The Stones Cry Out by Sibella Giorello Read Free Book Online

out through the mustache. "That was Mike. He wouldn't let things go."
    "So they run to the roof and..."
    "And the perp runs as far as he can go. To the corner of the roof. Can't go any farther. That's when he turns to fight. You know this Hamal dude was a boxer--you know that?"
    I nodded.
    "Probably thought he could take him down. But that wouldn't work. Not with Mike.” Another sigh. "And what happened, you know, it happened."
    "Only I don't know what happened. That's why I'm here. I don't know."
    "So you’re asking me?"
    I ignored that dig, too. "According to the ME's report, Detective Falcon never drew his gun. It was still in his holster."
    "We all make mistakes. Long run up those stairs, lack of oxygen to the brain."
    I pretended to write that down and didn't look up as I asked the next question. "Can you think of anyone who wanted Detective Falcon dead?"
    There was a long silence, and when I did look up Detective Greene had thrown his head back. The laughter rumbled up through his throat before bouncing off the concrete blocks.
    "Girl," he said, wiping his eyes. "How long you been in Richmond?"
    "Why?"
    "We're the grave diggers! You want to know who wanted Mike dead? I’ll tell you. Every guy who thought he got away with murder."
    A hard object lodged somewhere near the base of my throat. "You two worked….cold cases."
    He brushed more tears from his eyes. "Right here, tales from the crypt."
    That information was not part of my file on Detective Falcon. "I thought he was a vice cop."
    "Vice, yeah. And I'm homicide. But we run the cold case unit. By ourselves."
    "Since when?"
    "About two years ago. We made bets on who could solve more of the old cases. But a crazy thing happened. We solved them. And people started calling up the department." He raised his voice, sounding like a woman. "'What about my auntie? How come you ain't looking into her murder?' People started to complain so much that management finally told us to take the gig full-time. They even gave us this nice office." He smirked. "But that was before we had 'manpower shortages.' If we tried starting this now, forget it."
    I tried to control my voice, but didn’t succeed. "Judge David Harmon."
    "Who?"
    I repeated the name.
    "Nobody’s taken it to court yet. You know something?"
    I shook my head. No way could I say my dad’s name again, and suddenly the detective's face changed. The brittle surface cracked, revealing something softer beneath.
    “Friend. Or relative?"
    "Father."
    He waited three beats. Four. At five, I started counting the second-hand movement of the clock on the wall. The color of his eyes shifted from cold tar to warm peat. He pointed at a row of metal file cabinets. Gray, stretching from one side of the room to the other.
    "See those? About two hundred cold cases. People are killing faster than we can keep up."
    I wrote some words in my notebook, although they had no connection to anything.
    "If we had ten guys," he continued, "we still wouldn't catch up. I keep telling management, 'How’re we supposed to do this when you make us stand around the Two-Street Festival tagging people for open beer bottles?'"
    I wanted him to stop, quit giving me the reasons. "You two worked together?"
    "Only when invited. Which was never."
    "What case was he working on?"
    "You mean before that thug killed him?" He didn’t wait for a reply. “Remember the Dubois twins?"
    Everyone in Richmond did. Marvin and Martin Dubois had controlled city crime for nearly a decade. Brutal, ruthless, charismatic, they were finally prosecuted for a murder that stuck and sent to death row. But Marvin—known as V—later died inside Mecklenburg Prison, choked to death by another inmate.
    Martin -- known as T -- was executed this summer.
    "Don't tell me," I said.
    "A cold case is a cold case."
    "You’re telling me Detective Falcon was looking for Marvin's killer? A creep takes out another creep, and that's the cold case he picks?"
    He gave a weak shrug.
    I couldn’t