Last Call by Baxter Clare Page A
Authors: Baxter Clare
her teeth and stares at a tag on the south fence. She will absolutely not lose it and certainly not here.
Noah was rarely in the office after the case went down. When she’d catch up to him, he’d explain this was where he’d been, probing inch by inch through garbage, dog shit and weeds, climbing up on rooftops to survey the scene from that vantage, sitting for endless hours amid the cold debris. This is where he’d been. And for Frank, this is where he still is. She’s awed by how much she misses him.
Frank blinks hard, forging her composure on the anvil of deliberation. The transformation is made manifest—her jaw unclenches, shoulders drop and fingers relax. The effort is exhausting, but Frank disregards this too. Stoic the Magnificent is back and at the top of her game. She continues through her grids as if nothing has happened.
For the next few weeks Frank runs on alcohol, caffeine and a smoldering rage. Pacing the cage of her office, she is Blake’s “tiger, tiger burning bright.” Her detectives give her a wide berth. She can feel their edginess around her. Though they would never admit it, they are probably afraid of her, afraid of being in her line of fire if and when she should blow. And they’re likely even more nervous that whatever Frank has might be contagious, so they keep their distance.
Frank helps. She does what she has to do in the office as quickly as possible then heads for Raymond Street. Unless she has a meeting or gets called to a homicide, she is gone all day. She has become a regular fixture in the neighborhood. The crazy-ass white bitch walking up and down the street late afternoons is such a familiar sight that the dopers smoking on stoops don’t even bother hiding their chronic. The really perking ones might call out to her, but an ugly void in Frank’s eye keeps them where they are.
She mad-dogs each house. One of them must have borne witness to Ladeenia and Trevor’s abduction. She curses that she can’t get wood to speak. Prowling the sidewalk day after day, she waits for the houses to yield their secrets. She can’t envision what the sign, the clue, will look like, yet she walks and waits for the burning bush that will crack the case. When it doesn’t appear, she’s not disappointed. Burning bushes work on their own schedule.
Frank has drawn multi-colored lines on a map. The festive lines connect the Pryces’ house to Cassie Bertram’s duplex in myriad configurations. The most direct route is marked with a fat red line. Frank believes this is the route Ladeenia would have chosen. Her reasoning is simple; it was late in the day and Ladeenia would have wanted to spend her time with Cassie, not wandering along indirect routes. Plus, the cold weather and threatening rain would have added to Ladeenia’s haste. So Frank walks the red line. She checks alleys and yards. She knocks on every door, questioning the occupants along the route.
Most of the people she talks to don’t want to talk to her. They have already talked to the police. To Noah, to the uniforms that canvassed with him, to Noah again. Frank reminds them that South Central residents accuse cops of not caring, not trying hard enough. Here it is six years later, she stresses, and we’re still looking for whoever did this to these kids. We haven’t forgotten. She flaps Ladeenia and Trevor’s smiling school photos. They talk. But it’s been a long time. They add nothing that’s not anecdotal from the media. Some don’t remember and others didn’t live here then. But Frank doesn’t get discouraged. She expects as much. The case is old. People forget. But she has to satisfy herself that she has talked to every possible witness, every potential suspect.
A second, longer line on Frank’s map stretches from the red line to the dumpsite. She will start questioning people along the most direct route, working backward from the site to the home where the Pryces lived at the time of the abduction. Then she will
Noah was rarely in the office after the case went down. When she’d catch up to him, he’d explain this was where he’d been, probing inch by inch through garbage, dog shit and weeds, climbing up on rooftops to survey the scene from that vantage, sitting for endless hours amid the cold debris. This is where he’d been. And for Frank, this is where he still is. She’s awed by how much she misses him.
Frank blinks hard, forging her composure on the anvil of deliberation. The transformation is made manifest—her jaw unclenches, shoulders drop and fingers relax. The effort is exhausting, but Frank disregards this too. Stoic the Magnificent is back and at the top of her game. She continues through her grids as if nothing has happened.
For the next few weeks Frank runs on alcohol, caffeine and a smoldering rage. Pacing the cage of her office, she is Blake’s “tiger, tiger burning bright.” Her detectives give her a wide berth. She can feel their edginess around her. Though they would never admit it, they are probably afraid of her, afraid of being in her line of fire if and when she should blow. And they’re likely even more nervous that whatever Frank has might be contagious, so they keep their distance.
Frank helps. She does what she has to do in the office as quickly as possible then heads for Raymond Street. Unless she has a meeting or gets called to a homicide, she is gone all day. She has become a regular fixture in the neighborhood. The crazy-ass white bitch walking up and down the street late afternoons is such a familiar sight that the dopers smoking on stoops don’t even bother hiding their chronic. The really perking ones might call out to her, but an ugly void in Frank’s eye keeps them where they are.
She mad-dogs each house. One of them must have borne witness to Ladeenia and Trevor’s abduction. She curses that she can’t get wood to speak. Prowling the sidewalk day after day, she waits for the houses to yield their secrets. She can’t envision what the sign, the clue, will look like, yet she walks and waits for the burning bush that will crack the case. When it doesn’t appear, she’s not disappointed. Burning bushes work on their own schedule.
Frank has drawn multi-colored lines on a map. The festive lines connect the Pryces’ house to Cassie Bertram’s duplex in myriad configurations. The most direct route is marked with a fat red line. Frank believes this is the route Ladeenia would have chosen. Her reasoning is simple; it was late in the day and Ladeenia would have wanted to spend her time with Cassie, not wandering along indirect routes. Plus, the cold weather and threatening rain would have added to Ladeenia’s haste. So Frank walks the red line. She checks alleys and yards. She knocks on every door, questioning the occupants along the route.
Most of the people she talks to don’t want to talk to her. They have already talked to the police. To Noah, to the uniforms that canvassed with him, to Noah again. Frank reminds them that South Central residents accuse cops of not caring, not trying hard enough. Here it is six years later, she stresses, and we’re still looking for whoever did this to these kids. We haven’t forgotten. She flaps Ladeenia and Trevor’s smiling school photos. They talk. But it’s been a long time. They add nothing that’s not anecdotal from the media. Some don’t remember and others didn’t live here then. But Frank doesn’t get discouraged. She expects as much. The case is old. People forget. But she has to satisfy herself that she has talked to every possible witness, every potential suspect.
A second, longer line on Frank’s map stretches from the red line to the dumpsite. She will start questioning people along the most direct route, working backward from the site to the home where the Pryces lived at the time of the abduction. Then she will