“Then, as a friend, and not a priest, I believe God would also.”
Jake sat quiet for a moment. “Thanks, Father.”
“Sure, Jake.”
Jake stood and the padre pushed himself out of his chair using his palm against the corner of the desk.
“Mass on Sunday is still at eight, ten, and twelve. I will be doing the ten o’clock service. Bring your new girlfriend.”
“Nice sales pitch Father. I’ll try to make it.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” the priest said, patting Jake on the shoulder and going back to his menial daily tasks.
Jake stopped and looked at the priest as he walked out the door. It was the closest thing he was going to get to a spiritual green light. ***
Jake walked through the vestibule to the back of the church, past the lone sinner, rosary still in hand. He dipped his finger in the holy water again, made the sign of the cross, and followed the short hall to the right, past the bathroom and the water fountain. At the end of the hall, he stopped and looked through the glass window in the door. The “silent room” as it was called among the parishioners, was built for parents to take their restless children during Mass. It was constructed a hundred years after the main church was built, a niche carved out from a few rows of pews and an old coat closet. The large glass window on the far side of the room offered a distant view of the altar. Two speakers were perched in the corners of the wall so the parishioners could hear the Mass in progress. When the speaker was off, the room was dead quiet. A pay phone, a rapidly disappearing species of technology, hung on the wall in the close corner. Jake stepped over a pile of religious children’s books and shook his pocket for loose change.
The maddening, bureaucratic world of the D.C. Police was a shock to Jake’s system. His first call to headquarters was picked up by Tonya Freeman, a woman with three kids, as many ex-husbands, and a dislike for her job. She tried to transfer Jake’s call and promptly disconnected him. Jake shoved another fifty cents in the phone and called back. On his second attempt, Tonya put down her coffee long enough to connect him to the First District. His second transfer was as difficult as the first and Jake found himself talking to Officer Charlesworth from traffic enforcement. Ten minutes after his journey had begun, Earl Wallace, the detective who filled out the accident report on Marilyn, picked up his phone.
“Detective Wallace.”
“Good morning, detective.”
“Good morning. How can I help you?”
“I wanted to ask a question about a recently deceased woman. Her name is Marilyn Ford and she died Friday night in an accident at the McPherson Metro station.”
Detective Wallace started shuffling papers around his desk. “What did you say your name was again?”
Jake stalled. “I’d rather not say.”
“Then may I ask if this is an anonymous tip?” It was an early stalemate and Jake realized he wasn’t prepared for what he was doing.
Detective Wallace followed his instincts and didn’t push. “Okay. How do you know the subject?”
Jake noted the word ‘subject’, not ‘victim.’ “We go to the same church,” he answered. It was stretching the truth like spandex at a Weight Watchers meeting, but it was still technically true.
Earl Wallace switched gears and eased into the soft approach. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks for saying so. Detective, I’m curious as to the specifics of how she died.”
Detective Wallace listened to Jake’s voice, trying to imagine the person on the other end—his age, his race, his education level. “She fell down fifty yards of escalator stairs. Broken neck. It was a violent fall.”
“So it was an accident?”
“Yes, as far as I know. Do you have something to tell me it wasn’t?”
“No, I was just wondering. We got the news at the church and we were looking for answers.”
“Well, could I get your number, just in case I need to speak with you.”
“That’s all right. I just wanted to know how she died. You have been helpful. Thanks for your time, detective.” Jake hung up the phone as he finished the sentence. He felt sweat run down the inside of his arm. He looked out at the altar and the hanging crucifix, and crossed himself one more time for luck before dancing around the toys on the floor on his way out.
Detective Wallace hung up the old black phone on his desk and stared at the receiver, the noise of the office and its activities silenced by concentration. He picked the phone back up and punched nine for the police operator. “I need a trace on the call that just came in.”
“Yes, detective. The phone is registered to St. Michael’s Catholic Church. 2300 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Wallace jotted a quick sentence in his detective’s notebook. The phone call was unusual. He pulled the file for the case from the out-basket on his desk and went over the evidence again just to be thorough. The accident scene report and the medical examiner’s cursory exam results all pointed to a lady with a broken heel taking a spill down one mean-ass escalator. He held the folder in his hand and tried to put it back in his out-basket. His fingers wouldn’t let it go. Something about the phone call stuck in his craw. Cases had been made and killers sent to prison from investigations that started with clues far more benign than a random phone call.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything.
Detective Wallace placed a call to the morgue. His request for a full autopsy on the victim wasn’t well received. The medical examiner’s initial report was already on file. The body had been in the morgue since late Friday night and it was due to leave in a couple of hours. A full autopsy was time consuming and the current backlog of stiffs was long and growing. Two teenagers found beaten, stabbed, and shot in an alley on U Street. A three-car accident that claimed four lives including a mentally ill man who was trying to cross the street with a grocery cart full of junk. A young man dumped at the entrance to the hospital with no visible signs of illness or injury. And those were only the dead from Saturday afternoon. Two bodies had just been fished out of the Potomac and were on their way over.
Dr. Hahn handled the call. “I’ll get to her later today, detective. Looking for anything in particular?”
“Anything suspicious, no matter how minute. Double-check for forensic evidence that may have been missed in the initial exam. Anything that would contradict an accidental death by serious fall.”
The doctor read the clipboard. “Alcohol, Valium, and Zoloft followed by a fall down the stairs at the Metro station?”
“That’s what we know.”
“Ouch,” the doctor said. “I will get back to you by this afternoon.” ***
The unmarked cruiser stopped between two of the most confusing parking signs ever manufactured. By process of time slot elimination, it was legal to park between six p.m. and midnight, excluding holidays and snow emergencies. Detective Wallace shook his head at the sign, shut the door to his black unmarked cruiser and jogged, stomach bouncing, across two lanes of traffic.
In the pace of the big city, Marilyn Ford’s demise was ancient history. Fewer than twelve hours after her fall, the escalators were back in full motion, people trampling over microscopic blood stains left in the cracks of the tiles, beyond the vision of human eyes. Three days later and half the commuters using the station had forgotten the incident ever occurred.
Detective Wallace tried to recreate the scene. He walked to the top of the escalator, looked down and then turned around. He scanned the urban surroundings from street level and walked down the sidewalk half a block in each direction. With the mid-morning foot traffic passing him, he leaned against the blue mailbox and removed his left shoe. He stuffed his sock into his left Rockport and walked back to the escalator, shoe in hand. To his surprise, the one-shoe-shuffle created a nice limp, a solid simulation of a lost heel on a woman’s shoe. Lawyers and businessmen gawked at the detective as he limped down the sidewalk on one bare foot. The detective, deep in concentration, was oblivious.