THIRTY-NINE
I'd like to say I spent the rest of the afternoon working the case like a dog. But the truth is, I didn't. I went home and I sat down on the couch, and the next thing I knew it was dark outside. I looked at the clock. Four in the morning. I'd finally crashed, slept for thirteen solid hours. Didn't seem much point in getting up, so I turned off the TV, got in bed, and slept until the alarm went off at six.
I woke feeling wonderful. I put on some old Al Green and juked around the apartment while I was dressing. I was dancing and smiling at myself in the mirror when the phone rang, still dancing and smiling when I heard the voice I had now come to recognize as Chief Biggs's hatchet man, Captain Goodwin: “Hold for Chief Biggs.”
I held for while. Now I wasn't smiling or dancing anymore. The line was silent for a while, then Chief Biggs's voice came on. “Detective?”
“Yessir.”
“Get your silly lying black ass down to my office right this minute.”
“Um, sir, what's the, ahâ” But I was wasting my breath on a dead line.
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When the gorgeous Captain Goodwin led me into the Chief's office, Diggs was not wearing his customary smile. He glared at me. “Sit down,” he snapped.
I sat. I could see there was no percentage in being chatty, so I kept my mouth shut.
Diggs's assistant left, closing the double doors behind him. The massive desk was empty, as usual, except for three pieces of paper, all of them lined up in a row so perfect it looked like it had been squared off with a ruler. Diggs's skin is light enough that there was no mistaking his face was flushed with anger. He stared at me for while.
“You sat right there in that seat, girl,” he said finally, “and you damn well lied to me.”
“Sir?”
His voice rose and he slammed his hand down on the table. “Don't you dare play little innocent-ass girl to me. Don't you dare.”
Obviously he'd found something out. The question, I supposed, was how much.
“You a very attractive girl,” he said. “I mean, is that it? Am I thinking with my dick? What? How come I'm being so indulgent with you?”
I just sat there with my knees clamped together.
“You go out there to Cobb County smoking crack, I help you.”
“Uh, not crack sir. Methamphetamines.”
Now I got the smile. “Oh! Oh! Excuse me! Crystal meth. Okay, so instead of getting hopped up and breaking the law and dishonoring your badge on some niggery-ass drug like crack, you going for the drug of choice among America's great population of shiftless, worthless, no-teeth, dumbass white trash. I stand corrected. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you so
very
much.” The smile was gleaming suddenly. “Anything else you'd like to straighten out for me?”
I decided not to repeat my mistake and kept my mouth shut.
“No, seriously, young woman. I'm asking you right this minute what else you'd like to straighten me out on.”
I looked at the floor.
“See, reason I bring this up is that where you're at right this minute, is you've reached that speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-piece type of arena. You with me? I asked you to keep me apprised. And you lied to my face.”
I nodded.
His eyes widened. “Do you honestly think you're the only person in this department that I've asked to keep me apprised of little bits and pieces of information? Huh? You think you're the only person in this city? This state? Girl, my gracious sakes alive! I got people everywhere!”
“Sir, why don't you just tell me what you found out?”
He laughed. Now that he was feeling in control, the old genial Chief Diggs was coming back. “Nah, see it don't work that way. How it works is, you tell me everything you know, and maybe if I'm feeling relaxed and at peace with my soul, I don't make that phone call to the Cobb County DA, the one where I recommend they drag out that indictment they got hid in the desk drawer, and send your pretty ass to the penitentiary.”
“I'm not sure where to start.”
“Start, how about, with why you just asked a CID special agent to run a DNA test on the rape-kit evidence found on Lt. Hank Gooch's murdered daughter.”
My heart sank. If he knew that, God only knew what else he'd found out. So that was where I started. I told him about all those murdered kids. I told him about the calluses and the bone decalcification. I told him about the DNA test that the Army was running, about the test I was running on Gooch's saliva. I told him about the one child who still sitting somewhere in a box waiting to die. I told him that there was a connection between Gooch and this case that he should have revealed but never did. I told him that I didn't know for sure, so I went ahead and ran the DNA just in case.
When I was done, I felt wrung out as an old dishrag. The Chief beamed paternally at me. He'd been nodding the whole time, like nothing I'd told him was news. I must admit I was surprised at how little shock he displayed at the fact that we'd been secretly freelancing a fifteen-year-old serial killer investigation.
“See?” he said. “How easy that is? Don't it make you feel all warm and gushy inside? Maybe if this law enforcement thing don't work out, I'll go into the priesthood. I seem to have what your Catholics would call a confessional manner.”
“Sir, what are you going to do?”
But of course the Chief wouldn't be rushed. He leaned back in the chair and smiled. “Nothing makes me feel better than helping out a young person such as yourself. Lot of folks think that the fun of police work is putting bad guys in jail. Hey, that has its appeal. But what I really enjoy, what plays the deep and resonant chords of my soul, is giving back, reaching down, extending a helping hand to a troubled young individual.”
“Yessir.”
Big smile. “Don't feel obliged to patronize me,” the chief said. “I enjoy this whether you kiss my ass or not.”
I slumped back into my seat and just hoped this would be over soon.
“I'm on the board of directors of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, did you know that? Oh, yeah. Go around the state giving speeches, raising hopes, extending a hand, etc. etc. Very rewarding work. Especially being able to show the young black folks that being a successful black man is not synonymous with basketball or drug dealing. You know what I mean?” He leaned forward. “That, girl, is the fundament, the mudsill, the very basis of my success. Reach down and help out. Then when necessary, maybe I ask for a favor in return. That's all.”
“Look, I don't want to go to the penitentiary,” I said.
“What I'm trying to
tell
you, is that you ain't the first person in this department to mess up. Human nature being what it is, we got flawed human beings all through the ranks. And a lot of them owe their livelihoods and their reputations to me. Strictly to me. So here it is, your big opportunity.” He took one of the pieces of paper off his desk and handed it to me.
“What's this, sir?”
“See, once word got back to me that you been running DNA tests down at Fort Benning, I started putting things together. While you were sleeping off whatever it was you'd just put up your nose yesterday, I was spending time on the phone, expediting things.”
“I didn't put anything up my nose. I had a little caffeine, that's all.”
“Not interested, Mechelle. Bottom line, that's an arrest warrant for soon-to-be-ex Lieutenant Hank Gooch.”
I stared at it. “And those other two pieces of paper?”
“What I'm saying, I expedited those two DNA testsâthe one you did over at the GBI, and the one from Fort Benning. Had the results forwarded directly to my desk.”
“You're saying the DNA matched?”
“You goddamn right, the DNA matched. Your boss raped and killed his own little girl. Cut off her head with a sword. No doubt he did the same thing to all those other innocent little kids. So what you gonna do right now, you gonna head off to Hank Gooch's shitass little apartment along with a troop of big crazy SWAT team members, and you gonna place him under arrest.”
“Yessir.”
“And, Detective Deakes?”
“Yessir?”
“Pencil in an hour at about four o'clock. I got a press conference, then I'm gonna give you a citation for bravery or deductive brilliance, steadfastness, some bullshit, and promote you to head of the Cold Case Unit. How's that sound?”
I stared at him.
“The two words you're looking for, Detective,” he said. “Are
thank
and
you
.”
“Thank you. Thank you, sir.”
“Why it's my pleasure. Yes, indeed. The pleasure's entirely mine.” He stood and pointed at the door. “Now go arrest that pederast monster before he kills another kid.”
FORTY
I briefed the SWAT boys in the Cold Case Unit office, while the SWAT team stood around glowering and flexing their muscles.
After I was done briefing the SWAT team on the kind of man they were dealing with, the SWAT lieutenant said, “Where you want to take him down?”
“Let's play it by ear,” I said. Then I put in a call to Lt. Gooch's pager. He called me back within two minutes.
“I thought you were playing sick,” he said.
Hearing his voice, a creepy sensation ran through my fingers, like bacon was sizzling beneath my skin. But I knew I had to make this good, not let the nervousness make me blow this. “I'm much better now. But thanks for asking. And the lovely flowers? The card? That was so sweet.”
“You finished cracking yourself up?”
“Look, I'm at the office. Must have been a twenty-four-hour bug. Just wanted to let you know I'm hale and hearty, at your disposal, whatever.”
“Well, I found out some very interesting things while you were playing hooky. You know where my place is at, how about coming over here, lemme show you what I got.”
I felt a jab of anxiety. How did he know that I knew where his apartment was? Somehow he must have figured out that I had walked into his place the other night. But how? “Your place? Your house, you mean? No, I've never been there.”
There was a brief pause. “I was under the firm impression you had.” His voice was as uninflected as ever. “Well, don't matter. I'm heading home. Meet me over there.” He gave me directions, then rang off.
“This is something you can't do at the office?”
There was a long pause. “I wouldn't tell you to come there if it wasn't.”
The phone went dead. I looked at the SWAT lieutenant. He had been monitoring the call on a pair of headphones.
“What?” the SWAT lieutenant said.
“I don't know,” I said. “There's something in his voice. I think he suspects something.”
“Y'all hear that?” he called to his squad.
“Yessir!” The whole squad in unison, like a bunch of gung-ho jarheads.
“This man's not just a cop, not just a Special Forces type trained in hand-to-hand combat and all that shitâhe's a crazy ass, cold-blooded killer. Armed and dangerous ain't getting us halfway there. Officer safety, boys. That's the top priority here. Y'all understand what that means?”
One of the SWAT guys, a tall white boy with huge arms and a shaved head, gave me a feral grin. “Lock and load,” he said.
“Goddamn right,” the lieutenant said. “Now remember: the subject is on duty, so assume he's wearing Kevlar. If deadly force is required, make it a head shot.”
“Yessir!”
The lieutenant looked slowly around the room at his men. “I'm serious as a heart attack. If he twitches, don't hesitate. Head shots. Put him down.”
There are times where you need to be thoughtful and ask questions, and there are times where you just act. This was one of those times where you just had to act. Me, I'm most comfortable when I'm doing rather than sitting around thinking. But I have to say, as we rolled up Ponce de Leon toward Lt. Gooch's house, a tickle of thought ran across my mind. We had a DNA match, yes, but it was for a case outside our jurisdiction. And there was no bright line between the murders in our jurisdiction and Lieutenant Hank Gooch. If I'd been the DA who wrote up the warrant, I might have asked for a couple more shreds of evidence. If I'd been the judge who'd signed the warrant, I might have wanted something more, too. But I supposed that whoever the Assistant DA and the state court judge were, they were as beholden to Chief Diggs as I was.
As we rolled up Ponce, these thoughts crossed my mind, but only momentarily. Like I say, action comes easier to me than cogitation.
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The unmarked SWAT van slowed at the curb. Gooch's cruiser was parked in the space below his apartment. I looked around for his personal car, a Ford sedan, but didn't see it anywhere. My heart was pounding, and my hands were wet with sweat. It was just like the good old days back in Narcotics, the old pure and natural adrenaline high, better than crank any day of the week.
“Go!” the SWAT lieutenant said.
And then the troops were charging up the stairs toward apartment D2 in a cloud of black Kevlar and MP5 submachine guns. I took the rear position, then followed them up the stairs at a trot, my Glock held in ready position, both hands on the grip, finger resting on the trigger guard, live round in the chamber.
“Atlanta police! Search warrant!” the SWAT officer on point screamed, then the six-foot-five monster next to him swung the hundred-pound door buster like it weighed about as much as a toothbrush. The lock splintered, and the stout wooden door swung inward. The point man tossed a flash-bang grenade into the room.
It detonated with an earsplitting crash, and a brief blaze of light lit up the curtains of the apartment. The SWAT team poured through the door. I had forgotten to stick my fingers in my ears before the flash-bang went off, so I had gone a little deaf.
Still, I could hear them screaming: “Down on the ground! Down on the ground! Search warrant! Search warrant!”
And then, distantly, like a voice from some far planet, one word: “Gun!”
With my ears ringing from the flash-bang, the sound of gunfire didn't seem quite so loud. Louder than popcorn, but not quite as loud as hail on a tin roof. SWAT guys are trained to fire in bursts of three. Fire a burst and take a bead, fire a burst and take a bead. I must have heard six or eight bursts, so much gunfire at once that I couldn't distinguish the individual shots.
Then, silence.
“Clear!” a distant voice yelled.
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Somebody radio a Code 21. Subject is down.”
Code 21 was an ambulance.
I felt a peculiar sinking feeling in my stomach, the feeling you get when the roller coaster crests the hill and starts heading down. I walked slowly into the room, my ears ringing, walked slowly through the empty living room, into the spare bedroom, the one with the walls covered with swords. There was something about the deafness that made the whole thing feel kind of dreamlike.
The swords were speckled with blood. The SWAT team had done just like they were trained. Head shots. As best I can reconstruct what happened, Lt. Gooch had been in the back of the bedroom, had heard the noise of the flash-bang. Flash-bangs are supposed to stun you, but because he'd been in the bedroom, it hadn't affected him. Apparently he'd heard the noise, stood, and come toward the door with a gun in his hand.
The whole SWAT team, six men with submachine guns, had been facing him dead on. And they had done as instructed, taking him down with nothing but head shots.
The corpseâand there was no doubt that this was no longer a living manâlay sprawled on its side in the middle of the room full of swords, a snub-nosed revolver six inches from its hand. The autopsy and the forensic investigation later revealed he'd been hit seventeen times in the head before he ever hit the ground. It had all been over in less than two seconds, seventeen shots out of eighteen fired, right on target. Those SWAT boys, you may not want to take them home to Mamaâbut, baby, they know how to shoot. There was hardly enough left of Lt. Gooch's head to make a decent sausage.
“That
is
Gooch, right?” the SWAT lieutenant said.
Battered cowboy boots, blue jeans with a round Skoal can impression worn into the back pocket, a white shirt open at the neck. I nodded.
“Where is she, you son of a bitch?” I yelled at the dead man on the floor. “Where's Jenny Dial?”
Then the sensation in my stomach cut in again, the roller coaster heading for the ground, and then I was falling. I don't mean that I was falling in some figurative sense, I mean my body was folding up and heading for the ground. I fell and fell and fell, and eventually the world went dark.