“They should have found a prescription bottle at the scene,” Marino replies. “What’s that noise?”
“I’m opening cans of chicken broth. Too bad you’re not here. I don’t know why they didn’t find any lithium,” she says, emptying the cans into a copper pot. “But it’s possible his brother collected any prescription bottles so the police wouldn’t find them.”
“Why? It’s not like it’s cocaine or something.”
“Johnny Swift was a prominent neurologist. He might not have wanted people to know he had a psychiatric disorder.”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t want someone with mood swings screwing with my brain, now that you mention it.”
She chops onions. “In reality, his bipolar disorder probably had no effect at all on his skills as a physician, but there are plenty of ignorant people in the world. Again, it’s possibleLaureldidn’t want the police or anybody else to know about his brother’s problem.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If what he said is true, he ran from the house right after he found the body. Doesn’t sound to me like he wandered around collecting pill bottles.”
“I guess you’re going to have to ask him.”
“As soon as we get the lithium results. Rather go in when I know what’s what. And right now we’ve got a bigger problem,” he says.
“I’m not sure how our problems could get much bigger,” she says, cutting up the chicken.
“It’s about the shotgun shell,” Marino says. “The one NIBIN got a hit on up there in theWalden Pondcase.”
“I didn’t want to say anything about it in front of everybody else,” Marino explains over the phone. “Someone on the inside, has to be. No other explanation.”
He sits at his office desk, the door shut and locked.
“Here’s what happened,” he goes on. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of everybody else, but earlier this morning I had a little chat with a buddy of mine at Hollywood PD who’s in charge of the evidence room. So he checked the computer. It took all of five minutes for him to access the info on the shotgun used in that convenience-store robbery-homicide from two years back. And guess where the shotgun’s supposed to be, Doc. Are you sitting down?”
“Sitting down has never helped,” she says. “Tell me.”
“In our own fucking reference collection.”
“At the Academy? Our reference firearms collection at the Academy?”
“Hollywood PD donated it to us about a year ago when they gave us a bunch of other guns they no longer needed. Remember?”
“Have you actually walked into the firearms lab to make sure it isn’t there?”
“It’s not going to be. We know it was just used to kill some lady up there where you are.”
“Go check right now,” she says. “Call me back.”
51
Hog waits in line.
He stands behind a fat lady wearing a loud, pink suit. He holds his boots in one hand, and a tote bag, driver’s license and boarding pass in the other. He moves ahead and places his boots and coat in a plastic tub.
He places the tub and his bag on the black belt, and they move away from him. He stands in the two white footprints, both stocking feet exactly on the white footprints on the carpet, and an airport security officer nods for him to pass through the x-ray scanner, and he does and nothing beeps, and he shows the officer his boarding pass, grabs his boots and jacket out of the tray, grabs his bag. He begins walking to gate twenty-one. Nobody pays any attention to him.
He still smells the rotting bodies. He can’t seem to get the stench out of his nose. Maybe it’s an olfactory hallucination. He’s had them before. Sometimes he smells the cologne, the Old Spice cologne that he smelled when he did the bad thing on the mattress and was sent away where there were old brick houses, where it was snowing and cold, where he’s going now. It is snowing, not much, but some. He checked the weather before he took a taxi to the airport. He didn’t want to leave his Blazer in long-term parking. That costs real money, and it wouldn’t be good if someone looked inside the back of it. He hasn’t cleaned it up very well.
In his bag are a few things, not much. All he needs is a change of clothing, a few toiletries, different boots that fit better. He won’t need his old boots much longer. They are a biological hazard, and the thought amuses him. Now that he thinks about it as the boots walk toward the gate, maybe he should save the boots in perpetuity. They have quite a history, have walked in places as if he owned them, taken people away as if he owned them, have returned to places and climbed up on things to spy, walked right in, brazenly, the boots carrying him from room to room from place to place, doing what God says. Punishing. Confusing people. The shotgun. The glove. To show them.
God has an IQ of a hundred and fifty.
His boots carried him right into the house, and he had the hood on before they even knew what was happening. Stupid religious freaks. Stupid little orphans. Stupid little orphan walking into the pharmacy, Mom Number One holding his hand so he could get his prescription filled. Lunatic. Hog hates lunatics, fucking religious freaks, hates little boys, little girls, hates Old Spice. Marino wears Old Spice, the big, dumb cop. Hog hates Dr. Self, should have put her on the mattress, had fun with the ropes, gotten her good after what she did.
Hog ran out of time. God isn’t happy.
There wasn’t time to punish the worst offender of all.
You’ll have to go back, God said. This time with Basil.
Hog’s boots walk toward the gate, carry him to Basil. They’ll have their good times again, just like those times in the old days after Hog did the bad thing, was sent away, then sent back, then met Basil in a bar.
He was never afraid of Basil, not the least bit put off by him from the first moment they found themselves sitting next to each other, drinking tequila. They had several together, and there was something about him. Hog could tell.
He said, You’re different.
I’m a cop, Basil said.
This was inSouthBeach, where Hog often cruised and hung out, looking for sex, looking for drugs.
You’re not just a cop, Hog said to him. I can tell.
Oh, really?
I can tell. I know about people.
How about I take you somewhere, and Hog had a sense that Basil had figured him out, too. I’ve got something you can do for me, Basil said to Hog.
Why should I do anything for you?
Because you’ll like it.
Later that night, Hog was in Basil’s car, not his police car but a white Ford LTD that looked just like an unmarked police car but wasn’t. It was his personal car. They weren’t inMiami, and he couldn’t possibly drive a marked car withDadeCountyon it. Someone might remember seeing it. Hog was a little disappointed. He loves police cars, loves sirens and lights. All those lights lit up and flashing remind him of The Christmas Shop.
No way they’ll ever think twice if you talk to them, Basil said that first night they met, after they’d been riding around awhile, smoking crack.
Why me? Hog asked, and he wasn’t the least bit afraid.
Common sense would dictate that he should have been. Basil kills whomever he pleases, always has. He could have killed Hog. Easily.
God told Hog what to do. That’s what kept Hog safe.
Basil spotted the girl. It turned out later she was only eighteen. She was getting cash at an ATM, her car nearby, the engine running. Stupid. Never get cash after dark, especially if you are a young girl, a pretty one, all alone in shorts and a tight T-shirt. If you’re a young girl, a pretty one, bad things happen.
Give me your knife and your gun, Hog told Basil.
Hog tucked the gun in his waistband and cut his thumb with the knife. He smeared blood on his face and climbed over the seat, lying down in back. Basil rolled up to the ATM and got out of the car. He opened the back door, checking on Hog, looking appropriately distressed.
It will be all right, he said to Hog. To the girl he said, Please help us. My friend’s been hurt. Where’s the nearest hospital?