Man, F*ck This House (And Other Disasters), page 25
Eventually, everybody got tired, and someone killed somebody else a couple of towns over, and the law enforcement carnival decamped. That was it for Caleb. Weird as it was, the world moved on because weird things are a dime a dozen. And the truly weird ones, if you’re not close enough, if you don’t see them for yourself . . . well, there’s ways to chalk it all up to something ordinary, like I did in my bed that night. You tell yourself Wesley and I are lying and bam, there you go. Nothing odd at all. Kids do terrible shit all the time, we killed him and buried him in the desert and made up some dumbass story involving the haunted outhouse and that was that.
At least everybody in Boomerang thought we were innocent. Even Caleb and Wesley’s parents. They were broken by it, badly. Moved away somewhere, and I didn’t talk to Wesley again.
I grew up, joined the military, and got in and out before the Second Gulf War. Tried to make a go of it in Riverside proper, then LA, then up in Sacramento, working in restaurants, taking odd jobs, driving taxis. Drifting from one gig to another until I finally drifted back to Boomerang and my father’s trailer. He was dead by then. Mr. Rose, a.k.a. Sheriff Greenback, was, too. Mrs. Hendrickson wasn’t far from the grave herself and didn’t have any kids. I ended up working at the gas station, not twenty feet from the place where my best friend disappeared from this world.
But I never forgot him.
Two years ago, I saw this TV show called Post Mortem, where they hunt ghosts and try to solve unsolved mysteries. Wouldn’t you know it, they were at a supposedly haunted brothel in Gila Pass, Arizona, trying to summon some prospector specter named Hiram Rannells who, in 1892 or thereabouts, had his throat slit by some guy named Razor Will. Only in passing did they mention that if you knock seven times on a particular prostitute’s door and ask, “Anybody in there?” Razor Will himself will show up and shave you sideways.
Of course, none of those Hollywood types had the balls to do it themselves.
It got me on a research jag, and yes, we do have internet here, although I’m sure speed-wise it’s nothing like what they got down in Blythe. I tracked down the historic Razor Bill Kramer—even had an old daguerreotype, and damned if he wasn’t the meanest looking cuss you’ll ever see—and turns out somebody finally put together the bodies he dropped all over California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and more for a good fifteen years. And everywhere a body dropped . . . well, now there was some sort of ghost story attached.
Really makes you think.
I wrote to that Post Mortem show. Didn’t expect anything of it. Until last week. One of their producers called and said they want to come out to Boomerang and shoot some test footage. And if that goes well, maybe do a whole episode about me and Caleb and this goddamn haunted outhouse.
She said something about bringing out ground-penetrating radar, which the cops never did because they saw it as a waste of time. But on those long nights after my lie was busted forever and I had to live with it all, I often wondered what might happen if you were to knock down the outhouse and dig up the ground underneath.
Probably wouldn’t find anything but fossilized cowboy shit, maybe.
But the thing about your urban legends, your Bloody Marys, your Razor Bills?
You never know unless you try.
LINE OF SIGHT
Detective Vince Wynn was hunched over a dead body when he got the text from Snell, his supervisor.
He glanced at his smartwatch:
How’s vacation treating you?
Serendipitous—Wynn planned to text Snell as soon as he was done. He looked down at his handiwork. The dark, still form slumped below him. The knife, glinting in the light. The train yard around him silent except for his own heavy breathing and the creak of steel in the bay wind. Above, a weak moon offered little light, but for this particular task, the less seen, the better.
“Siri, text Sergeant Snell,” Wynn said to his watch. “Going good. Got time for a drink?”
And then, because he was a lunatic maybe-ex-cop squatting over a dead body, he said, “Beer emoji, beer emoji, beer emoji,” his voice echoing off corrugated steel.
The message was sent.
It wasn’t ten seconds before a reply came back:
Hell yeah! You free now?
“I will be,” Wynn said, bending to finish his work.
His throat felt dry. That was okay, though.
He’d wet his whistle soon enough.
One haphazard body disposal and an exceedingly thorough shower later, Wynn sat outside Snell’s Point Loma house in his personal vehicle, a Ford F-150 that was bigger than he needed and newer than he should’ve been able to afford. Up a terraced flight of steps, on its own personal hill overlooking his neighbor’s, sat Snell’s place, a three-thousand-foot ranch house with a multimillion-dollar view of the Shelter Island harbor, the airport, and the downtown skyline. More than a little ludicrous on a detective sergeant’s salary, even a twenty-five-year man like Snell who, at forty-six, still had a thick head of dark brown hair and a lean, rangy physique. The official story was that his wife inherited it from a long-lost uncle who, if you checked the paperwork, was technically a shell corporation headquartered in the Bahamas. Wynn had been there a few times for barbecues in happier times.
Before Scotty Mercer got his back cracked so bad that if God himself were a chiropractor he wouldn’t be able to unfuck it.
Wynn slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and followed a trail of fairy lights up the winding terraced walk. Snell opened the door before he was halfway there, stepping onto the front porch. He wore a yellow polo and blue shorts, top tucked with military precision, a gold chain emerging from the collar, mostly hidden by Ralph Lauren, but the kind of Jesus piece most rappers might find too ostentatious.
As Wynn neared, he caught the look in Snell’s eyes. The spider veins in his nose popped in the yellow porch light. From afar, Snell might’ve looked like the picture of middle-aged virility, but the cracks were there if you looked.
“Yo,” Snell said. “Been a minute.”
Wynn stepped up on the porch. Snell gave him a handshake which turned into a bear hug, then separated with a fist bump, the sort of intricate greeting guys in their line of work—gang and drug interdiction, specifically—tended to pick up from their quarry.
“You good?” Snell peered intently at Wynn.
Wynn shrugged. “Leave’s been killing me. Found a way to keep busy, though.”
“Guys like us gotta stay busy. Otherwise . . .” He trailed off, not needing to remind Wynn what otherwise was, what happened to guys who didn’t stay busy, who sat up alone at night with their fucked-up thoughts, everything they’d seen and done on the job eating them alive.
Snell ushered Wynn inside, through the living room with its vaulted ceiling and museum-quality furniture, sculptures, and gold trim, everything obnoxiously garish, out to the back deck where he’d built a bar right out of a Parrothead’s wet dream. It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, said the faded wooden sign over the bar, an expression Snell took literally far too often.
“You want the usual?” Snell asked, sliding behind the bar. “Just picked up some new IPAs from Karl Strauss.”
Wynn glanced down at his hands. A dark, pinprick-sized spot rested in one of his cuticles. “Nah. Got anything special back there?”
“You know I do. What’s the occasion?”
“My board hearing next week.”
Snell bent down, opening the lower cabinet with a scraping sound. “Traditionally, the celebration and/or commiseration would be that night. Or possibly that afternoon.”
“I’m in the mood now.”
“Fair enough.” The dull clink of bottles marked Snell’s rummaging. He stood back up, nearly hitting his head on the Five O’Clock sign, and plunked a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle on the bar. “Twelve year. You okay if I save the fifteen for your exoneration? Or if you ever put a ring on Hailee?”
Should’ve texted her, Wynn thought. They had tentative plans to watch some random reality talent show, but she was knee-deep in a PhD program and most nights never even came up for air. Worked to his advantage at times.
“Yeah, you can’t let a sweet little number like that get away,” Snell continued, lining up two glasses next to the bottle. “I’d ask if you want it neat, but if you said anything other than yes, I’d have to shoot you. And I forgot to put a tarp down.”
Wynn took the glass, held it up to the light. The dark liquid within looked like any other whiskey. Thousand bucks a bottle.
He took a sip. It burned pleasantly. “Where’s Patricia?”
“Hawaii.”
“No kidding? Without you?”
Snell took a drink of his own, a much deeper pull than bourbon so expensive warranted. “I told you about her golf club?”
“No.”
“Met a bunch of ladies at the club who liked hitting the links a few months ago. I think they mostly get drunk and maybe get into some dyke shit. Either way, I fully support it. Lets me enjoy my kingdom in peace.” Snell expansively waved an arm around the backyard. “Hear all that quiet?”
“Mm.”
“It’s not so bad, really,” Snell continued. “I mean, we’ve been married longer than I’ve been a police officer. Wouldn’t still be if I could imagine life without her. I mean, I can, but only in short spurts. Hell, even if I could—she’s my ride or die, you know?” Snell took another pull, draining his glass. “Meaning if I couldn’t keep riding with her, somebody’d have to die, you know? That’s what that shit really means. Doesn’t mean you’d do anything for each other. Means you both know so much shit that if you’re not riding . . . well. You know.”
“Can’t say I do.”
Snell scoffed. “Come on. You don’t tell Hailee anything?”
“Only what I need to. There’s things . . . she’s getting a PhD in early childhood development, for God’s sake. She’s a nurturer. I can’t—”
“Doesn’t need to know how you keep her in Prada. I get it. That was Scotty’s girl. Sweet, but dumb as a doorknob.”
Wynn narrowed his eyes. “Any particular reason you’re bringing up Scott?”
“Any particular reason not to?”
“No. Just curious, is all.”
“You’re curious? Or it’s curious that I brought it up?”
Wynn sipped his whiskey in reply.
“Okay,” Snell said, raising his hands. “I give up. What’s with you tonight? This isn’t a social call, is it?”
Wynn pushed his glass across the bar, leaving a damp trail on the wood. He met Snell’s eyes. “Wasn’t a social call when you texted me, either.”
“Paranoid, much? What, you think I’m wearing a wire?” Snell untucked his polo, pulling it up to his nipples, and turned all the way around before letting it fall back to his waist. He didn’t tuck it in again.
“You didn’t need to do that.”
“Had to do something, apparently. You going to tell me why you’re here sipping my thousand-dollar bourbon and acting like a dick?”
Wynn reached for his bag. The muffled sound of a shotgun racking came from under the bar.
“Easy,” Snell said, tipping his chin at the bar top. “Top shelf at Snell’s Place consists of Louis XIII and a sawed-off. Don’t reach for anything. And lift your shirt up.”
“Snell—”
“Won’t ask again. Think about how it’ll play. Unstable cop’s got a disciplinary hearing, gets drunk, goes over to his sergeant’s place. Maybe he blames him for his circumstances. Thinks he hasn’t had his back. Gets angry. Real angry.”
Wynn stood, slowly, carefully lifting his shirt and turning around. “You haven’t had my back.”
Snell frowned. He looked genuinely hurt. “How’s that?”
Wynn laid his hands on the bar, and stared him down. “That’s what I’m here about.”
Everything started with the Elysian. Or, if not exactly everything, enough of what followed. What turned a cop like Vince Wynn into a killer. Put him on the path that ended in Snell’s backyard, a shotgun aimed at his guts.
It should’ve been just another night. Wynn had been working for SDPD’s elite SIGHT unit for three years, since its inception. Six men, all told, him and Scotty Mercer and three other grunts, supervised by Eldon Snell. SIGHT—Special Intelligence Gathering and High-Risk Tactics—had been established as a semisecret unit, operating with relative autonomy in order to put pressure on the drug gangs, specifically Seven Terraces. SIGHT didn’t do much typical police work. Instead, they gathered intelligence and passed it on to the narcotics and homicide squads. They didn’t wear uniforms or cameras, and rarely made arrests.
What they did do was hit fucks like Seven Terraces where it hurt.
Early on, Snell figured out the lack of oversight meant they could pick and choose what info they shared. Passing along enough stash house addresses and names of shitbirds hiding from a warrant at their third baby mama’s crib, the unit justified its existence. With Seven Terraces operating mucho stash houses, SIGHT had plenty of targets to choose from.
“Three for them, one for us,” Snell said in the bar that night, running it by Wynn. The other guys were already on board. Wynn fell like the domino he was. Of course he’d say yes.
Snell knew what he was doing when he picked the team.
They’d done well. Seven Terraces was barely hanging on, had gone through several different shot callers of late as the cartel got less and less patient with their continued failures. And the SIGHT guys were swimming in cash. More than they ever thought possible. Anybody with kids had their college paid for. The younger guys like Wynn . . . well, Vegas was only a forty-five-minute flight.
No complaints.
Then came that night at the Elysian.
SIGHT got some intel that a Seven Terraces offshoot set up shop in an East Village condo, one of those brand-new glass-and-steel high-rises overlooking the city’s growing skid row. Rumors were swirling about the occupant. He’d been killing his way to the top. “Never seen a body do that before,” one of Wynn’s old academy buddies, a beat cop in Southeast, told him over beers at Tom Ham’s Lighthouse, but then failed to elaborate further, telling Wynn he could pull the police report himself if he really “wanted that shit in his head.” Wynn did, and the beat cop was right.
They didn’t have a real name, just an alias—El Greco. Didn’t have a picture. Just an address.
3456 Harbor Drive. Unit 217.
The Elysian.
It rose twenty-two stories, lights gleaming from every window, occupying a full city block. A grassy park lay outside the entrance.
They were thin that night, a few of the other guys on vacation. Just Wynn and Mercer and Snell and one other SIGHT member, a five-foot-six bodybuilder named Groener who dressed like a personal trainer. They were set up in the van, parked in front of an empty storefront, Snell’s overapplied Old Spice warring with Mercer’s Cool Water for olfactory supremacy.
Snell trained binoculars on the building, noisily chewing gum. “Priority one’s getting this guy on camera. Then we run facial recognition and figure out who we’re dealing with.”
“What’s the plan?” Wynn asked. Mercer was sitting next to him, sweating already.
“Scotty’s going in,” Snell said, setting the binocs on the dash. “Got a present for you back there. Hope you look good in blue, Mercer.”
“I’m a cop, jackass.”
Snell twisted around in his seat. “It’s not everyone’s color,” he said with a grin, then pointed to a bag next to Groener.
Groener passed it over.
Mercer unzipped it, pulling out a maintenance uniform. He pointed at the name tag. “Arnold, huh? Like the actor?”
“Something like that.”
Mercer pulled his pants off. Wynn and the others averted their eyes to give him a modicum of privacy.
Except there was Snell, glancing at the rearview.
Wynn watched him watching Mercer out of the corner of his eye, trying to parse out what was going on. Snell definitely wasn’t gay. Wynn had seen him solicit favors from Seven Terraces–affiliated prostitutes—and even some baby mamas—before. And giving Mercer shit, but in a weird way? That wasn’t Snell’s usual MO when they were on the job.
Mercer zipped up his coveralls. “So what’s the plan?”
“Easy,” Snell said. “You clip on one of those pinhole cameras and go knock on 217. Say, ‘Maintenance.’ There’s a leak in the unit above and you’re checking his ceiling for water damage.”
“What if he doesn’t want to let me in?”
“All we need is his face on video. Getting a look at his digs is just a bonus.”
“What if he gets squirrelly?” Wynn said. “I don’t like sending Mercer in without backup.”
“That’s why you and Groener are going to be in the stairwell, listening to everything that happens on the hidden microphone in Mercer’s lapel. You know how to use one of those, right?”
“What’s there to know?” Mercer broke in. “It’s on, isn’t it?”
Snell slapped the steering wheel. “All right, everybody move out. Let’s get this fucker’s face.”
Everybody but Snell bailed out of the van. Mercer cut up Tenth, taking the long way around to the lobby, so Wynn and Groener could get set up. In the park, a dirty man on a bench rocked back and forth, pulling at his beard. Wynn couldn’t tell if he was crazy or just tweaked out. Maybe both. They couldn’t do shit about the mental health crisis, but drugs? SIGHT was making an impact. Sure, maybe they took a little taste here and there, but what was so wrong with that?
“You feel like something’s off?” Wynn asked Groener.
The other man just shook his head. Not surprising—that was Groener. Street brawler through and through. Not a thinker. Why Snell picked him for SIGHT.
