Isolated Judgment Page 12

  Issabella glanced back at the five police vehicles parked on the street, in the drive and on the lawn. If Sour Twan hadn’t already realized this was a real situation, she couldn’t imagine what more would be needed to make him see it. She stepped inside.

  Two officers were in the corner of the living room, talking with Sour Twan’s mother. She was a big woman with a tired face that showed no sign of alarm over the fact that she was in her nightgown, arguing with cops in her living room.

  Of course not, Issabella thought as she followed Detective Sohms into the kitchen. Her kid’s brought the cops here enough, she’s probably immune to surprise by now.

  “I’ll take a look at that warrant now,” she said, and noted the frown of displeasure that appeared on the detective’s face. Sohms handed it over, and Issabella unfolded it. She read it twice, paying careful attention to the attestations of the cops who vouched on it. It was signed by a judge, sworn to by the officers and made out a clear case of probable cause that Sour Twan had slapped and kicked his girlfriend in her home on Beecher Drive.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, and handed it back to Sohms. “How are you all in here? That’s an arrest warrant for my client, not a search warrant for this house.”

  “One of my guys spotted him in the front yard,” Sohms said. “Asked him to stop and come talk to him. Your guy flipped him the bird and ran inside. Fleeing felon gets us inside.”

  “Asked him?”

  Sohms snorted.

  “Ordered. A lawful order pursuant to a valid warrant. We really going to try this in the kitchen?”

  Issabella smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  “What’s my guy get if he surrenders promptly and without fuss?”

  “I don’t make deals, Ms. Bright. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Any deal comes out of the prosecutor’s office. I’m just garbage collection.”

  Issabella made a show of looking around them. The half-dozen cops were loitering about, making little attempt to hide the fact they were unable to locate Sour Twan. Issabella was careful to resist the urge to glance up at the ceiling.

  “So, you want me to help you,” she said, “when by all accounts it looks like you guys have already turned this place over and come up empty. How long do you think your fleeing felon theory allows you to continue to invade this poor woman’s home?”

  Detective Sohms pinched the bridge of her nose and fixed Issabella with a flat stare. She opened her mouth, but the sharp cracking sound that erupted around them drowned away whatever ugly thing she’d been ready to say.

  Issabella, Detective Sohms and the three uniformed cops in the kitchen all looked up in unison. A second cracking sound leapt around the room, and Sour Twan appeared in the air above them. He was suspended in a cloud of drywall dust for a frozen moment, and all five of them shared a unified expression of abject confusion as Sour Twan’s skinny buttocks, only partially concealed under a pair of baggy blue paisley boxers, materialized amid the plunging pieces of kitchen ceiling.

  * * *

  Issabella leaned forward in the terrace chair and ran her hands vigorously through her hair. A cloud of drywall dust bloomed around her, drifting down to the floor and becoming a ring of white around her shoes.

  “I’m getting itchy just looking at you.” Darren sighed and sipped his Crown and Seven beside her.

  “You’re not helping.”

  “I’m not really a helper.”

  “I hate that kid,” she complained, and brushed at her pants and blouse. The white cloud grew. “Why even call me if he’s just going to fall on the cops anyway? Oh my God, I hate that kid.”

  Her clothes were ruined, she knew. Before heading out to the rescue of Sour Twan, she’d changed out of the I Got Away to Put-in-Bay T-shirt and shorts they’d had delivered to them that morning in the hotel room. Her pink blouse and gray slacks were coated in drywall and insulation. The left sleeve of the blouse had torn at the seam where Sour Twan’s shoe had grazed it during his descent to the kitchen floor.

  “I doubt he intended to fall through the ceiling,” Darren observed, and chewed a piece of ice.

  “He’s the worst sort of moron,” she snapped, and pushed her hair out of her face. She’d spared a look in her car mirror during her trip home and confirmed that she looked like someone had broken a giant snow globe over her. “Lives with his mom, beats his girlfriend and screams for help whenever his personal nonsense gets checked by the cops. You know Detective Sohms?”

  Darren squinted, sorting through his memory.

  “I think so. Stern, but attractive in an Angela Bassett kind of way?”

  “Yeah. He took a swing at her when he got on his feet. Boxers around his ankles, ding-dong waving around, and he decides to duke it out with a lady cop. I hate him so much.”

  “He does sound rather unlikable.”

  “So now it’s four counts of resisting and obstructing—one for each cop in the room. Plus an assault on an officer for the swing he took. Plus a fleeing and eluding for running in the house in the first place. That’s six felonies. How do you turn a domestic arrest into six felonies? Be nicknamed Sour Twan, that’s how. I’m going to demand so much money up front he’ll think twice about ever calling me again.”

  Darren chuckled and finished his drink. On top of the little black wrought-iron table between them, he had set a few pages of printouts, presumably the fruits of his internet sleuthing.

  Issabella stood.

  “I think you have news about Daniel Prosner,” she said.

  “My pursuit of him was both intrepid and fruitful.”

  “How fruitful? Did Google tell you the killer’s name?”

  “Not that fruitful. But I did get an address for him in Ann Arbor. I’m thinking it’s the place he stayed before the Judge convinced him to move to the island. How’d your guy get the nickname Sour Twan?”

  “It’s gross.”

  “A sex thing?”

  “I told you, it’s gross.”

  “Yeah, never mind.”

  “Okay. I’m going to go soak in the bath and luxuriate in my hatred of my client some more. How about you order Chinese and we’ll reconvene when I’m human again.”

  Darren rattled the ice in his glass and said “I’ll get you a wine cooler, too. Because if I had a flavor-based nickname it would be Sweet Darren.”

  She looked down at the dusty, bedraggled length of herself, then back at him.

  “Get me two, Sweet Darren.”

  Chapter Seven

  The young man who answered the door in Ann Arbor was thin with short, jet black hair and a carefully trimmed black goatee that made Darren think of the word Machiavellian.

  That’s not right, he decided, while the afternoon traffic burped along behind him. But...sinister? It is! Like, twirling-the-end-of-your-mustache kind of thing. What a goofy-ass way to wear a goatee. He looks like he should be snickering all the time. I can’t imagine too many U of M girls are banging down the door to get at that. I mean, goatees aren’t girl-repellant, per se. But you can’t go letting the mustache grow wings or have the chin part all pointy-evil. It just sends the wrong message, doesn’t it? His friends should tell him to knock it off, get himself a different look or—

  Beside him on the covered porch of the two-story campus rental house, Issabella gently poked him with her elbow. Darren blinked and saw the young man was staring at him, and had been for a long, uncomfortable moment.

  “Do you oil it?” Darren said, before he could think of something that made sense.

  “Um. What?” The guy in the doorway was wearing a faded gray T-shirt that said Engineers Do It Right the First Time in black block letters.

  “The goatee,” Darren said. “Do you have to oil it to make the ends stay?”

  The guy blinked several times, lookin
g from Darren, to Issabella, and then back again.

  “Wax,” he said. “A little wax. What can I do for you two?”

  “We’re looking for Daniel Prosner,” Darren lied, and held up the printout listing Daniel’s last known address. “Are you him?”

  “No. I’m Tony. Daniel moved out like a year ago.”

  “Oh, that sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We really have to find him—”

  “Sorry, dude.”

  “—to make sure he gets his share of the settlement.”

  Tony’s bothered expression shifted, and he stopped looking like he wanted to hurry and close the door. He took a step forward so that both feet were on the porch, and one of his hands drifted up to scratch at his chin.

  “Settlement?” he said. “For what?”

  Issabella had her briefcase clasped in her hands in front of her. She leaned forward with a polite smile.

  “It’s rather confidential,” she said. “We’re lawyers. I’m Issabella. This is Darren. Do you know where we might find Daniel? We need to get a rather sizeable check to him, and I’d hate for the expiration date to lapse.”

  “There’s an expiration date?”

  “It’s complicated. Michigan’s rather ‘dark ages’ when it comes to some of the intestate laws. But, as they say, time is of the essence. Do you have a number for him, maybe?”

  Tony nodded several times. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. Somewhere. I kind of had a falling-out with him. But, look, you guys want to come in and I can find it?”

  Darren shared a quick glance with Issabella, the corners of his mouth curling ever so slightly upward.

  “That would be wonderful, Tony,” Issabella said, and stepped inside as he held the door for them.

  Darren lingered a moment, and gestured toward Tony’s goatee.

  “Okay, I get it,” he admitted, as if he had been waging an internal struggle over the issue while Issabella talked them into the house. “There’s something to be said about pulling it off, right? Being able to grow it in the first place, but then also being really conscientious and methodical about grooming it. Like a long-term project. Am I right?”

  Tony smiled, more at ease now.

  “I guess so,” he admitted. “It’s just kind of my thing.”

  “Okay, but, total honesty—is it a plus or a minus with the fairer sex?”

  Darren stepped in and Tony led them into the living room.

  “Probably a minus.” Tony sighed. “I don’t know. I have a steady girl. She likes it. Give me a minute, okay? I think I have his number up in my room. There’s pops and beer in the fridge if you guys want. Hang tight.”

  Tony and his sinister goatee disappeared up the stairs.

  Darren and Issabella looked around the living room at the yard sale furniture and worn, multistained carpet. There were beer cans littered here and there like fallen soldiers strewn across a battlefield. A tall plastic bong was sitting out in the open atop the coffee table.

  “You ever miss college life?” he asked Issabella, lifting the bong up and peering at it.

  “Sure,” she said. “But this isn’t what my college years were like. I was the girl making flash cards in the library at midnight. So, what now? I got us in. What are we doing?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s your plan? For being here. For, you know, billing this as work.”

  “I don’t have one,” he said, and set the bong back down amid the fast-food wrappers and engineering textbooks that populated the surface of the table.

  “Darren—”

  “Wait! Yes I do,” he exclaimed, and kissed her forehead before strolling off through the archway where Tony had indicated the existence of a kitchen. “It just came to me. I am going to drink a beer.”

  She followed him into the kitchen, noted the mound of unwashed dishes heaped in the sink, the linoleum covered with spilled cereal, the quarter-inch-thick skin of grease coating the hood above the stove, and positioned herself in the very center of the floor, where there was little risk of anything touching her.

  Darren opened the fridge, produced a can of beer and smiled at her as he popped it open.

  “Tony seems friendly,” he mused.

  “Tony seems curious about the mystery settlement we dangled out there.”

  “Maybe we can trade on that.” He winked, and sipped the beer.

  “You mean, keep lying to him and see if he tells us who would want to kill Daniel?”

  Darren nodded, held the can up in front of him and wrinkled his nose at it.

  “I mean exactly that. And this beer is not good. This isn’t even not good. It’s something below not good.”

  “Abysmal?”

  “Abysmal is pretty harsh. Somewhere above abysmal and below not good. It’s sort of a sweet spot of ‘bad,’ where one sip makes you personally resent whoever brewed it. Like maybe they did this on purpose and they’re laughing at you from some dank, seedy corner of Milwaukee, where the worst beers get made.”

  “Reprehensible,” she ventured.

  He set the beer down in one of the few clear spots on the counter.

  “Bingo. That’s the word. This beer is reprehensible,” he agreed. “Can we trust the information we get from someone who drinks reprehensible beer? It kind of calls Tony’s character into question.”

  Issabella glanced around at the heaps of unwashed dishes and the general grunginess of the entire room.

  “I think maybe it’s more likely he drinks reprehensible beer because he’s a college student who can’t afford anything else.”

  They both looked up as they heard Tony’s footfalls. He bounded down the stairs and appeared in the kitchen with a sheet of notebook paper in one hand. As he handed it over to Darren, Tony looked at Issabella like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  “Huh? Oh. No, nothing,” he said. “It’s just...can I ask you a personal question and not have it seem weird?”

  Darren and Issabella exchanged a puzzled glance. She nodded at Tony.

  “Let’s find out,” she said.

  “If you were a girl and—”

  “I am a girl, Tony. This isn’t a good start.”

  “A girl in college, I mean. And, like, if you saw this goatee...not even saw it on me, but saw it on anyone. Wait, not anyone. Saw it on a guy who would be attractive without it. Would you—”

  “I thought you had a girlfriend,” she said. “And she didn’t mind it. Why are you worried about what other girls think?”

  Now Darren and Tony exchanged a knowing glance, and Darren cleared his throat.

  “He just means in general,” he said. “In general, do girls approve of this fine, lovingly crafted piece of facial sculpture. Or does it scream ‘gross’? Right?”

  “Right.” Tony nodded, his fingers unconsciously straying up to fret at the goatee. “I do have a girlfriend. I just mean in general.”

  Issabella considered it a moment.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Personally, I think it’s a little jarring. It might make me not consider a guy. But I’m just one girl. You’ve found one who doesn’t seem to care. I guess I’d say just be yourself. If your goatee is important to you, who cares what I think?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, but sounded unconvinced. Darren, she knew, had planted doubt. The college kid had listened while a handsome and presumably successful older man questioned something about him. It wouldn’t matter what Issabella said. When they were gone, and Tony was alone with his weird facial hair, he’d remember Darren’s skepticism, not Issabella’s bland encouragement. Men were conformists—no matter how much they might go on about being an individual marching to the beat of their own drum, every young guy she’d known was an un
finished project, making constant adjustments to fit closer to what they imagined a man should be.

  If she was forced to guess, Issabella suspected that the goatee would not survive another day of waxed, carefully groomed existence. Darren had been in Tony’s house all of five minutes, and already he’d murdered the engineering student’s symbol of individuality.

  “You know what?”

  They both looked at her.

  “Keep it,” she said, suddenly sympathetic toward the young man. “I remember being in college. I’d have probably liked it. Seriously, girls your age are crazy about a guy who stands out on his own. Don’t listen to Darren. He barely manages to dress himself.”

  Darren sighed. “That’s true, actually.”

  Tony smiled shyly at her, then pointed at the paper in Darren’s hand.

  “That’s the last number I had for him,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s still good. So, did a family member leave him money or something?”

  “I wish I could say,” Darren replied. “But it is important we get a hold of him sooner rather than later. The last thing I need is to be explaining why I couldn’t drop off a big check in time, you know? It’s not the sort of thing that clients want to hear about you.”

  “So, Danny’s rich now,” Tony said softly, shaking his head. “It’s a strange world, I guess. That guy never had two nickels to his name. Total deadbeat. Anyway, it’s weird you guys showing up today—”

  Issabella watched Tony catch himself, saw the reservation in his eyes as he looked back and forth between her and Darren.

  “Why is it weird?” she said, keeping her tone as casual as possible.

  “Nothing. I don’t know what I meant. I guess it’s just weird to hear about him after so long. So...you guys all set? I need to get ready to head out.”

  “Sure,” Darren agreed amiably, and reached into his jacket. He came out with his wallet. “Look, let me compensate you for being such a help. If he’s still at this number, you’ve saved our bacon.”

  Darren started making a show of flipping through the stack of different denominations lining his wallet. He paused on a fifty, then continued on to a twenty and plucked it out between two fingers.