“Yeah, I remember that night, Danny. You put in the effort, I gotta hand it to you. All the GQ foreplay and shit, but next morning your girlfriend clocked me with a frying pan.”
“It was a lasagna dish,” I correct her. “That’s Wile E. Coyote you’re thinking of who got hit with a frying pan.”
Ronnie smiles and her teeth are like predatory Tic Tacs in the gloom. “You’re missing the point, Dan. Bitch decked me, so payback was always coming down the pipe.”
She’s here for Sofia.
I hate to trot out clichés but I have a bad feeling about this. Ronelle wouldn’t come down here personally unless there was some kind of prestige collar involved and as far as I know Sofia has only left the apartment a dozen times in the past decade, so what the hell could she have done? Did Zeb involve her in something when they were out together on his rounds?
“What’s this about, Ronnie? If it’s some penny-ante bullshit, you owe me a pass.”
Ronnie straightens, hooking a thumb behind her hip holster, pushing out the gun.
“Murder one ain’t no penny-ante bullshit, McEvoy. You think I’m working late for parking tickets?”
Murder one? My first thought is that Evelyn has had some kind of delayed reaction to the hammer blow. It’s possible.
“Murder? What are you talking about? Who is Sofia supposed to have killed?”
“You, Dan,” says Ronelle, grinning. “Well, you know, not you you. Carmine you.”
Lotta you’s in that answer so it takes me a second to unravel them.
“You’re saying that Sofia killed her husband?”
“The real one, lucky for Danny boy McEvoy.”
I am stunned. Partly at the revelation but mainly because I don’t doubt it enough.
A part of me always knew.
“Carmine is dead? Where did you find him?”
Ronnie blinks twice then sniffs like she’s gonna spit and I know there’s a hole in her case.
“We ain’t got the body per sé.”
“No body, no case. What kind of bullshit is this? Is the crime rate so low you got time to be fucking around with hearsay?”
I wouldn’t normally fire Class-A swearwords at the blues but Ronnie needs to know how against this I am.
“Hey, Dan. Mind your language. Just because I can kick your ass doesn’t mean I ain’t a fucking lady. Comprendé?”
I am unrepentant. “Well whaddya expect? Tooling in here on my night off and tossing out murder accusations without a body. I thought we were coming up on friendship, Ronnie.”
The back of my mind registers that I’ve got maybe half a minute to finish up here.
“This is business, Dan. I’m police first and foremost and I don’t let capitals walk.”
I point a finger at Ronnie but stop short of poking. “This is harassment, is what it is. Why are you even opening a book on this, after twenty years? Because you got whacked with a saucepan?”
“Lasagna dish.”
Being corrected is irritating, I see that now.
“You know what? You’ve got no paper to come in here plus you are off my Christmas list. So why don’t you clock the hell off or go pistol-whip some real criminals?”
Ronnie’s smile never dims and I realize she must have something. The idea makes me sick to my stomach.
Sofia could never survive in prison. Hell, she wouldn’t survive a trial.
“I need to know what you have.”
Ronelle walks forward and I either gotta step back or stand my ground.
Screw it. I stay where I am and order my spine to straighten up. This woman once threatened to shoot me in the privates and the aftershock of that keen moment still passes through me whenever she violates my space.
“Tell me, Ronnie.”
“I don’t need to tell you shit, civilian.”
“You can’t walk in here.”
“You ain’t the resident, darlin’. Step aside.”
“You need a reasonable suspicion at least, or else your case collapses in front of the judge.”
Ronnie’s ebony face lights up and I know I’ve played into her hands.
“Reasonable suspicion? I think you could say I have one of those.” She pulls out her iPhone and opens a sound file App.
“This is a 911 call. Came in last night, all the lines were busy so it went to overflow. We record them all. SOP. You know what that means, don’t you soldier boy?”
I have an urge to grab the phone and stomp it to smithereens. But those phones are tough little bastards so the likely outcome is that I would embarrass myself and probably break a foot to boot.
Foot to boot. I am hilarious.
I know that I am going to hear this message but I do not want to. Contrary to what Morpheus assured us with his red pill/blue pill speech, hearing the truth does not set a person free, and telling the truth usually earns the truth sayer an overnight bench in the tombs waiting for his arraignment with some public-defender kid still hungover from an evening spent sucking jello shots from a stripper’s navel. And if that image is suspiciously specific it’s only because Zeb has used me a couple of times as his one phone call.
Ronnie taps the screen with a blood-red nail and the file begins to play. The voice is low and slurred but still fills the corridor and drifts into the room behind me.
“Amazing speakers on these little things, right?” says Detective Deacon. “When I was a kid you’d have to lug around a goddamn boom box for this kind of sound.”
I don’t join in the speaker-quality discussion. Instead I listen to what my darling Sofia said to the cops when she dialed 911 in the grip of bleak depression.
“Someone needs to come take me in,” says Sofia’s voice, then pauses and I can hear the whiskey clunk in the neck of a bottle as she swigs it down. “I attacked a lady with a hammer. Can you believe that? I was a pageant queen. Now I’m getting hammered and hammering people.” A laughing jag then and more whiskey. “It’s not safe being me anymore. I need to be locked away. You don’t believe me? What about this? I killed my asshole husband. Oh yeah, I killed Carmine with his own pistol. Kept shooting till there was nothing left in the gun. I loved that man and he treated me worse than a dog. I shot my husband and I should go to prison. Can’t be any worse than where I am now.”
Ronnie whistles. This is incriminating stuff and it’s not over yet.
“No?” continues Sofia. “Forget prison. You guys come down here, you better be ready to shoot me. I’ve got weapons. And anthrax, I have a bag of that. So shoot first and ask questions later. I am a danger to the public and I need to be dead. You guys listening? I’ll be a-waiting.”
And that is the end.
Anthrax? Bollocks.
I decide to be brazen. “Who’s that supposed to be?”
All Ronelle Deacon can do is laugh and I don’t blame her. “Yeah. Whatever, Dan.
Just be on your way. I’ve got business here.”
“It isn’t Sofia, if that’s what you think.”
Ronelle shakes out her arms, which is a well-known precursor to police brutality.
“I knew who it was right away, Dan. So I checked into Carmine Delano. A nasty piece of work, small-time pusher and wannabe pimp. Turns out he beat the crap out of your lady friend for years before taking off. They found his car over in Wildwood by the pier. A little blood but nothing too suspicious. Everyone thought Carmine had run off with one of his various lady friends. Now, it’s looking like your sweet Sofia filled him full of lead, washed down the car and dumped him in the ocean. Now I gotta take her in, and run DNA on all the bloaters from around that time. I am presuming the anthrax comment was bullshit.”
My head is spinning. What the hell happened to Deadwood? That was only two minutes ago?
I want to protect Sofia but I don’t know what to do. This problem cannot be coaxed out of existence with fists or snappy one-liners.
Unless we go on the run. I could truss up Ronnie and make a break for Canada.
Deacon reads the thought in my eyes.
“Oh no you ain’t thinking about running,” she says, incredulous. “You think I came here alone after the anthrax thing? There are a couple of guys checking their safeties outside. The only reason Homeland ain’t up in here is because I assured them that your woman is crazy.”
“Sofia is not crazy!” I mutter. “She has issues and we’re working through them.”
“Issues? Are you listening to yourself, Dan? You sound like a goddamn commercial for Valium or some shit. You gonna read me the side effects now? No, let me tell you. The side effects of dating Sofia Delano may include having to pretend you see shit that ain’t there, watching her assault police officers and finding out that loony tune Mrs. Delano busted half a dozen caps in her shitbag husband’s ass.” Ronelle claps her hands, delighted with her little speech.
“You got a mean side,” I tell her like a spurned lover. “I knew you were tough, Ronnie, and straight as an arrow. But you’re wringing every drop of humiliation outta this arrest. Were you actually hoping I’d be here?”
She has the grace to blush a little. “Just get out of my way, Dan. I only got one set of cuffs on me or I’d book you for obstruction.”