Page 43 of Sunset Beach
“Which is where we come in,” Brice added. He looked around at the single-story stretch of rooms. “You been here before?”
“You mean on business?” Zee asked, his grin sly.
“You keep that shit up, Frannie is going to leave your ass,” Brice said. “Yeah, I mean business. I’ve had two calls over here in the last six months. One domestic, one auto breaking and entering.”
“Place is kind of sad, but it’s not as bad as some of these other fleabags I’ve been to,” Zee said. “You ready?”
The officers got out of the car, jamming their nightsticks into their belt loops, each letting their fingertips graze the handles of their holstered Smith & Wessons.
“Hang on,” Zee said. He fetched the heavy Maglite flash he’d stowed under the seat of his cruiser.
As they approached the door of Unit 12 they heard the sound of a woman’s hysterical sobs.
They stood to the side of the door and Brice knocked. “Police!” he called loudly.
Nothing.
Zee banged at the door with the Maglite. “Come on in there, open up.”
The door opened an inch, the chain lock engaged. A man, early-thirties with thinning brown hair and a pink flushed face, glared out at them. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned to the waist. “What do you want?”
“Somebody called in about a disturbance coming from this room,” Brice said.
“We didn’t call the cops. Must be a mistake.”
“Sir?” Brice said, trying to sound firm. “We just heard a woman crying when we arrived here. Your neighbors in the next room seem to think there’s been some kind of a fight.”
“They need to mind their own fuckin’ business,” the man said, shouting now, as he looked toward the right and the left. “We don’t need the cops. There’s no disturbance. So leave us alone.”
“We need to come into this room and talk to that woman,” Zee said. “Now.”
The man turned away from the door. “Tell these cops you’re fine.”
The woman continued to sob.
“Goddamnit, Colleen, cut it out.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman cried. “I’m okay. You can go.”
“She’s upset, that’s all,” the man assured the officers. “We had an argument. She’s fine. End of story.”
Brice stared at the man. “You need to let us into this room. Now step aside and unchain this door or things are gonna get real ugly real fast. Is that what you want?”
The man unchained the lock and swung the door inward. “Fine, asshole. Come on in.”
The room had been wrecked. A wooden chair was broken and splintered, a framed picture had been smashed into pieces, clothes littered the floor. A nearly empty bottle of Johnnie Walker stood on the dresser. The woman was crouched on the left side of the bed, which was unmade. Her back was pressed against the headboard, her knees curled beneath her, with the bedsheet pulled up to her bare chest. Her hands covered the side of her face.
Her companion stood at the foot of the bed, his fists balled, chin jutting out. He wore light blue boxer shorts and black socks.
“Put your pants on, dipshit,” Zee said.
Brice approached the woman. He touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Ma’am? Could you look at me, ma’am?”
The woman turned a tearful face.
“Son of a bitch,” Brice whispered, staring.
He hadn’t seen her since when? Colleen Boardman ran with the popular crowd at Boca Ciega High School. Her parents had a waterfront house, she drove a cute blue VW Bug. Back then she was brunette and freckle-faced, with a pert, upturned nose and great tits. She’d been a cheerleader and classofficer. Brice’s parents hadn’t been poor, and he wasn’t dumb, but he’d run with the greaser crowd back in the day. Skipped school at every opportunity, drank and smoked dope and generally raised hell. Half the guys he hung around with in high school had been drafted and sent to Vietnam. Brice had gone too, and made it back home, but too many others hadn’t.
