LITMIR.BIZ

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       Chapter 15

      Charged, alert, feeling like a cop, I went back to my hotel and again read my brother’s files into the night. No sweating, no weeping, no internalized histrionics: Just a laser-tight focus on the job at hand. Initially worried my perception had been wrong about the files and points of view, I found I’d been completely correct …

       “I was sitting on the grass, disconsolate. The woman kept shooting glances my way, wanting to take away my pain …

       “Jeremy watched her learn the lesson of the knife …”

      Two separate personae. The first was a manchild lost somewhere between twelve and twenty-six, casting himself as a pitiful piece of bait to trap hapless and kindhearted women. The second Jeremy was cold, colorless, almost an objective observer, seemingly emblemized by the knife.

      And the second entity was in ascendance.

      I fell into bed at two in the morning, awakening at six. I went outside and wandered, drinking coffee and watching trucks re-supply the city. When I got to the cop shop, Waltz had just entered and was filling a coffee cup.

      “Let’s suck in some caffeine and see what Folger’s troupe unearthed during the night.”

      “Cluff and Bullard were here all night?”

      “I think she lets them sleep until five, when she gets up. But they’ll have read any reports generated last night.”

      I followed Waltz across the room. Bullard was drinking coffee at the small table in the conference room. My brother’s face stared at me from a whiteboard, along with the faces of Vangie, Dora Anderson and Angela Bernal. The timeline on the board was mainly dots instead of solid lines, meaning nearly everything was speculation.

      “Anything new come up on Ridgecliff?” Waltz asked. “Possible sightings?”

      “Yeah, even after Ryder’s gut instinct, here’s what we got …” Bullard tapped his thumb and forefinger together, the big zero. Waltz nodded and turned away. Bullard pssst’ed me and when I looked his way he brought the thumb-finger O to his crotch, Eat me. The boy was back.

      I shook my head and hustled after Waltz’s back. He said, “Let’s go see what’s been dug up on Vic Two. Detective Cluff had a line on her this morning, backtracked her to her previous digs, was getting the skinny from there. We’ve still got to check her past.”

      Cluff was at his desk, blue shirt hanging on his skinny frame, weapon in a shoulder harness, sleeves rolled up. He was leaning back in his chair, teeth bared, scrawling on a wide expanse of white paper that ran off his desk to a roll of paper on the floor. I studied the scribbles, lines and arrows across the paper, dense on the left side, thinning out toward the right. The feeder roll on the floor was at least eight inches in diameter, a helluva lot of paper.

      “Mind if I ask what’s with the paper roll, Detective?”

      Cluff grunted. “My own system. My brother-in-law owns a butcher shop on Long Island. He gets me butcher paper by the roll. I start on the left, writing all the crap I gather, every name, date, place, time. Everything. I cross off the stuff that doesn’t seem relevant, circle repeated stuff, or crap that just seems right. I keep moving the more-solid info to the right. Repeat. By the time I work my way across a couple dozen feet …”

      “Salient patterns emerge from the clutter?” I said.

      “Shit shakes out.”

      “Of course.”

      Waltz walked up as Cluff rolled his chair back and threw his pencil down on the expanse of paper. “We just dead-ended on Bernal’s history.”

      Waltz frowned. “Worked over at NYC Medical, right? Transcriptionist?”

      “For five years she’s been a model citizen, paying her bills and taxes and holding down as many as three jobs. Before that she’s missing a little something. Like citizenship.” Cluff put his hands to his temples, rubbed them in circles. “It’s just gonna be a fucking slog for no goddamn reason. I’ll spend the rest of the day with people terrified I’m going to send them back to Guatemala or wherever.”

      Waltz nodded toward his office, went in that direction, I turned to follow, stopped, turned back.

      “Buena suerte in your endeavors, Detective Cluff.”

      He spun the chair to me, his eyes crinkled in anger. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Good luck tracking the lady’s history. I hope you catch a break.”

      Cluff turned away. I saw a line of pinpoint boils on the back of his neck. I made it a couple steps toward Shelly’s office when Cluff called from behind me.

      “Hey, Bubba …”

      I turned. He was studying me over his shoulder.

      “What?”

      “Bullard said he caught that big-ass knot on his head when a truck smacked him with its side mirror. But you laid that egg on his thick skull, right?”

      I shrugged. Cluff turned back to the work on his desk.

      “Thanks for your good wishes, Detective Ryder. Have a productive day yourself.”

      I caught up with Waltz by the door. He saw my face, said, “You look confused, Detective.”

      “I think Cluff was just nice to me. I didn’t know whether to smile or duck.”

      “Cluff’s OK. I forget you don’t know his story. He busted a meth lab two years back. Damn thing exploded while he was cuffing the perps, fire, chemical fumes, a bad mix. He damaged his lungs. He could get a medical disability, but being a cop is all he cares about.”

      I looked toward Cluff’s cubicle. Nothing of a personal nature in his surroundings. No photos of wife, kids, dog, car. No goofy mugs or paperweights received as gifts. No drawings by the grandkids taped to the walls. Not even the photo with the fish. I’d seen the syndrome before. “He’d be dead three months after he retired,” I said. “The department’s all he cares about.”

      Waltz nodded. “A guy who can only pull three-quarter weight’s a liability to a lot of people, no unit wanted him. Still, no one wanted to point him to the door.”

      “So Cluff was assigned to Folger by the brass?” I said. “No choice in the matter?”

      “Nope. Folger requested Cluff.”

      I gave him a huh? look.

      “Cluff’s life is the NYPD, and Folger’s making sure he’s keeping that life. Not in some backwater precinct in an outer borough, but in Manhattan, right here in the high-profile center of the action with the rest of us. Cluff’s not dead weight, he’s a pro who’s just slow by a couple steps. Folger stepped to the plate and saved him.”

      I heard a bray of voice and saw Folger on the far side of the room setting a desk jockey into action.

      “So there’s more to her than it looks at first?”

      Waltz studied Folger with a mix of perplexity and admiration. “That lady keeps a lot hidden, I think.”

      Folger jumped back into her office, banged the door shut. I said, “What you got on for the day, Shelly?”

      “My sister’s birthday is tonight and she’s decided I’m giving her some fancy-ass pot she saw in Macy’s cooking department.”

      I held up my tattered paper bag of case materials.

      “Macy’s have briefcases?”

      “They have about everything. Ever been there?”

      “Years ago I came to New York with a girlfriend. She spent an entire afternoon in Macy’s.

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