Excerpt: Nusiance Citation Murder (working)

Wind lashed against my white Ford, pushing the truck toward the center lane. Overcorrecting, I drove through a huge puddle on the side of the road sending a tsunami of water over the curb, drenching a woman huddled under a shelter waiting for the bus. She waved her fist at me. Great publicity since I was driving a vehicle with “City of Cedar Grove Loves Its Residents” plastered on the side.
It didn’t help that I was headed to a part of town that the City’s Code Enforcement Officers avoided and feared. It was definitely ‘the other side of the tracks’ in Cedar Grove. Low income, high crime, high density—people packed into houses and apartments like fans at a Seahawks game, which made for a lot of code violations. I was headed to visit a repeat offender.
Wally, the humongous white cat that recently adopted me, was curled up on the passenger seat looking like a fluffy ‘70s-style throw pillow. He’d taken a liking to riding in the car and seemed to prefer it to hanging out in his box on my porch. I probably shouldn’t have had a cat in a City truck… but what the hell, I liked the company.
“Nice weather we’re having,” I said aloud. Wally didn’t stir.
Winter in the Northwest—about as much fun as getting a smash’o’gram/mammogram. The temperature was 45 degrees but with the wind chill it felt like 30. It was pouring rain and had been for a week. Drains and gutters overflowed all over the city. My defroster was cranked to high and the car smelled musty and damp. I pulled off the main drag onto 28th, a residential side street.
Small cinder-block houses lined the street. Some had make-shift additions or added carports, but they all had the same forlorn, run-down look. Peeling paint, hanging gutters, tilted fences, old cars, no landscaping. There were dirty plastic toys littering a yard or a rusted bicycle propped against a fence—signs that children lived on this street. That thought made my head hurt. Were they as neglected as the houses?
I turned left on Maple Street and slowed. Even though most of the houses on this block were in violation of some city code, the house I was heading to a house that had the distinction of having received multiple warnings and four citations. No children lived there. Just Old Nick.
I pulled up to the shoulder and parked. No sidewalks, just a strip of dirt that blended into the brown mud that was the yard. The downpour had turned to a slow drizzle, but the churning clouds overhead promised more heavy rain to come. With effort, I snugged my rain slicker closed over my pain-in-the-*!&#! double-D boobs. I struggled with the zipper but finally got it zipped. It billowed around my waist and hips as I got out. I lifted on the hood, but kept it loose to avoid losing all my peripheral vision.
Glancing up and down the street, I saw no one out and about. I guess the weather hindered the business of the drug dealers who frequented this neighborhood. The area was notorious for its concentration of low-life gang members. One reason I chose a hood instead of a baseball cap. One could never be sure what color might set off a riot.
I hated that there were gangs in my city. Seemed like something that should be far away somewhere else. But this was reality. I jogged up a cracked concrete path toward a house that looked just as rundown and neglected as the rest of the neighborhood. Old Nick was a renter but no sign of a concerned landlord was present. The front yard was barren, not even weeds grew in the muddy ground.
A tiny roof overhang covered the front porch. I huddled beneath it and pushed back my hood. The front door, once red but now faded and peeling, sounded hollow when I knocked. I had to knock a second time before Nick finally answered.
“Yeah, yeah. Whad’ya want?”
Nick had stringy gray-white hair that hung limply over his ears and on his neck. His forehead and crown were bald and spotted with age. He wore a dingy white t-shirt that didn’t hide a growing pot belly. His jeans were dirty and full of holes. His feet were bare; his toes gnarled and his nails yellow and cracked.
Heat poured from the house and the sudden temperature change made me shiver. “Hi, Nick. Guess who?” I stayed on the porch, the rain whipping across my back.
“I seen ya pull up.”
“You know why I’m here. Got to check out the backyard.”
Nick’s long gray beard was full of crumbs as if he had just finished a bag of chips. “Well, ya know I haven’t worked too much on that.” He stroked the beard. “My knees, ya know. They been given’ me some trouble.”
I sighed. “Nick, you know we talked about this last time. You’ve got to clean up the trash.”
“I know, I know. Been meanin’ to, Ms. Willis. I truly have. Hate to be out in this weather though; makes my joints ache.”
I knew he rarely left his spot in a chair in front of the TV except to refill his beer. “Let’s go have a look, shall we?” I smiled.
He frowned, trying to glance at my boobs, but they were hidden in the folds of my slicker. “All right. Let me get my coat,” he said. He turned and walked away, pushing on the door.
“And maybe some shoes!” I called as the door swung closed.
I pulled the hood back on and walked around to the side of the house. There was no gate to the back yard, but, per regulations, I waited along the side for him to shuffle out of the back door and meet me. I could already see the piles of trash that snaked around the side of the house. Blue tarps fluttered in the wind and the smell of something rotten floated on the damp air.
Nick appeared in a long brown wool coat with large rubber boots on his feet. He waved to me reluctantly and I stepped closer to the back yard.
“Looks about the same, Nick. I thought you promised you’d work on it.”
The back yard was a mess. A mound of discarded items, piled higher than my 5’7” frame, covered the back fence. An old washing machine, a broken red cooler, several frayed lawn chairs, a brown plaid couch, piles of rotting cardboard, and dozens of black trash bags full of holes, their contents spewing along the ground. Some of the junk had been partially covered with tarps, but most of the tarps were now full of holes themselves. The smell could have been much, much worse, like a Honeybucket left too long in the sun--only the rain made it possible to be this close without a face mask.
Stuffed between a soiled pink mattress and a busted card table, I saw a giant dirty teddy bear, the kind no one ever wins at the fair. It had once been a Panda. Stuffing poured out of one leg and it looked miserable as rain dripped from its nose. Its small black button eyes stared at me.
“You can’t leave all this crap here,” I said. “I’ve told you that before. You’ll get rats if they aren’t here already. Do you want me to mail a citation to the owner—again?”
Nick shuffled his feet and looked at the ground. “I can’t get it all moved by myself. And I’ve told ya, I ain’t got no cash for the dump.”
He looked so old and tired standing there in the depressing gray backyard. I felt sorry for him, but I had a job to do too. “Listen, Nick. Why don’t I ask around and see if there are some high school kids that will come and help you. You could pay them something, right?”
“I don’t know…”
“You have to get it out of here or we’ll have to ask your landlord to evict you.”
“I ain’t got nowhere to go, you know that.”
“One more chance, Nick. That’s it. Next time I’ll send Sharon or John and they won’t be as nice.”
“Thank you, Ms. Willis.”
What a sucker. I knew perfectly well that Nick wouldn’t do anything. He’d go back to his TV and beer and wait for his next Social Security check to arrive. At least I assumed that’s how he got food money. The 1983 Ford in his driveway sure wasn’t going anywhere. I’d have to include that on the citation too since its tabs hadn’t been renewed since 2001.
Back in my truck, I slipped off my rain coat and did my best not to spray water on Wally. I don’t think I was successful since he opened one eye and glared at me. “Meow!”
“Be thankful you didn’t have to go out there,” I said.
I turned on the engine. I cranked up the heater, then pulled out my clip board and wondered how to write up this visit. A knock on my window scared me shitless and I jumped. Crap! I rolled down the window. Cold, wet wind blew straight into my face.
Nick grinned showing yellowed teeth. “Sorry there, Ms. Willis. I just wanted to thank ya again and make sure you weren’t gonna contact my landlord this time.”
Yeah, right. He was probably still trying to get a look at my boobs. God that got old. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not this time. But I’ll be back and you have to clean it up.”
“Holy hell!” he said, suddenly looking frightened.
I glanced in my rearview mirror thinking we were about to be descended upon by a group of gang members.
“There’s a polar bear in your car!” he exclaimed.
I rolled my eyes. “No, it’s a cat.”
He shook his head and backed away.
I rolled up the window and got the heck out of there. Later, I wished I had stayed longer and done more to try and resolve Nick’s problems.

The rain started again in earnest. I drove back to the office. Cedar Grove City Hall was a long one-story building that had once been a grocery store. There was talk about a proposal for a new building, but so far the search for land—and money—had proved fruitless.
I stomped into the lobby of the Public Works Department and threw back my hood, launching a spray of water on the mat, the glass door, the wall…
“Nice one, Kaitlyn,” Cheryl, the Public Works receptionist laughed.
“Have you seen it out there?” I said. “It’s dumping buckets!” I set down my small cooler (filled with Diet Coke and Gummi Bears) and stomped my boots, shaking off even more water.
“Well, it is November. What do you expect?”
Cheryl, sometimes referred to as “Your Highness” by us Code Enforcement Officers, sat behind a long curved counter, a headset strapped over her thick brown hair. She wore a hand-knit sweater covered with yellow and orange leaves on a brown background. Giant red turkeys dangled from her ears. She looked quiet and harmless, but get on her bad side and she was like a wild cheetah protecting her young.
I tried to roll my coat into a ball without getting my jeans soaked. “Be happy you have an inside job today.”
Cheryl lifted a finger and adjusted her headset, then punched a button on the console in front of her. “City of Cedar Grove, how may I help you?” Pause. “Thank you.” She punched another button. “Sharon was looking for you.”
“Me? Okay.” I shook out my long blond hair. No use getting my cube all wet when the floor here was damp already.
“And be sure and check your IN box. Golden Girl came by and distributed an urgent bulletin.” She put emphasis on the word urgent, but it was cynical rather than important.
I rolled my eyes. Golden Girl, Melinda Golden—Assistant to the City Manager—thought she was all that and most of the time she was. She wielded a lot of power around city hall. But no one that I knew thought very highly of her. There were rumors about her and the City Manager doing all sorts of things that two government employees shouldn’t do.
“I’ll get right on that,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll, then pushed through the door that led from the lobby to the office area.
“That’s okay!” Cheryl hollered after me. “I’ll call maintenance and have them wipe up your mess so one of our citizens doesn’t slip and break their neck!”
Gray-walled cubicles spread in all directions through the space like tentacles. The room was loud—noisy with people on phones, tapping of keyboards, and prairie-dog conversations over cubicle walls. I headed for the lunchroom and the coffee. My boots made squishing sounds as I walked.
“That you, girlfriend?” a deep alto voice called over a cubicle wall.
“Yep. Heading for the java.”
I was in the lunchroom pouring dark steaming heaven into a green City of Cedar Grove mug when Sharon entered the room. Her physical size and her hug personality filled the space. “Dang me, girl. You look drenched!”
“It’s really coming down.”
“Out on a call?” Sharon leaned on the back of a chair that creaked under her weight.
Sharon was another Code Enforcement Officer. She was big boned with big arms, big thighs, big hair—a big-all-over black woman with a beautiful singing voice that was wasted on her five miscreant sons and sweet but dull husband.
“I was out checking on Old Nick.”
“Dang! You went to that neighborhood alone? You come out okay though?”
I smiled. “Sure. Safer in this weather.”
The coffee smelled divine and I pretended it was a fresh pot. I took a swig and let the warm liquid wash through my bones. “What’s this urgent memo Cheryl was talking about?”
Sharon flicked an arm ringed with dangling gold bracelets toward a large bulletin board covered with legal and HR related notices. A bright yellow flyer had been tacked up, partially obscuring the notice about the department Thanksgiving potluck.
Watch Out For This Man!
A man going by several different aliases, including Silas Reinholt, is targeting Cedar Grove citizens with a variety of scams. His most recent is the accepting of deposits for a rental property that he does not own. He has been described as tall and nice-looking, with a friendly, charming personality. If you hear of any leads or have any contact with this man, contact the Cedar Grove Police Department immediately.
I frowned. “Not much of a description. I take it that’s not the official police flyer.”
“Hmmph. How’s she think we’re supposed to watch out for someone without a photo?” Sharon crossed her large arms over her large chest that today was draped in black and brown animal print. “Who are those people who get sucked into a scam? How stupid can you be?”
I shrugged, savoring my coffee and trying not to get involved in that discussion.
“Would you hand over a check to some guy who shows you a house—without checking it out or something? Anyone can buy business cards.”
I shrugged again, noncommittal. I remembered a time when I was about eight years old. My mother had been suckered into turning over the family’s savings in some kind of scam. Dad hadn’t really shared the details with me or my brother, but we’d eaten beans and boxed mac’n’cheese for a year. “If he’s on the police’s radar, he’ll move on soon, right?”
Sharon leaned toward me and I got a whiff of her flowery perfume. It mixed with the coffee aroma and the faint smell of burnt popcorn, a smell that was as much a fixture of the room as the crappy metal chairs and old Formica table. “What if it’s Marcus? I mean, he lost his job and we know he’s an unscrupulous jerk…”
I frowned. “No way. I heard he moved to Vegas.”
Sharon leaned back again. “I was just sayin’…”
Marcus had been our co-worker in Code Enforcement until he had been implicated in a scheme to help a resident pump up property values and falsify code enforcement documents for the up-coming (and currently stalled) Cedar Grove re-development. He had been caught partly due to me—okay, mostly due to me.
“Better get back to work,” I said.
In my cube, I found another copy of the con man flyer in my IN box. I crumpled it up and chucked it into the recycle bin.

I spent over an hour working on reports, making some follow-up calls and generally shuffling papers to avoid going back out in the rain. I read the November AACE newsletter (American Association of Code Enforcement) cover to cover. I was about to pack up and head out when my cell phone rang. The Caller ID said ‘private’. I considered ignoring it because I’d been plagued with calls from collection reps since I had a little mishap with my bank account. My ex-husband’s doing, not mine. That had been over two months ago and I’d gotten things straightened out, but I was still leery about unknown callers.
What the hell—it would be a distraction. “Hello.”
“Kaitlyn, hey.”
“Kale?” I hadn’t heard from my brother in months. Not that that was anything new.
“Hey, sis. How’s it hangin’?”
“Good. Weather sucks. Where are you?”
“Ah, I’m at my place.”
Last I heard he was renting a little apartment in Seattle near Greenlake. I assumed he was still there. My brother was like a frat boy who didn’t want to grow up. Not that he ever went to college. He barely passed high school; more partying than studying. He had the boyish good looks of Ryan Reynolds and a charming personality when he wanted to. Unfortunately, he was a lot more interested in girls, fast cars, and alcohol (and maybe things stronger—I didn’t want to know) than he was in getting a job or going to school.
At 35, three years my junior, Kale should have been starting to mature but it didn’t seem like he had any plans to slow down his partying ways. His lifestyle seemed to put him with questionable people and always on the verge of a crisis. My mom and I would check in with each other off and on, wondering if he was still alive.
“So what’s up, Kale,” I asked. “You caught me at work.” The thing normal people do during the day.
“You still working for that city? Good for you.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Does it pay well?”
“Ah, okay. Why, you looking for a job?”
“Nah. Just wondering how my sis is doing. Mom told me about your little issue with Ben.” He chuckled. “You should have let me beat him up before the divorce like I offered.”
Great. Mom had gossiped. I would have preferred to have kept my money troubles to myself. My fault for telling her. “I’m fine.”
“Just fine? Any extras? Any windfalls you could share with your bro?”
Weird. Kale didn’t usually ask me for money. In fact he liked to brag about having money even though he rarely held down a full time job. “Why? What’s up?”
“Ah, nothin’. Just checking to see how you’re doing…” His voice sounded a little strained. I heard street noises in the back ground and flap of shoes on pavement.
“Kale, you never just check in.”A car honked and I heard the bing, bing, bing of a crossing signal.
“Well, maybe I’m turning over a new leaf, trying to be responsible.” He really sounded hurt.
“I didn’t mean that. I only meant…”
“Yeah, well, take care. We hadn’t talked since you had the problem with Ben so I just thought...” He voice became suddenly light and full of fun, but it sounded forced. “I could still beat him up for you.”
Guilt crushed my chest like it often did when I thought about Kale. He was my little brother. Maybe I should have done more for him. Maybe I should have checked in more often. Maybe if I’d been more present in his life he wouldn’t be so screwed up.
“So you have any dates lately?” he said. “Someone new your brother should know about?”
I chuckled. His magic charm was back on. “I’ve been on a couple of dates with someone.”
“Really? What’s he do?”
“He’s a cop. A detective.”
“A cop? Are you nuts?”
Kale and cops—he was usually on the wrong side of their attention. “He’s a good guy. Really,” I said.
“So is it serious?” More traffic noise. His breathing was heavy.
“Sort of. It’s kind of new.”
“Sis, your whole life is ‘sort of’.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sighed. “Listen, I got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Kale! What’s wrong? What’s…”
He’d hung up. I felt the sting of his comment about my life. But that wasn’t Kale. He was never mean or cruel. What had my brother gotten himself into now?
As I closed my cell phone, my work phone rang, startling me. “Kaitlyn Willis.”
“Kaitlyn, get out here—now!” Cheryl’s voice was tight and strained. I heard commotion in the background.
“What?”
“Now!” She hung up.
Damn. Everyone was hanging up on me today. Couldn’t someone be nice?
I’d slipped my wet boots off under the desk and it took a moment for me to get them back on. I rushed from my cubicle and pushed through the door into the lobby. Chaos.
The room was as crowded as Value Village on fifty-percent-off day. Sharon was there and Grant, the slovenly Public Works computer geek Code Enforcement-wannabe. There were two guys in green jump suits from maintenance. I saw two Public Works engineers, big guys that Cheryl called when citizens got unruly. Cheryl sat behind her counter, headset a bit askew, but otherwise looking calm.
And my boss, Richard Richter. Richter just stood there, mouth agape, looking dumbfounded. At the center of attention was Old Nick.
Nick wore the same dirty clothes from earlier in the day and the same oversized rubber boots. He’d thrown on a new-looking navy Northface jacket that was dripping water everywhere. His voice was high and loud. “I want it back! Ya here me. I want it back. She had no right. No right I tell ya!”
When he saw me, Nick’s face contorted with fury and he pointed a long boney finger at me. “Thief!” he screamed.