Chapter 7
The back wall of Mitch Geiger’s office features a network of stick-pinned mug shots and surveillance photos, some of them labeled and connected by lines but most marked with circles and question marks. Layered over them, frayed adhesive notes covered in ink. The display could be the work of an enterprising narcotics sergeant trying to map the local landscape. Then again, it could pass for evidence of a psychotic break, the kind of thing you find in the retrofitted garage of a perfectly average neighbor, along with the butcher knives and the stack of severed limbs.
Either way, it sparks my interest in Geiger. Unfortunately, he’s not at home. Eight in the morning isn’t the best time to find the narcs up and at it.
“You know where your sergeant is?” I ask a nearby stoner in a denim vest. If it weren’t for the badge around his neck, I’d assume he escaped from lockup. He scratches his head something furious, then smiles behind his brush-like mustache. Even if he did know, he might not share. In my jacket and tie I’m obviously Homicide. We might as well be wearing gang colors. When you work murder, you assume everybody who doesn’t wishes they could. We’re the first string, and murder is the big show. But a certain type of police sees Narcotics in the same light. There’s no accounting for taste.
For good measure I give Geiger’s mobile number a ring before leaving. By now I could recite the man’s recorded greeting from memory. No point in leaving another message. I’ve done what I can on this one for now.
En route to my desk I’m intercepted by a sullen twenty-year-old in tactical cargo pants and an hpd polo shirt, who waylays me just outside the elevator. He introduces himself as Edgar Castro from the crime lab, claiming to recognize me from the Morales scene, though I don’t remember him.
“I’ve been trying to get through to Detective Lorenz,” he says, “but he’s not returning my calls.”
As much as I sympathize after this morning’s fruitless errand, there’s a tribal imperative to observe. Crime-scene technicians can’t expect to have homicide detectives at their beck and call. The food chain runs in the reverse direction.
“He’s got his hands full at the moment,” I say.
He brandishes a shiny-covered report. “So can I leave this with you, then?”
“You wanna tell me what it is?”
So he starts explaining, turning the pages as he goes. “It’s actually pretty interesting. The victim in the hallway, the one sticking halfway out the bathroom? Hector Diaz – ?”
“Little Hector,” I say, remembering what the girl across the street had called him.
“Originally, we thought he must have been leaning through the door pretty far, because he was hit three times in the side. Right here.” He uses his fingertips to indicate holes above his left kidney and between the ribs. “But I had a hard time making sense of that. I mean, if somebody’s taking a shot at you, and you’re returning fire, do you turn your flank toward them like that? For a right-hander like him, that’s not the best use of cover.”
I wonder if Castro’s ever been in a firefight, or for that matter any kind of fight. Making best use of cover, that’s a lesson they don’t teach on the streets.
“So I went back to the scene,” he says, “and took a harder look. The bathroom window is busted open – that’s on the original report – but it looks like it happened a while back. No loose glass on the floor or anything like that. So nobody paid much mind. But when I went outside and started looking through the shrubs, I recovered a 9mm shell casing.”
“Just the one?”
“Maybe the shooter collected the rest of his brass.”
“So you’re saying Little Hector was shot from outside?”
He nods. “What must have happened is, he was holding them off from the bathroom door, so they sent someone outside to . . . you know, flank his position.” He makes a gun out of his fingers and jams it through an imaginary window. “That would make sense of the angles. He was crouched in the doorway, firing down the hall, when suddenly he starts taking fire from the window.”
The report includes a three-dimensional computer rendering of the action, one stick figure outside the window with red lines streaming out of his stick pistol, intersecting the torso of another stick figure in the wire-frame doorway.
“That’s a pretty sophisticated move, don’t you think? For gang-bangers? The guy with the shotgun must have kept Diaz engaged while they sent the other one outside. That’s fire and maneuver, isn’t it? Basic tactics.”
The cynic in me wants to squash Castro’s enthusiasm, but the kid has a point. In a standoff like this, I’d expect the players to empty their clips and get out of there. Under fire, tunnel vision kicks in. Most people don’t think much beyond the immediate threat. So if this crew managed to improvise on the go, I’m impressed.
Then again, they might have left a driver on the street, and maybe he noticed flashes in the bathroom window and went up to investigate, pumping a couple of rounds through the conveniently busted glass.
“I’ll look this over,” I tell him, tucking the report under my arm. “Good work, Castro.”
He grins ear to ear, making me wonder how long ago his braces came off.
I catch up to Lorenz in Bascombe’s office, and all at once I realize I’ve been outplayed. The two of them sit listening to a third man, hardly acknowledging my arrival. Ginger-haired, with deeply furrowed cheeks and a handlebar mustache, I’m betting this is the elusive Mitch Geiger. His voice trails off when he notices me. Bascombe snaps his head my way, hawkishly predatory.
“Just sit down and listen.” He points with a talon-like finger.
I sink into a chair in the corner.
“Should I recap?” Geiger asks in a scratchy rumble of a voice.
After a nod from Bascombe, the narcotics sergeant repeats what I already know from the folder Lorenz passed along yesterday. There are rumors on the street about an independent crew hitting stash houses, disrupting the flow of product. Some of the gangs are using the hits as an excuse for drive-bys – not that they’ve ever needed one.
“But it’s not about one gang putting pressure on another,” Geiger says. “I’ve been mapping it all out, trying to connect the various dots. This crew is no respecter of persons. They’re hitting everybody in Southwest, and not just the low-hanging fruit, either.”
Lorenz leans forward, looking very serious. “Is there some kind of modus operandi with these guys? Something their jobs have in common?”
“Well . . .” Geiger draws the word out, glancing at Bascombe.
“Without examining the scenes,” Bascombe says, “that’s probably tough to determine. One question we need to ask, though, is whether they’ve killed anybody before now.”
“From what I’m hearing out there, I’d have to say no. These sound like clean operations to me. In and out, just like that. Of course, assuming the same guys hit your scene, they might have run into unexpected trouble.”
If Bascombe wants me to sit down and shut up, that’s probably what I should do. But I just can’t help jumping in. “There’s a problem with what I’m hearing. Morales wasn’t sitting on a stash. As far as I know, Morales handled the money, not the product.”
“So maybe there was a brick of cash,” Lorenz says.
“In that case, we should be hearing about it on the street.” I look to Geiger. “Is that the story you’re picking up out there?”
He glances sideways, gives me half a shrug. “Right now, we’re not hearing much of anything.” The words come reluctantly, like he’s been warned in advance not to interact with me too much. The question is, was it Lorenz who gave the instructions or Bascombe? And did the orders include not returning my calls? Because this is feeling a lot like a setup.
“This isn’t about a drug stash,” I say, “and it’s not about money. The girl on that bed, she’s what it’s about. She’s why they were there.”
“March,” Bascombe snaps. “You wanna shut up a second?”
“Somebody has to say it.”
“Well, you lost your chance. This was your job to do, but you didn’t. So now I’m having to do it myself. Why don’t you just sit there looking clueless. It’s what you do best.”
I should let it go, but I don’t. “Either we can sit here trying to make a square peg fit a round hole, or we can start looking for a match to our female victim’s blood sample. That’s the lead we should be following.”
Lorenz glares at me, bloated with contempt, while Geiger takes a sudden interest in the carpet. Bascombe, though, he’s smiling, an unspoken thank-you on his face. He turns to the other two.
“Will you gentlemen excuse us a moment?”
They don’t have to be asked twice. Once they’re gone, Bascombe hops off the desk and pushes the door shut.
“You can’t help shooting your mouth off.”
“Hedges put me on the case,” I say. “I’m going to work it. The politics mean nothing to me. I don’t care if Lorenz likes me, or even if you do. There’s a lead to follow and I’m going to follow it, no matter what you drop on my lap. You have to respect that.”
“Respect?” he says, circling around the desk, slipping into his chair. “Oh, I do respect it, March. Now, I happen to know that after we talked yesterday, you went straight to Missing Persons, ignoring everything I said. I had to ask myself, Why would he do something like that? And all I could come up with was this: He really must believe in that connection. Crazy as it sounds, you’re convinced the woman in that house is the girl from tv. You’re so sure, you don’t need any instructions from me, isn’t that right?”
I shrug, not sure where he’s going with this.
“So I give the whole situation some thought. And you know what I see? There’s an opportunity here for a win-win.”
“Meaning what?”
Nothing good, judging by all the teeth he’s showing. After shuffling through the paper on his desk, he slides a document my way. The first thing I see is the captain’s initials in the margin.
“Wanda Mosser has requested more manpower for her task force, March. First thing this morning I discussed it with the boss, and together we decided you’d be a good fit for her team. You’ve already shown such an interest in the case. And clearly” – he gestures toward the chair recently vacated by Lorenz – “you still haven’t learned how to play well with others. You’re an anchor as far as your partner’s concerned, but Mosser will be happy to get an experienced homicide man such as yourself.”
You have to admire the move. The lieutenant understands how the game is played. He wants to unload me, and by ditching Lorenz in favor of Theresa Cavallo yesterday afternoon, defying his instructions, I’ve given him the perfect opportunity. Such a little thing, but it was all he needed.
“I want to talk to the captain,” I say.
He’s so quick to agree I know there’s no hope. Still, we troop over to Hedges’s door, rapping softly until he invites us inside.
“It’s you,” he says, rising to his feet. “Off to your new assignment?”
“Sir, you told me I could work the case. That’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t want another special assignment. I’m tired of being farmed out like this. If you’d just let me get on with the job, like you said you would – ”
“Listen, March. I have given you a shot, and from what Lieutenant Bascombe tells me, you haven’t made the most of it. I told you to get along with Lorenz, but you can’t seem to do that.”
“What’s more important, getting along or getting a result?”
He ignores the jab. “I’m also very concerned with your cavalier attitude toward the lieutenant’s direction. He and Lorenz were relying on you to follow up with Narcotics – isn’t that right, Lieutenant? – and instead you disappeared all day. I need my people to pull their own weight, March.”
“Please,” I say. “Reassign me, put me on another case, whatever. But don’t loan me out again. That’s all I ask.”
Hedges glances down, embarrassed, and Bascombe shuffles his feet behind me, no doubt worried the captain will cave in.
“You did good work at the scene,” Hedges concedes, “and I was really hoping it wouldn’t be a fluke. But this idea of yours about Hannah Mayhew? That’s guesswork, not police work.”
“They’re comparing the samples as we speak. If they don’t match, fine. We can cross that one off. But if you get rid of me now and the samples do match, how’s that gonna look?”
Hedges chuckles. “In that case, I’d feel pretty stupid. And if it happens, you can come on back. I’ll owe you a big apology, and so will the lieutenant here – isn’t that right?”
“That’s right, sir,” Bascombe says. I hear the smile in his voice.
“In the meantime,” the captain says, “if this is the angle you’ve decided to pursue, I think it would be best to do it on Wanda Mosser’s time, not mine.”
“And she’s agreed to that?” I ask, grasping at straws.
He answers me with a smile. “Everybody’s off-loading their dead weight on Wanda. She’ll be happy to see a familiar face. Especially one as motivated as you are. And I tell you what, if things work out over there, and you find at the end of her investigation that you’re still feeling repentant, you come back to me and we’ll talk.”
“Let’s talk now.”
Coming around the desk, he starts patting me on the shoulder, easing me toward the door, where Bascombe, noticing my free side, starts patting that, too. The captain’s happy to have one less problem to deal with, while the lieutenant can take pride in a well-executed maneuver. While Lorenz kept me pinned down, he went around the side and flanked me. But no, who am I kidding? I flanked myself.
So now I’m on the threshold, feeling like a paratrooper about to jump, knowing my chute was packed by people who don’t care how hard I land.
So that’s that.
I’m out.