You boys can keep your virgins. Give me hot old women in high heels with asses that forgot to get old.
—Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog From Hell
The best thing about being in patrol is the constant variety and the fast pace. About every forty-five minutes, a new set of players and circumstances is served up by Dispatch. But patrol’s best feature is also its major frustration: you never really get to know how the story ends, much less anything about the players involved, beyond name, DOB, and the nature of the complaint.
Detective work allows a calmer, slower-paced interaction with the parties involved. The detective follows the case all the way through the court system, through preliminary hearings, deal making between the assistant district attorneys and the counsel for the defense, to trials and sentencing of the offender. Probably 30 percent of my time as a detective was spent at the courthouse.
One result of that was running into other cops there whom I had no opportunity to see when confined to shagging calls in my beat as a patrol officer: guys from my old academy class and others whose assigned units in the department require frequent court appearances. One I encountered often at the courthouse was the living legend, Tom McCall, who had shared with me his memorable observation about sheep and wolves, back before I had even started the academy and was working at the firing range. McCall had since switched to the Sheriff’s Office, where he was working undercover narcotics—perhaps the most dangerous type of police work there is. (And he was in his fifties by then.) His wife, like mine, was also a member of the Mounted Unit Auxiliary, and I’d occasionally see him at training events our wives and their horses attended at the police barn.
McCall looked even rougher to me than when we’d first met, partly the result of being undercover: unshaven, longish hair, dressed in jeans or fatigues with black Harley T-shirts and a vest with skull-and-crossbone insignia. He would always acknowledge me with a nod or a slight smile, but rarely would we exchange words.
Then shortly after Nancy quit the auxiliary, he spoke to me.
“Charlene tells me Nancy’s hung up her spurs.”
I nodded. We shook hands. His grip was as firm as the last time, at the shootin’ house. I offered something about Nancy’s increased workload, by way of explanation. She had started a new job as communications director for the County Commission. “But we’re keeping the horse, of course. I ride him as often as she does.”
“Good,” he said. “He’s a good one.”
Shortly after Prince died, a couple years later, I ran into McCall in the courthouse elevator again. He offered condolences. It was still fresh with me, and painful. Putting down a horse is far more traumatic than putting down a dog, which is awful enough. But a horse is so much bigger. Especially a sixteen-hand Tennessee walker, with whom you’ve become one, in all kinds of places and circumstances. Nancy couldn’t bear to be there. When the vet administers the fatal injection, a horse has farther to fall than a dog. It seems to shake the ground. And then he has to be pushed into his grave with a front loader.
My eyes clouded up in the elevator with McCall. No matter how stoic I aspire to be, my damn eyes always betray me. McCall looked away, squeezed my shoulder, and got out on his floor, mercifully, without another word.
Because the nature of investigations requires more interaction with offenders than the mere “cuffing and stuffing” of patrol work, the detective gets to know people and their backstories in more depth, which often makes it interesting, if not surprising. Over the weeks, or even months, of an investigation, a detective may talk to most members of a suspect’s family: parents, siblings, girlfriends, children, homeboys, probation officers, even employers or coaches or neighbors. We get glimpses of personalities, causes, and conditions that the patrol officer never sees.
The story frequently changes as the stories evolve. The same person can seem reasonable and credible the first time, only to trip himself up with inconsistencies later. When these are pointed out, that “reasonable” person can explode in defiance or melt down in shame. Or both, alternately.
Based on who the players are and what kind of evidence we have, we stage our interviews with some forethought. Who and how many detectives are needed? Who plays what role? How much do we bluff? Where’s the best setting? Will bringing his mama in help us or hurt us?
We even give some thought to the clothes we wear. Some people get more candid as they get more comfortable. A uniform or even just a white shirt and necktie can be off putting and stop an interrogation before it even starts. Alternately, sometimes a gray flannel suit and tie produce the desired effect. I once posed as an FBI agent called in on the case “due to possible federal charges,” because I looked the part way better than any of my colleagues. The suspect was duly intimidated and became more cooperative.
Earl Slocumb’s casual, rumpled, unshaven look is calculated and most effective. (It’s purely coincidental that he’s actually a slob in real life, too.) He’s the champion of confession acquisition. He never leads with the Miranda warning and waiver. It’s presented as an afterthought, a mere formality, after the guts start spilling. Earl will talk Crimson Tide or fishing or whatever he can get our guest interested in for as long as it takes to develop commonality and something akin to trust. Earl never raises his voice or shows anger. He reasons with them. They come to believe that Earl is offering a fair deal that allows them both to win. All the while the “guest” is handcuffed to a table and knows full well he’s talking to a cop. I’ve had them refuse to even confirm their date of birth to me, only to see Earl emerge an hour later with a list of all the licks the suspect has hit, the names of all his homeboys who hit the licks with him or got rid of the stolen goods for him, and for little more than a Big Mac and a Newport, the suspect has agreed to take a ride with Earl through the ’hood to point out the specific houses he’s burglarized in the last six weeks. It’s astounding. It’s why he has that Officer of the Year award adorning his office wall. If Earl applied his natural style to, say, sales, or contract negotiations, or consulting, he’d be living in a Gotham City penthouse.
Except then he wouldn’t be Earl.
Lusty’s style often begins with horny talk about bitches and hoes. Most guys, especially criminals, are more than willing to shoot the breeze about big-assed nasty women, and I’ve never met anyone who can articulate the id with the unabashed, unfettered, purely puerile enthusiasm of Lusty Lopez. But after a few minutes of booty banter, he abruptly switches to his unique style of Hispanic hellfire. Lusty gets into a rhythm, using the first name of the suspect in almost every phrase, as he describes with lurid detail the despair and degradation awaiting the suspect in prison:
“Listen to me now, Lamont, I’monna be one hundred wit’cha now, Lamont, this ain’t no good cop–bad cop bullshit like you see on TV, Lamont, this is the real deal. I don’t lie to you, you don’t lie to me. It’s big-boy time now, Lamont, no more juvie slap onna wrist. It ain’t even Metro time, Lamont, y’feel me Lamont? This is the big house we talkin’ ’bout now, Lamont. Huh, y’hear me? Listen to me now, Lamont: what we got on you, it’s Atmore-for-shore, Lamont. And a young kid like you? Them fellas up in Atmore see you comin’, they be lickin’ they chops thinkin’ a splittin’ yo’ sweet cheeks, Lamont. Them boys up ’ere be horny’s three-dicked dogs, Lamont, for somebody just like you: a ass-virgin, Lamont, you hearda anal, ain’tcha, Lamont? They’ll be the pitchers, you’ll be the catcher. You ’n’ yo’ homeboys may think you rule 1010 Baltimore, but that’s kiddiegarden compared to Atmore, y’know that don’t you, Lamont? Kno’m sayin’, brah? They spend all day long pumpin’ iron and stroking they big cocks just dreamin’ a sweet tight twenty-year-old ass like yours, Lamont, fresh from the projects. Fresh meat! Y’feel me, Lamont?
“And y’know what? That ain’t even the worst part, Lamont. The worst part is how you gonna do your sweet ol’ mama and your little brothers, Lamont. Mama’s gonna be too ashamed to talk about you at church, your little brohs gonna get teased about you at school, y’feel me, Lamont? And you won’t even wanna talk to them about your life up there in Atmo’ ’cause you know you’ll just start cryin’ and if you tell them how you’ve become some big murderin’ mothafucka’s bitch and he makes you suck his cock every day and swallow his spunk, they’ll just have nightmares and wanna die, so you can’t tell nobody nu’n Lamont, ’cause you’ll be wantin’ a die your own self. Y’hear me? And you can just forget about all your homeboys and baby-mamas back at 1010 B’mo, ’cause you sure’s hell don’t want them to know you be takin’ it up the ass e’ry day, Lamont. They be sayin’ ol’ Lamont gone sissy. ‘You heard about Lamont up in Atmo’? Word is, he done gone sissy!’ And who’s to say that’s even wrong, Lamont? Man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, when his life’s on the line. I ain’t sayin’ there’s anything wrong with it, but it sure ain’t for me, Lamont. And I’m pretty sure it ain’t f’you either, Lamont.
“And don’t forget, it don’t end when you get out, ’cause then you’ll be a convicted felon. Can’t own a gun, can’t hunt, can’t vote, can’t get a job. Can’t even get into the army. Can’t get any kinda scholarship. And they’s a good chance you have AIDS, Lamont. AIDS up the ass. Ass-AIDS, Lamont: think about it. Ain’t be getting any mo’ sweet pussy when they all know you got the Bug, Lamont. Your life is totally fucked, Lamont.
“But it don’t hafta be that way, Lamont, if you just do the right thing now, Lamont, the smart thing, Lamont. All you gotta do is man up, get one hundred wit’ me right now, Lamont, and there’s a good chance Atmore never happens, Lamont.”
Lusty hits about a .350 average with this approach. Thirty-five out of a hundred Lamonts crack for Lusty. Which is about twice the national average, according to FBI stats.
Because I don’t have a style, a rap, or a shtick like the others, most of the cases I worked in my first year were theft cases. I tended to devote more time to them because they’re often easier to solve than burglaries: theft cases often come with suspects, because the victim knows the thief. Since there’s so often an eyewitness, getting confessions isn’t essential to clearing cases—it’s mostly just a matter of tracking down the known suspect.
A theft involves taking someone’s property without permission. A burglary requires unlawful entry into someone’s premises, such as a garage, shed, residence, or business, for the purpose of committing a crime (usually theft) therein. A robbery occurs when someone’s property is stolen from the person of the victim, or taken at gunpoint, or under direct threat of bodily harm. Often victims will say they’ve been robbed, when they’ve actually been burglarized, or a simple theft has occurred.
In Alabama, all robberies and burglaries are felonies. Robberies are more serious felonies than burglaries, because the victim is there, threatened, when the theft occurs. Robberies, though the most serious, are often easiest to solve, because there’s always a witness (the victim) and often security video (in commercial robberies). Most burglaries occur when the victim is not present, but the violation of the victim’s premises still makes the crime a felony. There are rarely witnesses or video of residential burglaries.
Some thefts, by contrast, are not even felonies. The gravity of a theft is determined by the value of the property stolen. If the value of the stolen property is less than $500, and it’s not a firearm, a credit card, a motor vehicle, or a controlled substance, it’s just a misdemeanor.
If a thief steals your lawn mower out of your backyard, and it’s worth less than $500, you’re out of luck, because it’s just a misdemeanor, and there are probably no clues, and a detective won’t even be assigned to it. If you had kept your old, used $100 lawn mower in a shed or garage, however, it would constitute a felony, even though it’s worth less than the new $495 self-propelled Toro lawn mower that got stolen from your backyard, because the thief violated your building/residence to steal your beat-up old push mower.
A majority of felony thefts involve stuff stolen from inside a residence but which required no unlawful entry to steal the stuff—in other words, the theft is performed by someone who has a lawful presence inside the victim’s house: a family member, ex-lover, a friend or neighbor who’s been invited inside, the plumber who’s been called in to fix the kitchen sink, the cable installer who’s hooking up your new flat screen with surround sound. Except it’s very seldom the cable guys or the tradesmen who’ve ripped off people’s jewelry, or chrome .45, or new bottle of prescription Lortabs.
Usually the mere thief (as opposed to the burglar or the robber) is somebody who the victim thought was a friend. And when pressed by the reporting officer, or a detective, the victim will reluctantly admit that the likely thief is actually “that no good drug addict son of mine” or “my ex, my baby’s daddy” or “that thieving sumbitch who lives across the street” or, as was the case with many middle-aged or older bachelors in my first year as a detective, “that goddamn whore I brung home from the Parkway Lounge last Saturday night.”
The more timid, modest old bachelors would refer to them as just friends, or acquaintances or drinking partners, sometimes housekeepers, cooks, occasionally as lady friends or even sweethearts. They would be embarrassed to admit that they’d been snookered by the oldest game in human history, that they had been drinking with their big heads rather than thinking with their little ones. They would strongly deny that the girls were prostitutes, that there was any quid pro quo, and act insulted when I would suggest such a thing. But eventually they would admit that sometimes there was sex and that sometimes they would “help her pay the power bill ever’ now an’ ag’in.”
Most of the victims did not even know the girls’ real first names, much less last names, until I collected signatures from the credit card receipts. (As often as not, they’d sign their own real names, which were seldom compared to the male name on the stolen card by the clerks at the liquor stores, gas stations, and Walmarts where their sweethearts had run up hundreds of dollars in purchases on the stolen cards. If challenged, they’d simply claim the victim as their old man who’d sent them to the store for a six-pack and some smokes.)
I wouldn’t have put much effort into solving these cases, figuring the horny old fools got what was coming to them, except that I was getting so many of these kinds of thefts. It was two or three a week. And it always seemed to be the same women whose names came up: Heather, and Victoria, and Kelly Ann. Sometimes more than one of them would be named by the same victim for the same theft: they had enticed the guy with a ménage à trois, which turned out to be a double-team bait-and-switch.
The ladies were well known in certain circles: the courthouse (where they had extensive histories of theft, soliciting, and drug arrests), the topless joints (where they had worked as waitresses and bartenders and even done a few turns at the pole), and of course among the habitués of the finer watering holes of the First Precinct. Places like Liz’s Haven, the Ideal Lounge, Legends, the Zebra, and my favorite, the cleverly named Club Chez When (known to non-francophones—and most police dispatchers—as the Cheez Whiz). As a patrol officer I had often been dispatched to the Cheez for bar fights and disorderly drunks and had seen a few of the ladies working the place. Though I knew they had to be hustlers and hookers, I rarely arrested any of them, at least not for hooking. (Vice arrests are made by undercover cops working stings, not uniformed patrol.)
Occasionally, though, I’d see a girl flagging down cars, sufficient probable cause to arrest her for Loitering for the Purpose of Prostitution, a misdemeanor. I’d stop and check her purse for drugs, usually finding a joint or some pills or a rock and a pipe. But I’d just order her to toss the dope down a sewer, destroy the glass pipe with a stomp of her heel, and move to a corner in the Third or Second Precinct.
The first time I saw Mariah, she was at the Cheez Whiz. I was one of several backups who had been dispatched to an assault by one drunk with a pool cue on another. Both had fled before we arrived. Mariah nonetheless greeted us with a raucous “Thank God, it’s the Law! I thought we’d never get you to come, officers!” Then she rose from her barstool and, stretching like a cat, purred in a husky tobacco-and-whiskey-thickened voice, “Frisk me first, Handsome!”
All of them were past their prime, and the hard roads they had traveled were etched in their once-pretty faces. Click “All Mugshots” on the Metro Jail web page for a particular female guest, and you get pages of full-color head shots, in one-inch square rows of three (full face, left and right profiles) revealing their declines into addiction, crime, and dissolution. The effect is disturbing. In a decade they go from smiling, healthy (if somewhat slatternly) young women to hollow-cheeked, gap-toothed, vacant-eyed zombies, like the FUCK MEN gal I had encountered with my FTO Porter on my first domestic. If they’re meth addicts, their complexions are mottled with open sores, lips blistered with cankers or herpes. By the time I met the Parkway’s professional companions they were too old to work the streets. Their looks wouldn’t even slow traffic, much less stop any. They had to work harder for their money, relying more on their wiles than their wares. Their haggard forty-year-old faces looked more like mid-fifties, their hot-pink lip gloss only highlighting cracked lips and discolored teeth, their heavy mascara deepening sunken eyes and crow’s-feet.
In my first interview with Kelly Ann, she was playing stupid and I wasn’t getting anywhere. She probably knew I didn’t have enough to hold her on, so she wasn’t giving up anything.
I tell her I’ve already got enough to put her in Metro without even questioning her: my victim, a sixty-six-year-old Vietnam vet, his left leg a stump, has identified her by the name Kelly Ann and, based on his description of her (fortyish, kinda plain looking but not ugly, shoulder-length platinum blonde hair), which enabled me to find a likely suspect in our database. He picked Kelly Ann Kennedy’s mugshot out of a six-panel photo spread without hesitation.
Kelly Ann has a few minor priors. All misdemeanors: a few theft thirds and marijuana seconds, although one drug charge started as felony but was reduced to misdemeanor drug paraphernalia in a plea bargain.
My victim Mr. Brock says that after Kelly Ann and her friend (a brunette whose name he can’t remember) left his home, his wallet was missing, which contained most of his just-cashed VA disability payment for the month and credit cards. Kelly Ann doesn’t deny “socializing” with “poor ol’ one-legged Randy,” but it was only because she felt “so sorry for him, being a crippled veteran and all.” Of course she knows nothing about Randy’s wallet, nor does she remember the name of the other girl, claiming to have just met her that night at Randy’s.
“She was there when I got there. He called me over to party. I’ve known him a little while, been to his house a few times, sometimes help him with chores. I like to help people, Detective. He has my number in his cell, calls me when he needs me for something.”
Kelly Ann’s a little hurt, a little insulted that Mr. Brock would name her as a suspect.
“Randy’s about half senile, anyway, and the other half’s usually drunk. He probably just can’t remember where he put his damn wallet, bless his heart.”
I try another tack. I tell her I only want to help her turn her life around.
“Yeah, right, like you know anything about my life,” she says. “Who says my life needs turnin’ around? I’ve got a college degree and my own business. I’m a decorator. I take care of my half-blind eighty-three-year-old daddy. I cook his meals, give him his meds, do his nasty laundry, take him to the doctor, keep his house. You can ask anybody. They’ll tell you: Kelly Ann takes care a her daddy.”
“You’re a decorator? What do you decorate?”
“I decorated the whole damn house. I’m an artist. You seen Daddy’s mailbox? I did that.”
I had driven by Kelly Ann and her daddy’s place, on Scenic River Drive. Overlooking the wide part of the river with a hundred feet of waterfront and its own dock, the place was easily worth three-quarters of a million bucks. Daddy owns a string of dry cleaners. His mailbox, with some paint and plastic fins, had been transformed into a big-mouth bass. Not exactly a novel concept along Dog River. Or anyplace where there’s water.
“I’m not disputing you take care of your father, or even that you have some artistic talent, Kelly Ann. But take a good look at yourself.” I shake my head sadly. “You looked in a mirror lately?”
Her eyes flash, nostrils flare, but she remains silent.
I pull the “All Mugshots” pages of the last twenty years of Kelly Ann’s life out of my file and slide them across the table to her.
“Pictures don’t lie.”
She thrusts her jaw out defiantly but allows her eyes to scan the twenty-odd thumbnails. After a moment she raises her eyes to mine and pushes the mugshots back across the table.
“Nobody looks good in a damned ol’ Metro shot,” she says.
“But you do, Kelly Ann. Or did.” I pick up the second page and point to the bottom rows, her first few times as a Metro guest.
“Look at how good you look back here in your twenties. You were a really pretty girl, Kelly Ann. And you stayed that way, all the way up through the top of this page. A good-lookin’ woman, into your early thirties. But then, on this page, I’m guessing that’s when you started hitting the pipe, am I right? About your mid-thirties? Right in here, where you start to look like you been rode hard and put up wet—”
“I’ve had enougha your shit,” she snarls, and snatches the mugshots from me, wads them up in a fury that startles me.
“If you ain’t gonna charge me then we’re done here.”
I shrug and call for a transport officer to take her back to the Parkway Lounge where they picked her up for me. But I know I’ve hit a nerve.
I make it a daily routine to drive by Kelly Ann and her father’s place. I write down the tag numbers of the numerous vehicles parked in her driveway, at all times of the day and evening. I run them when I get back to the precinct until I find one that comes back to a female whose DL photo matches the description of the “unknown” other female given by the victim. Heather Thibodeaux. Not unattractive, early forties, brunette. Obviously Cajun. I see that she’s done a stretch in Tutwiler for drugs and theft offenses, and (ding ding, bonus!) she has an active warrant for probation violation. Probably failed a piss test.
I put Heather’s DL mug on a page with five other dark-haired women in their forties and show it to poor ol’ Randy, the stumpy Vietnam vet. He can’t be sure but says it has to be one of these two (one of whom is Heather), but he just can’t be sure, he had been drinking a bit, “and you know, wasn’t all that focused on their faces, anyway, y’know what I’m sayin’?”
Yeah, I know what you’re saying, bub. And what that means is I don’t have enough on either one to make an arrest for stealing your wallet.
I decide to swing by Kelly Ann’s and pick Heather up for the probation warrant if she’s there. Maybe she’ll confess, or at least put it on Kelly Ann. Actually, I’d prefer that she not confess, as long as she puts it on Kelly Ann. If I hafta charge Heather with the theft, then that turns her account of events into “codefendant testimony,” which won’t play in court, if I can even persuade the DA to take it that far. But Heather’s going away for the probation violation anyway, and if she thinks I might put an additional felony on her, it could incentivize her to throw Kelly Ann under the bus, and I get a two-fer: both of ’em removed from my beat.
When I pull up to Kelly Ann’s driveway, I see her talking to a dark-haired female in the same brown Corolla with the tag that had led me to Heather. Another female, auburn haired, sort of pretty, is walking down the driveway from the house toward Kelly Ann and the woman in the Corolla. Before I can even put out my location on the radio, I see the backup lights come on, Kelly Ann jumping back, and the Corolla coming at me in reverse. I slam my Crown Vic into reverse to avoid being struck and damn-near back into a passing pickup on Scenic River Drive. Meantime, the Corolla has jerked back into drive and Kelly Ann dives to avoid being mowed down by the Corolla as it ruts its way across Kelly Ann’s daddy’s manicured front yard, uprooting and wrapping an azalea bush around its axle before it disappears around a bend northbound on Scenic River. I hit lights and siren, jam it into drive, and slice a nice donut of my own into Kelly Ann’s luscious green lawn.
“One-sixty-three, got one refusing to stop, northbound Scenic River, brown older model Toyota, Alabama tag 2Adam96Edward43. Occupied one time, white female, speeds 35 to 40.”
Scenic River Drive is aptly named. Its narrow curvy lanes hug the bank of the river, sheltered by massive live-oak boughs dripping curly gray tresses of Spanish moss from the fern- and azalea-lined lawns of raised Creole mansions. Three bone-jarring sets of speed bumps (or “traffic calmers,” as the Mayor’s Office euphemistically refers to the damn things) precede its dead end at a 90-degree intersection with Clubhouse Road, which heads east from the riverside in a long straightaway with a dogleg left to Dauphin Island Parkway.
There are no other units anywhere near the lower parkway, and if I don’t get her stopped before the parkway, or at least get right on her tail by then, she’s got a pretty good chance of getting away in the parkway’s four lanes of traffic.
It’s my first pursuit in an unmarked detective car, and we’re not really supposed to do pursuits in detective cars because of our limited, interior-mounted blue lights, none of which are visible from the side.
I’ve slammed my noggin three times on the roof of my car, which is now making a loud scraping noise from underneath (later found to be my dragging tailpipe), thanks to the mayor’s traffic calmers, and I’m anything but calm. I’m almost caught up with her when she makes the right angle onto Clubhouse Road and stomps it. I’m right behind her, and my ten-year-old, 243,000-mile-old Crown Vic begins to shimmy and shake as we top 60 on a poorly paved two-lane in a residential neighborhood. If somebody pulls out of a side street or driveway, it’ll be ugly.
Lieutenant Andrews gets on the radio and asks me the reason for the pursuit. I groan silently: Andrews is a notorious chase terminator. Gotta make this sound as serious as possible.
“Active 29 for probation violation, known suspect in a recent felony theft. Suspect attempted to ram my vehicle just before she ran, LT, so it’s Reckless Endangerment, too.”
I hold my breath. No reply from LT. Whew. I keep filling the radio with speed and location reports to keep LT off the air. We’re nearing the parkway. Other units advise they’re heading my way, but they’re still north of I-10.
Heather blows right through a stop sign at Clubhouse and Gill, turning east onto Gill to avoid the red light at Clubhouse and Dauphin Island Parkway.
LT asks about traffic conditions and speeds. I lowball both.
“Approximately 45, approaching D.I.P. on Gill. No traffic.”
Without even braking, Heather runs the stop sign at the end of Gill and crosses two (blessedly empty) southbound lanes of D.I.P. in a squealing 90-degree left drift that sends a northbound Buick bouncing up over the east side shoulder and into somebody’s backyard at D.I.P. and Tallahassee. Unfazed, Heather zooms away northbound, weaving in and out of traffic.
I hafta slow and look both ways before following her and lose visual by the time I get northbound on the parkway. Other units are now approaching southbound on the parkway, and they’re below I-10, so we’ve still got a pretty good chance to close in and cut her off. But then LT returns to the air.
“Did we get a tag number, operator?”
“Affirmative. 2A-Adam96E-Edward43, comes back to a brown ’96 Toyota Corolla four-door registered to Heather Thibodeaux, active 29 probation violation.”
“Terminate pursuit.”
Damn! Another sixty seconds, we coulda had her, LT. I don’t know who I’m more pissed at: Kelly Ann, for claiming she didn’t know who the other female was at the victim’s house, Heather Thibodeaux for nearly ramming her beat-up old Corolla into the front end of my beloved (but equally beat-up) old Crown Vic, or LT for being such a wuss.
Later that day I get a call from Kelly Ann. She’s all apologetic and hyper. I’m thinking she just sucked the pipe before calling me.
“Did you catch her, Detective Johnson?”
“No. The lieutenant terminated the chase. ‘Threat to public safety, too close to the school zone,’ you know.”
“Boy, I’ll say! She was a threat to my safety, that’s for sure. Did you see that, Detective? I had to dive out of her way or be killed! Isn’t that, like . . . I don’t know, vehicular . . . reckless . . . aggression or something? It’s gotta be against the law, I know that much. I want to press charges. And what she did to my daddy’s yard! That’s property damage, right? We’re gonna need new sod, and the azalea bush: there’s nothing left of it! Just jerked it right out of the ground and dragged it off with her!”
“What was she doing at your place, Kelly Ann? I thought you told me you didn’t know her.”
“Well that’s why I called you, Detective Johnson, to explain. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, like I was aiding and abetting or something. She had just pulled up a few minutes before you got here. I had called her over here to talk her into turning herself in to you, I swear to God. I’m being honest. I was trying to help you and her both, but she saw you pull in and thought I’d set her up. That’s why she tried to run me over. Anyway, I just called to tell you how sorry I am that all this happened, and I want to cooperate fully with you, if there’s anything I can do. I was just trying to help, Detective Johnson, honest. I just like to help people who are down on their luck, you know? I guess I’m soft hearted that way. I knew she was just out of prison a couple months, and I was trying to get her on the right path, you know? But like they say, no good deed goes unpunished, I guess this proves it. So is there anything I can do to help, Detective Johnson?”
“Tell me where I can find Heather.”
“There’s no telling where she mighta run to, Detective Johnson. I know her mama lives across the bay, in Daphne. She took care of Heather’s daughter while she was in prison. But I don’t think her mama lets her come around much. Not a good influence for the child, especially if she’s running from the law, and I certainly have to agree with that, don’t you, Detective?”
Holy cow, I’m thinking, she’s totally tweaked out. Undaunted by my silence (or perhaps encouraged by it), Kelly Ann prattles on.
“So there’s really no telling where she might be. There’s lotsa dealers and lowlifes she used to run with, and other girls, too, who’d put her up for a while. That’s what I was trying to keep her away from, but we see how that turned out, huh, Detective Johnson? I bet you see this kinda thing all the time, and you think I’m a big fool for trying to help a drug addict fresh outta prison, don’t you, Detective?”
“Who was the other girl walking down the driveway, Kelly Ann?”
“You mean Vickie? Yeah, that was Vickie, Heather’s friend. Victoria Barnhart. They met in Tutwiler, but Vickie’s been out for almost a year now. She was here to see Heather, too, ’cause she heard Heather got out. Vickie just had a short stretch. Drugs. But she’s kicked. She wants to help Heather just like me, keep her outta trouble—she’s really doing well, one of the success stories. Vickie and I were sure we could keep Heather out of the life, you know? With my, like, contacts and resources, and Vickie’s example. You know, ‘If we can do it, you can too kinda thing.’”
As Kelly Ann chatters on, I’m pulling up Victoria Barnhart’s rap sheet on the Alacop database, and I see that she’s also done time in Tutwiler. And she has an alias of Victoria Thibodeaux. Wait. Not just an alias, but a DL with that name on it.
I interrupt Kelly Ann. “Is Vickie Heather’s sister? I mean, they both have dark hair, and I’m showing she has a last name of Thibodeaux, too.”
“Well, no, Detective, they’re not sisters. They’re married. Got married in Tutwiler. But they’re not really together right now. Vickie’s going by her old name, and Heather’s kinda mad at her since she got out. But I probably shouldn’t gossip about their private business.”
I’m silent, so Kelly Ann proceeds to tell me about their private business.
“The thing is, they both have hearts of gold, you know? I mean, really, in spite of what it looks like on their rap sheets. But I guess when Victoria got out, she kinda remembered how much she liked men, and she wrote Heather about her . . . mixed feelings, I guess you’d say, and Heather kinda took it hard like, and has been upset with Vickie since she got out, because she thought they’d get back together, bless her heart, and pick up where they left off, but it’s not happening that way. It’s, like, complicated, Detective Johnson, know what I’m sayin’?
“Anyway, I’ll do my best to help you find Heather, and to help you clean up the whole damn parkway, for real. I’ll call you whenever I hear anything, I promise, really I will.”
Kelly Ann continued to call me a couple times a week with secondhand Heather sightings at all the usual places, and some new ones. She sent me to Mariah’s place down on Fowl River. Kelly Ann said she’d heard from Bone, the crack man, that Heather’s staying at Mariah’s place off and on.
According to Kelly Ann, Mariah’s “mostly out of the life now.” She has an arrangement with a guy who works on one of the rigs in the Gulf. He’s gone most of the time and gives Mariah a small allowance for when he’s offshore. She feeds his dog and keeps the copper thieves from kicking in his door.
I drive out to Mariah’s place. It’s a ramshackle old cabin, up on pilings, junk cars and old boats scattered around underneath. No sign of Heather’s brown Corolla, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s not inside. I knock on the door. Somebody peeks through the window shade and sees the white Crown Vic in the driveway. I hear “Just a minute” and the sounds of a flurry of activity inside.
Eventually, Mariah opens the door. There’s the distinct smell of strong perfume, air freshener, and weed. She’s about my age, curvy, and you could tell she used to be a looker. And she looks familiar to me, but until she speaks (“Can I help you?”) I don’t realize she’s the “Frisk me first!” hooker from the Cheez Whiz. Mobile is a small town. And the circles cops run in are even smaller. But I don’t let on that I’ve placed her, and she doesn’t seem to recognize me.
I badge my way inside, look around as I introduce myself, and pull Heather’s BOLO flyer from my jacket pocket.
“Know this lady, ma’am? I’ve been told she’s staying here.”
“Of course, Officer, er Detective. That’s my friend Heather. But who told you she stays here? Nobody stays here but me and my friend Tommy, it’s actually his place, but he’s at work.”
“Several people who are in a position to know said she’s here. Mind if I check? You say there’s nobody else home? Any weapons in the house?” I walk back to a hallway and glance in an empty bedroom, notice a closed door at the end of the hall. Probably the bathroom. Probably occupied.
Mariah has followed me, talking all the while. “I won’t lie, Heather has been out here to visit a few times, but she’s not staying here, I assure you. I had no idea the law’s looking for her. What’d she do? Feel free to go on in, check the closet, under the bed if you want. If I’da known she was wanted, I woulda never let her set foot on the property, Detective. Does she have a warrant? What on earth did she do now?”
I’m more interested in the closed bathroom. As I start for the doorknob, there’s a flush (no doubt the weed) and Victoria Barnhart-Thibodeaux comes out, brushing her hair, all innocent, and acting surprised to learn that there’s a visitor. Her Tutwiler pics and DL don’t do her justice.
“Oh, didn’t know we had company, ’Riah.”
“Mobile’s Finest, Vickie. Just dropped in for a visit. And ain’t he a handsome thang!” Mariah winks at me and thrusts her best assets the same way she did at the Whiz when I first saw her. Vickie shakes her head and smirks.
“Don’t pay her any mind—uh-oh, look Mariah, I think you’ve made him blush! Just ignore her, she’s always in heat.”
“Says he’s lookin’ for Heather, can you believe it? Says somebody told him she’s staying here!”
They both laugh at the preposterousness of my information, then Vickie holds up a finger, nods her head. “Wait. Could your Confidential Informant be a rich girl who lives on Dog River?”
“Kelly Ann!” they shriek in unison, laughing even louder than before.
“That girl’s all the time stirring up the shit, ain’t she?” Mariah says. “And now she’s your CI! Not surprised she’d turn snitch for a handsome devil like you, Detective!
“Wait a minute! You’re the one who tore up Kelly Ann’s front yard chasing Heather a couple weeks ago, aren’t you? You mean you haven’t caught her yet? I want to be the first to know when you do, so I can stop worryin’ about her comin’ after me,” Vickie said.
Mariah steers us back into the main room. “Have a seat, Detective. Can I offer you something cold to drink? I know you can’t drink on duty, but we might have some orange juice or a Coke, let me check.”
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
“You certainly are!” Mariah says.
“Is that the last time you saw her, too, Vickie?”
“Yeah, haven’t seen her since the great chase. Thought you’da had her locked up by now. She can’t be that hard to find. Have you checked Bone’s?”
“She’s probably not that hard to find, but I do have other cases. It’s not like we got a dragnet out for her.”
“This is all about horny ol’ one-legged Randy, isn’t it?” Vickie says. “You know, I feel like that cheap bastard had it comin’. You wouldn’t believe what he makes a girl do for beer money, for just, like, twenty bucks, if he feels like really livin’ large.” She catches herself. “At least, that’s what I heard.” She raises her eyebrows and makes her eyes real wide, grinning like a kid telling a whopper.
Mariah changes the subject. “Now I’ve got a question for you, Detective, if you don’t mind?”
I shrug, and Mariah picks up a framed photograph from the coffee table and shows it to me. It’s a snapshot of a curvaceous blonde, maybe mid-twenties, in a bikini bottom and a wet T-shirt, nipples pointing aloft. She’s being presented a winner’s trophy on a stage.
“Have you seen this woman?”
I study the picture a moment. The girl is really pretty hot.
“No ma’am, I’d definitely remember her if I had.”
They both giggle. “Are you sure, Detective? Aren’t you poe-leece s’posed to be trained observers? Look again.”
I shake my head and shrug. “Why? She some kin to you? Missing person? Your daughter or something?”
Vickie hoots and Mariah scowls.
“Awww, come on, now! Shit. My daughter?”
She snatches the picture back from me and holds it up next to her face.
“Yeah, oh yeah, sorry. I see it now.”
“Give it up, ’Riah,” Vickie says. “He don’t care about some old picture.”
“First prize, at the Flora-Bama!” Mariah declares. “Aw hell, I gotta admit it was twenty years ago . . . but damn! I musta really let myself go.”
“But you still got skills, babe,” Vickie says. “Ask her about her toes, Detective.”
“Shut yo’ mouth, girl! He’s gonna get the wrong impression of me!”
“Don’t be modest, ’Riah!” Vickie says. Then, to me: “Mariah’s the only woman I know can pick a man’s pocket while flat on her back, with her toes!”
Now, that’s a bona-fide skill.
On my drive back from Mariah’s place on Fowl River, I wonder why Kelly Ann sent me out to Mariah’s for Heather, if Victoria’s hanging with Mariah, and Heather and Victoria aren’t getting along. It hits me that maybe Kelly Ann Kennedy’s a lesbian herself, with feelings for Heather. Now that Heather’s been jilted by Victoria, Kelly Ann might be angling to get Heather to move in with her at the Kennedy compound on the river. I resolve to swing by the place whenever I’m nearby to check for Heather’s old Corolla.
A couple weeks later I get a call at the precinct from a familiar husky voice.
“Remember me, Detective Johnson? It’s Mariah. Hope you don’t mind me callin’ you, but I thought you might be interested in a little piece of information, as long as you don’t let on where you heard it from. You still looking for Heather? I just came from Kelly Ann’s, and she’s there right now.”
I head down the parkway and call for backup while en route.