Free The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R. S. Belcher

an apartment number. There were ten mailboxes mounted in two rows of five on aluminum posts at the edge of the virtually empty parking lot, but walking up to them would invite the attention of the apartment’s invisible sentinels. There really wasn’t a good way to do this. She had chosen late morning because she’d have the least exposure. Now it was time to just put up or shut up.
    She pulled her badge lanyard out of her blouse, letting her CID badge and ID hang out around her neck, walked briskly into the courtyard, and saw the door marked with yellow crime-scene tape with a warrant taped up, third on the left side of the courtyard. She walked up to the door and set her leather bag down. Calmly, and as professionally as possible, she took out her small leather case and selected the proper pick and bar that she needed to open the deadbolt above the doorknob. She worked quickly as she could, blocking as much of what she was doing from view. The bolt was old and a little sticky, but Lovina had it open in less than twenty seconds.
    â€œWhat chu doin’ there, hunny?” a voice behind her asked. Lovina looked over her shoulder. There was a skinny little black woman standing on the sidewalk behind her, dressed in a pair of turquoise capri pants and a T-shirt that said “Grandchildren Are Angels from Heaven” in bright red, blue, and yellow letters. The T-shirt fell to just above the old lady’s knees. She had on tortoiseshell sunglasses.
    Lovina turned fully so the old lady could see her badge. She palmed the pick and bar. “Morning, ma’am,” she said as blandly as she could. “Just getting some more pictures.”
    â€œWell, you ass me,” the old lady said, “dat boy had sumthin wrong wi’ him. He always talkin’ ’bout crazy shit.”
    â€œDid you call the police?” Lovina asked as she opened the door.
    The old lady shook her head as she shuffled forward to try to peek inside the sealed apartment. “Naw, it was crazy old Miss-ess Chalfont down the way,” she said. “She heard all the screaming and commotion and called y’all.”
    Lovina nodded and slipped inside the door. “Well, thank you, ma’am,” she said.
    The old lady shuffled forward. “Been goin’ to hell round here for a spell,” she said. “All those damn kids wandering around, most of them actin’ like they trippin’. I think that boy in there be some kinda of pet-o-phile,” she said. “All them kids beating on his door, day and night.”
    â€œHe had kids coming by to see him?” Lovina said. She had ducked under the tape barrier across the frame and had been slowly pulling the door closed on the old lady, but this stopped her cold. “Like coming in and out? You think he was dealing?”
    â€œIf’n he was, he sucked at it,” the old lady said. “Heard them knocking and calling for him to let them in all hours. He must’a lost customers like that. Did y’all find drugs in there? Never smelled like he was cookin’.”
    â€œI can’t discuss an ongoing investigation, ma’am,” Lovina said, almost automatically. It was standard copspeak for when you didn’t want to give away how much or how little you had, especially to gossips or reporters. “Well, I best be getting to work, now—”
    â€œWhere your car at?” the old lady interrupted. Lovina smiled her best civil-servant smile and shut the door on the old biddy. This was not how she had wanted to enter the scene, but she was on a clock, and she didn’t have the option of coming in with her mind clear and quiet.
    Dewey Rears’s apartment was dark and still relatively cool in the gathering heat of late morning. It looked like a college student’s flop—stained Goodwill couch and a leather recliner that didn’t match the couch, with bandages of duct tape on it where the upholstery had