Sleep Don't Come Easy Read online

  Love was something he missed from time to time. He believed he’d had it at least once, maybe twice. The first time was a sistah with a short natural, big hips, small breasts, and slanted dark eyes that made her look like she was from some foreign place. Jolene was her name. Or was it Charlene? Maybe Maureen. Anyway, he loved her. Or she loved him. One of the two. But they were together back in the day. Lived together and everything, making love, and barbeque, and maybe even babies. There were too many blank spots in his memory where she was concerned, but the memories that remained were some damn good ones. She could cook her ass off and every Sunday was a feast with that woman—collard greens, homemade cornbread, none of that store-bought shit, smothered pork chops, homemade macaroni and cheese with the big chunks of cheese melted into it, and sweet, delicious banana pudding. Lazarus smacked his lips just thinking about it. He ate like a king back in those days, and fucked like one too. Jolene or Maureen was a loaded gun in bed. Dangerous! Fearless! And game for anything. He heard himself laugh. She would buck on top of him like a bronco. One time she bucked so hard they put a hole in the damn wall behind the headboard. Damn! He loved that woman.

  His other love happened while he was in lock-up. Lazarus had put his name on one of those pen pal lists and all these women started writing to him. They fell in love too easily for his taste, but then when you’re locked down for twenty-some odd years, the promise of love equates to the promise of pussy, so he let them all love him as much as they wanted. One woman though, sent him a beautiful picture of herself with her son sitting on her lap. She was a nice looking woman, on the heavy side, but not bad looking at all. The boy looked just like her, too. Handsome young man, with a bright smile and a fresh, greasy haircut his mother had gotten for him just to take the picture. Everything about that woman was sweet in her letters. She wrote him every week, six, seven-page letters about how her week had gone, and what she and her son were up to. Lazarus wrote back when he could. Back then, he signed his real name to his letters—Brian. And she surprised him and told him how much she’d always liked that name. Every now and then she even had the boy write. Lazarus would read his letters over and over until he could recite them word for word without even looking. The next day, of course, he’d forget them. That woman and that boy was the closest he could ever remember to having a family of his own. And he missed them.

  Lazarus was a name he’d given himself. Somewhere in the Bible, Jesus came back and brought Lazarus back from the dead, and after that you never head anything else about the man. Lazarus spent a lot of time in prison wondering what could possibly have happened to a man who’d been dead for all that time, then been brought back to life. Ain’t no way he could’ve been the same man he was before all that happened. And he just assumed that maybe, while the real Lazarus was walking around alive and breathing, maybe a part of him was still back in that tomb—dead as dead could be. That’s how he saw hisself. He was alive. And he wasn’t. A part of him had died in that crash on top of this bridge years ago with that man and his little girl, which was why he was so drawn to this place. His soul lingered here. And that’s why it felt like home.

  Byline

  “Morris!” Todd Bingham stood in the doorway of his office and called across the busy newsroom floor to Fatema.

  Fatema stopped bickering at the sound of her name, but she didn’t turn in his direction. “Shit,” she muttered. Her colleague took her cue and slowly backed away.

  “In my office,” he demanded. “Now!”

  She begrudgingly entered his office, and stood in the doorway.

  “Close the door,” he said sternly.

  She did as she was told and sat down across from him.

  “I thought you told me you were ready to come back to work.” Todd leaned back in his chair, glaring at her.

  “I am,” she cleared her throat.

  He looked like he didn’t believe her. “Is that why you’ve been spitting venom at my staff all week?”

  Fatema sighed in frustration. “I haven’t been spitting venom, Todd.”

  “You’re wearing your attitude on your sleeve.” His cold steely blue eyes drilled holes in her. “Now, if you’re not ready to come back here to work—then get your shit and go home.”

  She looked offended. “I told you—I am—”

  “Then act like it, Fatema, and stop being a bug up everybody’s ass.”

  She and Todd had had their share of knockdown drag outs, and Fatema gave as good as she got, but not this time. Before she realized what was happening, tears filled her eyes and the floodgates opened embarrassingly wide in this man’s office. She had never cried on the job a day in her life! And she sure as hell had never given Todd the satisfaction of seeing her bawl, but here she was, grabbing a tissue off the box on his desk to wipe her nose.

  “It’s been two weeks and they haven’t arrested any goddamned body.” She blew. “How the hell could they go this long and not arrest anybody, Todd?” she stared pitifully at him.

  He looked absolutely uncomfortable. “C’mon now, Morris,” he tried consoling her. Todd shifted uneasily in his seat. “It’s tough. I know. But you’ve got to give them time. They’ll find the guy.”

  “She was one of my best friends.”

  “I know.”

  “Like my sister and I . . . we hadn’t spoken in months, Todd. I was a horrible, horrible friend, because I should’ve . . . I should’ve . . .”

  “Why don’t you go home, Morris? Take a few more days off.”

  “I really need to work,” she said, composing herself. “I need to stay busy.”

  He sighed. “Then stay busy, but stay off my staff’s asses.”

  Fatema seemed to ignore him. “I have some leads I want to follow up on, if that’s ok.”

  “What leads?”

  “I don’t know.” As soon as she said it, she knew she’d lost him. “I went through some of Toni’s things, and came across some interesting stuff.”

  “I don’t do stuff, Morris,” he said sarcastically. “And I don’t want you working on your friend’s story. Doesn’t feel right, and I’m sure it’s got to be unethical or something which could get me into trouble. Besides, I need you to finish that series on food poisoning in vegetarian restaurants I assigned to you two weeks ago.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I gave that story to the intern to write. Thanks for reminding me. I’ll get on his ass.”

  “I didn’t assign it to the intern,” he said irritably.

  “Toni was obsessed with that Russian college student who went missing a few months ago. Remember her? Toni had all sorts of clippings from newspapers and articles from the Internet in her personal files on the woman. What do you think that could mean?”

  “Obviously it means you’ve disobeyed your boss and given my assignment to some idiot who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, and I should fire you right here on the spot.”

  “She had tons of articles on people gone missing from all over the country, and this fixation with human trafficking. Didn’t Abner write a story on that before he moved to Florida?”

  “Let the police do their job. And you do yours, which means you will stay out of their way on this one, Morris, and let them solve your friend’s murder. You are not the person for the job.”

  “Maybe it was the reason she was killed,” she said despondently.

  “Talk to the police, and tell them your suspicions, then.”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “And they know what I know.”

  “I want you to go home, Fatema,” he said with finality. She started to protest, but he put his hand up to stop her. “That’s not a request. You’re no good to me in your state of mind right now and I need reporters who can work on stories I assign to them.”

  “Todd?”

  “Todd, my ass. You go home and finish grieving. Let the police do what they do best.”

  The way he looked at her told her more than she needed to know, and Fatema was w
ounded by his unspoken accusation.

  “You don’t trust me,” she said, defeated. “I thought you said you let it go.”

  Todd sighed, put down his papers and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, well, I thought I had, until now. You got desperate and crossed the line, Morris. Now you’re desperate again. Do you blame me for being worried?”

  “Yes,” she said, hurriedly, “and no. I loved her, Todd. But I’m not desperate enough to make this up. Damn! Do you really believe—I have done some fucked up shit I’ll admit, I’m pretty devastated over this, but Todd, I need to do this!”

  One fake story and she was forever on the shit list. Integrity wasn’t an option in this job, though. A reporter had to be trusted to report the facts objectively, concisely. People depended on them for the truth, and Fatema had blown her credibility sky high. He didn’t trust her. As much as he tried to pretend everything was water under the bridge, Todd had lost respect for her, and it hurt.

  “I think you may be looking for a story where there is none,” he spoke quietly. “You miss your friend. You feel guilty about your relationship. I don’t know, Fatema. I just don’t think I can trust your judgment right now.”

  “Yeah,” she muttered. “My judgment.”

  “If it were any other victim, if—” She looked at him, begging him to trust her. “But after what happened—”

  “I said I was sorry, Todd.” She sounded like a kid.

  “That’s not enough and you know it.”

  “I panicked.”

  “To say the least.”

  She shrugged. “But thank goodness you caught me. Otherwise, I’d have made a complete fool of myself.”

  “And me. And this paper. And I can’t risk letting that happen.”

  Tears flooded her eyes. “Well, if you don’t trust me, why don’t you just fire me, then?” she said, more out of frustration than anything.

  The twinkle in his eyes assured her that he wasn’t ready to go that far. “What? And lose the best creative writer reporter I have?”

  “Fuck you, Todd.” She tried not to smile.

  “Oh, don’t I wish . . .” He grinned, and nodded reflectively. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t make me file harassment charges,” she quipped.

  “A man can dream. Can’t he?”

  She laughed.

  “You used to believe in me, Todd,” she said softly. “I hate it that you don’t anymore.”

  “So do I, Morris.”

  “Then let me work on this. I swear, when it’s all said and done, I’ll bring you something front page worthy.”

  “I’ll see you in a week, Morris,” he said with finality. “If you aren’t willing to come back on my terms, then maybe you need to consider not coming back at all.”

  The City’s Finest

  Lucas’s assistant escorted the burly detective into his office.

  Baldwin held out his hand to the mayor and introduced himself. “Pleasure, Mr. Mayor. Detective Bruce Baldwin. I’m honored to meet you sir, and thank you for your time.”

  Lucas motioned for the man to sit down. “Well, when you told me you were investigating Miss Robbins’s homicide, Detective, I cleared my afternoon calendar to make time.”

  The mayor had a terrible habit of deciphering a man by his suit. Detective Baldwin’s suit looked as if he’d slept in it, and he was definitely fast on the way to outgrowing it. Baldwin had an exemplary background with the Denver Police Department spanning thirty-five years, starting out as a traffic cop. He’d worked his way up through the ranks to detective, working in the narcotics unit, street gang task force, and finally landing in homicide, where he seemed to be planted until retirement. Early in his career, he’d been awarded numerous citations and awards, but in the last ten years, there was nothing.

  “He’s a good cop,” Baldwin’s captain told the mayor when he called to inquire about him. “Could’ve been a great cop, but he seems content with just being good.”

  Baldwin followed the rules. He never made waves, and kept to himself according to the captain. “Been married a couple of times, I think. Even has some kids, but he doesn’t say much about any of that,” he volunteered.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?” Lucas purposefully tried to look intimidating as he sat behind his large desk. Right before his eyes, Baldwin shrank in comparison.

  “Well, sir,” said Baldwin, nervously clearing his throat, “I, uh . . . wanted to ask you a few questions regarding Miss Robbins. I came to the offices here a few weeks ago and questioned a few of her co-workers, but I didn’t get the opportunity to speak to you.”

  Lucas nodded. “Unfortunately I’ve never had the pleasure of working directly with Miss Robbins,” he said, smugly. “She worked in the Small Business Development Department, I believe, and suffice to say, we’ve lost a valued member of our team.”

  Baldwin adjusted his tie, and pulled out the note pad he carried inside the breast pocket of his coat. “Some of her co-workers said that she told them she was seeing someone.” He waited for the mayor to react, but the man never did.

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

  Baldwin hated being here. The room was too big. Everything about this cat was too big, and it left Baldwin feeling unnaturally small. He never had liked politicians or lawyers or rich people. Lucas was all three and this pompous mothafucka was doing everything in his power to punk Baldwin in that unspoken way between men.

  He was too damn cool. So to gain some ground, Baldwin decided it was time to unnerve this bitch. “Luke1963,” he read from his notes, then looked at Shaw. To the naked eye, the man didn’t flinch a muscle, but to Baldwin, the fool might as well have done a Tom Cruise from his chair to his desk.

  “I beg your pardon?” Lucas asked.

  Baldwin looked down at his notes again. “Luke1963. That’s your e-mail address, isn’t it, sir?”

  Shaw stared unblinkingly at the detective. The man wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t already know the answer, and lying would only serve to make Lucas look like an idiot. Where’d he get it? That was the question Lucas Shaw knew the answer to without even asking.

  “We found the e-mail address in Miss Robbins’s laptop, Mr. Mayor, along with some rather incriminating e-mails between the two of you.”

  Baldwin waited for Shaw to react, but the man never did. He held on to every bit of his mayoral dignity the whole time. Only now, it was Baldwin’s turn to sit up a little straighter.

  “I guess you knew the victim a little more intimately than you originally recalled?”

  Shaw didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. He was still the mayor and this mothafucka was nothing more than a fuckin’ cop. “If I did, that’s none of your goddamned business, Detective.”

  “It is if it has anything to do with this case, Mr. Mayor,” he responded coolly, meeting the mayor’s gaze with his own. “From the string of e-mails, it looked to me like Toni Robbins ended the relationship and you weren’t too happy with that. I’m sure you know, being one and all that, some lawyer could take that shit and run you into the ground with it.”

  “There was nothing to run into the ground.” He was calm. “I had an affair, and it ended. It ended long before she was murdered.”

  “Some people might think it could be the reason she was murdered.”

  Lucas chuckled. “Please! You think I’d be so stupid as to kill-for pussy, Detective?”

  Baldwin laughed. “Oh, no sir. But reading those e-mails, Mr. Mayor, it sounded like you were strung up by the balls for more than just pussy. A man doesn’t beg and plead the way you did unless he’s got some deep feelings, sir. But—that’s just my opinion, of course.”

  “I cared for her, deeply. Maybe I did love her. But the bottom line is, there are plenty more where she came from—if I were looking.”

  “So, you’re off the market, sir?” Baldwin smirked.

  Lucas hesitated before answering, wondering if he should even bother to justify that snide-ass remark with a response. “I’m a married
man, Baldwin. I made a mistake, and I’ve learned my lesson. My wife means the world to me.”

  Baldwin easily read between the lines. “Yes, sir. Repentance is the way to heaven.” Baldwin stood up to leave without waiting to be asked. “Thank you again for your time, sir, and my best to your wife and family,” he told the mayor before leaving.

  “That’s it, baby,” Lucas whispered to the young woman working her own brand of magic in his lap with her mouth. “Take good care of it, sweetheart. I’ll take good care of you.”

  She was a nameless prostitute who barely even spoke English. “Sucky? Twenty-dolla?” She didn’t give a damn who he was and she was deliciously young. She could suck the hell out of a dick, though, and Lucas rested his head against the leather headrest of his car, savoring the sound of jazz filtering through the speakers, and the warmth of her sweet mouth.

  The lure of young women was an addiction for him. Not young enough to be illegal, mind you, but young. Toni didn’t understand. Love had nothing to do with it. His wife wouldn’t understand. He didn’t even understand. He would never touch a child, but he knew he’d come dangerously close, and it disturbed him more than he could admit to himself. He guessed this one to be eighteen maybe, give or take a year—or two. He firmly grabbed a handful of her silky, black hair, and groaned out loud when he came. She told him it would cost him twenty dollars. She’d done such a good job, he gave her a hundred.

  Breaking News

  “This just in,” the polished CNN news anchor reported grimly. “Tragically, the body of a young woman was found today in an abandoned warehouse located in a city just north of Denver, Colorado. Police have confirmed it to be that of Alina Petrov, the Russian college student reported missing by her parents when she didn’t show up for classes at Brown university. No official word yet on the cause of death, but police are calling this a homicide.”

  “I don’t believe this is a coincidence, Drew.” Fatema felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule, hearing the news of the discovery of that woman’s body. The story was on every channel, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore, and Fatema turned off the television, pulled out a bottle of Merlot, and called her ex-husband—just to talk. Drew was fast becoming a crutch, and even though she could see it, and she knew it was a mistake, Fatema couldn’t seem to bring herself to stop it from happening, before it even got started.