Authors: Rex Burns
The chief’s hand darted to the telephone again and buzzed the secretary. “Call the medical examiner’s office and tell them we have a rush case and I’d personally appreciate it if they got on it right away.” He covered the mouthpiece. “What’s the case number?” Wager told him and he repeated it to the woman and then hung up. “Anything else?”
“No witnesses. No one living in the area saw anything last night or this morning. The body was found by a kid playing in the lot this afternoon.”
The chief, perched on the edge of his desk, frowned at the gray carpet. “No time is good for something like this. But with a fifty percent rise in the annual homicide rate already …”
Wager knew the new statistics; both major papers had been full of them for a week: fourteen cars a day stolen, a rape a day, an overdose every sixth day, a murder every five days, three forgeries a day … The list went on, and Wager—looking at the top of the chief’s bowed head—wondered why, with that kind of jump in crimes, the man had promoted officers off the street to desk jobs. Even Wolfard could do more good on patrol. Perhaps, especially Wolfard.
The telephone flashed again and the chief picked it up with a clipped “Yes!” Then, with a slightly warmer voice, “No, Mr. Mayor, we have a positive identification by the investigating officers, but nothing else. I’m talking with them right now … I think that would be a good idea; I suspect the press has already gone over there, so she probably heard about it from them. In about fifteen minutes—fine.” He cradled the telephone and stared at them for a long moment. “You’re going to be interviewing the family?”
It was a dumb question. Wager only said, “Yessir.”
“You can put it off until after the mayor and I have a chance to express our sympathies. We’ll tell the family to expect you a little later.”
“Yessir.”
Lieutenant Wolfard cleared his throat. “Chief? You want to take Lieutenant Elkins along?”
Elkins, one of the highest-ranking blacks in the department, served as liaison between the police and black community groups. The chief said, “Good thinking, Douglas,” and punched another series of buttons on the telephone. Wager figured Wolfard had just gotten a leg up on his promotion to captain.
“You through with us, Chief?” Stubbs spoke for the first time and glanced at his watch. “We ought to get back—the lab people should be finishing up soon.”
“Right.” But his glance held them a moment longer. “You two keep the reporters out of this. Green was popular with his people. I don’t want this blowing up into a riot, but a lot will depend on how the press plays the story. Refer all questions to Lieutenant Wolfard or to Chief Doyle when he gets back. I don’t want you two making any loose comments to the press that might stir people up unnecessarily. Understand me?”
They understood.
The gray eyes shifted to Wager alone, and the eyelids drooped a little as they always did when the chief wanted his listener to pay particular attention. “You’re the assigned detective on this one, right?”
“That’s right.”
The heavy-lidded eyes weren’t sleepy; like a lot of politicians’, they masked what the man was thinking. But Wager had a good idea what that was, and the chief’s next words told him he’d guessed right. “You’ll be very careful interviewing the victim’s family members, Wager. And all politically sensitive witnesses as well. Very careful.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep Lieutenant Wolfard and Chief Doyle fully informed. And I will be very interested in the case, too.”
On the elevator down to their floor, Stubbs’s narrow shoulders bobbed. “Jesus. My first homicide. Why would I feel happier if Ross and Devereaux had gotten this one?”
“It’s just another case,” said Wager. “It’s just like any other homicide.”
“I hear you. But I don’t believe you.”
1915 Hours
The police lab detectives weren’t ready yet to give them any solid facts. “We couldn’t find the slug or any trace of it. What we’ve got, Gabe, is some cigarette butts, scraps of paper, crap like that. But most of it looks like it was already there. We’ll know something for sure by tomorrow morning.”
“The chief asked the medical examiner to do the autopsy right away.”
“I get you. And we’ll work on this stuff all night if we have to,” said Adamo. “But we can only do so much so fast. When we have something, we’ll call.”
Finishing the paperwork that the preliminary report required, Stubbs glanced at the clock. “The city offices are closed. We’ll have to do those interviews in the morning.” He stretched and his stomach gave a little gurgle of despair. “In fact, it’s four hours after quitting time—Nancy’s stopped calling to find out if I’m coming home. You ready to hang it up?”
“Green’s wife hasn’t been questioned yet. The chief and the mayor should be there by now. They won’t stay long.”
Stubbs’s face showed its weariness as he gazed a long moment at Wager. “Axton’s got the night duty, Gabe. He can handle that interview.”
“It’s my case.” Wager corrected himself, “Our case. And Axton’s got about twelve homicides of his own.”
“Who’s got twelve?” Axton loomed in the doorway, his head dipping slightly as it sensed the lintel. “How you doing, Lester? Don’t let this hard-charger talk you into working two shifts. He doesn’t know when to quit.” Max winked at Stubbs. “He’s kind of loco about it, you know?”
Max wasn’t the only one who thought Wager was crazy for doing what it took and sometimes more. He held up the report for Max to see. “Councilman Horace Green, recently deceased.”
“Uh oh.” The big man read the first two pages. “They hitting the panic button yet?”
“Still trying to find it.”
Max glanced at the file drawer holding his “Open” cases. “What do you want me to cover?”
Wager shook his head. “I’m going over to interview the family. If I need help, I’ll call.”
Stubbs shoved back from his desk with a resigned sigh. “I’ll go, too. What the hell, I’m supposed to be learning the business.”
Max laughed. “You sure as hell got a good case to learn on. And a good man to teach you.”
It was a quiet ride through the ebbing traffic. A few office workers still straggled toward the cooler lawns of the suburbs, and the first of the night traffic began coming back to town for dinner and the theatres. Overtime was nothing new to Wager, and Stubbs better get used to it, too. And he’d better get used to not being paid for it. Stubbs had called his wife and told her he would be even later than he thought, and to go ahead to his son’s parents’ night without him. He’d try to finish up in time to meet her there. “I can’t help it, Nancy—it’s the job. I told you what it might be like when I transferred, remember?” To Wager, he explained, “Kenny was hoping I could make this one. Being on the day shift, and all.”
“I can handle the interview myself.”
“I said I’d go. Let’s do the damn thing and get it over with.”
They swung onto Martin Luther King Boulevard and joined the column of automobiles speeding past the long islands of grass and low trees that separated the lanes.
“Got any ideas about motive?” asked Stubbs.
“No. But I have been wondering why, if he was killed last night, the family didn’t report him missing.”
“Did you check with Missing Persons?”
“I did. No report at all on an adult, black male.” Just the usual teenaged kids who most likely were runaways, and two Caucasian females, neither of whom had been missing for seventy-two hours yet, so no formal report could be taken.
“You think his family might have something to do with it?”
The odds used to be that way: “Kith and kin killed one again.” But the last year or two had seen a growing number of stranger-to-stranger homicides, usually in the course of a robbery or a fight. Sometimes impulse, or thrill, murders. Now it was only about fifty-fifty that a victim knew his slayer, and that made things a hell of a lot tougher for the police. “We’ll find out.”
“Yeah,” said Stubbs. “But like the chief said, we’ll find out very carefully, won’t we, partner?”
“Sure.” The way Stubbs said it hinted of stories the man had heard about Wager. But it wasn’t something Wager was going to pursue, because he didn’t give a damn what people told Stubbs or what the man feared.
“Here’s Belaire up ahead.”
Wager slowed for the turn, Stubbs’s word
partner
still in his ears. Technically, the new man was right; he and Wager were partners because Wager was on the day shift this month and policy said to introduce new detectives to the day routine before assigning them to the less-supervised night duty. But for years Wager’s partner had been Max—because, he was once told by an angry Captain Doyle, nobody else wanted to work with him. Which hadn’t hurt Wager’s feelings at all; he didn’t like working with anyone else, and that sometimes included Max. Still, it felt different to have Stubbs ride beside him instead of the big man. With Max, the seat would be shoved against its backstops so Wager had to stretch to drive. And still Max would look cramped as he slouched in the rider’s seat. Stubbs, leaning forward slightly to watch the houses pass, reminded Wager of his grandmother when she would get out for the occasional Sunday ride: too tense to sit back and enjoy, yet eager to show her children she was having a good time.
“I can’t see one damned house number. There ought to be a law to have numbers on the curbs.”
But it wasn’t the numbers that told them which of the stately houses belonged to Councilman Green; it was the cluster of vehicles along the sidewalks halfway down the next block. The large, expensive homes had been built in the twenties and thirties, when the owners were trying to rival the Country Club district across town by creating a sprawling neighborhood of English-style estate homes. Gradually, as the black community settled in the northeast corner of the city and spread south, the rich whites began moving out and, for a while, the big houses hovered on the edge of collapsing into apartments and transient housing like so much of the Capitol Hill area. Then well-to-do blacks, who knew a good real estate value, began moving in and the homes were painted, long screen porches repaired, tree-filled yards cleaned and trimmed. Now, here and there, an occasional white family who could afford the cost was buying back into the area at three or four times the earlier, desperate prices.
“There’s the chief and the mayor,” said Stubbs. “They’re just leaving.”
Wager saw a stir among the group of reporters and photographers poised at the end of the sidewalk. A television camera hoisted to the shoulder of a girl in jeans and the hooded balls of microphones shoved forward. Wager pulled to the curb. “Let’s wait a few minutes.”
The mayor’s hand lifted palm out toward the reporters—no comment—and he and the much taller Chief Sullivan hurried past to the unmarked car that quickly pulled away, followed by a blue-and-white running cold. A television team tried to move down the sidewalk toward the silent house but a uniformed cop waved them back, their mouths opening in futile argument. After a few minutes, the guardians of the First Amendment decided there wasn’t much excitement in staring at a silent house, and first a pair, then several, then the television crews began to leave.
“Who’s that guy? The one staring our way?”
“Gargan.” Wager sank down in the seat and turned his face away as Gargan’s Honda Civic sputtered and paused and then pulled away sullenly. They waited until most of the press had left except for two or three who apparently had no other story to follow or who were paid by the hour. Then Wager drove down the block and parked.
They showed their badges to the pair of policemen standing guard at the edge of the deep front yard with its towering, shaggy blue spruce and the clusters of quivering aspen.
“How much you think this place is worth?”
Wager shrugged. “Two, maybe.”
“I’d guess two-fifty, three-hundred thousand. It sure as hell ain’t your usual ghetto.”
“That’s what America’s all about.”
Stubbs snorted. “Yeah. And he probably did it on food stamps.” He pressed the bell, and a moment later a woman with cropped, white hair opened the door a few inches.
“Police officers, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Green?”
“No. I’m Mrs. Simpson, Hannah’s mother. I’ll tell her you’re here.” She craned to glance past Wager’s shoulder at the street. “Those reporters gone yet?”
“Most of them, yes, ma’am.”
“Thank the good Lord for that, anyway. Come in, please.”
She led them into a large living room that held a variety of chairs and floor lamps and a grand piano, with its lid tilted open. Through the bay windows, they could see the shaded coolness of front lawn and, past an open double door, the corner of a formal dining room, with a long table and high-backed chairs. All the furniture looked carefully selected and expensive, and it reminded Wager of those Hispanics who got rich and moved away from the dusty streets of the barrio and, every now and then, would cruise the old neighborhood in their new car and wave at familiar, gaping faces. They brought more pride than envy to the barrio: If the Chavezes could do it, so could we—with enough money, accent or race or skin color made no difference. All you needed was enough money and you were equal.
A slender woman with puffy eyes and prominent cheekbones came through the double doors; the white-haired woman was close behind her. Wager showed his badge again. “I’m Detective Wager; this is Detective Stubbs. You’re Mrs. Green?”
“Yes.” That was all she managed to say. Wager could see the cords of her neck strain against what she was trying to stifle.
He wasn’t asked to sit, but Wager pulled a chair close to the sofa where Mrs. Green wearily settled. Stubbs, as Wager had told him to do, strolled out of sight behind the woman, where he took out his notebook and waited.
“This is a bad time, Mrs. Green. But we need to know as much as we can, as soon as we can.”
“I know.”
“No time would be good, Mr. Wager,” said the mother. “You go ahead. We understand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” They were the routine questions—when did you last see your husband? Did he mention anyone he was going to meet? Did he telephone you or anybody in the house later? But because they brought back the last time the widow saw her husband alive, they were painful ones for her. Wager had done his share of notifications, and he’d seen some of the explosions of grief, wails and screams to God and the unanswerable question “Why?” But surprisingly often, the response wasn’t loud hysteria. It was a stunned numbness and even a kind of formality as if the person suddenly felt that any noise or emotion would be an insult to the moment. The deepest pain, Wager knew, would come later, in those silent times alone when the numbness faded and the loss was new again. Then would come the explosions of gut-shaking tears.