The Dead Detective Read online

  I stop in on Val Tabori’s floor to see if he’s around, but he isn’t, so I leave a Postit on his desk reminding him about our date at End of Watch. Which is probably a mistake, but at least I have the sense not to use more than my first initial. The last thing I want is for his partner to spot it and start ragging that we’re together, because the whole department would know within a day or two. Although, say what you like about the Gypsy King, at least he’s alive and not a ghost. And he’s cute, and he’s my age. And he’s not Devon… or Harper. Or a woman. Or dead.

  And you know what? Maybe all my relationship problems in the past have really been because I dated civilians. I guess this is why movie stars marry other movie stars, aside from the free PR, I mean; because they’re the only people who really get them, who can understand and put up with all their pressures and in-group acronyms and crazy schedules and weird props. Just like cops. So maybe the answer is to stick to seeing other cops. And he’s not even married, like almost all the others.

  I drive back to North Heights and rejoin Ayon to help her look for old ladies, then we get called away to join in digging up a shallow grave in a local park that turns out to contain the bullet-riddled body of a big dog instead of a human. Which is a big relief because it means no paperwork, not to mention the corpse smells way better since it’s so much smaller and has less fat, plus we get to leave the scene early.

  “Win-win,” says Malena, sitting in the front seat of her unmarked department Crown Vic while she signs the incident report over to Animal Control. “Maybe we should just carry around dead dogs with us everywhere we go and substitute them for murder scene vics.” We discuss my new seeing fellow-cops versus not seeing fellow-cops theory for a while, but she sounds dubious. “I dunno. That hasn’t worked out well for me. In fact, terrible. So much so that I’ve pretty much made a vow like, never again. That’s the real reason I haven’t gone gay for you, girl.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say. “Big talk. But you’re still allergic to my furry little kitty cat.”

  “Speaking of which, if this thing of yours with lover-boy ever takes off, I’m definitely dragging you in with me for a Brazil wax on Saturday.”

  “And how do you know it hasn’t already?”

  She just stares at me, making a mocking face. She has a point; I’m cowering from the sun inside her passenger seat, probably looking tense and distracted like always. I sneak a peek in the little vanity mirror on the back of the sun visor, and sure enough, my hair’s a mess, too. And not in a good way―you know, a post-coital bed-hair goofy-grin sort of way. Just a bad hair day way. Face it; I’m looking totally frazzled lately.

  Which, naturally enough, is the very moment that Val Tabori shows up in an old Impala with his leather bomber jacket and crooked sexy vampire grin. Reluctantly, I introduce him to Ayon―but they act a little like two people do when they already know each other, though obviously not by name, since his hadn’t rung any bells with her before. At least they don’t immediately start flirting with each other. Instead, something weird seems to be going on between them―almost as if they had some drunk anonymous sex at a cop Christmas party or something once and hated each other the minute they sobered up. Whatever, it makes for an uncomfortable vibe. So I get out and walk over to where his car is parked right behind mine, flasher still rotating on its dashboard.

  “I got off early and thought maybe we could go track down your besh.” He laughs at the expression on my face. “Your first lesson in Romani. It means a campground. Actually, my own last name means the tender of a campfire.”

  “I’m taking lessons from you now?” Yuck! Now I sound coy―like my mom trying to hook a new guy.

  “Sure, why not. Maybe we can start on the drive out. I thought we’d take Vlad.” He opens the passenger door. “Vlad the Impala,” he says. “I bought him at a department auction a few years ago.”

  “Cute. You name your car. But I better drive mine, because I really need to be back home before dark. New housemate. Why don’t you follow me out there, okay?”

  I have to beg Ayon to cover for me the rest of the afternoon. She doesn’t want to. “Look,” I say, “just tell the Cap the truth. This really is a case―this same Gypsy family was involved in the Rosedale homicide and in your uncle’s robbery-fraud. Besides, I’m cooperating on this with a detective on the Gang Crimes Unit. Why are you so pissed off at me? Do you know Val from somewhere?”

  She just shakes her head before she rolls up her window and drives off. “I just get a really bad vibe from him,” is all she’ll say.

  Which kind of spoils the rest of the day for me. Was she this jealous and controlling with me before? I try to remember her normal behavior on the long drive back out to Cloverly, which is the little town nearest the farmland where I found the Gypsy camp yesterday. Maybe my partner just got really invested in my marriage to Devon; she always liked him, mainly because he was so hot and, well, beta. Maybe she still thinks he and I will get back together someday. Of course, she was acting weird this morning about Tamara, too, so maybe it’s just as simple as her wanting all my attention. Even Malena herself is the first to admit she’s a total attention whore.

  But her instincts about people are generally pretty good, which is what worries me. Still, I’ve got Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson along for the ride. And Val seems totally harmless and into me. So…there’s one more distinct possibility, knowing Malena Ayon as I do. Maybe she’s just being pissy because he’s not into her.

  After we get off the freeway, though, I forget all about this, for the simple reason that I’ve got other shit on my mind. Like not getting lost. And figuring out exactly where I was yesterday. Because, even after I’ve turned around and driven back and forth twice past the site, there’s no getting around it: the camp has vanished.

  They’ve evidently packed it all up and stolen away in the night. Sort of like… well… Gypsies.

  one or not, the place looks and smells like an abandoned construction site.

  “When you stop and think about it, maybe they’re onto something,” Val says, as we pick our way through all the garbage they’ve left behind. Mud is everywhere, along with mounds of litter and a few rusted car parts; deep ruts run criss-cross through the long-neglected soya field sandwiched between two shady groves of larch and sycamore trees. “Never having any fixed address, never putting anything to paper, never using the Internet, paying for everything in cash, only using burners to talk to each other in a language nobody’s got any translation recognition software for. I mean, after all the shit we’ve learned about what the NSA and Homeland Security are doing to us, all the snooping on their own citizens with the drones and DNA sampling―”

  I stop and shoot him a look. “Where the hell are you going with this?”

  “Just saying that maybe we’ll all end up living like this someday. On the run. Maybe Gypsies have always had the right idea.”

  I just shake my head. Who knew the guy was such a Libertarian truther? It’s not sexy, actually. But, hey. I guess we all react to the pressures of being police in our own way. Particularly the strain of always being spied on by reporters and other lowlife scum on the street with smart-phone cameras and even the Internal Affairs Department of our own so-called police family. The tin-collectors. If the Gypsy King is a little hipster-edgy in his opinions on his own time, where’s the harm?

  “Or maybe it’s just in our blood,” he says with his most melting smile. He stops and points at an oily wooden stake driven into a patch of weeds. It has a little flag of soiled white diaper cloth tied to it. “This is called a konsas—it marks the campground’s boundaries. There are four, one in each corner. It means they probably held a kongra here last night. A gathering of the clan.”

  “Kind of like a congress?”

  “The word originally meant church, I think.”

  Close to the nearer and gloomier of the groves, the stench hits me like a blow to the throat. This is evidently where they had their Jiffy-Johns. Flies buzz around us, and the
smell is so bad, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a dead body back here. Which would justify my little unlicensed fishing expedition, of course, but since it’s outside our jurisdiction, that wouldn’t carry much weight back at headquarters. And the locals wouldn’t welcome the extra caseload.

  But it’s not a body, just a lot of chicken or animal blood darkening the ground inside a little clearing, a bitter odor of shit and wormwood and decaying meat―and a ring of long-gutted candles in cans. The muddy ground is almost black where the blood has soaked in, but a paler brown where a body was probably lying. Just like inside my chalk outline at the warehouse…

  “They’ve performed another mulo ceremony here. Looks like it happened a few nights ago. You can see the indentation of the body. A man―a large one.” I crouch close to the ground, looking for a bullet or some bone fragments. When I stand back up, I realize Val hasn’t moved an inch closer; he’s just been standing there checking out my ass.

  “Sorry,” he says, looking anything but. “You just look so…amazing.” His stare is hungry and sincere―and his pale, normally sallow face, faintly pitted with acne scars, has turned slightly pink.

  He totally didn’t have me at “sorry”, so I guess it was the “amazing” that finally did it. That and the lack of ghosts hanging around. Visible ones, anyway. Whatever, something propels me into the front seat of “Vlad the Impala”, where, after tearing off my boots and pants, I find myself being very slowly impaled atop the Gypsy King’s lap.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you be wearing a…oh God…a condom?” I manage to gasp after he’s already all the way in. Pretty much like the first time with Harper. Of course, being Harper, he immediately stopped and responsibly put one on. But Val Tabori is a different breed of animal. “I haven’t been…taking the pill…lately.”

  “Come on, Richelle…what are the odds? Seriously. Besides…I want to come in you.” We’re both moaning and groaning and gasping and squirming and panting, so this exchange comes out pretty jumbled, but you get the idea. “Holy fuck…it feels so good in there…”

  Typical lover’s shit, the kind you totally block out the moment you break up, like I’ve already done with Devon. Of course, it’s been many, many months―God, almost a year―since Devon and I have done this, so that makes it a whole lot easier to forget that he was ever “in there” at all. You certainly couldn’t pick up any of his DNA samples from me lately; it’s as if my marriage never was.

  Meanwhile, my new lover has pulled off most of the rest of my clothes along with his own, and I notice what great shoulders and collarbones he has. Along with a hard chest and fit belly. Devon was always a little soft; he made a big deal out of yoga, but the fact is, he’s by nature a slacker and could easily turn pudgy in middle age. But Val is all sharp angles and what I call “lean mean muscle”, not steroidal weight-trained bulges but schoolground toughness. The marks of a kid who grew up poor―like me.

  And speaking of marks, he’s got a few tats―not gang ink, as far as I can tell, but definitely with that homemade prison look; and he’s had a lot more removed. And he’s got a few scars, too, including a couple of old bullet wounds that look a little like mine. So the Gypsy King has definitely led a life. But I’m too busy right this minute bouncing up and down to try to read it on his body. Even in Braille.

  Because even in the cowgirl position, once we’ve moved past the opening act, Val is a very vigorous and energetic lover. Even before I became a mulo, I would have worried about him breaking something. On the other hand, I have to admit, that although my senses are dulled by being half-dead, it feels really nice to be wanted and have all that…heat warming my belly from inside. I make a mental note to bring home one of those gag gifts in my desk drawer and give it a try with the microwave sometime. And when Val finally comes―and naturally he’s one of those guys who makes it a point of pride to try to last forever―it feels really great when things turn liquid down there, if that’s not TMI.

  It feels like life.

  Instead of what I usually feel inside me, which is death. So yay for that. And the kissing―the brief sensation of not being a zombie freak, of being really wanted―is even better.

  On the other hand, there’s the inevitable aftermath when all it’s over. We both suddenly realize that we’re parked in a gravel driveway on farm property that we’re trespassing on a few hundred feet from the road. And we’re both stark naked. So we immediately break things off and begin the intricate, clumsy ballet of putting our clothes back on in the front seat of a car. But Val turns out to be the chatty type afterwards, unlike Devon, which I wasn’t expecting.

  “Shit, I’m bathed in sweat,” he says, buttoning his shirt. “But you aren’t. I mean, not a drop; you’re completely dry and cool. I have to say that fucking you is the most awesome sensation I’ve ever had, sex-wise. I mean, you weren’t cold exactly, like you would be in a morgue; just really cool. I guess room temperature. Like fine silk. Like a moist cool silk glove. I want to do it again and again. How about you? Can you come in your condition?”

  My condition? Ugh. Mostly, I’m just relieved none of my body parts fell off. However, what I tell him is that it felt very nice and warm, while I dab at my leaking loins with a handful of Kleenex. What I don’t tell him is that I’ve never been able to orgasm with a guy. Just with myself or occasionally with another woman. And yeah, I’ve seen a therapist about it―all through college in fact―so don’t bother going all feminist hulksmash on me. It’s just what it is. It’s usually later, when I start missing the guy’s body and the emotional intimacy of sex, that I feel like doing it again. Or ever seeing him again at all. I feel that need much deeper than other women, I suspect, maybe because I’ve always felt so cheated of a normal sex life. That hunger to be wanted, and especially, to be loved. And the more I’m loved, the more I love―up to a point. I can’t help myself. Mom says I’m way too open-hearted.

  “Fuuuuuck,” says Val, blowing softly in my ear. “I’m already good to go again, Richelle. Unprecedented. Look, why don’t we check into the nearest motel, bang some more for a couple of hours, and then go find ourselves some supper?”

  My cell rings an incoming text. Ayon. “Get ur a$$ back down here bitch-we got ourselves a Manson-stile multiple.” Melanie’s not the greatest speller. At the same time, Val’s phone goes crazy, too.

  “We better head back to town stat,” he tells me after he checks his messages. “All hell’s broken loose over at Homicide.” He means the Central Homicide Bureau, home to the ambitious desk detectives who all write TV pilots in their spare time based on their many months of experience on The Job.

  I shrug. I’m suddenly feeling very antsy and keyed-up, so I open the car door and pull my boots on. “Usually they’re pretty territorial about cases. Besides, I called the county sheriff’s department and got the name of the farmer who owns this property. He lives just down the road, and I was planning to―”

  “No time for that now,” he says, cutting me off. “Maybe another day.” His tone is brusque; the post-coital bliss has apparently worn off. Clearly, this is going to be one of those once-in-a-lunchtime romances.

  But once we’ve driven (separately) back to the city, arriving at the crime scene just at sunset, I get a glimmering of what all the fuss is about. It’s in my precinct, for one thing, which would normally make me lead detective on the case, but the circumstances of the crime are so brutal and bizarre that I’m grateful to be relegated to secondary. Really grateful, because one of the vics is the mayor’s daughter.

  Five victims. It’s rare that we ever see five bodies at one homicide scene, thank God; usually when we do, it’s the result of gang drive-bys at a public park, some crazy kid with his first AK-47, or a meth-lab explosion. Or a bunch of illegals suffocated inside a tractor-trailer. But this happened in the best neighborhood in our police precinct; about a mile from where Mama Lourdes lives, but almost in another world. In a lavish little modernist villa of a house on a tiny lot, with high white brick walls topped with
barbed wire―now all wrapped around in crime scene tape like an early Christmas present and surrounded by a cop convention of flashing light bars and idling local news camera trucks. There’s even a lap-sized swimming pool in the decked-over backyard. Which is filled with slowly floating clotted blood and human body parts.

  Inside the art-deco glass and stucco house, the carnage is like something in a slaughterhouse. I’d thought I’d lost my sense of smell at the Gypsy camp, but this stinks way worse. It’s a good thing I’ve had nothing to eat since lunch, or I’d totally be tossing it right now. Even some of the SID techs are looking pretty seasick―and they’re supposed to be used to this shit.

  Ayon is dressed in one of the white disposable contamination suits that we all have to put on outside the front gate; when I join her she says, “Happened sometime last night, they think. Nobody’s found a single bullet yet. Whoever did this did it with their bare hands or maybe a knife or an axe.” She’s talking in short bursts, trying not to breathe through her nose.

  “Uh uh,” says one of the CS guys, who I recognize from the Rosedale murders―you know, the ones I committed. “We still haven’t found any sharp or serrated edges on any of the wounds. It’s like somebody tore the vics apart with their bare hands. Like you would if you were eating chicken in a big hurry.” He stares down at a blood-soaked head on the half-shattered glass top of a coffee table. “Live chicken…Jesus, I think I even see some toothmarks…”

  “So we’re talking cannibalism here?” says one of the downtown detectives loudly. I think this is meant as a joke―or maybe he’s just being hopeful―but you can never tell with these guys. And I’ll never know, either, because just then the Medical Examiner comes in the front door with the first of about a hundred gurneys.

  “Got any prelim ID on the victims yet?” I ask Ayon.

  “Yeah, the owner of the house is a local businessman named Nick Trapani, age about forty. Owns a chain of liquor stores―the main one is just a few blocks away on 105th. There’s a few blocks in there they call ‘Little Malta’.”