Part 26 (1/2)
Fifty-Two.
Oster was already in the squad room when Thinnes got back to work. He didn't look well-he was gray and sweaty, though he insisted he just needed coffee. ”Don't be stupid, Carl,” Thinnes told him. ”Go home and get some rest. Call in sick.”
”It's just indigestion. Nothin' a little Maalox won't take care of.”
Oster had been trying to get into Violent Crimes since he made detective, back when there was a separate homicide division. After Thinnes's last partner, Crowne, was murdered, Oster'd put in a transfer from Property Crimes. The help he'd given Thinnes nailing Crowne's killer put him in well enough at Area Three to insure his request for a transfer was granted. He went at homicide detecting all out, like a starry-eyed rookie instead of the overweight fifty-year-old he was.
”You're not gonna miss anything,” Thinnes told him. ”After I interview Poke Salad Annie, I'll probably spend the rest of the day on the phone. If anything goes down, I'll call you.”
Thinnes had asked the District Nineteen, Twenty and Twenty-three offices to keep an eye out for the bag lady. Patrol found her sitting on the steps of a doorway to the apartment over a store on Argyle. She had all her earthly belongings in a wheeled wire shopping basket, and she knew her rights well enough to insist the officers bring her stuff along to the station. They brought her to the District Nineteen desk and waited with her until Thinnes came down to take custody.
He hadn't spoken to her at the scene of Thomas Redbird's murder, but he recognized her-a small, skinny black woman, much older, according to her record, than she appeared. Her teeth were too perfect to be original equipment, and her hair, too black. The wig was so excessive it reminded him of Dolly Parton's. She was sitting on the bench next to the Community Relations office. He watched her for a few minutes before going over to introduce himself. Poke Salad Annie, a.k.a. Layde Bird Johnson, a.k.a. Melanie Moons.h.i.+ne, a.k.a. Alice Mayhem. She must have had enough gray matter, once, to have a sense of humor. Now, she seemed kind of vacant.
She also had an extensive arrest record: possession, prost.i.tution, a.s.sault, and aggravated battery. Her most recent arrests, though, were bulls.h.i.+t: trespa.s.sing, disorderly conduct, and petty theft.
He didn't even consider dragging her upstairs with her stuff. He sat her down at a table in one of the district interview rooms. It was small and close, and breathing the same air with her was almost enough to make you high. She must have had a BAC two or three times the legal limit. She took off her coat-a ratty fur-and carefully laid it on the far end of the table. She seemed to be wearing a whole jewelry box-full of costume jewelry, and three or four outfits, one on top of another. It reminded Thinnes of a little girl playing dress up. He didn't comment as she fished a pint of cheap whiskey out of a pocket, opened it, and took a swig. Her trinkets jangled as she threw her head back and slugged it down. ”You know why they call me Poke Salad Annie?”
Thinnes grinned. ”You were busted for marijuana possession and told the arresting officer it was poke salad greens.”
She gave a whiskey-voiced laugh and nodded. ”I was beautiful once. Men wanted me.” She leaned back and squinted at him. ”Bet you find that hard to believe.”
”No. You've got a sense of humor. That's more important than looks.”
She pointed at him with an index finger bent by arthritis. ”You all right. I s'pose you want I tell you 'bout the man was killed.” He nodded. ”Elvis done it.”
”The Elvis?”
”Hunh! I ain't that drunk. I never been that drunk.”
”You know Elvis's last name?”
”Naw. Jus' Uptown Elvis.”
”Did you see him shoot the man?”
”I seen 'em together. Then I heard a shot. Then Elvis was gone, and the other man was daid. What'd you figure happen?”
”You think you could identify Elvis?”
”Sure.”
Thinnes handed her a pack of pictures, a dozen in all. The sixth in the pile was the smiling, sunlit picture of Thomas Redbird; the tenth, Elvis Hale's ”graduation” picture, taken when he was last released from jail. The rest were pictures of men whose descriptions matched Elvis's, including one of the real Elvis, and one of an Elvis impersonator arrested last year for flas.h.i.+ng.
Annie began to lay the cards out on the table in a pattern, the way a gypsy lays out fortune-telling cards. When she got to Elvis Presley's picture, she said, ”Humph.” She put Redbird's picture directly in front of her, against the table edge, and Hale's next to it. When she'd laid out the rest of the cards, she tapped Elvis Hale's photo with the fingers of her right hand and said, ”Uptown Elvis.” Then she did the same for the picture of Redbird. ”This the man he killed.”
It was only 1:30 P.M. when he parked on Larrabee, in front of Terry's Red Hots, and flipped his OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS sign onto the dash. The parole office across the street looked as depressing as everything else in the immediate neighborhood except the hot-dog stand. Number 154347 was a three story, gray-tan brick building sandwiched between a weed-filled vacant lot and the El tracks, suspended between the poverty of Cabrini-Green and the money of Old Town. He locked the car before he crossed the street.
A substantial desk stood between Elvis Hale's parole officer and his visitors. It looked secondhand, like everything else in the room, and the man behind it looked more like an accountant than a ”corrections parole agent.” Thinnes knew better than to judge him on appearances. After all, his own partner looked like a used-car salesman. He accepted coffee and a seat, and decided the agent was probably a lot sharper than he looked.
”What can you tell me about Elvis Hale?” Thinnes asked.
”He really looks like Elvis. I'm not sure that's good, because it's gotten him off the hook often enough he thinks the rules don't apply to him. And he can be quite charming when he wants to.
”His father was a Native American-denomination unknown. Abusive. Drank himself to death when Elvis was young. His mother was a hooker and heroin addict. Died about five years ago. He does have a maternal uncle for whom he's expressed mild affection.”
”Did have.”
”He didn't...”
Thinnes shook his head. ”Natural causes.”
”The Department of Corrections has become his family, over the years, and county jail, his home away from home. He hasn't done any hard time. Yet. But his future's not what I'd call promising. You've seen his rap sheet.”
”Yeah.”
”Has Mr. Hale done something of which I should be apprised?”
”Too early to say yet. Anything else?”
”He was a.s.sessed as having antisocial personality disorder. Are you familiar with that term?”
”What they used to call a sociopath?” The agent nodded. ”What-exactly-does that mean in Hale's case?”
”That he came off the a.s.sembly line without a conscience and with an appalling inability to learn from his mistakes.”
”You got a current address?”
The parole officer nodded and pushed a paper across the desk. ”I thought you'd want it. An old girlfriend. He claimed she was going to put him up.”
”Claimed?”
”He's about a week overdue reporting in.”
”You didn't report him.”
”His last offense was criminal damage to property-not people. Since the jail doesn't have enough room for killers and rapists, I tend to cut nonviolent offenders a little slack. How long ago was this last alleged-”
”More than a week.”
Elvis Hale's parole officer seemed relieved. ”Parole officers are like teachers. We burn out after a while and, in the meantime, we concentrate our efforts on those of our charges who seem to give a d.a.m.n. Mr. Hale isn't one.”
When Thinnes got back to Western and Belmont, there was a message to call the crime lab. Mabley answered.
”This is Thinnes. Got a message to call ASAP.”