Hammer would look out, poking her finger and talking about those businessmen behind tall walls of glass who decided what went into the paper and what crimes got solved and who became the next mayor. Hammer would rail on about Fortune 500 yahoos who didn't live anywhere near here and determined whether the police needed a bicycle squad or laptops or different pistols. Rich men had decided to change the uniforms years ago and to merge the city police with the Mecklenburg County's Sheriff's Department. Every decision was unimaginative and based on economics, according to Hammer.

West believed every bit of it as she and Brazil cruised past the huge, new stadium where David Copperfield was making magic, and parking decks were jammed with thousands of cars. Brazil was oddly subdued, and not writing down a word. West looked curiously at him as the police scanner rudely announced this modern city's primitive crimes, and the radio softly played Eiton John.

"Any unit in the area," a dispatcher said.

"BE in progress, four hundred block East Trade Street."

West floored it and flipped on lights. She whelped the siren, gunning past other cars.

"That's us," she said, snapping up the mike.

Brazil got interested.

"Unit 700," West said over the air.

The dispatcher wasn't expecting a deputy chief to respond, and sounded somewhat startled and confused.

"What unit?" the dispatcher inquired.

'700," replied West.

"In the nine hundred block. I'll take the BE in progress."

Ten-four, 700! "

The radio broadcast the call. Other cars responded as West cut in and out of traffic. Brazil was staring at her with new interest. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"Since when do deputy chiefs answer calls?" he said to her.

"Since I got stuck with you."

The projects on East Trade were cement barracks subsidized by the government and exploited by criminals who did deals in the dark and got their women to lie when the cops showed up. Breaking and entering around here, it had been West's experience, usually meant someone was pissed off. Most of the time, this was a girlfriend calling in a complaint on an apartment where her man was hiding and had enough outstanding warrants to be locked up twenty times.

"You stay in the car," West ordered her ride-along as she parked behind two cruisers.

"No way." Brazil grabbed the door handle.

"I didn't go to all this trouble to sit in the car everywhere we go. Besides, it isn't safe to be out here alone."

West didn't comment as she scanned buildings with windows lighted and dark. She studied parking lots filled with drug dealer cars, and didn't see a soul.

"Then stay behind me, keep your mouth shut, and do what you're told," she told him as she got out.

The plan was pretty simple. Two officers would take the front of the apartment, on the first floor, and West and Brazil would go around back to make sure no one tried to flee through that door. Brazil's heart was pounding and he was sweating beneath his leather jacket as they walked in the thick darkness beneath sagging clotheslines in one of the city's war zones. West scanned windows and unsnapped her holster as she quietly got on the radio.

"No lights on," she said over the air.

"Closing in."

She drew her pistol. Brazil was inches behind her and wished he were in front, as furtive officers they could not see closed in on a unit scarred by graffiti. Trash was everywhere, caught on rusting fences and in the trees, and the cops drew their guns as they reached the door.

One of them spoke into his radio, giving West, their leader, an update, "We got the front."

"Police!" his partner threatened.

Brazil was concerned about the uneven terrain, and clotheslines hanging low enough to choke someone, and broken glass everywhere in the tar-black night. He was afraid West might hurt herself and turned on his Mag- Lite, illuminating her in a huge circle of light. Her sneaking silhouette with drawn pistol was bigger than God.

"Turn that fucking thing off!" she whipped around and hissed at him.

Charlotte police caught no one on that call. West and Brazil were in a bad mood as they rode and the radio chattered. She could have gotten shot. Thank God her officers hadn't seen what this idiot reporter had done. She couldn't wait to give Hammer a piece of her mind, and was halfway tempted to call her boss at home. West needed something to give her a boost and pulled into the Starvin Marvin on South Tryon Street. Before she had shifted the car into park, Brazil was pulling up his door handle.

"You ever heard of looking before you leap?" she asked, like a severe schoolteacher.

Brazil gave her an indignant, disgusted look as he undid his seatbelt.

"I can't wait to write about you," he threatened.

"Look." West nodded at the store, at the plate glass in front, at customers prowling inside and making purchases.

"Pretend you're a cop. That should be easy for you. So you get out of your cop car?

Don't check? Walk in on a robbery in progress? And guess what? " She climbed out and stared inside at him.

"You're dead." She slammed the door shut.

Brazil watched Deputy Chief West walk into the convenience store. He started to make notes, gave up, and leaned back in the seat. He did not understand what was happening. It bothered him a lot that she did not want him around, even though he was convinced he didn't give a rat's ass. No wonder she wasn't married. Who would want to live with somebody like that? Brazil already knew that if he were ever successful, he wouldn't be mean to people new at life. It was heartless and said everything about West's true character.

She made him pay for his own coffee. It cost a dollar and fifteen cents, and she hadn't bothered to ask him how he drank it, which wasn't with Irish cream and twenty packs of sugar. Brazil could barely swallow it, but did the best he could as they resumed patrolling. She was smoking again. They began to cruise a downtown street, where prostitutes clutching washcloths strolled languidly along the sidewalk, following them with luminous, empty eyes.

"What are the washcloths for?" Brazil asked.

"What do you expect? Finger bowls? It's a messy profession West remarked.

He shot her another look.

"No matter what kind of car I drive, they know I'm here," she went on, flicking an ash out the window.

"Really?" he asked.

"I guess the same ones have been out here, what, fifteen years, then? And they remember you. Imagine that."

"You know, this isn't how you make points," West warned.

He was looking out and thoughtful when he said, "Don't you miss it?"

West watched the ladies of the night and didn't want to answer him.

"Can you tell which are men?"

"That one, maybe."

Brazil stared at a big, ugly hooker in a vinyl miniskirt, her tight black top stretched over opera breasts. Her come-hither walk was slow and bulging as she stared hate into the cop car.

"Nope. She's real," West let Brazil know, and not adding that the hooker was also an undercover cop, wired, armed, and married with a kid.

"The men have good legs," she went on.

"Anatomically correct perfect fake breasts. No hips. You get close, which I don't recommend, they shave."

Brazil was quiet.

"Guess you didn't learn all this working for the TV magazine," she added.

He could feel her glancing at him, as if she had something else on her mind.

"So, you drive that Cadillac with shark fins?" she finally got around to it.

He continued looking out at the trade show along the street, trying to tell women from men.

"In your driveway," West went on.

"Doesn't look like something you'd drive."

"It isn't," Brazil said.

"Gotcha." West sucked on the cigarette, and flicked another ash into the wind.

"You don't live alone."

He continued staring out his window.

"I have an old BMW 2002. It was my dad's. He got it used and fixed it up, could fix anything."

They passed a silver rental Lincoln. West noticed it because the man inside had the interior light on and looked lost. He was talking on his portable phone, and casting about in this bad part of town. He turned off on Mint Street. Brazil was still looking out at dangerous people looking back at them when West got interested in the Toyota directly ahead, it's side window knocked out, the license plate hanging by a coat hanger. There were two young males inside. The driver was watching her in the rearview mirror.

"What you wanna bet we got a stolen car ahead," West announced.

She typed the plate number into the MDT. It began to beep as if she'd just won at slot machines. She read the display and flipped on flashing blue and red lights. The Toyota blasted ahead of them.

"Shit!" West exclaimed.

Now she was in a high-speed pursuit, trying to be a race driver and balance a cigarette and coffee and snatch up the mike, all at the same time. Brazil didn't know what to do to help. He was having the adventure of his life.

'700! " West's voice went up as she yelled into the mike.

"I'm in pursuit!"

"Go ahead, 700," the radio came back.

"You have the air."

"I'm north on Pine, turning left on Seventh, give you a description in a second."

Brazil could scarcely contain himself. Why didn't she pass, cut the car off. The Toyota was just a Ve. How fast could it go?

"Hit the siren!" West shouted at him as the engine strained.

Brazil didn't have this course in the volunteer academy. Unfastening his seatbelt, he groped around under the dash, the steering column, West's knees, and was practically in her lap when he found a button that felt promising. He pressed it as they roared down the street. The trunk loudly popped up. West's car rocked into a dip as they sped after the Toyota, and crime-scene equipment, a raincoat, a bubble light, flares spilled out, scattering over pavement. West couldn't believe it as she stared into the rearview mirror at her career bouncing away in the afterburn. Brazil was very quiet as police lights were turned off. They slowed, crawled off the road, and stopped. West looked at her ride-along.

"Sorry," Brazil said.