NINETEEN
Next stop was La Grange, a little county seat down near the Alabama border. The downtown has a nice square with a pretty fountain and big statute of General Lafayette, who had supposedly passed through the area briefly, gazing thoughtfully out at the horizon like some guy in a menswear commercial. La Grange didn't have that used-up, falling-apart quality of some of the towns in southern Georgia, but it wasn't exactly humming with activity either.
We came into the police station and left our names with the receptionist, who said that a Detective Jennings would be out shortly.
The man who came out, however, had a small plastic pin on his shirt that said
CHIEF OF POLICE.
His eyes were a cool green, and he wore a uniform that was as pressed and crisp as your average Marine Corps gunnery sergeant's.
“I'm Chief Brunson.” He glared at us and didn't offer his hand. “Come back to my office.” He turned and quick-marched down a short hallway, through a door with his name stenciled on it in big gold letters. His full name was John Wayne Brunson.
We followed him through the door.
“Sit,” Brunson snapped.
Lt. Gooch folded his arms, remained standing. “My appointment was with Detective Jennings, Chief,” he said.
“Let's get something straight right now, Lieutenant . . . What was your name again?”
“Gooch.”
“Lt. Gooch. Let's get something straight. I'm a stickler for chain of command.” I appeared to be so far down on the totum pole as not to be worthy of a glance from the Chief. “Interdepartmental matters are my prerogative. If you wish to speak to Detective Jennings, then you make your request to me first. That's how it's done in this department.”
“I spent twelve years in the United States Army, Chief.” Lt. Gooch stood for a moment longer, then finally sat. I guess he saw the wisdom of not turning this into a pissing contest right off the bat. Gooch smiled. It wasn't much of a smile, but it showed a couple of his teeth, and the ends of his mouth turned upwards a little. “I'm all for chain of command.”
“Good.” The Chief of Police didn't smile back. His desk was completely clean, not a paper, not a book, not a speck of lint on it. The only decorations in the room were a row of black baseball caps on the wall, each of them with a message embroidered on the crown in gold letters. One read
CID
, one read
CHIEF'S TACTICAL UNIT,
one read
CHIEF OF POLICE. A
rack full of weapons, lightly oiled, lay in wait in a glass case behind him: a shortened version of the M-16, a scoped sniper rifle of some sort, an MP5 submachine gun, and a shotgun with a pistol grip.
“You were CID in the Army,” Lt. Gooch said. It wasn't a question. I wasn't sure what CID was.
“I'm not here to swap stories about the good old days, Lieutenant.” The Chief looked at his watch. “Now I hate to disappoint you, but you'll just have to head on back to Atlanta.”
“Now wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said. “We came all the way down here to talk to Detective Jennings on a very urgent matter. If this is about requests and chain of command and so on, fine. Here we are. We're making our request right now. Chief, if it's okay with you, we'd like to speak to Detective Jennings.”
The Chief's cold green eyes looked at me for the first time. “Young lady,” Chief Brunson said, “I was talking to your superior. I'd just as soon you not interrupt our conversation.”
I was about to come up out of the chair, but Lt. Gooch reached over and put his hand on my arm. “If you're going to speak to my assistant, Chief,” he said, “I'd commend you to address her as Detective while you do so.”
The Chief locked stares with Lt. Gooch. Gooch had something approximating a smile on his face. But the smile hadn't made it to his eyes.
“Now. My assistant, Detective Deakes, makes a good point,” Lt. Gooch said. “No time like the present. We're here, we'd like make a request to speak to Detective Jennings.”
“I'll need a
written
request, I'm afraid.” The Chief broke out a windy smile for this one. “On stationery. Properly authorized by your superiors.”
Lt. Gooch raised his head a notch. “Ah,” he said. “
Written.
” Then he turned to me. “You know what CID is?”
“No, I don't, Lieutenant.”
“Criminal Investigation Division. It's the Army's detective bureau. CID is where they park the boys who ain't got the balls to be actual soldiers.”
The Chief's face stiffened.
Lt. Gooch's voice was a soft, casual drawl. “See all that gear back there, Detective Deakes?” The lieutenant pointed at the gun case. “Them machine guns and stuff? I sense that the small-time third-rate bureaucrat holding down the desk in front of us is one of these characters who likes playing Army. Probably goes out and trains with the SWAT boys, got him a little tailored black uniform, goes to all kind of FBI seminars about counter-sniper techniques and whatnot. But you know what? It don't matter a hill of beans.” Lt. Gooch smiled, and this time it was a pleasant, broad smile. “Because he's a weak, sneaky little desk jockey, and all the sniper rifles in the world won't change that.”
The Lieutenant stood.
Chief Brunson glared up at us, smiling tautly. “Lieutenant, I think we can skip the formalities. I'm denying your request right here and now.”
We headed for the door.
“Oh, and Lieutenant?” Chief Brunson had his arms crossed now, leaning back in his chair. “I know you from somewhere, don't I?”
Lt. Gooch looked back with his empty blue eyes, like he was looking at a bug maybe. “Nope.”
The chief pointed his finger. “I know you. I can't place you right now, but I know I've dealt with you before. I remember you because you had some kind of stink on you. It may take me awhile, I'm going to figure it out.”
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We went back to the car and I said, “Well, this is just me, boss, but I thought you did a nice job of apple-polishing in there. Stroked his ego a little. Really softened him up. I expect we'll get good cooperation from him as we move forward with this investigation.”
Lt. Gooch mumbled something, stared out the window at the statue of General Lafayette.
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We ate a silent dinner at a café near the square, then drove aimlessly around for a while, taking a tour of all the two-lane roads in the county. I sensed that Gooch had something in mind, but I figured I'd save my breath and not bother asking. Around six-fifteen we pulled up in front of a small brick ranch house with a ten-year-old Chrysler minivan and a worn-out old muscle car parked out front. A yellow mutt was chained up under a shade tree, sleeping. “Who's this?” I said.
“Who you think?” Lt. Gooch said, getting out of the car.
I followed him up to the door. The mutt under the tree looked up at us, then went back to his rest. Lt. Gooch knocked, and a white woman with wispy brown hair and an apprehensive squint answered the door. “Yes?”
“Lieutenant Gooch and Detective Deakes from the Atlanta Police Department,” the lieutenant said. “I wonder if we might speak to your husband, Miz Jennings.”
The squinty Mrs. Jennings let her gaze glance off me briefly, then said, “Hold on.” The door closed, and there was some muffled talking, then the door opened again.
A thin, nervous-looking man of about forty-five looked out at us and sighed loudly. Detective Jennings, presumably. He wore the pants but not the jacket from a cheap blue suit, cheap black shoes, a starched white polyester shirt, and a blue tie with tiny gold handcuffs on it. A .38 snubbie was clipped to his belt. “Uh,” the nervous-looking guy said, “y'all, look, I, see, I really can't, it's not, you know, it's not really possible for me to, ah, interface with you. Due to, ah, the instructions I'm under. From the Chief of Police? Chief Brunson?”
I smiled brightly. “Just a courtesy call,” I said. “We're going through channels, naturally, put the request in to the chief, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, just thought we'd come by and chew the fat a little, cop to cop, friendly gesture sort of thing. Strictly a courtesy call.”
The nervous-looking cop kept standing there, his hand gripping the door so hard his knuckles were white. “Uh, the way the Chief left it with me, I was under the impression maybe he was not, you know, inclined . . . to . . .” He seemed excessively nervous about the whole situation. “See, he more or less, what it is, he pretty near instructed me flat out not to even, not to even
talk
to y'all. Even on the phone. Or whatever.”
“That is a fact, bud,” Lt. Gooch said. “Your boss made his wishes real clear.”
The mutt under the tree lifted its head and let out a pitiful sound that might have been a groan or a yawn. Then, worn out by all that effort, he put his head back down on his paws.
“Like I say,” I repeated, “just a courtesy call.” I reached forward and put out my hand.
Det. Jennings looked at it for a moment, then finally shook, his grip soft and moist.
“My partner here,” Lt. Gooch said, “she's big on soft-soaping people. This ain't no goddamn courtesy call, Jennings. What's happening here is a little girl is fixing to die if you don't stand up and be counted.”
“Huh?” Jennings said.
“Open the goddamn door,” Lt. Gooch said. He pushed the door open and walked into the house. It was an excruciatingly neat place, all knotty pine and plaid upholstery, with a large gold-framed picture of a pallid, womanly Jesus on the wall over the brick fireplace.
“Miz Jennings,” the lieutenant said to Jennings's squinty wife, “I apologize for barging in. You think you could get us some tea?”
“Now just, hold on here a doggoneâ” Jennings's hands were balled up in impotent fists down around his genitalia.
“Sit down, please, Detective,” Lt. Gooch said. He took the big plaid chair with the red crocheted blanket on it, then crossed one scuffed boot over his knee. After a moment Jennings sat tentatively on the couch. “I know that horse's ass bureaucrat told you not to talk to us. But we already got the file. All we need is your general impressions.”
The detective crossed his arms over his chest, sort of like he was giving himself a reassuring hug. The fingers on his right hand trembled slightly. “My impressions?”
“Of the Lacy Freemont case. Little girl come up missing November of eighty-nine. Found her body three months later over near West Point Lake. Remember? What we spoke about on the phone?”
Jennings let out a low groan that reminded me of the noise the dog out front had made. “Look. I got twenty-four years in. One more year, I get the full retirement. I can'tâ”
“You saying that dipshit would fire you for talking to us?”
Jennings nodded. “Might could do it, yessir.”
Lt. Gooch looked around the room. “You see him in this room, bud?”
Jennings blinked.
“Huh? He got wiretaps in here? Got your wife spying on you?”
Jennings groaned like his dog again.
“Then what you worried about, bud? I ain't asking you to give me no files or nothing. I already
got
the file.” Lt. Gooch held up the file on the Freemont girl's homicide.
“Chief Brunson . . . heâ”
Lt. Gooch narrowed his eyes as though in disbelief. “Why,” he said, “do you keep talking about that man? This is just us, bud. This is just you and me and Detective Deakes. And I guarantee you, me, and Detective Deakes ain't planning on telling your boss that you been speaking out of school.”
“Yessir but . . . The Chief doesn't like people getting all up in his cases that haven't been solved.”
“What do you mean
his
case?” Lt. Gooch said. “This Freemont girl's got
your
name on it.”
Jennings flinched. “Yessir. But, ah, it was really more the Chief's case. He was . . . Back then he wasn't the chief. He was the city detective. We only got one detective, see, and he was it.”
“Then how come
your
name's on the file?”
“Well, he got moved up to chief later that year. And he transferred some of the cases to me.”
“Wait,” I said. “But it's your name on the reports. Your signature.”
Jennings didn't say anything.
“You saying you
altered the file?
” I said.
The room was silent for a moment, then Jennings's sad-looking wife scurried in with a tray of iced tea. She had put a wedge of lemon and a sprig of fresh mint in each glass. “Why don't you just tell them,” she said. “Tell them what that man did.”