The Dead Detective (11 page)

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

H
arry knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer.
It was nine in the morning and the day was already beginning to heat up. It was expected to reach ninety by midday, and based on the trickle of perspiration he could feel under his shirt it already seemed well on its way. The house was a single-story rectangle, built close to the street so the small lot could provide some semblance of a backyard. Like most of Florida’s homes it was a cinder-block construction with the exterior walls covered in stucco, all of it a quiet nod to the yearly hurricane season. Of course, if a big enough hurricane hit, the cinder blocks would be all that was left. Once the windows were broken by flying debris the roof would be ripped away and everything inside the house would become part of the tempest.

The house was located in Temple Terrace on the northern outskirts of Tampa, less than a mile from the home that Darlene Beckett had once shared with her husband. It was on a short street that ended in a cul-desac, a working-class neighborhood where each house offered up bicycles, skateboards, or doll carriages stranded on the front lawns. Every other driveway seemed to be graced with a basketball hoop. On the surface it was a neighborhood of hard-working families with plenty of children to love and care for and support.

Harry rang the bell a second time before it was finally answered by a short, solidly built woman dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. She had unruly brown hair and a plain face absent of makeup. She also seemed short of breath. Vicky’s notes said she and her husband were both thirty-five, but right now the woman looked considerably older.

“Sorry to leave you waiting. I was in the back of the house making up the beds.”

Harry held up his shield and introduced himself.

The woman’s face deflated. “I just had another detective here yesterday. Is it about the same thing, that bitch who hurt my son?”

“It’s about Darlene Beckett,” Harry said. “Are you Mrs. Hall?”

“That’s me. Betty Hall, mother of the victim.” There was a weary sarcasm in her voice as if she were repeating a phrase she had heard and read too often.

“There are some things I have to go over with you, your husband, and your son.”

“My husband’s at work and my son’s asleep, and I’m not waking him up for
this
.” Her voice was uncompromising and Harry knew better than to fight her on the position she had just staked out.

“Then I’ll talk to you now, and I’ll come back to talk to your husband and son later today. What time do you expect your husband home?”

She let out a long, weary breath. “Six, six-thirty. Not before that.”

“Can you arrange to have your son available then too?”

“Why not?” She looked past him and shook her head. “Why not give him another sleepless night.”

She led him through the air-conditioned house, through a set of sliding glass doors, and out on to a lanai that held a small pool. She explained that she didn’t want her son waking up and overhearing yet another conversation about Darlene Beckett. Then she let out a breath as if finally giving in to the inevitable and asked Harry if he’d care for some coffee.

“Thank you, I’d love some,” he responded. He really didn’t want coffee or anything else, but now that he had her in a giving mood he wanted to keep her there.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Black is fine.”

She went back into the house and returned minutes later with two hot mugs. Even before he tasted it the aroma told Harry it would be good.

Taking his time, Harry eased into the interrogation. “Mrs. Hall, I don’t have any children, myself, so I can’t fully appreciate the pain this has caused you and your family. And I’m sorry I have to revive it for you all. But we have a murder to investigate, and as you know it’s captured a lot of attention from the media. Now, right or wrong, this puts pressure on the people above me, and believe me, that pressure rolls downhill. So I need to solve this case as quickly as possible, which, if I can do that, will serve your interests as well. The sooner I can find out who killed Darlene Beckett, the sooner the focus of the media will turn away from you and your son. Okay?”

“Are you going to protect my son and my family from the media?” Her eyes bore into him.

“As best we can. I’m the lead investigator on this case and I don’t want the media in contact with
any
of our witnesses. But I can only control it from our end. If you or any member of your family, or any of your friends, chooses to talk to the media, I can’t control that. But no information will come from us.” Harry didn’t say that he also couldn’t control what the brass in his own department might do.

“We’ve already had them calling,” she said, “and right off we changed our phone number.
Again
.” The line of her mouth hardened, but Harry could tell she was fighting to keep tears from her eyes. “We sold our old house six months ago and moved here. I loved our old house. We all did. Our kids were born there; most of our friends were there. But that woman—what she did and all the madness it brought down on us—didn’t leave us much choice. My son was scared every time he went out of the house, scared that some reporter or some fanatic was gonna jump out of the bushes and start in on him.” The tears began to well in her eyes. “The school system even made him change schools. He got
thrown out
of his school because of what that woman did to him. One of their own employees.” Both her fists had clenched now. “Oh, they said it was for his own good, but they just wanted to be rid of him, be rid of what they let happen to him. And he saw it for what it was: a punishment.” She shook her head violently. “How else
could
he see it? Even the church he’d gone to all his life turned against us.”

Harry opened his notebook, which held the notes Vicky had taken. He had to turn the questions to areas where he needed answers and hoped the woman was ready for it. Cooperation, he knew, even among the innocent, was a matter of will.

“Mrs. Hall, when Detective Stanopolis was here yesterday you folks told her that you were all at home together at the time Ms. Beckett was killed.”

“That’s right. My husband and I were in the living room watching a show we like. The kids were in the family room watching something different. We even told her what the shows were about,” she added.

“I know you did,” Harry said. “But according to Detective Stanopolis’s report, no one other than the people who were here could confirm that you were all here together.”

“Well, that’s not true,” she snapped. She shook her head. “I don’t mean that the detective didn’t tell the truth. What I mean is that after she left I realized that my husband’s mother had called that night to say she couldn’t find her medicine. She’s got heart trouble and her husband just passed away a few months ago, so she calls Joe every time something goes wrong. I think she just needs to know someone’s there to help her.” She smiled, weakly. “Anyway, I answered the phone when she called at about ten o’clock and gave the phone to Joe. Then, when she called back an hour later, I answered the phone again, and gave it to Joe.”

“Did she talk to her grandchildren?” Harry asked.

Betty Hall’s jaw tightened. “No, she didn’t. You’ll just have to take our word that they were here.” Her voice was ice.

“It’s good to have whatever confirmation we can get. It’ll just spare you more questions down the road.” Harry offered her a small smile that wasn’t returned. “Can I get your mother-in-law’s name, address, and phone number?”

Mrs. Hall rattled off the information.

Harry consulted the notebook. “Was there anyone in particular who seemed unusually upset about what happened to your son or the fact that Ms. Beckett was allowed to plead to a lesser charge?”

“You mean that she walked away pretty much scot-free?” Her eyes became fierce. “Yeah, there were Joe and me for starters. I don’t think my son cared. I think he was just glad it was over. At least he thought it was.”

“Anyone outside your family?” Harry pressed. “How about anyone at your husband’s job, or friends of yours?”

“No, our friends either tried to be supportive, or just avoided the subject … and us too—at least some of them did. The guys on my husband’s job, well, they all thought it was real funny. Or they were telling him how lucky his kid was, especially after they saw that bitch on television. The only people who really wanted to see her hung out to dry were some of the people at our church. They couldn’t understand why we were willing to let her off the hook without a trial. But they didn’t have to listen to Billy crying in his room, they didn’t have to see him afraid to go out of the house. Even the psychologist we sent him to said to let it go. He said having to testify and live it all over again, plus dealing with all the publicity that a trial would bring, could cause him serious emotional stress. So I said to hell with all of them, I was gonna put my son first. So I just told the prosecutor to kiss my grits and we stopped going to that damned church. My husband never wanted to go to the church anyway. He just did it for the kids, and because I wanted it.”

“What’s the name of the church?” Harry asked.

“The First Assembly of Jesus Christ the Lord.” She pushed back an unruly strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead. “I’ve got a church bulletin. There’s something in it I want to show you, anyway.”

She retrieved the bulletin and gave it to Harry. It was professionally printed and slickly laid out, filled with church information, some short feature articles, and a column by the minister, the Reverend John Waldo. Betty Hall had underlined a comment in that column relating to Darlene Beckett. She jabbed a finger at it. “Just read it. That’s what we were living with every time we went to church.”

Harry read the minister’s column. In it, Reverend Waldo urged his parishioners to
fulfill your Christian duty and do whatever you can to bring justice to Darlene Beckett and thereby free the boy she has led astray so he can be returned to the loving arms of Jesus Christ.

“And that s.o.b. pressed for that every chance he got,” she said.

Vicky decided that she and Jim Morgan would take on Darlene’s probation officer before they ventured into the quagmire of the department’s computer systems. Morgan, apparently a closet computer geek, raised a mild objection, but Vicky refused to be swayed.

“People before machines,” she said. “People have heart attacks or get hit by buses. Machines will be there the next day.”

Morgan pointed out that machines caught deadly viruses and had fatal crashes too. Then he laughed and agreed that he couldn’t fight her logic. He had a nice laugh, she thought, one that went well with his outgoing, easy manner. He was tall and lean, well put together, but not the type who wore his shirts a size too small to accent his biceps. There were enough of those in the department and she had no interest in working with someone who had to check himself out in every mirror he passed. Before today she had only seen Morgan in uniform. Now, dressed in casual civilian clothes, there was a youthful quality about him that she found very appealing. He had short, sandy hair, striking blue eyes, and a wide, sensual mouth, and she couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. She caught herself and pushed that thought away. She had no intention of getting involved with anyone. She’d been dumped by her last boyfriend and had no interest in having a rebound love affair with somebody on the job. She found herself smiling. But you can look, she thought.

Darlene’s probation officer was an eighteen-year veteran named Bennie Rolf. His office was adjacent to the Hillsborough County Courthouse in a featureless 1960s building. The interior was much the same, cookie-cutter offices filled with drab, institutional furnishings that were one step above those found in most prisons.

Bennie Rolf fit the offices perfectly. Just under six feet, he carried two hundred and forty pounds layered over a frame designed for one-eighty. He was in his early forties with fast receding brown hair and a badly trimmed beard that was flecked with gray. Just looking at him, Vicky would have bet the rent money that he had a nasty case of bad breath.

The man also looked a little twitchy, Vicky thought, as they took chairs in his cramped office. She decided she’d have to watch his eyes throughout the interview, looking for the
tell
that would let her know when he was lying.

The office was a mess with client folders and papers piled haphazardly. There was a lone window that looked out onto a parking lot and the glass in the window was the only part of the office that appeared clean.

Vicky started off slow and friendly. “So Bennie, did Darlene ever tell you about any threats she’d received, or anyone in particular that she was afraid of—like maybe her ex-husband, or boyfriend, or somebody she met while she was out bar hopping?”

“She wasn’t allowed in bars,” Rolf said. “That was part of her probation agreement.”

Vicky smiled across the desk. “Well, let me clue you in, Bennie. The lady was a regular at one bar we know of for sure. And we’ve got witnesses who’ll swear to it. In fact, the guy who was killed with her picked her up in that bar.”

“I know. I read it in the papers.” Rolf shook his head as if even now he found it hard to believe. “We can’t follow clients around twenty-four-seven. We can only do the best we can.”

“Well, you sure seemed to be trying.” She watched Rolf nod agreement. “You sure made enough visits to her apartment.”

“Not that many,” Rolf protested.

Now it was Vicky’s turn to shake her head in disbelief. “Bennie, Bennie, Bennie, we got a neighbor who was a regular hawk about Darlene. He literally kept a book on every car that was parked in her driveway. And he was home day and night, so he didn’t miss many. In the past nine months, which is ever since she started reporting to you, he’s got you there thirty-nine times. That’s at least once a week. Seem about right to you?”

Bennie began to stutter. “Wa … Wa … Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t think my case file would show that many visits.”

“Maybe you didn’t write them all down,” Morgan suggested.