Devil's Corner (7 page)

"How long?"

"Maybe two years now. Two Christmases ago."

"So you hadn't seen her in a while. Did you talk on the phone?"

"Surely, she'd call me, to keep up. Every other week or so."

Mrs. Greenwood nodded with approval.

"Did you know she was pregnant?" Vicki asked.

"I did. At first she didn't tell me, but then she did. She was afraid I'd get mad at her." The creased corners of Mrs. Bott's mouth turned down. She looked so lost in her heavy coat, and her hair, smoothed back in a frizzy bun, glinted dully in the harsh light. "Lord, a baby. The doctor today, he said it was gonna be a girl. Now, if she had a girl, Shayla wanted to call her Shay, after herself. Shay was her nickname. Shay."

Vicki nodded. So much pain. Who was responsible for it?

"Shay," Mrs. Bott repeated.

Mrs. Greenwood nodded again, behind her coffee. "I always liked that name," she said softly.

Vicki sipped cold coffee and let the moment pass. "When did she tell you she was pregnant?"

Mrs. Bott thought a minute. "About a month ago, she did. I was mighty surprised. I didn't know she was seein' anybody serious."

Mrs. Greenwood laughed softly. "You were so surprised, Tillie. You called me right away. You couldn't believe it, I couldn't, either. I was washin' dishes and I dropped the cookie sheet. Almost made a dent! My best one, with the air cushion." She looked over at Mrs. Bott. "You know the one, with the cushion? The air cushion down in between the layers?"

"I do, yes." Mrs. Bott nodded. "That is a good cookie sheet."

Vicki paused. "Did Shayla tell you who the baby's father was?"

"No. Jus' that they was having trouble and she might move out."

The boxes
. "She was getting ready to move where?"

"I don't know, exactly. Said she wanted to find a new place and change her life."

Vicki made a mental note. "What did she mean by that?"

"I don't know. I figgered she'd tell me, in time. I was just happy to have a grandbaby comin'."

"Did she mention a Jamal Browning?"

"No, no. She didn't tell me that."

Vicki didn't get it. "I think he was her boyfriend."

"Don't know him."

"I think he may have been the father of her baby. I believe that he paid her bills, like electric and phone."

"Hmmm. I don't know that. I don't know that name."

Vicki sighed inwardly. "Who do you think was the baby's father?

"I don't know. I didn't ask. I figgered that was her business, not mine."

"Did she date anyone that you know of?"

"Like I say, not serious. She always went out, she liked to dance. Shay was a good dancer. She liked music." Mrs. Bott paused, thinking. "A while ago, there was someone, his name was Dwayne."

Yay
! "Dwayne what?"

"I don't know. Or maybe Don. Or Wayne." Mrs. Bott waved a gnarled hand. "That was years ago."

"When she visited, did she ever bring anybody? Any friends or boyfriends?"

"No. She always came alone."

Vicki was getting nowhere. "What did she do for a living?"

"She used to type. She typed. On a computer. Keypunch, they used to call it," Mrs. Bott answered vaguely.

"Did she work for a company, if you know?"

"No, different places. For a temporary, like."

"I see."

"But she never asked me for money, not once," Ms. Bott added.

"So she was independent."

"Yes, very. Stubborn."

"Did she ever mention anyone named Reheema Bristow?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

Mrs. Bott thought a minute. "I don't know that name. I would recall that name. Reheema. That's an unusual name."

"Yes, it is," Mrs. Greenwood added, leaving Vicki frustrated.

"Who were her girlfriends, did you know?"

"Not really."

"Didn't she have a best friend? Every girl has a best friend." Then Vicki blinked.
Except me
. "I mean most girls."

"She said some names. Mar, that was one."

"Mar? Did she have a last name?"

"I don't know it. I would say Mar was her best friend, I think. Mostly she talked about Mar."

"Is Mar in Philly? Do you have her address or phone number?"

"No, I just know Shay used to call her, on the cell phone. When she was home ta visit she'd always be calling Mar. Mar this. Mar that."

Vicki made a note. Maybe there was no connection between Jackson and Bristow. But then again, it was clear that Shayla Jackson wasn't telling her aunt much about her life in Philly, or maybe Vicki was projecting. Either way, time to get down to business:

"Mrs. Bott, I have a feeling that someone close to Shay, maybe her boyfriend, sold drugs. Do you know anything about that?"

Mrs. Bott fell silent. "I don't know about that," she answered after a minute. "She didn't do anything like that, growing up. She was a good girl. She drank a little, at parties in school, but nothing like that."

"Not Shay." Mrs. Greenwood clucked a dry tongue, shaking her head.

"Do you know about any friends of hers who did drugs or sold them? Or guns? I don't think she did anything wrong, but she knew some bad people. What you know about this could help find her killers."

"I didn't know anything about that, I wish I did." Mrs. Bott looked into her paper coffee cup, then sighed. "Shay could get talked into things. She trusted people. She trusted everybody."

"So maybe she trusted the wrong people?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe that's why she wanted to change her life?"

"Maybe. Yes." Mrs. Bott nodded.

But she didn't get the chance.

"I know she was lookin' forward to that baby. She always did want children."

Vicki suppressed the image of Jackson, slain in her bedroom. "Did you ever hear the nicknames Jay and Teeg?"

"No, I surely didn't."

"I think they were involved with drugs, too."

"I don't know anything about that."

"There seemed to be a lot of money in her life. She had nice jewelry, for example."

"Shay did like nice things," Mrs. Bott answered. "When she was little, she always had to have matching bows. And braids. And dresses."

Mrs. Greenwood added. "Mmm-mh. Those little white socks, with the lace on top. The ruffle. All around."

"I made those."

"I know you did, Tillie." Mrs. Greenwood's speech fell into a soft cadence that matched Mrs. Bott's, a reassuring call and response between old friends. "I know you did."

"And shiny black shoes."

"Oh, how she loved those black shoes."

"She was such a pretty child, a pretty little girl."

"She was."

"She surely was." Mrs. Bott smiled happily with Mrs. Greenwood, the two of them forgetting for a minute how it would all turn out, and Vicki let them be, left them to slip into a reverie of what might have been, what could have been, thinking of pretty babies in ruffled socks with shiny patent shoes. Vicki wished for one minute that she could replace the scenes from the medical examiner with those frilly, happy, pastel images. Women like these shouldn't have to see sights like that. Vicki felt terrible she'd brought up the drug thing and raised questions about Jackson's memory.

"I am so sorry for your loss," Vicki said, and Mrs. Bott seemed resigned, and overwhelmingly sad.

"Thank you very much. You know, I told her, if she comes to the city, things happen. Things like this."

And it made Vicki sad, too, that she couldn't deny it. Even in her hometown.

In time, she packed Mrs. Bott and Mrs. Greenwood into a Yellow cab bound for the bus station. She offered to buy them an airplane ticket, but they wouldn't hear of it, and she had to promise if she ever went to north Florida she'd stop in for pecan cookies. She stayed on the corner in the cold, waving to them as the cab drove off, already formulating her next step.

She hadn't learned enough about Shay Jackson, and there was someone else who might know more. Cars and SEPTA buses rumbled down the cobblestone patches of Spruce Street, spewing chalky exhaust into the frigid air, and Vicki looked for another cab. She wouldn't be doing police work, exactly. It was more like an errand.

She wasn't suspended from errands, was she?

TEN

The sun burned cold in the cold clear sky, but Vicki stayed warm by keeping up, stride for stride, with Jim Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh was tall, thin, and superbly tailored in a gray wool coat he'd undoubtedly bought with his signing bonus. Former AUSAs earned $150,000 to start when they joined the big Philly law firms, so they upgraded their wardrobes, bought a car with excessive horsepower, and demoted the Jetta to "station car." Vicki experienced paycheck envy. Working for Justice paid one-third of that amount, which proved there was no justice.

"I need to ask you about one of your old cases," she said, hurrying alongside Cavanaugh down the busy sidewalk. His tie flew to the side, catching a bracing breeze as they strode down the street. He'd been too busy to meet with her in his office, but she'd insisted, so he'd agreed to let her walk him to his deposition. "The defendant's named Reheema Bristow, indicted for a straw purchase. You had the case just before you left our office."

"A straw case?" Cavanaugh wore hip rimless glasses, and his dark bangs flipped up as he barreled along. Businessmen in topcoats, workers in down jackets, and well-dressed women streamed past them on the sidewalk, laughing and talking, going back to work after lunch. "I picked up a straw case? I thought I was cooler than that."

"Two guns purchased, a CI named Shayla Jackson?"

"No clue."

"You spoke with Jackson on the phone?"

"Don't remember that."

"You must have met her at the grand jury."

"Name doesn't ring a bell. What did she look like?" Vicki flashed on the scene of Jackson strafed with gunfire, then shifted to the photos on the mirror. "A pretty girl, black, nice smile."

"That's everybody."
Great
. "Think about it. The case had a knockout for a defendant. Reheema Bristow. Tall, black, lovely face, killer body. Looks like a model."

"Oh, yeah." Cavanaugh smiled, and breath puffed from his mouth. "Now I remember the case. Who could forget Reheema? She was slammin'. Re-hee-ma."

"Yes, Reheema. You held a proffer conference with her, your memo in the file says so. I have it, if it helps."

"Let's see," Cavanaugh said, and Vicki juggled her handbag to slip the memo out of her briefcase and hold it in front of him while they walked. A kid plugged into a white iPod looked over as Cavanaugh glanced at the memo. "Yes, okay, I remember."

"It says her lawyer, Melendez, was there and also your case agent, Partino."

"Yeah, they were."

"You remember Melendez? Court-appointed, short, a little blocky?"

"Oh, yeah. Nice guy."
Unless he's suing you
. "And Partino. Where's he, these days? Why didn't he stay with ATF?"

"He was a reservist and got called up. Still in Iraq, I think."

"So I can't talk to him."

"No." Vicki refused to be discouraged. "Last night, my case agent was killed when he and I went out to see Jackson. Jackson was murdered, too, and she was pregnant."

"The CI, I read that online," Cavanaugh said, and to his credit, he winced. "I didn't realize it was that case until now. Reheema. So what do you want from me?"

"I'm trying to find out what happened."

"Don't they have police for that?"

Best not to dwell
. "Okay, let's talk about Shayla Jackson."

"The CI? What about her?"

"First off, her grand jury transcript wasn't in the file, and the slip shows you ordered it. You know where it went?"

"Guilty. I admit it, I wasn't into filing. Maybe it got misfiled. I
love
having somebody to do my filing." Cavanaugh grinned. "I have my own secretary now. Well, the guy I share her with is always out of town. It rocks."

"Jackson called you and volunteered to testify, your memo said."

"Right."

"So she called you out of the blue? It's weird."

"But not unheard of."

"I know, but usually there's a reason." Vicki didn't get it. The girlfriend of a drug dealer, calling the U.S. Attorney's Office to snitch? It didn't make sense but she couldn't tell Cavanaugh about the cocaine. "Do you know why she did that?"

"No."

Vicki checked the date of the memo, flapping as they walked. Eight months ago. Shayla would have just found out she was pregnant, if she knew that early. "Did she mention that she was pregnant at the time?"

"No."

"Did she look pregnant then? She wouldn't have been far along."

"I don't know if she was pregnant. She mighta been a little heavy, but that's typical. Gold jewelry, tipped fingernails. You know. Ghetto fabulous."

Vicki got over her jealousy of his salary and began disliking him on the merits. "Okay, so Jackson came in and testified before the grand jury that Reheema resold the guns?"

"Yes."

"How did Jackson know that Reheema had resold the guns?"

"As I remember, the defendant told her she resold them."

Vicki's ears pricked up. "Bristow admitted it to her?"

"Yep."

"So they knew each other?"

"I think that's what she said. They were best friends."

Vicki didn't get it. She'd asked Reheema this morning if she knew Jackson, and it didn't seem like the name had even registered. And that was consistent with what Mrs. Bott had said, too. "Who told you that?"

"What?" Cavanaugh was distracted, exchanging waves with a man he knew.

"Who said that they were best friends?"

"The CI."

"Jackson?"

"Yes."

"Did Jackson ever call Reheema Mar, or a name like Mar?" Vicki flashed on Mrs. Bott. Actually, she was having separation anxiety.

"How the hell do you get Mar from Reheema?" Cavanaugh screwed up his nose.

"Did she?"

"I don't know. Christ."

"Did Jackson mention a Mar?"

"No."

Vicki felt confounded. "You sure Jackson said Bristow was her friend?"

"Best friend, she said."