‘Could’ve been here first. Maybe they moved it for some reason.’
‘That wouldn’t make sense.’
‘Well, they wouldn’t want to leave it here right in front of the bank.’
‘No way it could have been here long enough to decompose without someone spotting it before this morning.’
‘Oh, so now you’re a medical examiner.’
‘Maybe it was dumped. You know, the victim’s been dead for a while, is getting ripe and the killer dumps her.’
‘It’s a her?”
‘Maybe.’
‘Dumps her here?’
‘I’m just throwing things out.’
‘Yeah, asshole, ’cause you want the rest of us to write them down and make fools out of ourselves.’
Then what stinks so bad?’
‘Chief Hammer?’ A reporter raised his voice without getting any closer. ‘Can I get a statement?’
‘Don’t talk to them!’ Bubba said to her in a panic. ‘Don’t let them do this to me! Please!”
‘Truth is, I think our source is him,’ a reporter broke the news. ‘Look at his pants. Not all of that’s camouflage.’
‘Shit, man.’
‘See!’ Bubba hissed.
‘How can she stand there like that? It’s bad enough way back here.’
‘I’ve heard she’s tough.’
‘I’m interested in your vanity plate,’ Hammer said to Bubba.
Officer Horace Cutchins wasn’t interested in anything except his pocket Game Boy Tetris Plus as he drove the detention wagon at a good clip along Leigh Street.
He’d been on duty only three hours and had already transported two subjects to lockup, both of them gypsies caught burglarizing a Tudor-style home in Windsor Farms. Cutchins didn’t understand why people didn’t learn.
Gypsies passed through the city twice a year on their migrations north and south. Everyone knew it. The press ran frequent stories and columns. Sergeant Rink of Crime Stoppers offered impassioned warnings and prevention and self-defense tips on all local television networks and radio stations. ‘Gypsies Are Back’ signs were prominently posted as usual.
Yet wealthy Windsor Farmers, as Cutchins jealously called them, still went out to get the newspaper or worked in their gardens and yards or sat by their pools or chatted with neighbors or frapped around the house with alarm systems off and doors unlocked. So what did they expect?
Cutchins was just turning into Engine Company #5’s back parking lot, where he was looking forward to resuming his puzzle game, when the radio raised him.
‘Ten-25 unit 112 on Tenth Street to 10-31 a prisoner,’ the communications officer told him.
‘Ten-4,’ he answered. ‘Fuck,’ he said to himself.
He’d heard the mayday earlier and knew that Rhoad Hog was involved in an altercation with a disorderly female. But when it appeared that an arrest had been made, Cutchins just assumed the subject would be transported in a screen unit.
After all, it wasn’t likely that a female could kick out the Plexiglas, and even if the partition didn’t fit right because the numb nuts with General Services had taken one from a Caprice, for example, and retrofitted it for a Crown Vic, it didn’t matter in this case. A female prisoner was not equipped to pee on the officer through gaps and spaces caused by improper installment.
Cutchins made a U turn. He shot back out on Leigh Street, stepping on it, wanting to get the call over with so he could take a break. He swung over to 10th and rolled up on the problem as Detective Gloria De Souza climbed out of her unmarked car.
Rhoad Hog and three other uniformed guys were waiting for Cutchins, their prisoner an ugly fat woman who looked vaguely familiar. She was sitting on the curb, wrists cuffed behind her back, hair wild. She was breathing hard and looked like she might do something unexpected any minute.
‘Okay, Miss Passman, I’m going to have to search you,’ said Detective De Souza. ‘I need you to stand up.’
Miss Passman didn’t budge.
‘Cooperate, Patty,’ one of the officers urged her.
She wouldn’t.
‘Ma’am, you’re going to need to stand up. Now don’t make this harder than it has to be.’
Passman wasn’t trying to make things harder. She simply could not rise to the occasion on her own, not with her hands shackled behind her.
‘Get up,’ De Souza said sternly.