Inside the secret hallway were two monitors connected to the video cameras positioned in the ceiling corners of the two interview rooms. It apparently had been beyond the foresight of the mastermind who’d thought of putting them there to think as well that it might be wise to conceal them. As it was, some suspects mugged for the cameras, some ignored them, a rare few actually remained oblivious to their existence.
Murchison leaned down toward the video monitors. One of the two rooms was empty. Inside the other sat Toby Marchand, as he had for hours now. Framed within the small screen, he rested forward, arms on the table and chin on his balled fists. His eyes bleary and open wide, he just sat, waiting. And nine out of ten things he’s waiting for, Murchison guessed, will never happen.
Holmes sat alone at his desk in the squad room, finishing up his paperwork from the last shift. He didn’t glance up as Murchison crossed the room but instead remained hunched over his report forms, gripping his pen like a dart.
“Holmesy.” Murchison pulled up and rested against the next desk over. “Mr. Marchand. Anything to tell?”
Holmes looked up at last. His eyes swam, like he was breaking off a trance.
“He asked if he was free to go. I asked if anybody’d told him he was. That confused him enough, or annoyed him enough, he just went back in and sat down. About the third round of this, I told him even if he wanted to go anywhere he’d need a hotel room because you hadn’t cleared the scene yet. That was maybe, what, an hour ago.”
“He tell you anything else?”
“Usual.” Holmes yawned and stretched, his long arms extending in each direction beyond the edges of his desk. “Can’t believe he’s a suspect in this, loved his father. They had problems, but—” He completed the thought with a shrug.
“Okay. You fired up to get out of here, or can I fill you in?”
Holmes grinned, the look in his eye half calculation, half surrender. “Sure. I’m square for the OT. Go ahead.”
Murchison took out his notepad, flipped through the pages. “First thing, there’s some confusion as to what the real relation is between Toby in there and the vic.”
Holmes sat back, puzzled. “Serious?”
“What? Tell me.”
“I’m just going on what I saw.”
“When he showed up at the gate.”
“Exactly. His dive. That kinda thing, hard to fake.”
“Yeah, but why?” He thought not just of Toby but of his girlfriend, her traumatized memory. Her guilt. “I mean, I’m not contradicting you, I just want to be sure. It looked real, why? Because it caught him by surprise? Or he didn’t think it would look
that bad
.”
Holmes tapped his pen against the papers stacked on the desktop. “You honestly think he’s in on this.”
“I don’t want to find out two weeks from now that he’s disappeared like his friend the Bellflower abscond and everything else we’ve been looking at has fallen apart.”
Holmes nodded, thinking. “Makes sense.”
“Let me run down the time line, at least as we know it now.” Murchison chafed his face, get some blood going, then ran through the chronology. The victim’s kidney surgery, his drinking regardless, him and Toby arguing about it. Then the bar fight in Emeryville, being followed into the parking lot, the drive home, maybe followed. As Murchison described the tussle with Arlie Thigpen outside the liquor store—third altercation of the night—Holmes had to laugh.
“Guy’s like a machine. Crankin’ out the reasonable doubt.”
Murchison stared across the room, his mind hazed. “We don’t get a confession? We’re never gonna wrap this thing.”
Holmes took out his own notepad then, shuffled pages. “You mentioned Long Walk Mooney, the crew outside Fielding’s Liquors. They were out there last night, for sure. There was a rave down at the warehouses. Long Walk was running it, and he had jobbers working the dance floor, giving directions to where you could cop.”
Murchison sat up straight. “You found this out how?”
“A source.” Holmes closed his notepad.
“He’ll come forward?”
“I didn’t say it was a he.”
“Your source will come forward?”
“Not likely.”
They sat like that for a moment, staring at each other.
“I understand, Holmesy, wanting to protect your guy. Girl. Source. Could be good down the road, who knows how many times. But this is now.”
“Murch—”
“This is murder.”
“And what I’ve got is information, Murch. Not evidence. Okay? It gets where we need this link, I can get the name of the tout. Maybe. We can pressure him or get visual IDs from other kids who were at the dance. But my guy?”
“Guy. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. He will never, I mean never, hang numbers on Long Walk Mooney. He’d rather fuck us on the stand than wear a snitch jacket. And I don’t have to tell you why.”
Murchison waited, hoping for some sign of Holmes weakening, but none came. When the silence became uncomfortable finally, he said, “By the way, Stluka and me, we went to see the girl you found on the stoop outside the house.”
“I guess I’d know by now if she saw anything.”
Murchison let out a sick little laugh. “Like talking to a bat.” He winced, remembering the nurse screaming at them to get out. “That may change in time. Let the meds wear off, get her head on straight.” His glance drifted up to the ceiling. “Any event, just in case we’re seeing this wrong right now, I’d like to keep her away from her boyfriend, if I can. For as long as I can.”
“Any idea how?”
“Keep him here. Meanwhile, not to take advantage, but this source of yours. Run the names Francis Templeton and Toby Marchand by him. I’d like to know sooner rather than later if they tie in with the Mooney crew.”
Inside the detective bureau, Murchison turned on his desk lamp and opened the black binder he’d use for a murder book in the Carlisle shooting, searching his drawer for three-hole paper. He was thinking through things done, things yet to do, when Stluka sauntered forward, carrying a file folder that he dropped onto Murchison’s desk so he could read the label:
Arlington Nehemiah Thigpen
. A date of birth and a CII number were listed beside the name.
“Ran the kid through the computer,” Stluka said, “saw he had a court date coming up.”
Cracking the folder open, Murchison started with the rap sheet. The boy had a handle, “Blink”—a touch of the needlessly cruel, given how his eye looked, but that was the street. First arrest at age twelve, six arrests thereafter, mostly drug and theft charges—seven bookings in as many years, but only one taken through to conviction. That case, for possession, included a battery allegation; he’d created a cop toss in the course of his arrest. Maybe Gilroy was telling the truth, Murchison thought. Reading further through the code, though, he saw that the count got dropped in a plea.
“Ah, crud.”
“The invisible battery?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t despair. Read on.”
Arlie’d done a stint with the CYA at Mount Bullion for the possession rap. Fourteen months after his parole lapsed he’d been arrested again, possession with intent this time. He was free on bail, with trial set for six months out.
“If Gilroy can make something real out of whatever happened between him and this kid, could turn out to be the boy’s third strike.”
“I did the math. Yeah.”
“That’s good, I think.”
“Could cut both ways, yeah. He could cave, he could fight.”
The sentencing report took particular note of the mother, Sarina Thigpen, a churchgoer who worked six ten-hour days a week at Overlook, the local convalescent hospital. She had a daughter at home with Down’s syndrome and an older son, another parolee but with a clean slate the past five years, working construction in Richmond. Murchison remembered hearing pretty much the same report from Marcellyne Pathon.
“Boy’s got a stand-up mother,” he said.
“Like many of her kind.” Stluka turned away, heading back toward his own desk. “Fat lot of good it’s done him.”
After the sentencing report came an internal memo that ran down Arlie’s known associates. They were all there: Eshmont, Michael, Waddell, J.J. Plus, yes, Long Walk Mooney. But not Toby Marchand. Not Francis Tyrone Templeton.
Arlie Thigpen got brought up from his holding cell and put in the second interview room. Murchison stood in the secret corridor, watching on the monitor as the young man paced around the room alone before taking a chair. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit now. They’d made him hand up his clothes so they could check for traces of blood and gunshot residue. The jumpsuit’s bright crayon color made Arlie look younger still. Fourteen, fifteen tops.
The more Murchison studied him, the more the kid appeared to be the type to have taken an ample share of blows to the face. The older brother, maybe. The hoods on the street who called him Blink. It wasn’t just the mottling of scars around his eye. His stare seemed to emanate from a place inches inside his skull.
Murchison had arranged the room so the table rested against the wall. That way it couldn’t be used as a barrier between them once he went inside and joined the kid. They’d sit face-to-face, as close as Murchison could get.
On the table he’d placed two sets of blank forms. The first was to process Arlie in on a 148 violation—willful resistance of a peace officer. Depending on how things went once Gilroy got a credible story down, that could get upped to combined 241 and 834 charges—battery against a peace officer, use of force in resisting arrest. For starters. The other form was a material witness questionnaire. Between them lay a yellow legal pad. For Arlie to write on, when he was ready.
It’s your choice, Murchison thought, watching Arlie as he sat there, a study in attitude. He’d barely glanced at the blank forms, preferring instead to feign a little more shut-eye. He sat slouched, legs stuck out in front with the ankles crossed—
fend off trouble, protect the genitals.
His arms lay folded across his chest—
constrain emotion, shield the heart
. The final touch: his lips were pursed, teeth clenched, his jaw set hard—
say nothing
. And they wonder why we don’t believe them when they say they’re innocent, Murchison thought. Their own bodies don’t back them up.
This is the one, Murchison thought. Don’t second-guess yourself. Doubt your instincts going in, you’ll get nothing.
Stluka sauntered in, silent as he took up position beside Murchison. Both men stared at the video image of their chief suspect. Glancing sidelong for a moment, Murchison caught something amiss.
“Hey, skipper,” he said. “You might want to think about hoisting the mainsail.”
Stluka looked down at his crotch. “Whoa.” He reached down, zipped up his fly. “Froggie went a-courtin’.”
They returned to their study of Arlie Thigpen. Stluka broke the silence this time.
“Got a call on my voice mail. Owner of the club down in Emeryville. Vanessa.” He sighed. “I think the romance is off. She’s got a lawyer.”
“Before dawn? On a Sunday?”
“I’m guessing retainer.” Stluka held out his hands, embracing an invisible basket of money. “Nice big fat one.”
“They’ve already nailed down their story.”
Stluka smiled. “You’re a smart guy. Ever think of being a detective?”
Murchison locked his fingers behind his head and turned at the waist, slow, till his back cracked. “Go on. Tell me the rest.”
“The club denies any liability for any act or failure to act that may or may not have occurred tonight or any other night on or off its premises. Something like that.”
“There’s still this three versus four thing—”
“Not now.” Stluka ran his hand across his chin, as though trying to gauge from the stubble how soon he’d have to shave. “She cleared that up.”
“How?”
“Ran through the whole thing again. My guess? She and her lawyer, they rehearsed. And I bet she taped the phone message on her end, too. This is going to be the story, period. Said her bartender remembered one guy stayed behind, never left. Watching everybody’s drinks, the cheap little shits. Black hair, pale skin, tall—guy who stayed behind, I mean. The other three went to make sure the old man, this Carlisle character, didn’t come back with a gun. Basically, she says it’s all his fault. Anyway, after him and the girl drove off, the three amigos came back and all four together tried to pick up chicks, without luck, and drank Watney’s till closing.” He chuckled. “Watney’s. ‘It’s a pale ale.’ She wanted us to know that.”
“And this promoter, the guy the vic clocked?”
“Grady Bradshaw. His act was on last. That’s a definite. He never left.”
“So it’s her and her bartender. They’re the alibi for the bar crowd.”
Stluka didn’t answer. He leaned down a little closer toward Arlie Thigpen’s image. “Your grandmother ever tell you she was going to sell you to the ragman?”
Murchison wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “The who?”
“My grandmother, she was first-generation. She used to tell us—if we were roughing it up inside the house or whatever—that if we didn’t behave, she was going to give us to the ragman. You know, like we were just another hunk of garbage.” He chuckled, but it wasn’t laughter in his eyes. “I even remember seeing this ratty old man riding a horse-drawn junk cart down on the street, which I know isn’t real, I must’ve made it up, but there it is. In my head.”
He looked at Murchison, inquiring.
“My grandparents didn’t do the discipline bit,” Murchison told him, sensing, finally, where this was going. “My folks took care of that all by themselves. And their line was usually ‘Don’t come home complaining they hit you at school, or we’ll just hit you again.’”
Stluka laughed, kinship in his eye. “That’s why we’re who we are, Murch. Instead of the sorry little sack of shit in there.” He tapped his finger against the video screen. With his other hand he scratched beneath his arm, where his shoulder holster bit into his skin. “Know who he reminds me of? Couple of my neighbors, they’re Unitarians. They hired this kid to help rake leaves, weed the garden, do odd jobs around the house, you know? Thinking, Let’s help the kid out. The poor, unfortunate, misunderstood Black male. One day, they come home, find a side window jimmied. In the bedroom, a set of rings, been in the family for generations, they’re gone. Plus about two hundred cash hidden in a sock drawer.”