fellow’s dick, for example. The guy looked like a balloon with this little knot, so all his
air didn’t get out.
West was angry, her face hard, as she stared at the fleshy nude body opened up from neck
to navel, and blaze orange paint no amount of scrubbing would wash away. She thought
of his wife and family. No human should ever have to come to such a grim place and be
put through something like this, and she felt fresh anger toward Brazil.
She was waiting for him when he trotted out of the Knight-Ridder building, his notepad
in hand as he headed to his car and a story.
West, in uniform, climbed out of her unmarked Ford, and she strode toward Brazil like
she might tackle him. She wished she could have bottled that dead smell and sprayed it
in Brazil’s face, and rubbed his nose in the reality West had to live with every day. Brazil
was in a hurry and had a lot on his mind. A Honda was on fire in the Mental Health
parking lot, according to the scanner. Possibly, it was nothing, but what if someone was
in it? Brazil stopped. He was startled as West jabbed a finger into his breastbone.
“Hey!” He grabbed her wrist.
“So how’s the Black Widow reporter today?” West coldly said.
“I just came from the morgue, you know, where reality’s laid out and carved up? Bet
you’ve never been there. Maybe they’ll let you watch someday.
What a good story that would be, right? A man not old enough to be your daddy. Red
hair, hundred and ninety-seven pounds. Guess what his hobby was. ”
Brazil released West’s arm. He groped for words but didn’t have any.
“Backgammon, photography. He wrote the newsletter for his church, wife’s dying of
cancer. They got two kids, one grown, other a freshman at UNC. Anything else you want
to know about him? Or is Mr. Parsons nothing but a story to you? Little words on
paper?”
Brazil was visibly shaken. He started walking off to his old BMW as the Honda in the
Mental Health parking lot burned and he no longer cared. West wasn’t going to let him
off so easy. She grabbed his arm.
“Get your goddamn hands off me,” Brazil said. He jerked his arm free, unlocked his car door, and got in.
“You screwed me, Andy,” West told him.
Brazil cranked the engine, and squealed out of the parking deck. West returned to the
LEG and didn’t go straight to investigations because she had a few of her own. She
stopped off at the Records Room, where women in their own special uniforms ruled the
world. West really had to court these girls, especially Wanda, who weighed somewhere
between two-fifty and three hundred pounds and could type a hundred and five words a
minute. If West needed a record or to send a missing- person report off to NCIC, Wanda
was either a hero or hell on earth, depending on when she was fed last. West brought in a
bucket of KFC once a month, and sometimes Girl Scout or Christmas cookies, depending
on what was in season. West approached the counter, and whistled at Wanda, who loved
West. Wanda secretly wished she was a detective and worked for the deputy chief.
“Need your help,” West said, and her police belt was making her lower back ache, as usual.
Wanda scowled at a name West had scribbled on a slip of paper.
“Lord have mercy,” she said, shaking her head.
“If I don’t remember that like it was yesterday.”
West couldn’t be certain, but thought Wanda had gained more weight.
God help her. Wanda took up two lanes of traffic.
“You sit on down.” Wanda pointed with her chin, as if she were Chinese.
“I’ll get the microfilm.”
While Wanda’s minions typed, stacked, and racked, West went through microfilm. She
had her glasses on and was hurt by what she saw when she got to old articles about
Brazil’s father. His name, too, was Andrew, but people had called him Drew. He had
been a cop here when West was a rookie. She had forgotten all about him, and had never