The Dead Detective (9 page)

“Where were you two nights ago?”

“I was on my sailboat, anchored off Venice.”

“Alone?”

“No. My fiancée was with me. We got the news when a friend called my cell to tell me. It was a great way to end a romantic cruise. Darlene even managed to ruin that.”

Vicky moved in close, her eyes ice cold. “Let’s cool it with the pity party. Tell me about this fourteen-year-old boy and why your wife might want to go to bed with him.”

Beckett glared at her, then dropped his eyes to his lap. “It wasn’t him; it wasn’t that she was crazy attracted to him or anything like that. I saw the guy in court and he was just a skinny little kid with scraggly hair and a mild case of acne.”

“Then why?” Vicky pressed.

Beckett shook his head. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and the only thing I can come up with is that Darlene was in trouble at the school.”

“What kind of trouble?” Harry asked.

“The principal was an older woman, who didn’t like anything about Darlene—from the way she dressed, to the way she ran her classroom, just about everything. She particularly didn’t like what she said was Darlene’s inability to control the kids in her class.” He shook his head. “You know what seventh and eighth grade kids are like. You need a whip and a chair to keep them in line. Anyway, the principal was all over her about it. Said she needed to find a way to control these kids, that if she couldn’t she didn’t belong in a classroom.”

Harry gave Beckett a bewildered look. “So you think she used sex as a way to control her class?”

Beckett shook his head. “No. As way to prove to herself she could control a kid that age.” He stared back at Harry. “Sex was the way she got control over everything in her life. It was the only way she knew.”

“Give me your fiancée’s name and address,” Vicky said.

The next interrogation involved one of Darlene’s old boyfriends. According to newspaper accounts, Billy Smithers had been a high school sweetheart who suddenly reappeared in Darlene’s life during one of her early court appearances. Harry remembered the news reports. They had had a bit of a smirk to them. Old boyfriend becomes Darlene’s new beau. Smithers, he recalled, had seemed to revel in the notoriety of it all. Now, as he sat in the interrogation room, he seemed to be enjoying it all over again.

“Look, it was never anything serious between Darlene and me. Not even back in high school. She was just, like, you know, the great-looking girl who put out.” Smithers finished off the comment with a cavalier shrug.

He was in his late twenties, tall and lanky with chiseled features, long sandy hair, and a body that spoke of regular trips to the gym. Harry imagined that women would find him attractive, but there was a hint of arrogance in his eyes, and in his tone of voice, that would be off-putting to men.

“So you dated her in high school because she had a reputation of being an easy lay,” Vicky said.

“Yeah, that’s about it. I mean she was fun in other ways too. But the main reason was she was pretty free and easy about sex.” He grinned at Vicky as if offering some type of apology. “Look, I’m just trying to be honest here.”

“We appreciate that,” Harry said. He wanted to keep the man talking.

“So when you read the newspapers and saw the kind of trouble Darlene had gotten herself into, you weren’t surprised,” Vicky said,

Smithers let out a short laugh. “Hell no. I wasn’t surprised at all. I mean that was what Darlene was all about. In high school there was a rumor that she was screwing one of
her
teachers.”

“And so when you saw her on the news, you remembered how easy she was and decided to jump right back in,” Vicky pressed.

Smithers twisted in his chair. “Well, yeah. I mean she looked pretty good on TV, you know. And I remembered how good she was … well, you know.”

“In bed,” Vicky said.

“Yeah.” He paused a beat. “Yeah, she was wicked in bed.”

And you figured she didn’t have anybody taking care of her right then. Taking care of her in bed that is.”

“Well, yeah, I guess that too.”

“So you called her.”

“No, actually, I went by her house. I mean I heard her husband had split, and like I didn’t have her number or anything. So I just dropped by.”

“To be supportive,” Vicky said.

“Yeah.”

Harry had no idea where Vicky was going with the line of questioning, but he decided to let her run with it for the moment. Smithers had the feel of a clown to him, not a killer.

“So how supportive were you?” Vicky asked.

Smithers stared at her, a blank look on his face. “Well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Vicky snapped. “Tell me.”

Smithers twisted in his chair again. “I just kind of offered her a shoulder. I mean I gave her what she needed.”

“And what was that? Tell me, Mr. Smithers, what is it you have that every girl needs?”

“Hey, what the hell is going on here? I mean, I’m just trying to help.” He glared at Vicky, and then turned to Harry. “Look, do I need a lawyer here?” His voice held both concern and anger now.

“You think you need a lawyer?” Vicky said.

“Where were you two nights ago?” Harry asked, stopping her.

“I was at a Rays game at the Trop,” Smithers said.

“Alone?” It was Vicky again.

“Alone?” Harry said, letting her know he was doing the questioning now.

“No, I was with two buddies. We go to every home game we can get to.”

Harry picked up a pen and turned to a fresh page in his notebook. “I’ll need their names, addresses, and phone numbers,” he said.

When Smithers left, Harry drew a breath and stared at Vicky for several moments.

“I guess I went a little over the top,” she said at length.

“Yeah, a little. What happened?”

“He was just such a jerk.” She stared at the other side of the room, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “I saw so many guys like him when I was in sex crimes. The big studs, the guys who prey on every woman they consider vulnerable, and who assault or rape the ones who reject them.” She paused as if thinking about what she had said, analyzing it. “No, what really pissed me off is that I’ve dated creeps like that.” She shook her head as if dismissing past mistakes. “Sometimes a guy’s so good looking, or has such a great line of B.S. that it takes you awhile to see past it. Smithers is that kind of guy, and realizing it, just being in the same room with him, pissed me off.”

Harry nodded. “It happens,” he said at length. “Next time use your anger … use it like a rapier not a bludgeon.”

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

A
t two o’clock Harry and Vicky were back in Rourke’s office.

“First the good news,” Rourke said. “We’re getting a task force. Four detectives from this squad, and six uniforms we’re bringing up to work in plainclothes.” He paused and stared at Harry for a long moment. “Harry, you’ll be lead detective. But I gotta tell you, the brass didn’t want you as lead. You’re not popular upstairs, which is something you know. And it’s mainly due to your big mouth.” He raised a hand, stopping any comment before it could be made. “They wanted Nick Benevuto. Their argument was that he’s senior to you in homicide, which is true. I said I wanted you. So my ass is on the line. You screw up and I lose a big chunk of it; you’ll wish you were never born.”

Again, he held up his hand. “Now the bad news. Tarpon Springs P.D. is screaming that we came in and snatched a major case from them.”

“That’s bullshit,” Harry said. “Vicky and I already had the case. They know that.”

“Sure they do. But their chief sees all the media the sheriff is getting, while he’s just standing around with his dick in his hand.” He glanced at Vicky. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay, cap, I’ve met the chief. It’s a lovely image. The man’s a fourteen-karat asshole.”

Rourke gave her a long look. “Yeah, well anyway, the sheriff agreed to put two of his detectives on the task force and hold a little press conference this afternoon to announce the joint operation. It’s all politics, but we have to live with it.”

“Should be a great press conference,” Vicky said. “Sort of a two-man circle jerk.”

Rourke stared at her again, longer this time. “You’re talking about the sheriff, you know.
Our
sheriff.”

“Goodness, what came over me,” Vicky answered.

“How long have you worked with Doyle?” Rourke snapped. “Two days? And already I got this?”

Harry fought off a smile. “Who are the two Tarpon dicks we’re supposed to take on?” he asked.

Rourke looked at a note on his desk. “Bob Davis and Jerry Deaver.”

“I know them,” Harry said. “The other cops call them the
two D’s
.” He offered up a small shrug. “They have the rep of not being very imaginative, but very thorough, so it could be worse.” Harry took out his notebook and wrote down the names of the Tarpon Springs detectives. “Who are the uniforms?” he asked.

Rourke rattled off six names, the last of which was Jim Morgan, the deputy who had done such a good job at the Brooker Creek crime scene. Rourke noticed Harry nodding approval at the mention of Morgan’s name.

“I picked Morgan based on what you put down in your report,” Rourke said. “You wrote that he’d done an excellent job. He also pushed hard for the assignment and I thought you could use an eager beaver on the team.”

“Meaning that the rest of us aren’t?” Vicky teased.

Rourke leveled a finger at her. “Don’t start with me. I get enough from your partner.” He turned back to Harry. “I just sent word out on their new assignments about an hour ago, so they should be learning about it as we speak. They’re all due in here at three on a ‘forthwith’ to get their specific assignments from you, so you’ve got an hour to figure out who you want doing what. Your team can work out of the conference room next to my office.”

At three o’clock Harry stood before the team and began handing out assignments. It was basically grunt work for now, much of it going over ground already covered in the initial investigation, looking for anything that might have been missed. Nick Benevuto and John Weathers were sent to interview Darlene’s parents and Clint Walker’s friends and family. Uniforms were assigned to verify the husband’s and boyfriend’s alibis. Others were sent out to interview the men whose cars were parked in Darlene’s driveway in the months leading up to her death. Jim Morgan was told to do another canvass of Darlene’s neighbors. The Tarpon Springs detectives, the two D’s
,
were sent to canvass the residences around Frank Howard Park, where the “cowboy’s” body had been found. Vicky, because of her background in sex crimes, was told to dig up whatever information she could about the boy Darlene had molested, his family, his friends, along with any psychological treatment he may have received. Harry would take on the unpleasant task of Darlene’s autopsy, as well as reviewing all forensic evidence that had been collected. The following day he was scheduled to meet with Jasmine, the dancer from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge, to view driver’s license photos of men who had visited Darlene’s apartment. It was a massive amount of work, but Harry was convinced he had the manpower to get it done quickly and efficiently. It was now a question of finding that one key piece of evidence that would break the case open.

Darlene’s autopsy was scheduled for four p.m. It was originally planned for early that morning, but had been delayed when Mort Janlow, the assistant M.E. assigned to the case, was sent out to the Tarpon Springs crime scene. Now Janlow stood before the body, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. Harry stood across from him, watching a grin spread across the medical examiner’s face.

“Still don’t like these slice-’em-and-dice-’em jobs, eh, Harry?”

Harry gave Janlow a flat stare and held it until the assistant M.E. was forced to look away. “Not my favorite part of the day,” he finally said. What he didn’t say was that it made him think of his six-year-old brother Jimmy lying on a similar autopsy table twenty years ago. He had never seen his brother then, of course, but that had been the overriding image he’d had as a young deputy witnessing his first autopsy, and it was one that rushed back at him each succeeding time. He believed then, as he believed now, that no one who had ever witnessed an autopsy would want one performed on someone they loved.

He stared into Darlene Beckett’s dead face, the slightly opened eyes, the parted lips. But most of all he stared at the single word that someone had carved into her forehead, denouncing her as evil. Was she? Or was she a woman fighting her own inner demons. He wondered if he’d ever know the answer, or any part of it.

“Let’s get to it,” Janlow said, picking up a scalpel for the initial cut. Then he paused and looked at the body. “She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, wasn’t she?” The question wasn’t directed at Harry, even though he was the only other person in the room. Now Janlow looked at Harry as if embarrassed by the comment. “Most people, even the ones who are extremely attractive in life, don’t carry their looks to this table. The muscle tone is gone; the clear, glowing complexions have turned pale and gray, the eyes are clouded. It makes you realize that it’s not the superficial exterior that we all work so hard at getting right, it’s that spark of life that makes people truly appealing.” He paused. “But every so often there’s one who’s beautiful even in death.”

“Maybe it’s because that’s all they ever had,” Harry said.

Janlow inclined his head to one side. “Never thought of it that way. Maybe you’re right, Harry. Maybe you’re right.”

Janlow reached up and turned on the overhead microphone that would record his observations. He gave the date and time, followed by routine statements. “We are about to begin the postmortem examination of Darlene Beckett, a twenty-six-year-old white female. The body is well developed, and shows no identifying scars or tattoos. There is bruising about the arms and shoulders indicating that she struggled before death. There is only one exterior wound, a deep cut across the throat that severed the thyroid cartilage, the trachea, and the right carotid artery, causing a massive loss of blood, which would have continued until the heart stopped beating. The wound appears to have been administered from behind in a right-to-left motion, indicating the killer used his left hand.”

Harry noted Janlow’s caution. He had avoided stating flatly that the killer was left-handed. Several years earlier Janlow had performed an autopsy on another of Harry’s cases. It involved a young woman who was beaten to death with a metal softball bat owned by her husband. The blows had come from left to right, and Janlow had declared during the autopsy that the direction of the blows indicated that the killer was left-handed. At trial the defense ripped into Janlow’s report, demonstrating beyond doubt that the husband—the man Harry had arrested—was right-handed. The case seemed certain to fail, until Harry went back into the field and came up with several softball teammates of the accused, each of whom testified on redirect that the husband, though signing his name and throwing a ball with his right hand, always batted left.

“The wound goes back to the spine and caused a nick in the third vertebrae, indicating a heavy-bladed knife, possibly a hunting knife,” Janlow continued. He paused again, thought over what he had said and then nodded to himself. “Okay, let’s open her up,” Janlow said, bringing himself and Harry back as he began the Y-shaped incision that went from each shoulder to the sternum, then ran in a straight line to the pubis.

Harry always handled the early stages of an autopsy well. The opening of the body cavity never bothered him. There was Vicks to dab under the nostrils to keep the odor of putrefaction at bay, and the inner organs, when explored and removed, never seemed quite real to him. His difficulties came later when the craniotomy was performed. It began with the sound of the scalp being ripped away from the skull; then pulled down over the face, followed by the buzz of the small electric saw as it cut around the skull; then the popping sound as the skull cap was pulled away, exposing the brain. It was at this point that Harry was always forced to think about what he had just witnessed. And he always came away with the same conclusion: it was the final indignity one human being could force upon another, not much more than a cruel joke, a stripping away of the last vestige of humanity, even if it’s done with a noble intention, a search for the final truth of that person’s life.

Darlene Beckett’s autopsy took an hour and a half to complete. There would still be microscopic analyses of various organs, and subsequent toxicology reports, but the initial evidence was fairly clear. She had died because someone slit her throat.

As he prepared to leave the autopsy suite, Harry paused and looked back at the body. It was the last time he would see Darlene Beckett. He would see her in photographs, of course. They would fill his office until the case was solved. But this was the last time he would see
her.
He stared at her face. The look of surprise and terror were gone now, as if washed away by the autopsy, and Harry again realized how little sympathy he felt for this woman; how much he truly disliked her, even in death. But as he stared at her profile he offered an unspoken promise, just as he had to all those who had come before her: to find her killer and bring that person to trial. It’s what I do, he thought. It’s what I am, what I was made to be. He continued to stare at Darlene Beckett for several drawn-out moments until he realized that Mort Janlow was watching him. Then he turned and briskly walked away.

Harry returned to headquarters and went immediately to the CSI lab. He found Sergeant Marty LeBaron in his office, and dropped into a chair facing his desk.

“So …” Harry began.

LeBaron grinned at him. “Believe it or not, Harry, I
was
going to call you.”

“No need. I’m here.”

“I was trying for sarcasm,” LeBaron said.

“Yeah, I know. Sarcasm accepted. So what have you got?”

“On the cross?”

“Especially the cross.”

“The engraving is barely readable, but we were able to bring it up a bit with an acid bath. It’s a line from the Lord’s Prayer. It says:
And deliver us from evil …
”

“For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever,
” Harry finished.

“Harry, I didn’t know you were religious.”

“I’m not.” Harry stared at him across the desk. “Anything else?”

“Just confirmation of what we already knew. Tire tracks were all standard over-the-counter all-season tires. One set of Firestone; couple of sets of Bridgestone just like the ones we use on our police vehicles. Nothing that was special order, nothing that’s going to help us identify a particular car, just common treads. In Tarpon Springs that software salesman parked his car off the road and carried the blanket and booze onto the beach. But the killer drove around the gate and in to where they were—like he knew he was going to need the car to load up the body.”

“Or he parked on the road, followed them in, killed them, and then drove in to pick up Darlene’s body,” Harry said.

“Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, one thing more. The killer, we think, wears a size eleven shoe.”

“Just like I do,” Harry said. “And half the people who were at the crime scene,” he added as an afterthought.

LeBaron lifted one foot and placed it on the edge of his desk. “Join the club,” he said.

At seven o’clock the team was gathered in the conference room. Harry knew that cops were quick to feel slighted if they thought their work was being pushed aside for someone else’s. So to keep everyone happy he advised the group that he’d be taking reports by order of seniority. That put Nick Benevuto first up. He and his partner, John Weathers, had checked out the alibis of Darlene’s ex-husband, Jordan Beckett, and her high school boyfriend, Billy Smithers.