Bubba staggered back out into the sunlight. Honey grabbed his arm to steady him.
‘Maybe I should call the police,’ she said.
West and Brazil were close to The Forest when several things happened at once. Brazil’s flip phone trilled. The police radio broadcast a possible B&E on Clarence Street, and WRVA played an ad for Hollywood Cemetery’s new Chapel Mausoleum, located in one of the oldest sections of the cemetery, adjacent to a convenient roadway and with no additional expenses for a vault or monument, one price covering everything including the inscription.
‘Hello?’ Brazil said into his phone.
‘… Any unit in the area,’ the police radio was repeating, ‘… possible B and E at 10946 Clarence Street.’
‘… the Hollywood Cemetery Chapel Mausoleum reflects a combination of both beauty and dignity…” the ad continued, jazz playing in the background.
‘Andy? It’s Hammer,’ Chief Hammer said over the phone.
‘Three,’ West answered the radio.
‘Our computer problem’s hit the national news. I guess you saw this morning’s paper,’ Hammer said to Brazil.
‘Go ahead, 3,’ said Communications Officer Patty Passman, who was surprised that the head of investigations was answering the call.
‘Actually, I didn’t know,’ Brazil replied honestly to Hammer.
‘Front page,’ Hammer said. ‘They’re making fun of us, fun of COMSTAT, saying we’ve crashed around the world because of a virus called Fishsteria.’
‘Fish versus Pfiesh?’ Brazil asked.
‘Figure it out, Andy.’
‘… designed to reflect the classic elements found with Hollywood’s hills…’ said the ad.
‘We’re just a couple blocks from there,’ West told
Communications Officer Passman. ‘We’ll take the call.’
‘And a vandal or vandals hit Hollywood Cemetery last night,’ Hammer went on.
‘Ten-4, 3. Complainant’s a Mr. Butner Fluck.’
‘Appears a Spiders basketball uniform was painted on the statue of Jefferson Davis,’ Hammer explained.
Brazil was stunned. He started laughing and could not stop.
‘And I’m afraid his race was altered,’ she went on.
‘You mean, he got Michael Jordanized?’ Brazil choked.
‘This isn’t funny, Andy.’
‘I think I’m gonna be sick.’ Brazil was doubled over, hardly able to talk.
West made a U turn on Forest Hill and accelerated.
‘Lelia Ehrhart’s called an emergency meeting of city leaders tomorrow morning at eight,’ Hammer told Brazil.
‘I hope she’s not going to speak!’ Brazil’s voice went up an octave. He couldn’t help himself.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ West glanced over at him as she drove fast out of habit, taking every shortcut she could to get to the scene.
‘Look into it,’ Hammer said to Brazil.
‘Fishsteria or MagicJeff’?’ Brazil’s stomach hurt, his eyes watering.
‘All of it,’ she said to him.
The house on Clarence Street was very peculiar, but not for obvious reasons at a glance. Rather it was the sort of phenomenon that caused an unsettled, odd feeling of disharmony and something just not quite right that was discarded, like a lost file, the instant the person drove or walked past or delivered the newspaper and moved on.
But to someone with a trained eye who took a hard look, the problem was clear.
‘Good God,” West said, stopping the car in the middle of the road as she stared in wonder.
‘Wow,’ Brazil chimed in. ‘I think he home-improved when he was drunk.’
Dark green shutters were askew, the paint not quite as white to the left of the red front door as it was to the right. The white picket fence was the worst West had ever seen. Clearly the soil was unstable and the builder had not driven the 4×4 posts far enough into the ground or set them in cement, nor had he bothered with a plumb line, it didn’t appear, or chamfered the tops of the posts, meaning rainwater did not run off and the wood was beginning to rot. The rails sloped uphill on one side of the ill-fitting gate and downhill on the other. The pickets were unevenly spaced like bad teeth.
Apparently this same well-intentioned but misguided builder had expanded his garage by adding on a homemade shed that leaned north, suggesting the pressure-treated posts had not been sunk below the frost line and the new addition had shifted during the winter. Nothing was right. Shingles were not aligned, window boxes were different sizes, the stone garden fountain in front was dry, the herringbone pattern of the outdoor bench near the slumping brick barbecue was chaos. A long dog pen of torqued and drooping chain link was near the woods, and a blanket-back coon hound was perched on top of a barrel, bawling.