Sacrificial Ground

6

Frank awoke early the next morning, just as the first gray light had begun to inch its way into his room. He showered, dressed quickly, then headed for his car. The early morning traffic was lighter than he’d expected, and because of that he found himself alone in the detective bullpen. He pulled out the lab report and read it once again. He was still reading it when Asa Brickman, the head of Homicide Division, walked up to his desk.

“Morning, Frank,” he said.

“Morning, Asa.”

Brickman nodded toward the lab report. “That about the girl over on Glenwood?”

“Angelica Devereaux,” Frank said.

“Yeah, that one. Gimme.”

Frank looked at him, puzzled. “You want to read it?”

Brickman laughed. “Naw, I don’t want to read it,” he said. “I want to give it to somebody else.” He reached down and took the edge of the folder in his huge black hand.

Frank did not release it. “Why?”

Brickman shook his head. “Oh, come on, Frank, you know when a rich white girl like this gets wasted, we got to jump on it fast.”

“I am on it.”

“We’re talking old-time white money here, Frank. This Devereaux piece is not just some whore in a back alley.”

Frank said nothing. He still did not release the folder.

Brickman let it go and straightened himself. “You going to give me shit on this?” He looked at Frank menacingly. “We’re talking old white money, goddamnit.”

“That what you are, Asa?” Frank asked. “Old white money?”

Brickman sighed heavily. “Yeah, right. And don’t I look it?” He shrugged. “Look, the fact is, the bluebloods’ll be watching us on this one. I want my best men on it.” He smiled knowingly. “And your record’s spotty to say the least, my man. Know what I mean?”

“I have a feeling about this one, Asa,” Frank told him.

“A feeling?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean? You got something on this case already?”

Frank shook his head.

“Then forget it,” Brickman said. He reached for the report again, but Frank did not let it go.

Brickman’s voice hardened as he once again released the folder. “What the fuck you think you’re doing, Frank?”

“I want this case.”

“Since when does it matter to you what case you’re on?”

“Since right now.”

“You got some connection to it?”

“No.”

“Some special expertise, something like that?”

“No.”

“Any reason I could give for keeping you on it? I mean one that would hold up on the top floor?”

“Nothing. Just a feeling.”

Brickman stared at him quietly. “You know Harry Gibbons?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you say he’s the best detective in Homicide?”

“Yeah, I guess he is.”

“Takes these special goddamn courses all the time, right? Goes to night school? A real top-gun?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Just like the Mounties, always gets his man.”

Frank nodded.

“Well, Gibbons wants this case, too, Frank,” Brickman said. “Now what would you do in my situation? Think about it. You’ve slouched around here, pissing away month after month.” He stopped. “And by the way, what the fuck happened to your face?”

Frank said nothing.

“Ran into a swinging door?” Brickman asked dryly.

“Personal business,” Frank said. “It has nothing to do with my work.”

“Uh huh,” Brickman said unbelievingly. “Anyway, if you had a case you needed to break, wouldn’t you hand it to Gibbons?”

“Probably,” Frank admitted.

“So why shouldn’t I?”

“Because in his heart,” Frank said, “Gibbons doesn’t give a damn about anything.”

“That don’t mean a goddamn thing to me, Frank,” Brickman said.

Frank looked steadily into Brickman’s eyes. “Years back, Asa, if some peckerwood mayor had told Gibbons to go waste some big-mouthed, agitating nigger, what do you think he’d have done?”

Brickman’s face softened slightly, and a slow smile stretched across his lips. “All right, Frank,” he said, after a moment, “I’ll let you hold on to it for a while. But I don’t want you on it alone.”

“I won’t work with Gibbons,” Frank said flatly.

“How about Alvin?”

Frank shook his head. “Caleb Stone.”

“That old fart?”

“Yeah.”

Brick laughed lightly. “That old bastard have a feeling for this case, too?”

Frank shrugged. “I can work with him, that’s all.”

“Okay. I’ll put Caleb on it. You want to tell him, or you want me to?”

“I will.”

“You working anything else?”

“That guy who killed his wife over on Highland.”

“That’s pretty open and shut, right?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I throw it to Gibbons?”

“No.”

“Okay, done,” Brickman said. “You just work this one, nothing else. But don’t fuck it up, Frank. You won’t get another chance.” He turned quickly and walked back out of the room.

Frank returned to the lab report and began to scan its findings once again. Slowly, his mind shifted from Angelica to her sister, and he remembered the forceful way in which she had managed to control herself. He wondered if Angelica had shared that characteristic, if she had been able to sit in a chair and calmly inject her own body with poison seven times. It seemed beyond anyone’s capacity, no matter what the lab report said. The method was too protracted, the results, as he imagined them, too unendurably painful. He had seen his share of deaths: crudely slashed wrists deep in bloody water, faces blown away by shotgun blasts, bodies slumped limply to the side, the smell of gas still rising from their clothes. The reasons were almost always the same, a loneliness and isolation so complete that it closed them off from the rest of the world, locked them in a dark drawer from which they could not even imagine an escape.

He tried to picture Angelica with the hypodermic needle in her hand, but found he could not. He saw her picture in the yearbook and her body sprawled on the ground, but could imagine nothing between the ordinariness of the one and the perversity of the other.

He was still struggling to find some line that might connect the two when Caleb walked up to his desk.

“Saw Brickman downstairs,” he said, his lips fluttering around the stem of his pipe. “He said you wanted to see me.”

“We’re going to be working together on the Devereaux case.”

“Well, that’s real nice, Frank, but I’m pretty damn busy already.”

“Your cases will be reassigned.”

Caleb frowned. “Who’s going to get them?”

“Gibbons is getting mine,” Frank told him. “I don’t know about yours.”

Caleb shook his head resentfully. “You know what’s the matter with this department? They don’t ever let you get rooted in anything. They’re always shifting things around. Half the time, there’s no sense to it at all.”

“That’s the way it is,” Frank said dryly.

“Five people get axed to death in a holdup, they’re liable to hand it over to robbery detail.”

Frank handed him the lab report. “Read this.”

“I already have,” Caleb said. “You know that.”

“Read it again.”

“Why?”

“Because things jump out at you,” Frank said. “Things you didn’t notice before.”

“Not in this one,” Caleb insisted. “I know the answer to this case.” He dropped the file on Frank’s desk. “Here’s the way it happened. A pretty rich girl got pregnant by a pretty rich boy. Nobody wants this kid. Lots of bullshit involved, maybe even some very pissed-off parents, the kind that take away your new car, along with all those big plans for college.”

“So the father of the child killed Angelica?”

“If she was murdered,” Caleb said. “It could have been just what the lab boys said, a bungled abortion.” He blew a column of smoke past Frank’s head. “What have you got on it?”

“I brought her sister down to identify the body.”

“She tell you anything?”

“Not much. They lived together. A big house on West Paces Ferry.”

“Anything else?”

“I didn’t try to press her,” Frank said. He took out his notebook. “She did tell me that Angelica had just come into a lot of money. Before that, it was all handled by her guardian.” He flipped another page. “Arthur Cummings. He’s with some big law firm.”

“A real big firm,” Caleb said. “Didn’t he think about running for mayor a few years back?”

Frank nodded. “Yes, I remember that.”

“But he never tossed his hat in the ring,” Caleb said. “Hell, it wouldn’t of mattered if he had. Old money. White money. They got the power, but they don’t get the office anymore, not in this town.”

“I was thinking of going to see Cummings this morning,” Frank said.

“Want company?”

“No. I want you to get copies of Angelica’s picture to give out on the canvass.”

“You won’t get a thing from that,” Caleb said confidently.

“Try it anyway,” Frank said. “Headquarters would want that covered.”

Caleb tugged wearily at his drooping trousers. “This shit’ll take all day, you know.”

“Let me know what you find out.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said, as he turned heavily and trudged out the door.

Frank pulled the telephone book from his desk and looked up the Cummings law firm. It was in one of Atlanta’s glittering midtown towers, and he quickly wrote the address and phone number in his notebook. Then he glanced at his watch: nine-thirty. If Cummings were like most ambitious, hard-driving Southern lawyers, he’d have already been in his office for two hours.

He was on his way toward the door when Gibbons suddenly came through it.

“Hey, Frank,” Gibbons said, slowing as he came nearer. “Got a late start this morning.” He smiled cheerfully. “Anything on the night beat?”

“Nothing.”

Gibbons straightened his bright yellow tie. “No untimely deaths, huh?”

“No.”

“What about that girl they found over on Glenwood?” Gibbons asked. He shifted his own personal volume of the FBI Uniform Crime Report. “That a kill?”

“We don’t know yet,” Frank said.

“If it’s a kill, it’s a prime collar. You still on it?”

“Yes.”

A glimmer of surprise passed over Gibbons’ face, and Frank suspected that someone at headquarters had already tipped him off that the case was going to be shifted to him. Gibbons always had a jump on everybody else when it came to knowing what was coming down from the top floor. He played tennis with the chief of detectives and handball with the head of Vice, and on Sunday, he ended up at the Mount Pyron Church of God wailing for salvation from the same pew as two members of the city council. There wasn’t a wheel of government he hadn’t greased, and because of it, information flowed down to him like manna.

“Well, let me know if you need an assist on this one,” Gibbons said cheerfully. “I mean, we’re all in this together.” He smiled thinly, and just behind his lips, Frank thought he could see the pale, starving features of his soul.