City Primeval Read online

  Now Wendell was frowning. What I do? You mean tell her everything? Do I look like I want to get shot with my own gun?

  How do you know what I'm thinking? Raymond said.

  I don't. That's why I'm asking.

  But you said like I was onto something.

  Some kind of scheme, Wendell said. When you lay back and don't move around you understand? but look like you want to be doing something? It means you ready to spring. Am I right?

  Sandy Stanton, Raymond said.

  Cute little lady.

  Where've you heard the name?

  I don't have the recall you do, Wendell said, but it's familiar, like a movie star or a name you see in the paper.

  Or in a case file.

  Now we moving, Wendell said.

  Albert RaCosta, Raymond said.

  Wendell nodded. Keep going.

  Louis Nix . . . Victor Reddick. And one more.

  Yeah, the Wrecking Crew. Wendell was still nodding. I know the names but they were a little before my time.

  Three years ago, Raymond said. I'd just come over to Seven.

  Yeah, and I came like six months after you, Wendell said. I read the file, all the newspaper stuff, but I don't recall any Sandy Stanton.

  Coming into the living room Sandy said, What're you doing, talking about me? She held up the ring of keys. I found 'em. But if you want to take the car I don't think I can let you. I mean you haven't even told me why you want it.

  Raymond said, You're sure, Sandy, those're the keys to the Buick?

  Yeah. She held them up again. GM keys. He's only got one car.

  When's the last time you drove it?

  I told you when I took him to the airport.

  The car was in good shape?

  Yeah, I guess so.

  No dings in it or anything?

  Oh, Sandy said and made a face, an expression of pain. Yeah, I guess I scraped the fender, you know, on the cement down where you park. Del's gonna kill me.

  Getting into a tight place, huh?

  Yeah, I misjudged a little.

  Which fender was it you scraped, Sandy?

  She held her hands up in front of her and looked at them, trying to remember if shitbird, lying on the bed in his bikinis, had told her. It was . . . this one, the left one. She looked from the white cop to the black cop and back to the white cop, wanting to say, Am I right?

  You're sure? Raymond asked her.

  Shit, Sandy thought. Well, I'm pretty sure. But I get mixed up with left and right.

  You live here, Sandy?

  God, it was hard to keep up with him. No, I'm just staying here while Del's gone, like apartment-sitting.

  Anybody staying with you?

  She hesitated which she knew she shouldn't do. No, just me.

  Is anybody else here right now?

  Christ. She hesitated again. You mean besides us?

  Uh-huh, besides us, Raymond said.

  No, there isn't anybody here.

  I thought I heard you talking to somebody you went out to the bedroom.

  Sandy said, I don't think you're being fair at all. If you aren't gonna tell me what you want, then I'm gonna ask you to please leave. Okay?

  You were at the Hazel Park track last night?

  I already told you I was.

  You see, Sandy, a car that sounds like Mr. Weems' Buick maybe the same license number was involved in an accident out there. About one o'clock.

  Sandy said, You're traffic cops? Jesus, I thought this was something more important than that.

  Like what? Raymond asked.

  I don't know. I just thought . . . two of you come up here, it has to be, you know, something important. Sandy began to feel herself relax. The white cop was saying, well, they have to check out the car first, see if it might be the one, before they get into anything else. Probably Sandy was thinking at the same time it was a car that looked like Del's and had almost the same license numbers. That could be what happened, a coincidence, and shitbird in the bedroom had nothing to do with it. There were all kinds of black Buicks, it was a very popular color this year . . . she told the white cop that, too, and the white cop agreed, nodding, and then he was saying, Oh, by the way . . .

  You seen Clement Mansell lately?

  Like a total stranger coming up to you and saying your name she couldn't believe it because she could look right at the white cop and was positive she had never seen him before in her life; he couldn't know anything about her. She felt exposed and vulnerable again standing there barefoot with no place to hide, no way to play it over again and be ready for the question. Still, she said, Who?

  Clement Mansell, Raymond said. Isn't he an old friend of yours?

  Sandy said, Oh . . . you know him? Yeah, I recall the name, sure.

  Raymond took a business card out of his suitcoat pocket. Handing it to her he said, You see him, have him give me a call, okay? The white cop and the black cop both thanked her as they left.

  In the elevator Wendell said, Clement Mansell. You name the Wrecking Crew and save the best one. I don't know how I forgot him.

  Raymond was watching the floor numbers light up in descending order. I probably shouldn't have done that.

  What, ask her about him? We all stunt a little bit.

  If it's Mansell I want him to know. I don't want him to run, but I want him to think about it. You understand what I mean?

  Man could be back in Oklahoma, nowhere around here.

  Yeah, he could be in Oklahoma, Raymond said. His gaze came down from the numbers to the elevator door as it opened. They walked out of the alcove, across the lobby to the desk where the doorman sat with a wall of television monitors behind him. Raymond waited for him to look up at them.

  You didn't tell us somebody was with her, Miss Stanton, twenty-five oh-four.

  I don't believe you ask me, the doorman said.

  Wendell said, How long he been staying with her, uncle?

  The middle-aged black man in the porter's coat looked at the younger, well-built black man in the three-piece light-gray suit. How long is who been staying with her?

  Shit, Wendell said. Here we go.

  Chapter 6

  ONE TIME CLEMENT WAS RUN OVER by a train and lived. It was a thirty-three-car Chesapeake & Ohio freight train with two engines and a caboose.

  Clement was with a girl. They were waiting at a street crossing in Redford Township about eleven at night, the red lights flashing and the striped barrier across the road, when Clement got out of the car and went out to stand on the tracks, his back to the engine's spotlight coming toward him at forty miles an hour. Yes, he was a little high, though not too high. He was going to jump out of the way at the last second, turned with his back to the approaching train, looking over at the girl's face in the car windshield, the girl's eyes about to come out of her head. Instead of jumping out of the way Clement changed his mind and laid down between the tracks. The train engineer saw Clement and slammed on the emergency brake, but not in time. Twenty-one cars passed over Clement before the train was brought to a stop and he crawled out from beneath the twenty-second one. The train engineer, Harold Howell of Grand Rapids, said, There was just no excuse for it. Clement was taken to Garden City Hospital where he was treated for a bruised back and released. When questioned by the Redford Township Police Clement said, Did I break a law? Show me where it says I can't lay down in front of a train if I want?

  Clement said it was like conditioning, prepar-ing for the ball-clutching moments of life while building your sphincter muscle. After lying in front of a freight train you can lie in bed in your underwear while two cops are visiting, asking about a certain black Buick and while a mean-looking Walther P.38 automatic is hidden nearby at that very moment and not worry about making doo-doo in the bed.

  See, just as he knew he could easily have jumped out of the train's way as he explained it to Sandy he knew he had time to skin through this present situation and get rid of the gun though he hated to do it before the cops
came back with a warrant to search or impound the car. He admired the cops' restraint these days in not opening bedroom doors or looking inside cars without a warrant. Cops had to go by the rules or have their evidence thrown out of court. It gave Clement, he felt, an edge: he could grin at the ball yankers, antagonize them some, knowing they had to respect his rights as a citizen.

  But who in the hell was Lieutenant Raymond Cruz? Clement studied the business card, then looked out the bedroom window and squinted toward the police headquarters building.

  I don't know any Lieutenant Raymond Cruz.

  Well, he knows you.

  What's he look like? Regular old beer-gut dick?

  No, he's skinny almost.

  Raymond Cruz, Clement said thoughtfully. He's a greaser, huh?

  Well, he's sort of dark, but not real. He seems quiet . . . Except, it's funny, I get the feeling there's some meanness in him, Sandy said. Otherwise he's kinda cute.

  Clement turned from the windows to look at her, idly scratching himself. He's cute, huh? I got to see a De-troit homicide dick that's cute; that'll be one of my goals in life. He said then, I guess you better get dressed.

  Where we going?

  Want you to drive over to Belle Isle for me.

  Now wait a sec

  I'll tell you where the gun's hid down the garage. Up over one of them beams? Put it in your purse it's in a paper sack so it won't get your purse oily or nothing go on over to Belle Isle and park and come walking back across the bridge part way. When there's no cars around 'yspecially any blue Plymouths take the sack out of your purse and drop it in the river.

  Do I have to? Sandy turned on her pained expression. Clement just looked at her, patiently, and she said, I ought to least have a joint first. Half a one?

  I want you clear-headed, hon bun.

  There wasn't any grass in the apartment anyway. Down to seeds and stems. She'd have to stop at the store on the way and pick up a baggie.

  Clement tucked Raymond Cruz's business card into the elastic of his briefs and took hold of Sandy's arms, sliding his hands up under the satiny sleeves and tugging her gently against him. He said, What're you nervous about, huh? You never been nervous before. You need one of Dr. Mansell's treatments? That it, hon bun, get you relaxed? Well, we can fix you up.

  Mmmmm, that feels good, Sandy said, closing her eyes. She could feel him breathing close to her ear. After a moment she said, I have to do it, huh?

  You want us to be friends, don't you? Clement said. Don't friends help each other?

  I think I feel another little friend

  See, Homer don't pout or wimp out on you. He's always there when you need him. 'ySpecially when I'm hung over some, huh? You can hit him with a stick and he won't go 'yway.

  Does it have to be in the river?

  Can you think of a better place? You get back, sugar, we'll go see your Albanian. How's that sound?

  Tell 'em anything long as you tell 'em something.

  Women were fun, but you had to treat them like little kids, play with them, promise them things; especially Sandy, who was a good girl and never let him down. Clement kissed her goodbye and looked at his situation as he got dressed.

  He'd have to leave here in the next day or so. He'd miss the view, but there was no sense in being easy to reach. Man, they were swift this time. Or lucky. He couldn't recall a Lieutenant Raymond Cruz. Maybe if he saw the man's face. Get rid of anything incriminating, like the gun. Which was a shame; he loved that P.38.

  Clement picked up his pants from the floor and dug out what he'd scored off the judge. The money, three hundred forty bucks, was clean, no problem with it. He'd left the checks in the wallet; he couldn't see himself peddling a dead man's checks. The little 2 by 3 spiral notebook it was thin, like pages had been torn out had names and phone numbers in it, also columns of figures and dates, impressive amounts up in the thousands with a lot of dollar signs, but meaningless to him . . . until he came to a right-hand page the second to last one in the notebook and a phone number jumped out at him.

  W. S. F. 644-5905.

  The initials and numbers gone over several times with a ballpoint and then underlined and enclosed within a heavily drawn square.

  To make it special, Clement thought. He didn't recognize the initials, but the number was sure familiar, one he had seen not too long ago. But where?

  Two officers from the Major Crime Mobile Unit in street clothes, in a black unmarked Ford sedan were assigned the surveillance of the Buick Riviera, license number PYX-546, located in the lower-level parking area at 1300 Lafayette East. They were given mug-shot photos of Clement Mansell, 373-8411, full face and profile, the photos bearing a '78 date. If he got in the car, Mansell was to be approached with caution and taken into custody for questioning. If he refused, resisted or tried to drive off, the officers were to arrest him, but under no circumstances search the car. If a woman got in the car they were to follow, keep her under close surveillance and call in.

  Which is what the MCMU officers did when Sandy drove off in the Buick, took Jefferson to East Grand Boulevard, turned left going away from the Belle Isle bridge and proceeded to a bar named Sweety's Lounge, located at 2921 Kercheval. The subject went inside, came out again in approximately ten minutes with a middle-aged black male and accompanied him next door, to 2925 Kercheval, where they entered the lower household of a two-family flat.

  MCMU called Homicide, Squad Seven, and requested instructions.

  Chapter 7

  TECHNICALLY, SQUAD SEVEN of the Detroit Police Homicide Section specialized in the investigation of homicides committed during the commission of a felony, most often an armed robbery, a rape, sometimes a breaking and entering, as opposed to barroom shootings and Saturday night mom and pop murders that were emotionally stimulated and not considered who-done-its.

  The squad's home was in Room 527 of Police Headquarters, a colorless, high-ceilinged office roughly twenty-four-by-twenty that contained an assortment of ageless metal desks and wooden tables butted together, file cabinets, seven telephones, a Norelco coffeemaker, a GE battery-charge box for PREP radios, a locked cabinet where squad members sometimes stored their handguns, two banks of flickering fluorescent lights, a wall display of 263 mug shots of accused murderers, a coatrack next to the door and a sign that read: Do something either lead, follow or get the hell out of the way!

  A very old poster, peeling from the column that stood in the middle of the squadroom and left over from another time, stated: I will give up my gun when they pry my cold fingers from around it.

  It was 2:30 in the afternoon when Raymond Cruz returned to the squadroom. The investigations into the deaths of Alvin Guy and the young woman found in Palmer Park were less than thirteen hours old.

  Raymond hung up the suitcoat he'd been wearing for the past twenty-four hours, crossed to the unofficial lieutenant's desk in the corner the desk facing out to the squadroom, beneath the room's only window and the air-conditioning unit that didn't work and listened.

  Norb Bryl's desk faced the lieutenant's. Bryl was on the phone taking notes and saying, . . . keyhole defectment, bullet found in anterior cranial fossa . . . talking to someone at the Wayne County morgue.

  Hunter, also on the phone, had a young black guy sitting at his desk who was the suspect/witness in the Palmer Park murder. They sat almost knee to knee, the young black guy slouched low, wearing a white T-shirt and a plaid golf hat with a narrow brim that he fooled with as he waited for Hunter, who was waiting for someone to come back on the line. No one else was in the squadroom.

  Still waiting, Hunter said to the young black guy, Twenty-five years old and all you got are some traffic tickets? You must've been in the army a while.

  Raymond watched the young black guy give a slow shrug without saying anything.

  Hunter said, Let's see your hair.

  The young black guy raised his hat above his head and held it there.

  We'll call it nappy, Hunter said and made a notation on the DPD In
terrogation Record lying on his desk.

  It's Afro, the young black guy said.

  Hunter said, An Afro? It's a shitty looking Afro. We'll call it a nappy 'yfro. He straightened then and said into the phone, Yeah? . . . Darrold Woods? . . . Okay, give me what you got. Hunter nodded and said yeah, uh-huh, as he made notes on a yellow legal pad. When he finished, Hunter picked up a Constitutional Rights Certificate of Notification form and said to the young black guy, How come you signed this Donald Woods? You lied to me, Darrold sounding a little hurt try to tell me you're cherry and they got a sheet on you, man. First thing, I'm gonna erase this zero cause it's a bunch of shit.

  Darrold Woods was saying, Two larceny from a person reduced from larceny not armed and a little bitty assault thing . . .

  And Hunter was saying, Little bitty . . . little bitty fucking tire iron you used on the guy . . .

  Bryl put his hand over the phone and said to Raymond, Cause of death multiple gunshots . . . two slugs, one with copper jacket recovered intact within the spinal canal, the other one in his head . . .

  Raymond said, Judge Guy?

  Bryl nodded and said into the phone, Okay, how many holes in the girl, Adele Simpson? . . . You sure? . . . Can't find any more, uh? He put his hand over the phone and said to Raymond, It's looking good. Maureen's already taken the slugs over to the lab.

  Hunter was saying to the young black guy, How well did you know Adele Simpson?

  I never seen her before right then.

  You took her purse what else?

  What purse you talking about?

  Darrold, you had Adele Simpson's credit cards on you.

  I found 'em.

  Hunter said, You gonna start shucking me again, Darrold? We're talking about murder, man, not a little half-assed assault. You understand me, mandatory life . . .

  Raymond got up from his desk. He walked over to the young black guy in the plaid golf hat and touched him on the shoulder.

  Let me ask you something, okay?

  The young black guy didn't answer, but looked up at the lieutenant.