“Doc, there’s nothing in there.” Marino was picking his way right behind me. “Shit.” He almost slipped. “We’ve already looked.”
“Well, obviously, he couldn’t have escaped through here,” I said as my light discovered cobblestones and dead weeds. “And no one could hide in here. And your average person shouldn’t have known about this place, either.”
“Come on.” Marino’s voice was gentle but firm as he touched my arm.
“This wasn’t picked randomly. Not many people around here even know where this is.” My light moved more. “This was someone who knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Doc,” he said as water dripped, “this ain’t safe.”
“I doubt Danny knew about this place. This was premeditated and cold-blooded.” My voice echoed off old, dark walls.
Marino held my arm this time, and I did not resist him. “You’ve done all you can do here. Let’s go.”
Mud sucked at my boots and oozed over his black military shoes as we followed the rotting railroad bed back out into the night. Together, we climbed up the littered hillside, carefully stepping around blood spilled when Danny’s body had been rolled down the steep slope like garbage. Much of it had been displaced by the helicopter’s violent wind, and that would one day matter if a defense attorney thought it did. I averted my face from the glare of cameras and flashing strobes. Marino and I got out of the way, and we did not talk to anyone.
“I want to see my car,” I said to him as his unit number blared.
“One hundred,” he answered, holding the radio close to his mouth.
“Go ahead, one-seventeen,” the dispatcher said to somebody else.
“I checked the lot front and back, Captain,” Unit 117 said to Marino. “No sign of the vehicle you described.”
“Ten-four.” Marino lowered the radio and looked very annoyed. “Lucy’s Suburban ain’t at your office. I don’t get it,” he said to me. “None of this is making sense.”
We began walking back to Libby Hill Park because it really wasn’t far, and we wanted to talk.
“What it’s looking like to me is Danny might have picked somebody up,” Marino said as he lit a cigarette. “Sure sounds like it could be drugs.”
“He wouldn’t do that when he was delivering my car,” I said, and I knew I sounded naive. “He wouldn’t pick anybody up.”
Marino turned to me. “Come on,” he said. “You don’t know that.”
“I’ve never had any reason to think he was irresponsible or into drugs or anything else.”
“Well, I think it’s obvious he was into an alternative life, as they say.”
“I don’t know that at all.” I was tired of that talk.
“You better find out because you got a lot of blood on you.”
“These days I worry about that no matter who it is.”
“Look, what I’m saying is people you know do disappointing things,” he went on as the lights of the city spread below us. “And sometimes people you don’t know very well are worse than ones you don’t know at all. You trusted Danny because you liked him and thought he did a good job. But he could have been into anything behind the scenes, and you weren’t going to know.”
I did not reply. What he said was true.
“He’s a nice-looking kid, a pretty boy. And now he’s driving this unbelievable ride. The best could have been tempted to maybe do a little trolling before turning in the boss’s ride. Or maybe he just wanted to score a little dope.”
I was more concerned that Danny had fallen prey to an attempted carjacking, and I pointed out that there had been a rash of them downtown and in this area.
“Maybe,” Marino said as my car came into view. “But your ride’s still here. Why do you walk someone down the street and shoot them, and leave the car right where it is? Why not steal it? Maybe we should be worried about a gay bashing. You thought about that?”
We had arrived at my Mercedes, and reporters took more photographs and asked more questions as if this were the crime of all time. We ignored them as we moved around to the open driver’s door and looked inside my S-320. I scanned armrests, ashtrays, dashboard and saddle leather upholstery, and saw nothing out of place. I saw no sign of a struggle, but the floor mat on the passenger’s side was dirty. I noted the faint impressions left by shoes.
“This was the way it was found?” I asked. “What about the door being opened?”
“We opened the door. It was unlocked,” Marino said.
“Nobody got inside?”
“No.”
“This wasn’t there before.” I pointed to the floor mat.
“What?” Marino asked.
“See those shoe impressions and the dirt?” I spoke quietly so reporters could not hear. “There shouldn’t have been anybody in the passenger’s seat. Not while Danny was driving, and not earlier when it was being repaired at Virginia Beach.”
“What about Lucy?”
“No. She hasn’t ridden with me recently. I can’t think of anybody who has since it was cleaned last.”
“Don’t worry, we’re going to vacuum everything.” He looked away from me and reluctantly added, “You know we’re going to have to impound it, Doc.”
“I understand,” I said, and we started walking back to the street near the tunnel, where we had parked.
“I’m wondering if Danny was familiar with Richmond,” Marino said.
“He’s been to my office before,” I replied, and my soul felt heavy. “In fact, when he was first hired, he did a week’s internship with us. I don’t remember where he stayed, but I think it was the Comfort Inn on Broad Street.”
We walked in silence for a moment, and I added, “Obviously, he knew the area around my office.”
“Yeah, and that includes here since your office is only about fifteen blocks from here.”
Something occurred to me. “We don’t know that he didn’t just come up here tonight to get something to eat before the bus ride home. How do we know he wasn’t just doing something mundane like that?”
Our cars were near several cruisers and a crime scene van, and the reporters had gone. I unlocked the station wagon door and got in. Marino stood with his hands in his pockets, a suspicious expression on his face because he knew me so well.
“You aren’t posting him tonight, are you,” he said.
“No.” It wasn’t necessary and I wouldn’t put myself through it.
“And you don’t want to go home. I can tell.”
“There are things to do,” I said. “The longer we wait, the more we might lose.”
“Which places do you want to try?” he asked, because he knew what it was like to have someone you worked with killed.
“Well, there’s a number of places to eat right around here. Millie’s, for example.”
“Nope. Too high-dollar. Same with Patrick Henry’s and most of the joints in the Slip and Shockoe Bottom. Remember, Danny’s not going to have a lot of money unless he’s getting it from places we don’t know about.”
“Let’s assume he’s getting nothing from anywhere,” I said. “Let’s assume he wanted something that was a straight shot from my office, so he stayed on Broad Street.”
“Poe’s, which isn’t on Broad, but is very close to Libby Hill Park. And of course there’s the Cafe,” he said.
“That’s what I would say, too,” I agreed.
When we walked into Poe’s, the manager was ringing up the check of the last customer for the night. We waited what seemed a long time, only to be told that dinner had been slow and no one resembling Danny had come in. Returning to our cars, we continued east on Broad to the Hill Cafe at 28th Street, and my pulse picked up when I realized the restaurant was but one street down from where my Mercedes had been found.
Known for its Bloody Marys and chili, the cafe was on the corner, and over the years had been a favorite hangout for cops. So I had been here many times, usually with Marino. It was a true neighborhood bar, and at this hour, tables were
still full, smoke thick in the air, the television loudly playing old Howie Long clips on ESPN. Daigo was drying glasses behind the bar when she saw Marino and gave him a toothy grin.
“Now what you doing in here so late?” she said as if it had never happened before. “Where were you earlier when things were popping?”
“So tell me,” Marino said to her, “in the joint that makes the best steak sandwich in town, how’s business been tonight?” He moved closer so others could not hear what he had to say.
Daigo was a wiry black woman, and she was eyeing me as if she had seen me somewhere before. “They were crawling in from everywhere earlier,” she said. “I thought I was going to drop. Can I get something for you and your friend, Captain?”
“Maybe,” he said. “You know the doc here, don’t ya?”
She frowned and then recognition gleamed in her eyes. “I knew I seen you in here before. With him. You two married yet?” She laughed as if this were the funniest thing she had ever said.
“Listen, Daigo,” Marino went on, “we’re wondering if a kid might have come in here today. White male, slender, long dark hair, real nice looking. Would have been wearing a leather jacket, jeans, a sweater, tennis shoes, and a bright red knee brace. About twenty-five years old and driving a new black Mercedes-Benz with a lot of antennas on it.”
Her eyes narrowed and her face got grim as Marino continued to talk, the dish towel limp in her hand. I suspected the police had asked her questions in the past about other unpleasant matters, and I could tell by the set of her mouth that she had no use for lazy, bad people who felt nothing when they ruined decent lives.
“Oh, I know exactly who you mean,” she said.
Her words had the effect of a fired gun. She had our complete attention, both of us startled.
“He came in, I guess it was around five, ’cause it was still early,” she said. “You know, there were some in here drinking beer just like always. But not too many in for dinner yet. He sat right over there.”
She pointed at an empty table beneath a hanging spider plant all the way in back, where there was a painting of a rooster on the white brick wall. As I stared at the table where Danny had eaten last while in this city because of me, I saw him in my mind. He was alive and helpful with his clean features and shiny long hair, then bloody and muddy on a dark hillside strewn with garbage. My chest hurt, and for a moment, I had to look away. I had to do something else with my eyes.
When I was more composed, I turned to Daigo and said, “He worked for me at the medical examiner’s office. His name was Danny Webster.”
She looked at me a long time, my meaning very clear. “Uh-oh,” she said in a low voice. “That’s him. Oh sweet Jesus, I can’t believe it. It’s been all over the news, people in here talking about it all night ’cause it’s just down the street.”
“Yes,” I said.
She looked at Marino as if pleading with him. “He was just a boy. Come in here not minding no one, and all he did was eat his sailor sandwich and then someone kills him! I tell you”—she angrily wiped down the counter—“there’s too much meanness. Too damn much! I’m sick of it. You understand me? People just kill like it’s nothing.”
Several diners nearby overheard our conversation, but they continued their own without stares or asides. Marino was in uniform. He clearly was the brass, and that tended to inspire people to mind their own affairs. We waited until Daigo had sufficiently vented her spleen, and we found a table in the quietest corner of the bar. Then she nodded for a waitress to stop by.
“What you want, sugar?” Daigo asked me.
I did not think I could ever eat again, and ordered herbal tea, but she would not hear of that.
“I tell you what, you bring the Chief here a bowl of my bread pudding with Jack Daniel’s sauce, don’t worry, the whiskey’s cooked off,” she said, and she was the doctor now. “And a cup of strong coffee. Captain?” She looked at Marino. “You want your usual, honey? Uh-huh,” she said before he could respond. “That will be one steak sandwich medium rare, grilled onions, extra fries. And he likes A.1., ketchup, mustard, mayo. No dessert. We want to keep this man alive.”
“You mind?” Marino got out his cigarettes, as if he needed one more thing that might kill him this day.
Daigo lit up a cigarette, too, and told us more about what she remembered, which was everything because the Hill Cafe was the sort of bar where people noticed strangers. Danny, she said, had stayed less than an hour. He had come and gone alone, and it had not appeared that he was expecting anyone to join him. He had seemed mindful of the time because he frequently checked his watch, and he had ordered a sailor sandwich with fries and a Pepsi. Danny Webster’s last meal had cost him five dollars and twenty-seven cents. His waitress was named Cissy, and he had tipped her a dollar.
“And you didn’t see anybody in the area that made your antenna go up? Not at any point today?” Marino asked.
Daigo shook her head. “No sir. Now that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some son of a bitch hanging out somewhere on the street. ’Cause they’re out there. You don’t have to go far to find ’em. But if there was somebody, I didn’t see him. Nobody who came in here complained about anybody out there like that, either.”
“Well, we need to check with your customers, as many as we can,” Marino said. “Maybe a car was noticed around the time Danny went out.”
“We got charge receipts.” She plucked at her hair and by now it was looking wild. “Most people who been in here we know anyhow.”
We were about to leave, but there was one more detail I needed to know. “Daigo,” I asked, “did he take anything with him to go?”
She looked perplexed and got up from the table. “Let me ask.”
Marino crushed out another cigarette, and his face was deep red.
“Are you all right?” I said.
He mopped his face with a napkin. “It’s hot as shit in here.”
“He took his fries,” Daigo announced when she got back. “Cissy says he ate his sandwich and slaw but she wrapped almost all of his fries. Plus when he got to the register, he bought a jumbo pack of gum.”
“What kind?” I asked.
“She’s pretty sure it was Dentyne.”
As Marino and I stepped outside, he loosened the neck of his white uniform shirt and yanked off his tie. “Damn, some days I wish I’d never left A Squad,” he said, for when he had commanded detectives it had been in street clothes. “I don’t care who’s watching,” he muttered. “I’m about to die.”
“Please tell me if you’re serious,” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’m not ready for one of your tables yet. I just ate too much.”
“Yes, you did,” I said. “And you smoked too much, too. And that’s what prepares people for my tables, goddamn it. Don’t you even think about dying. I’m tired of people dying.”
We had reached my station wagon and he was staring at me, searching for anything I might not want him to see. “Are you okay?”
“What do you think? Danny worked for me.” My hand shook as I fumbled with the key. “He seemed nice and decent. It seemed he always tried to do what was right. He was driving my car here from Virginia Beach because I asked him to and now he’s missing the back of his head. How the hell do you think I feel?”
“I think you feel like this is somehow your fault.”
“And maybe it is.”
We stood in the dark, looking at each other.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s the fault of the asshole who pulled the trigger. You had nothing in the world to do with that. But if it was me, I’d feel the same way.”
“My God,” I suddenly said.
“What?” He was alarmed, and he looked around as if I had spotted something.
“His doggie bag. What happened to it? It wasn’t inside my Mercedes. There was nothing in there that I could see. Not even a gum wrapper,” I said.
“Damn, you’re right. And I didn’t see nothing on the street
where your ride was parked. Nothing with the body or anywhere at the scene, either.”
There was one place no one had looked, and it was right where we were, on this street by the restaurant. So Marino and I got out flashlights again and prowled. We looked along Broad Street, but it was on 28th near the curb where we found the small white bag as a large dog began barking from a yard. The bag’s location suggested that Danny had parked my car as close to the cafe as possible in an area where buildings and trees cast dense shadows and lights were few.
“You got a couple pencils or pens inside your purse?” Marino squatted by what we suspected might be the remains of Danny’s dinner.
I found one pen and a long-handled comb, which I gave to him. Using these simple instruments, he opened the bag without touching it as he probed. Inside were cold French fries wrapped in foil and a jumbo pack of Dentyne gum. The sight of them was jolting and told a terrible story. Danny had been confronted as he had walked out of the cafe to my car. Perhaps someone emerged from shadows and pulled a gun as Danny was unlocking the door. We did not know, but it seemed likely he was forced to drive a street away, where he was walked to a remote wooded hillside to die.
“I wish that damn dog would shut up,” Marino said as he stood. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
He crossed the street to his car and opened the trunk. When he returned, he was carrying the usual large brown paper bag police used for evidence. While I held it open, he maneuvered the comb and pencils to drop Danny’s leftovers inside.
“I know I should take this into the property room, but they don’t like food in there. Besides, there’s no fridge.” Paper crackled as he folded shut the top of the evidence bag.
Our feet made scuffing noises on pavement as we walked.
“Hell, it’s colder than any refrigerator out here,” he went on. “If we get any prints they’ll probably be his. But I’ll get the labs to check anyway.”
He locked the bag inside his trunk, where I knew he had stored evidence many times before. Marino’s reluctance to follow departmental rules went beyond his dress.
I looked around the dark street lined with cars. “Whatever happened started right here,” I said.