Dead: D.W.I. - Driver Who’s Indiscrete by L.A. Preschel (Part 2)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or circumstances is purely coincidental. 

* Alert, this is not your father’s hard boiled mystery; it rates R for content, concepts, occupations and language - banal and crude. I’d advise it is for mature adult readers.


Part 1 is the prior posting. This continues that story. Part 3 will be posted this week. Enjoy.

Dead: D.W.I. - Driver Who’s Indiscrete

by L.A. Preschel 
Part 2

The next morning, Ryan brags over coffee at the homicide meeting that he would, “breakdown that guilty woman when he interrogated her today.” He stares at me. “Wonder Woman, you gonna protect your sistah? Stop being a nursemaid. Be a tough cop.”

The men at the table laugh like he’s Jimmy Fallon.

I get my coffee, and hold my temper. The department sent me for anger management. It is working sort of.

He stands behind me and flicks his finger against my ear. He slaps his hands together. His face holds a mock beseeching look. “I’m catching the killer. Pleeeze help me.” He laughs.

I flinch, then purse my lips tight to hold in a snide remark that I’d regret saying in front of a hostile audience. One, two, three… “She is not proven guilty yet. My mind is open.”

Today’s five minutes of moron-amusement have commenced.

“Open or empty?” Ryan replies.

Just don’t hit him in the face. Four, five, six… The facts I knew, did not add up well for Ronella. The gun came back with the victim’s and her prints on the barrel, not the trigger or the handle; no other prints. The victim owned the gun, and she lived with him. That offered her access. The two bullets from his chest while deformed, showed enough spiraling to prove the Browning as the murder weapon.

Who else had access to it besides her and the victim? Good question. Did anyone else? 

Ronella’s race to innocence runs up hill. As we gather the evidence, the hill becomes steeper. Ryan is an artisan at building Mount Everests out of circumstantial puppy poop. If he piles it high enough, the jury will be impressed and ignore reasonable doubt. Ronella is in trouble. She needs a cop with an unbiased opinion.

I have doubts about her too. Most women take being dropped much worse than she did.

Ronella brings Douglas Pittman with her to the interrogation. For a public defender, he plays the game on the square, but with a second child on the way, he has one foot out the door to a private practice. After mailing in his last two efforts, Doug is a certified cream puff in court.

We sit in the twelve-foot by ten-foot interrogation room with cream cylinder-block walls. The video surveillance is turned on. The wood table in the center of the room is slightly larger than a card table. Four chairs surround it. The window’s air-conditioner hums like the back-up singers in a do-wop group. Even so, the room is humid and close. Everyone, including me has their jacket off. The men’s ties are at half-mast, and Doug’s white Oxford shirt shows he is sweating out this case, significantly.

I take out a cigar to smoke and three men protest that lighting up is a crime in this humidity. They stop me, so chewing the unlit panatela has to suffice to quiet my nerves. I can spit the tobacco bits into the trash basket in the corner. 

When this case finishes, my nerves will demand a long ride in the country on my BMW motor bike.

Doug says, “Ronella will make a statement of her own free will first, before anyone asks a single question. Ronella.”  Doug stands and leans on the wall within Rosella’s line of sight.

In the interrogation room, we tape the interview, so notes are superfluous, but old habits die hard. I’ve got my index cards out, for the significant statements. It helps my thought processes later.

Ronella admits she waited at the terminal last night after her run from Northern Jersey. She had planned to break it off with St. James. She stowed her locked packed suitcase under her bus on the second floor. She brought the gun for self-defense. St. James had been physically abusive the last time she tried to leave him. She wanted to make a clean break this time.

Pittman produces copies of two arrests for domestic violence that stopped short of a trial, because Ronella refused to testify. The most recent is two years old. 

If he got abusive again, would she have the nerve to shoot him?

I assess her willingness or psychological ability to kill. How high did her emotions run?

Once she announces she brought the gun, Ryan becomes aggressive. “Don’t lie, he broke it off. We know he was seeing other women. That made you mad. You shot him.” He walks up behind her.

“Of course, I be mad, wouldn’t you?” She turns in the chair to watch where he is. “But I didn’t shoot nobody,” 

Ryan hangs his face over her as she sits. “Can you prove it?” He whispers.

Ronella does her best to ignore the ape violating her personal space. “But I couldn’t shoot no one, no body.” She’s ready to cry. She reaches up to push his face away.

Ryan stands back and yells, “He broke it off, so you killed him.” He stomps his foot and threatens her with his look. “Then threw the gun in the trash.” He turns his back to her, and walks toward me. He winks. “Motive, means, plus opportunity.” He counts his points on his fingers, while speaking to the video camera near the ceiling. He spins and runs three steps at Ronella. “We got ya. Admit it.” He pounds the table where she sits. “You killed him.”

Ronella jumps from her chair and retreats five steps. Doug steps between her and Ryan.

I shove Ryan to the corner and whisper, “That’s intimidation, not interrogation.”

“I’m getting the job done. Back off,” he whispers, and pushes me away.

I grab him by his shoulders. My ire summates to rage. I whip him around to face me. “Don’t screw this case,” I whisper. “Do it by the book. Stay cool. No physical contact. No threatening for once. Your work has to stand up in court.”

“My cases always do. Don’t let your female sympathies interfere,” He stares heat at me. “My eye is on the prize. You better be looking the same way, or else.” His left hand grabs his fisted right hand. He slowly grinds them together. “Get my meaning. No female shows me up.”

“Don’t you threaten me, ever, or you’re dead meat.” My stare stops him cold. “Got it?”

He goes silent. Unlike him, I’ve been in self-defense situations, and three people are dead by my hand. I carry that sorrow-filled burden, even though the situation earned me a medal of valor from the NYPD.

I look him in the eye, as I quiet down. “Stay calm and I can help. Lone wolves die alone.” I push him away and sit down.

 Pittman ushers Ronella back to sitting. “You’ve made your statement, now only speak with my permission. She answers questions. If I let her. Yours are?”

Ronella shivers, weeps, and stares at Ryan.

Ryan doesn’t notice, because he and I are still holding a staring contest. The slam of the interrogation room’s door closing directs our attention to one of the two ADA’s on the case as he marches in. He pulls Ryan out, while whispering to him. In transit through the door, Ryan nods continuously. He makes a writing motion, points to the ADA, and mouthes ‘getting an arrest warrant.’

The door slams close, like a lock-up at Riker’s. There is a beat of silence.

I pivot to Ronella. “What happened when you confronted St. James?”

Ronella looks at Pittman.

He nods.

Ronella says, “He be on two phones at once. Texting Alicia Taylor, but that tailor, she specialize in makin’ pants tighter.” Ronella gives off a giggle. “At the same time, he talked on ’nother phone with another woman, ‘Sweet buns.’ She be Tasha Washington. I went to high school with that bitch. She’s why I planned to break up. I can play a little second, but I don’t never play me no third fiddle. ’Specially not to a stripper-’hoe. I thinks a whole orchestra played on Stephon’s instrument, one time or ’nother.” She stares at the overhead camera. “Tasha be a ’hoe since high school. Ask the fo’ball team. They knew her in the biblical sense, every player.”

I’m writing this down, though surely, the ADA watches, unseen in the video room.

Ronella continues, “You hear me good, you sneaky snoops.” Her tears look real. “I still loved him. I killed no one.”

Sympathy biases your vision of evidence. Detectives must be objective. Ronella hurts like a person who had her Porsche stolen and crashed by the guy repossessing it. Even though she did not own the car, she loved the ride, and now it was gone.

Ryan bursts into the room. “He embarrassed you, and put you on his third team. Therefore you shot him six times. He cheated on you with a stripper? A whore?”

“Don’t answer that. Fifth amendment. But that’s a question, Ryan.” Pittman applauds. “We should call your fifth grade English teacher to inform her of your progress in grammar.”

“Screw you Pitty-man.” Ryan slams himself into a chair.

“You brought the gun with you?” I ask Ronella. “Was it loaded?”

“Of course, it be loaded. How the f else could I be sure to be safe with his temper.”

“Ok, so when did you shoot him?” Ryan asks.

“I never ever shot any gun at nobody, never.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“I stood on the bus stairs. Stephon winked at me. He two-timed both women while his live-in girl watches, and he winks at me. What kinda man do that? But his punishment,” she sobs, “came from someone else. It be much worser than I can do. Not wastin’ no double-dime in prison on a shit-bag Casanova. The gun be his. I never wanted it, so I put it on the dashboard. I left. He be too busy with Tasha to hit me or notice that I be gone. Probably didn’t care.”

“Then what did you do?” I ask.

“My ears can’t endure anymore lies.” Ryan pulls the door open. “Dougie, I’m obtaining a warrant as soon as those phones come back. They’ll prove she’s lyin’. Tell her be available. She’s all yours Wonder Woman.” He leaves.

“His time of month?” Doug asks me.

I’ve heard sexist bull so frequently I’ve grown immune to it. “No. Plays the male dumb bastard card. I’m sure you’ve a couple in your deck. For him, the trouble is, it’s his only card. Thinks it’s an ace and wild. Plays it all the time. It never wins.”

Ronella laughs for the first time today.

Dougie gives a whistle. “All right then. My attitude is adjusted. Thank you, very much.”

“You’re welcome.” I smile at Ronella. “So girl then what?”

“Maybe you be all right.” Through her giant smile she says, “I took my sweet ass to my auntie’s in Newark.” She forms the sign of the cross in front of her chest and looks to the sky. “The commuting will kill me for a while. Oops bad choice of words, but I can live with it.” She looks at me and raises her eyebrows. “That be all the truth I know.”

“Ronnie, a gun shot residue test can clear things up quickly.” I turn her hands palms up.  

Doug says, “Problem. She shot the gun prior to the murder at the gun club. We have witnesses. Practiced, in case he became rough.”

“We have to do a GSR. Even if it is positive.” I implore, “Doug, I’ll get a subpoena.”

Since Ryan left the room, Doug had been leaning against the wall, now he stands up straight. “A subpoena is coercive, changes the environment. Fifth amendment. We’ll fight that. Even if you get it, the GSR will be done too late to be effective. Don’t waste your time.”

“Refusing looks bad,” I say.

“I’ll do it,” Ronella offers.

“No you won’t. This interview is over.” Dougie pulls Ronella to stand. “Is she charged?”

“No.”

He pushes her to the door. “Then bye. When you want us, call me first.” He leads her out.

*      *      *

“Sweet Buns,” aka Tasha Washington, aka “the hips that rips” dances at the Double DDee Club in Sunnyside Queens. Inside the heavy wooden doors, the air smells stale from old smoke and feels dirty damp, like the water flushed from the dishwasher before the rinse cycle starts. Seedy is the first word that comes to mind for a description. You avoid touching anything that hasn’t taken a Clorox bath recently. I visit the club around 4:30 p.m. before the evening shift gets busy.

The joint wears more velvet on the walls than a convention of fake Elvises. During show time, more swords are raised than at Medieval Times during the duel scenes. For an extra charge, in a back room meant for private dancing, a knight can sheath his sword in any manner of choreography that he can afford. Money is the only limit to the extent of your dance. The vice people raided this joint several times in the past 18 months, but little changes. The club paid its fines and business returned to normal.

I walk into the club with Ryan a step behind. Somewhere between coming through the entrance, passing the stage on which one woman dances, and arriving at the manager’s office, Ryan goes AWOL. He’s probably monitoring the stage for any illegal moves. In this environment and easily distracted, he wasn’t worth half his normal value as an investigator.

I reach the manager's office, but the door is closed. I knock, open the door, and walk only one step into a large closet with a desk, a file cabinet and a phone. Closets have no windows. The manager stands before I’ve fully crossed the threshold. His large abdomen blocks further entry. “Yeah, what?” he says, while looking me up and down as if I was his estranged felon brother just escaped from the pen. “I’m Mugsy, the boss. Open ya yap or scram."

Mugsy is a classic. His thick-boned mug looks like he has damaged more than a few fists with his face. He smokes a robusto stogie, blowing the smoke like a fogging machine. “Ya deaf.” The matches to light his cigar cost more than it does. “Speak or Go.” He points over my shoulder.

Guess, he has no idea, cigars are perfume to me.

I don’t move. “Mugsy, I need your full attention, every brain cell.” I point to his head.

He twists to deposit his nickel’s worth of tobacco in a brown clay ashtray on his desk. More bouncer than club manager, he can’t be happy to see a woman fully dressed in his bump’n’grind, asking questions. He says, “Wah ya want, shortcakes? We’re for men, so leave.”

When I don’t move, he runs his hand to his hair scrunchie that holds his dyed purple ponytail. “Ok.” He gives it a tightening tug. “Unless, you want an audition, you’re not wanted here, and your chest disqualifies you from the business.” He laughs, making his rotund belly bobble. “Flat as my desktop.” He runs his hand over his blotter as if to show me what he means.

Attitude and level of play established. I can play this game better. “Police.” My left hand grabs his shirt in a twist and pulls his bulk into me. “I don’t like your attitude or this place. So be pleasant, and cooperative.”

His face shows he wasn’t expecting that, but he not intimidated.

I say, “From now on, your lips move only to answer me. Get me Tasha, out here, now.”

“Police my ass, let go.” He swipes my hand from his shirt. “Show me a badge, pixie.”

As he pushes my left arm down, my right hand buries my Beretta Nano, in his gut. “Nana and I want to know, is she here? Want a second belly button?”

He looks down to see Nana kissing his stomach dead center mass. “Oh, ok, a 9mm beats a badge, but Tasha don’t play in the back-room with women, only men.”

I flash my badge. “Hard of hearing or death, which is it for you?” Nana nudges into him once.

“You don’t scare me. Police or not, you ain’t shooting me, and that badge could be from Amazon. Make an appointment to see her. Book’s outside by the bar. Ask Ralph.”

“NYPD, we don’t make appointments. We don’t back-room. We get warrants. I saw three violations walking through. You admitted prostitution. Make Tasha free to speak? Don’t waste my time explaining. Go.”

Reluctantly, Mugsy nods. “Yup, I’ll get her.”

I holster Nana.

Before he moves, Ryan appears.

 The dancers must have left the stage.

Ryan says to me, “I’m the lead detective.” He asks Mugsy, “Where is the hips that rips?”

Mugsy smiles at Ryan. “You her boss? She have a personality disorder or somethin’?”

“Yeah.” Ryan flexes his pec-muscles. “I’m the man. She’s the hysterical lady cop.”

“In his fantasies,” I answer, “I still see those violations, but I don’t see Tasha.”

“He’s the boss. I obey him,” Mugsy answers.

“But at the moment, he’s not thinking about his police work.” I turn to Ryan. “Be patient, detective, these women undress themselves. Mugsy, you had 60 seconds to produce her, you’ve burnt 20. Do the math. Remember, I’m the crazy one, get me mad, I’ll do something insane.”

He looks into my eyes, “Yes sir.” He turns to Ryan. “Who is the boss?”

The human mountain ducks into an archway and through a curtain to the dressing room area. He reappears pulling a half dressed amazon, by her left arm. Her right hand tries to keep closed a blatantly inadequate white translucent cover-up. Untied it flows behind her like a flag in the wind. Mugsy hustles her toward us. “Keep up, sister. These cops need answers, so be nice.”

My turn to mess with him. “Fifty-two, fifty-three…”

Ryan’s eyes work overtime. He never looked that hard at or for evidence.

Tasha wears a red satin and lace bustier with matching bikini bottoms. They contrast with her black nylons. Her bleached orange hair is teased in all directions like a space helmet. “What ya wan? I’m not ready to perform.” She looks at Ryan. “Although for you big boy, the back room is open for business. As in messin’ around.” Her tone is salacious.

“Really?” Ryan’s jaw looks unhinged. Mr. lead detective wordlessly salivates.

“You Tasha?” I ask.

She hadn’t seen me. Startled, she twists. Her upstairs and downstairs shimmy in multiple directions, like a truck full of Jell-O on black ice, skidding out of control. “Yeah, why?”

“What time two nights ago did you talk with Stephon St. James?”

“No women be a detective, meter maid maybe. Who are you, and who said that?”

“I’m Detective Samantha Cochran,” I answer with a badge flash. “His girl told me.”

“Ronella beat me up in high school over nothing. She lied then. I had a little fun, that’s all. She talk shit ’bout me now too? That woman is cold and has her a temper. If-in anyone did, she shot him. He too much for her alone.” Tasha winks at Ryan. “But I can handle him… all… by… myself.”

“Temper?” Ryan jumps in, “That a fact? She shot him? Will you testify to that?”

“Everyone know that.” She steps closer to Ryan. “The Daily News, front page, Bus Driver’s Girlfriend Bus-ted for Killing.”

“Tasha.” Her focus bounces back to me. “You talked with him about what time?”  

“Two times, be ah-zact. He keep sweet-talking me, wanting some… you know.” She poses. “Most men do.” Ryan gets another wink. “Know what I mean?”

Ryan offers a soft low wolf whistle. “Do I.”

I look to him, and he isn’t even blushing.

I say, “The last time you talked?”

“Sometime after midnight. He asked for a private dance before he went home. Wanted me to hang here, but I’s tired. Then he paused, said ‘wait a minute. don’t you do that.’ Then there was a brushin’ sound, after that a bunch of muffled bangs or bumps and grunts... oh my God, did I hear her kill him?” Tasha took several rapid breaths, holding her hand over her throat to regain her composure. “I’m ok. I’m ok. He never got back on the phone. I thought we was done, so I went home. That be maybe 12:15. I danced till 11:55 that night.”

“Perfect. The schedule says Ronella finished her route at 11:35. Ryan scribbles on his pad. “Gives more than enough time to do it. I’ll have the warrant tomorrow. Case solved.”

“Ok, come on.” I wave Ryan to leave.

Tasha heard him slide the phone under his ass, and then he was shot. That fits.

Narrowing down the time of death, my needs have been met.

Ryan says, “Nah, further investigations to do. I’ll stay around. Maybe go under cover?”

Don’t need to be a cop to detect, his unresolved needs, dumb-ass.

He says, “Marco can pick me up. Can you handle signing me out partner?”

“Sure.” I drive to the bus terminal.

I check the driver’s schedule with the Station Master. The revised schedule was effective one day before the murder. Ryan missed out on that fact. Ronella’s ETA was 10:55. The paperwork signed by the Station Master documented an 11:03 full discharge of her passengers in the terminal. Quote, “Bus empty 11:03.”

I call Doug Pittman, “The name and number of Ronella’s Jersey Aunt is?”

Within ten minutes, he returns my call, “Estelle Parker. phone area code 213… ”

That’s a Newark exchange, and the White Pages gives her a Newark address too.

Google earth reveals her apartment is over a PNC ATM. Life is good, probably a surveillance camera there too. The tapes will document when she arrived at her aunt’s.

I dial. “Hello, this is detective – ”

“Detective Cochran?” Her voice is pleasant, as if we’re old friends. Dougie probably coached her on the answers to my questions. He is back on his game, good for Ronella, not as good for me.

“Is this Estelle Parker?”

“Yes that be me. Shame about St. James. Certain men want sex too much for their own good. Now he be playin’ a harp or playin’ with fire, instead a playin’ around. How can I help?” She sounds like a Bible lady.

I picture her in her Sunday get-up with a pill-box hat, dog-eared family hand-me-down Bible under her arm, ready for a sermon. But even religious people might lie for close family.

“Estelle, two simple questions, one: did Ronella stay with you the other night.”

“She damn-well moved her ass right in,” She chuckles. “Crimps my socializin’ style.” Her voice rings playful, “Got me boyfriends. I’m seventy-four, but I ain’t dead yet.”

“Two: what time?”

“Oh, let me see. I cooked a ham for Sunday dinner. ’Bout eight, put it in the oven, that silly Big Bang were showin’ on TBS. Whiny-assed Sheldon moans ‘bout nothin’ ’portant all the time. He be so smart, how come he can’t figure sump-thing out for hisself? A ham needs four hours. As I went to check it, Ronella be banging on my door. She came here just afore midnight. News be over, and Fallon played one of his dumb games with a blond woman. Don’t see no African-American girls doing that stuff, no how. We gots us some pride. Movie star? New picture or what, dignity ’portant too.”

“Don’t have the time to watch tv. Ronella was in Newark by midnight?”

“Or a little after, stayed the night while I cheered her up. She need-a place to stay of her own. My man git hisself worked up serious if-in… and I needs me some lovin’ too,” Estelle says.     

“Thanks, bye.” I hang up the phone.

I telephone the bank. They’ll ship the surveillance tape of their ATM to me. I’ll get CID to process it looking for Ronella’s arrival. That usually takes a couple of weeks, and I’m working against my partner, who doesn’t care to wait to prove his facts.

Fallon’s guest that night: a blond starlet, whose name I did not know. Who has time to see movies? However she has a new movie out. As to the Big Bang being on, it’s televised on some channel every night at 8 p.m., 8:30 p.m., 9 p.m., etc.

Estelle’s answers leave no doubt of Ronella’s innocence. If the video backs up her statement as to time, that makes Estelle’s testimony hard evidence.

Estelle re-experienced the night during the interview, the hallmark of an honest response. St. James was on the phone with Tasha, after Ronella arrived in Jersey. Unless he was TWD, talking while dead, Ronella did not pull the trigger.

Who might want him dead? Gotta take a swim in the suspect pool.

*     *     *

I arrive 20 minutes late for the start of the general homicide meeting next morning; Ryan struts around the conference table, like a male peacock. Every gent in the room pays Ryan attention, following his path with their vision. Ryan’s mouth is moving so even though I can’t hear him, he must be explaining how he knows Ronella is guilty. They can wait for me. I refuse to run down the hall.

I arrive. The men make like they are working, and everything becomes hush-hush.

Ryan’s face betrays a late night out.

“Rough night?” I ask.

“You have no idea.” Ryan walks to within a foot of me. He’s eight or nine inches taller than my five foot one, so he stares down at me. “Marco was busy. Needed a damn Uber to get home.” His breath is old booze. “I’ll expense it,” he leans closer with a chuckle, “like usual.”

“Back off.” I push him, so he stands at a socially appropriate distance.

“However.” He smiles at the three detectives seated at the table, offering a here we go grin. “I finished a thorough investigation. Exhaustive probing. Uncovered everything there was to see. Examined a lot more than initially met my eye, and nothing worth seeing stayed covered.” He winks at his audience. “I inspected it all.”

The gentlemen around the table snicker, or smirk, while they monitor my reaction.

I’m stoic. I’ve played this game with more capable opponents. It’s called can I make you blush using bragging male mendaciousness, or do you believe me now?

Marco, the metro-sexual in the group, stands by the coffee pot. He stage whispers to me, “Hey Wonder Woman, ya shoulda stayed. Ya coulda learned a trick or two.”

With that remark, the gentlemen of the audience go from snickering to guffawing.

I just nod. “Knowledge is always good. Bet you guys could use a lesson… in whatever.”

They stop laughing. One coughs a loud, “Bull-shit.”

Then they laugh some more.

I ignore them. “You’re worthless Ryan, take today off. Coop with lots of java. I got this.”

Ryan reaches to the table and retrieves his paperwork. “Tell you what, you wrangle the warrant.” He hands me the papers. “They suggest a second-degree murder charge against Ronella Gibson. I’ll bring her in later.”

On his papers, he lists the time of her bus’s arrival wrong; he sights her prints as the only ones on the gun (another serious error), and her refusal to get a GSR test as evidence of her guilt. Motive: her boyfriend dumped her. His warrant contains sloppy work, his forté.

I give it a pocket veto; bury it deep in my jacket pocket. “Yeah sure. Which ADA gets it?”

“ADA Bob, er, what’s his name. He drinks cappuccinos all the time. Wears a bowtie?”

Marco croons, “Oh the new young man.”

I nod. “Sure Ryan, scram.”

He signs in. “I’m off to Starbucks.”

He’ll investigate the coffee, the sport page, and comics. He’ll see if his legs reach far enough under the table to rest his heels on the chair on the opposite side. He’ll try to complete the crossword. If cooping was a police division, he’d be its commander. He’s done this act before, about four cases ago, when we investigated several after hours clubs in lower Manhattan, because of a murder case. He collected the late night drinking evidence, personally.

That time, in the aftermath of being out late with booze, he compared two types of breakfast sandwiches. Lunch, he investigated salads with the Mango Lemonade ice tea. To the Captain, he claimed he was on stake out at Starbucks, and expensed it all. Even the Uber home from the coffee shop. Dumb-ass. They let him slide. Today, he’ll return to the station house in time to sign out at 4:00. Good work if you can get it.

I can work faster without him. If he is our rudder, he’ll steer us up the wrong creek.

My next lead has to be ambushed alone. CID tells me the ATM tape is in, but the earliest they’ll process it will be after next Thursday. Ryan will be closing the case by then, and I’ll have my name on the folder. The case will blow up in court, and he’ll point his finger my way. Our captain, who cannot believe a woman is working homicide, might believe I pressed the charges.

Therefore, I review the Newark ATM’s tape on the night of the murder from 11:05 p.m. to 12:25 a.m. myself. My computer screen is not so large, but I can tell a female from a male on it. It is tedious, but necessary. The work helps me mark time until the night shift starts at The 24 Hour Donut Shop on Eighth Avenue.

St. James’s personal Taylor’s evening starts at 8 p.m. Tonight is her first shift back since the murder. I need to talk to her without E.Z. around. We’ll celebrate her return to work.

At 9 p.m., I walk in. The store is long and thin like a wide corridor. Only one waitress and a tall thin African-American man with a gray beard, that matches his bushy eyebrows, are inside. There are no booths and the counter is a row of empty stools, except for gray-beard’s stool. He has smooth coal-black skin and blue elfin eyes - probably contacts. They make him handsome in an off beat way. He pages through a tattered copy of Ebony magazine. He watches me with his head down, as if I won’t notice his scrutiny. His clothing style is not my taste, but does draw my attention. He wears a pink shirt, under a scarlet and pale blue plaid sweater with half-dollar sized silver buttons, and a pair of embroidered faded Carnaby Street bellbottoms.

Is the circus in town? No wait, Couture: 1960’s pimp. Where’s his white Cadillac?

The shop’s glass counter donut display, lacks half their varieties, but I’m not hungry. I order a regular coffee and a Chocolate Cream filled from a woman who wears Allie’s name-tag on her white lace lapel. She is skinny with chicken legs and wears a pink and white waitress’s uniform. She is the whole night staff.

Have I walked through a time warp and arrived at the original Dunkin’ Donuts.

She also wears a recent bruise on her cheek and her arm. She moves with a limp. Her left hip hurts too? She delivers my coffee and donut without looking me in the eye and leaves my written receipt on the counter. Without a word, she walks to the back for a ciggie break near the frying oil just inside the door to the back room. She roams as far from my seat at the counter as she can be without leaving the store. No doughy life preservers float in the brown sludge vat for her to tend in the back. Her hand shakes as she raises her lighter to the cigarette. She looks as calm as a Persian cat boarded in a kennel of Pit Bulls. Her eyes never leave me, but she waits for me to leave.

I disappoint her, sipping my coffee, while letting the sugar-cholesterol bomb on the paper plate go untouched.

Don’t need love handles. I have no one who wants to grab onto them right now.

She finishes her smoke, and I haven’t left.

“Alicia?” I ask.

She ignores me.

The bearded man changes seats, sits on my left side and offers his pick-up bar smile. “Ma’am, can I be of assistance?” His voice is deep and warm. His right hand covers my left one as it rests on the counter top.

This is not social, but he can’t see my badge, yet. My right hand drifts under my leather biker jacket to Nana, who remains undiscovered in my waist holster on my right hip. I give him an unfriendly stare, and then frown at his hand.

He doesn’t take the hint, and leans closer. “I can help,” he whispers, “really I can.”

I know things will take care of themselves, so I let them play out. I look to the only server in the place and say, “Alicia Taylor-Smith. I’m Detective Samantha Cochran, homicide,” I flash my shield.

Gray-beard ejects from his seat and moseys three stools down, carrying his full cup of coffee with him to where he left the Ebony magazine. His voice ranges up an octave to routine communication from basso seductivo levels, “Forget I met you, ma’am.” He calls into the back where Alicia remains, “Hey Allie, the fuzz woman wants you.”

She shakes her head no, lights another smoke, and steps on the one she dropped to the floor.

“Damn it Alicia. I’m here. We can do it now or at the station house or...” I ring my coffee cup with my spoon. “Hear ye, hear ye, the court of New York City is called to session. First witness, Alicia Taylor-Smith. You want to hear those words? Will E.Z. let you live to hear ’em?”

From the back, she calls out, “I smelled cop when you walked in. I tell you jack-shit.” Her face turns distressed and her eyes glaze, as the back of her hand caresses her cheek over the facial bruise.

She is remembering the impact that caused it. I am starting at a disadvantage.

Her other hand trembles, painting a smoke doily in the air above her lit ciggie. “He ain’t called E.Z. because he is. You know?” She smashes out her cigarette against the fryer’s steel frame, making burning ashes spiral to the tile floor. A few fly upward and land in the oil. “The old coot think he be owning my ass. Be watching me all the time. He have a phone app trackin’ me.”

“‘No one messes with his,’ I remembers him saying just that to me, Alicia.”

She shakes her head, “I’m no cleaning cart. He don’t own me. I be free.”

“Then tell me what he did. What happened? I’ll get him.”

She yells, “He don’t do nuthin’ to me. I don’t want him got.” She takes in a shuddering sigh of air. At normal volume and with regained calm, she says, “I fell over a chair at home. Hit my face and arm. I do that a lot. I can handle this. Don’t need ya help.”

I can’t stop my mouth. “Seizure disorder? Better see a doc… to stay alive. Or talk to me.”   

“Must be seizures, and I will.” Her crooked smile betrays the truth. “See my doctor. Thanks for the advice. Bye.”

“I’m not leaving till I hear the whole fish tale. Lie to me on the record.”

“It be a far far better thing to fall and get a boo-boo, than if I ever be dead for snitching. Dickens said that?”

“Dickens on crack maybe.” I leaned toward the back. “Don’t let the fatal disease fester in your home and bed. We got a cure. Take it.”

“Yeah, a cure,” she walks to the doorway between the front and the back. “Wanna know what kind of men they is. Stephon was gentle, and sweet.” 

“Yes he was.” The man at the counter looks up from his magazine. “I liked that man.”

“E.Z., he think he a bad man. He keeps souvenirs from every time they arrested him. He has a scrap book. Shows it to me and looks at it hisself. He be proud of that shit.” She spits in the trash can near the mop and pail at the door. “That’s for him.”

“So make your life safe. I can make it happen for you. Help me,” I talk gently, but I can’t calm her down.

She stomps to the counter, holding the decaf coffee pot. “Yeah, you help, for a while, but never forever.” She pours a second cup for Gray-beard without offering me any. “Right Joe? Protect you ’til ya talk in court. After, you on your own. Ratting him out, you catch the DBT’s.”

“The whats?” I ask.

“Death by talking, woman,” Joe says. “Order of protection helped my wife live three extra years, then bang, she dead. Boyfriend got man-two, five years in Attica, off early thanks to the governor. He drives a Livery cab. Still deals smack. Was talking worth it to my dead Donna?” He shrugs. “A clown’s question. Needs no answer.”

You’re dressed to ask it. Help me Bozo. Back me up here.

“He told you, he murdered your boyfriend. Makes you a liability.” I sip the house-brewed paint thinner. Ryan brews better. It’s about the only thing he does well. “Dead lips tell nothing.”
“I have me no boyfriends. My husband would gets himself berserked up. Sister-fuzz leave me alone. He say-ed nothing to me at no time. Nev-vah!”

“The more we press him, the more worried he becomes, you’re a loose end. We’ll protect you. Any doubts he holds about you has only one final answer. Don’t give him time to do it.”

“I takes my chances.” She shrugs at me. “That’s four-fifty with tax, but without no tip.”

“That night going home, what did he tell you?” I ask.

Allie looks at her watch, walks over and leans down to whisper in my ear. When her breath touches my ear’s scrolls, she yells, “Detective, fuck off. Go away.” She snatches the check off the counter and waves the tab in my face. “You owe $4.50.” She drops it on the counter and trudges off.

Old Joe laughs. “Must be tough being feminine fuzz. The boys’d rough her up for answers. She’d squeal, and nobody’d say nothing ‘bout the rough stuff. Too scared of re-tellie-asians.”

“Your name’s Joe right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” His smile shrinks to a grin. “Not meaning no trouble.” He adjusts his sweater, buttoning the top two buttons. “Just my feelin’.”

“No worries, Joe. More than one way to skin a cat.” I wink. “Necessitates a different knife and cutting technique that’s all. In the end, the cat still squeals… sometimes she lives too.”

“Woo-wee.” He rocks back on the stool. “Ain’t you somethin’.” He chuckles.

I leave four dollars on the counter. A cop’s coffee is usually free. Let her come after me for the rest. I call to her, “Hey Allie, want a tip? Talk to me, stay alive. I’m with homicide, office is uptown a little. I’d welcome a visit.” I leave a card next to my money. “Tell E.Z. I said hello. And I know who the murderer is. What’s he gonna do ’bout it. You can even give him my card.”

Alicia said E.Z. has a rap sheet.

Another thing both Ryan and I forgot to check. Can’t get sloppy like Ryan.

Back at my desk, I check it, petty stuff, related to a bad temper: a couple of domestics, pleaded no contest; with counseling, he served no time. A few disorderlies with three months suspended sentences from drunk bar-debates that became physical, bare hands, no weapon used. This time, E.Z. Eddie jumped up in class. We’ll nail him for the murder.

With what I know, Ryan’s warrant request gets filed in four separate pieces, where it belongs, in the circular file, under garbage.

End of Part 2.