An hour later we were in Hammonds's office, on the sixth floor of the sheriff's administration building. Richards had taken up a spot leaning against a bookshelf. Diaz took the most comfortable chair off to one side, leaving me with the chair directly in front of Hammonds's desk.
"All right, Freeman. Let's get past the fact that you didn't reveal information that you had. That investigative flaw is not surprising, but bolsters my assessment of your lack of professionalism. So convince me of this theory of yours."
He was up tight against his side of the desk, his palms flat together, his tie cinched up and the sleeves of his dress shirt showing an ironed crease.
I told him of the paper trail on Marshack, the confirmation that the doctor had collected the finder's fees on the South Florida viatical policies. I told him about McCane and his tailing of Marshack to the northwest side liquor store and the detail about the new hundred-dollar bills, the same kind found in Marshack's glove box.
Hammonds peaked his fingers, touching the tips on his chin. Without him asking a question, I elected to go on.
"I made some contacts in the zone and they picked up the word from one of your local drug dealers that a man fitting the description of Eddie Baines had been paying for heroin with new hundred-dollar bills."
"So we've got a psychotic with a heroin addiction walking around in Three Zone. He may or may not have been getting money for his habit from his jail psychiatrist. He may or may not have killed that psychiatrist. He also may or may not have killed his mother and left her in her closet to rot," Hammonds said, turning to Richards. "You have any reason to believe this guy has any connection with the rapes and killings you're supposed to be working, detective?"
"Location. Opportunity. Knowledge of the streets. And now, the possible propensity to violence," she said.
Hammonds let that sit for a moment.
"I ask you the same question, Mr. Freeman."
"If Marshack was paying this guy with hundred-dollar bills to get high, what was he getting in return for his money?" I said. "And if he was collecting a finder's fee on viaticals, was he lining up Baines as his hit man?"
Hammonds shook his head.
"Those aren't reasons, Freeman, they're questions," he said. "But since you have built these so-called contacts in the zone, it's my suggestion that you ride with Detective Richards and see if we might be able to find this junk man.
"And Detective Diaz. I want you to get with a computer tech and go through all the files Marshack may have had over in his office at the jail. Going on the supposition that Marshack's killer was also looking for something, let's see if what our burglar was looking for might have been stashed in a place even he couldn't get into."
We stood up and Hammonds reached for the phone and then realized that Richards hadn't moved.
"Problem, Detective?"
"Suggestion, sir. Since I'm a lot better on the computer side and Vince has patrolled that zone before, sir, I think we'd be better served by switching the assignments, sir."
Hammonds swept us all with his gaze, as if trying to figure something out.
"Whatever it takes to get it done," he said, and dismissed us.
28
Richards avoided my eyes when we split up, her to the jail, Vince and I to the parking lot. I watched her disappear down a long hallway.
"Hey," Diaz said. "Don't let it get to you, man. She's like that all the time with all these cops trying to hit on her. More than two years her husband is dead and she's still cold, man. It's nothing personal. Women hold onto their pain."
I turned back to him.
"That's real philosophical, Vince."
"Hey," he shrugged. "I'm Cuban. I know women."
We took Diaz's SUV, the new equivalent to the old unmarked four-door Crown Victoria that used to scream "cop" to any criminal with a brain. The advantage in South Florida was that there were so many SUVs on the road they could blend in most of the time. But we still got second looks from the people hanging on the streets in the northwest zone.
"I wasn't so sure about Richards myself when Hammonds made us partner up," he started in again. "Then one night we're doing a job on this place the kids called a satanic worship site in this old shut-down trash incinerator. I tell her to wait outside while I check out this big empty furnace room. Inside it gets this weird red glow when you put the flashlight on and I'm checking this pile of melted candles and BOOM! Some fucking psycho drops out of the ceiling on me. Big, strong guy got a fucking tire iron, man. I'm going oh shit and the next thing I hear is Richards screaming, 'Freeze it up, asshole!' "
I was trying not to grin at the scene in my head. Richards saving Diaz's ass. So I stared straight ahead and let him finish.
"She's got the barrel of her 9mm screwed into this guy's ear and I believed her, man. I think she would have done the guy."
"You ease up on her after that?"
"Sure, you see how nice I am now," he said, smiling. "I'm just warning you, man."
Diaz slowed and crawled, almost royally, down the street that was considered the Brown Man's territory. Two middle-aged men walking with a bag of groceries watched us pass, not stopping but turning their heads to follow our taillights, looking to see if anything was going to happen.
"So we think this cat is a junkie, right?" Diaz said. "Shouldn't be too hard to pick out if he's as big as that report says."
"Maybe," I said.
"Maybe? Hell, guy like that everybody notices, man."
He pulled even to the Brown Man's stool, but the dealer refused to look up. Catching me off guard, Diaz hit the power button and rolled down my passenger-side window.
"Yo, Carlyle. Was up?" Diaz yelled, leaning forward to look out my window.
Again, the Brown Man didn't move his head, but his eyes did and when he saw me, he gathered the moisture in his cheek and spat in the gutter.
Diaz laughed and moved on.
"Look, Detective. I know this is your turf, but maybe it'd be a good idea if we tried to be a little less conspicuous," I said. "My sense of this Baines guy is that he moves a lot on the side streets, out of the main flow."
"Yeah, sure," Diaz said. "How 'bout we stop and get some coffee and then cruise over by his place. Maybe he's hanging around the perimeter of his momma's."
Diaz pulled into a market he called the "Stop and Rob" and I got two sixteen-ounce cups for myself and held one between my feet while sipping from the other. We drove in silence. I kept my window down, watching the sides of the streets, the activity between houses and businesses and the shadows cast by the high-density security lights in parking lots.
My old partner in Philadelphia had a habit of trying to educate me with his eclectic reading. Whenever we cruised west Philly and the hard streets were quiet, he would quote from historian Will Durant: "Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks."
My partner said that was why historians were pessimists. Historians and cops, I thought. I was starting to believe that Eddie Baines's life went on even further back from the banks, hidden back behind the tree line. And he only came into the stream to feed at its edges.
Diaz took the alleys, his headlights off, the yellow glow of his running lights spraying dull out on the garbage cans and hedges and slat fences. When we got to the block before Baines's mother's house, he stopped and pulled the SUV along the swale. From here we could see both down the alley behind the house and a piece of the street in front. I finished my first cup.
"How could somebody do that to their own mother?" Diaz said. "You know, in the Cuban culture, respect for the one who brought you into this world is an unspoken rule. You learn it as a child. And you don't forget. That's what holds us together, man, you know?"