Red Man Down(11)

‘With this week’s allowance, yes, I’ve got enough and a little left over.’

‘How did you get so much?’

‘I saved up all fall for Christmas. But then you all said only small gifts, so that’s what I did. Hankies for grandma and that little bottle of cologne for you … Will’s Dreml head was the most expensive thing. So I still had most of what I saved, and then Uncle Howard sent me a check, remember? And Mom sent money in her card …’

Janine had certainly done that. The limp, stinking twenty, smelling of hemp and sorrow, had fallen out of a cheap card that arrived two days before Christmas and temporarily silenced all conversation in the house. Denny had put it away somewhere and never spoken of it again until now.

‘I see,’ Sarah said. ‘And this is how you really want to spend all your money?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right, then. Let’s see, this one has a broiler …’

They examined all the features available and picked the one that seemed best. Sarah managed to get a salesperson to help, in the madhouse that the store had become, by standing on tiptoe and turning on her Officer of the Law expression.

The clerk pulled a ready-boxed one off a back shelf. She showed them the numbers matched the model they’d chosen, said, ‘This is what you want, right?’ and rang up the sale. Denny counted out ninety dollars on the counter. When the drawer slid open the clerk said, ‘That will be $98.05.’

‘No, it’s on sale, see?’ Denny pointed to the tag.

‘Yes, but then I have to add sales tax, dear.’

‘Oh.’ Denny’s voice grew smaller. ‘I forgot about that.’ She began pulling dollar bills and quarters out of her wallet. People waiting in line were watching. Her hands had begun to shake. There wasn’t going to be enough.

‘Denny, let me pay the tax, OK? Really,’ she said as the child looked up, ‘I want to.’ She slid a ten across the counter.

They got their purchase in a big sack and fought their way outside. Beside the car, Denny said, ‘Thank you, Aunt Sarah.’

Sarah looked at her niece fondly. ‘You’re welcome. I have to say, Denny, shopping with you is a real eye-opener and a very great pleasure.’

‘Oh, yeah, now that I’m safely broke you say that.’

‘Hey … did I really look that reluctant?’

‘I know how much you hate to shop. So thanks again for doing this for me.’

After they belted the box carefully into the back seat so it couldn’t fall, Sarah looked at her watch and said, ‘I know you’re anxious to go home and give Grandma her present, but … we got that done so fast. Why don’t we give ourselves a treat?’

‘OK. What?’

‘Oh, hot chocolate or … I wonder, is it legal to eat ice cream this soon after breakfast?’

Denny giggled. ‘You’re the cop, you tell me.’

‘Let’s see, have I ever arrested anybody for inappropriate consumption of dairy products? I don’t think so. Let’s give it a try.’





THREE


Monday morning, Delaney called his crew into conference.

‘Jason’s right – the dead man’s name is Edward Lacey.’ He held up a service jacket, put it down and sighed. ‘For eighteen years this man worked for the Tucson Police Department.’ He slid a tall stack of pages onto his desk.

‘Soon as I saw his old photo I recognized him just fine. Back in the day, he and I worked the same shift, two to midnight, for more than a year.’ He pushed the yellowing pages around on his desk, remembering. ‘We backed each other on many a hinky call, and I can tell you, he was solid as a rock.

‘About the time I made detective – let’s see, that’s almost ten years ago now – I heard Ed got a spot on the training crew, where it seems he always did well and was pleased with the job. But he came back on street patrol, didn’t he, three years ago? I wonder why?’ He was leafing through the records, asking himself questions. ‘He had his first big problem then. A couple of months after he got his old shift back at East Side, he was accused of handling an arrestee too rough. Earned a reprimand and a few days’ suspension … After that no comments on his file till he wrecked his car and got fired, a little over two years ago. How could anybody change that much in only two years? He doesn’t even look like the same man.’

‘He didn’t do it all in two years,’ Leo Tobin said. ‘That last year on patrol, he was a train wreck.’

‘Oh? I guess I just didn’t happen to see him. But you usually hear something …’