The Poet (13 page)

“They’ve been waiting for a requisition from the chief’s office to clean it up. They have to send it out. You know there are companies that specialize in cleaning houses and cars and stuff after somebody’s been killed in them? Some fuckin’ job.”

I think Wexler was talking so much because he was nervous now. We approached the car and stood there looking at it. The snow was swirling around us in a current. The blood sprayed on the inside back window had dried to a dark brown.

“It’s going to stink when we open it,” Wexler said. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is going no further until you tell me what is going on.”

I nodded.

“Okay. There are two things I want to look at. I want to see if the heat switch is on high and if the security lock on the rear doors is on or off.”

“What for?”

“The windows were fogged and it was cold but it wasn’t that cold. I saw in the pictures that Sean was dressed warmly. He had his jacket on. He wouldn’t need the heat on high. How else do windows get fogged when you’re parked with the engine off?”

“I don’t-“

“Think about surveillances, Wex. What causes fogging? My brother once told me about the stakeout you two blew ‘cause the windows fogged up and you missed the guy coming out of his house.”

“Talking. It was the week after the Super Bowl and we were talking about the fucking Broncos losing again and the hot air fogged everything up.”

“Yeah. And last I knew, my brother didn’t talk to himself. So if the heat is on low and the windows are fogged enough to write on them, I think it means there was someone with him. They were talking.”

“That’s a long shot that doesn’t prove anything either way. What about the lock?”

I gave him the theory: “Somebody is with Sean. Somehow he gets Sean’s gun. Maybe he comes with his own gun and disarms Sean. He also tells him to hand over his gloves. Sean does. The guy puts the gloves on and then kills Sean with his own gun. He then jumps over the seat into the back where he hides down on the floor. He waits until Pena comes and goes, then he leans back over the seat, writes the note on the windshield and puts the gloves back on Sean’s hands-now you’ve got the GSR on Sean. Then the doer gets out the back door, locks it and splits into the cover of the trees. No footprints, ‘cause the lot’s been plowed. He’s gone by the time Pena comes back out to watch the car like he’s told to do by his supervisor.”

Wexler was silent a long time while catching up.

“Okay, it’s a theory,” he finally said. “Now prove it.”

“You know my brother. You worked with him. What was the routine with the security lock? Always keep it on. Right? That way no mistakes with prisoners. No slip-ups. If you take a nonprisoner you can always disengage it for them. Like you did on the night you came for me. When I got sick, the lock was on. Remember? You had to switch it off so I could open the door to puke.”

Wexler said nothing but in his face I saw that I’d struck home. If the security lock was off in the Caprice it wouldn’t be rock-solid proof of anything. But he would know in the way he knew my brother that Sean hadn’t been alone in the car.

He finally said, “You can’t tell by looking at it. It’s just a button. Somebody will have to get in the back and see if they can get out.”

“Open it. I’ll get in.”

Wexler unlocked the door, flipped the electric locks and I opened the rear passenger side door. The sickly sweet smell of dried blood hit me. I stepped into the car and closed the door.

For a long moment I didn’t move. I had seen the photos but they didn’t prepare me for being in the car. The sickly smell, the dried blood sprayed over the window, the roof and the driver’s headrest. My brother’s blood. I felt the cloying grip of nausea in my throat. I quickly looked over the seat to the dashboard and the heater control panel. Then, through the right window, I looked out at Wexler. For a moment our eyes met and I wondered if I really wanted the security lock to be off. The thought occurred to me that it might be easier to just let it go, but I quickly ran it from my mind. I knew if I let this go I would be haunted for the rest of my life.

I reached over and hit the passenger lock switch for my door. I pulled the door handle and the door swung open. I stepped out and looked at Wexler. Snow was starting to stick to his hair and shoulders.

“And the heater’s off. It couldn’t have fogged the windows. I think Sean had somebody in the car with him. They were talking, Then whoever the bastard was killed him.”

Wexler looked as if he had seen a ghost. It was all clicking in his mind. It was more than just a theory now and he knew it. It looked as though he might start to cry.

“Goddamnit,” he said.

“Look, we all missed it.”

“No, it’s different. A cop never lets his partner down like that. What good are we if we can’t watch out for our own? A fucking reporter …”

He didn’t finish but I think I knew what he was feeling. He felt as though he had somehow betrayed Sean. I knew that was how he felt because it was the same for me.

“It’s not done with yet,” I said. “We can still make up for believing the wrong thing.”

He still looked forlorn. I wasn’t the one who could comfort him. That would have to come from within.

“All that’s lost is a little time, Wex,” I said anyway. “Let’s go back inside. It’s getting cold out here.”

My brother’s house was dark when I went there to tell Riley. I paused before knocking, wondering at how absurd it was that I believed the news I was bringing might in some way cheer her. Good news, Riley, Sean didn’t kill himself like we all thought, he was murdered by some nut who has probably done it before and probably will again.

I knocked anyway. It wasn’t late. I imagined that she was sitting in there in the dark, or maybe in one of the back bedrooms which emitted no light. The lantern light came on above me and she opened up before I had to knock a second time.

“Jack.”

“Riley. I was wondering if I could come in and talk to you.”

I knew she didn’t know yet. I had made a deal with Wexler. I would tell her in person. He didn’t care. He was too busy reopening the investigation, drawing up lists of likely suspects, getting Sean’s car inspected again for prints and other evidence. I hadn’t told him anything about Chicago. I’d kept that to myself and I wasn’t sure why. Was it the story? Did I want the story just for myself? That was the easy answer and I used it to soothe my uneasiness at not telling him everything. But in the deeper folds of my mind I believed it was something else. Something maybe I didn’t want to bring out into the light to view.

“Come in,” Riley said. “Is something wrong?”

“Not really.”

I walked in behind her and she led the way to the kitchen, where she turned on the light over the table. She was wearing blue jeans, heavy wool socks and a Colorado Buffaloes sweatshirt.

“There’s just been some new developments about Sean and I wanted to tell you. You know, instead of on the phone.”

We both took chairs at the table. The circles under her eyes hadn’t disappeared and she had done nothing with makeup to hide them. I felt her gloom descending on me and I looked away from her face. I thought I had escaped but it was impossible here. Her pain invaded every space in the house and was contagious.

“Were you asleep?”

“No, I was reading. What is it, Jack?”

I told her. But unlike Wexler, I told her everything. About Chicago, about the poems, about what I wanted to do now. She nodded occasionally during the story but showed nothing else. No tears, no questions. All of that would come when I was done.

“So that’s the story,” I said. “I came to tell you. I’m going to Chicago as soon as I can.”

After a long silence she spoke.

“It’s funny, I feel so guilty.”

I could see tears in her eyes but they didn’t fall. She probably didn’t have enough left for that.

“Guilty? About what?”

“All of this time. I’ve been so angry at him. You know, for what he’d done. Like he had done it to me, not himself. I started hating him, hating his memory. Now, you … now this.”

“We were all like that. It was the only way to live with it.”

“Have you told Millie and Tom?”

My parents. She never felt comfortable addressing them any other way.

“Not yet. I will, though.”

“Why didn’t you tell Wexler about Chicago?”

“I don’t know. I wanted a head start, I guess. They’ll find out about it tomorrow.”

“Jack, if what you’re saying is true, they should know everything. I don’t want whoever did this to get away just so you can pursue a story.”

“Look, Riley,” I said, trying to keep calm, “whoever did this had already gotten away until I came along. I just want to get to the cops in Chicago before Wexler. One day.”

We were silent a moment before I spoke again.

“And make no mistake. I want the story, that’s true. But it’s about more than just the story. It’s about me and Sean.”

She nodded and I let the silence hang between us. I didn’t know how to explain to her my motives. My skill in life was putting words together in a coherent and interesting narrative but inside I had no words for this. Not yet. I knew she needed to hear more from me and I tried to give her what she needed, an explanation I didn’t quite understand myself.

“I remember when we graduated from high school we both pretty much knew what we wanted to do. I was going to write books and be famous or rich or both. Sean was going to be chief of detectives at DPD and solve all of the mysteries of the city … Neither of us quite made it. Sean was closest, though.”

She tried a smile at my memory but it didn’t quite go with the rest of her face and so she put it aside.

“Anyway,” I continued, “at the end of that summer I was leaving for Paris to go write the great American novel. And he was waiting to go into the service. We made this deal when we said good-bye. It was pretty corny. The deal was that when I got rich I would buy him a Porsche with ski racks. Like Redford had in Downhill Racer. That’s it. That’s all he wanted. He’d get to choose the model. But I’d have to pay. I told him it was a bad deal for me because he had nothing to trade. But then he said he did. He said that if anything ever happened to me-you know, like I got killed or hurt or robbed or anything-he’d find out who did it. He’d make sure nobody got away with it. And, you know, even back then I believed it. I believed he could do it. And something about it was a comfort.”

The story didn’t seem to make much sense the way I had told it. I wasn’t sure what the point was.

“But that was his promise, not yours,” Riley said.

“Yes, I know.” I was quiet for a few moments while she watched me. “It’s just that … I don’t know, I just can’t sit back and watch and wait. I’ve got to be out there. I’ve got to …”

There were no words to explain it.

“Do something?”

“I guess. I don’t know. I can’t really talk about it, Riley. I just have to do it. I’m going to Chicago.”

10

Gladden and five other men were ushered into a glass-enclosed seating area in the corner of the huge courtroom. There was a footwide slot that ran the length of the glass enclosure at face height through which the arraignment proceedings in the courtroom could be heard and the defendants could answer questions from their attorneys or the judge.

Gladden was disheveled from a night of no sleep. He had been in a single cell but the noise of the jail kept him awake and reminded him too much of Raiford. He looked around the courtroom and didn’t see anyone he recognized. This included the cops, Delpy and Sweetzer. He also didn’t see any television or still cameras. He took this as a sign that his true identity had not yet been discovered. He was encouraged by this. A man with curly red hair and thick glasses made his way around the attorneys’ tables to the glass booth. He was short and had to raise his chin as if standing in tall water for his mouth to reach the slot in the glass.

“Mr. Brisbane?” he asked, looking expectantly at the men who had just been ushered in.

Gladden walked over and looked down through the opening.

“Krasner?”

“Yes, how are you?”

He reached his hand up through the slot. Gladden shook it reluctantly. He didn’t like being touched by anyone, unless it was a child. He didn’t answer Krasner’s question. It was the wrong thing to ask someone who had spent the night in county jail.

“You talk to the prosecutor yet?” he asked instead.

“Yes, I did. We had quite a conversation. Your bad luck is continuing in that the deputy DA assigned the case is a woman who I have had some dealings with before. She is a ballbuster and the arresting officers have informed her of the, uh, situation as they saw it at the pier.”

“So she’s going to go balls to the wall against me.”

“Right. However, this judge is okay. We’re all right there. He’s the only one in the building, I think, who wasn’t a prosecutor before being elected.”

“Well, hurray for me. Did you get the money?”

“Yes, that happened just as you said. So we’re set. One question, do you want to enter a plea today or continue it?”