The Avid Angler - The Hot Dog Detective (A Denver Detective Cozy Mystery)

by Mathiya Adams

  "Why boss? You thinking of being a cop again?'

  MacFarland shook his head. "There'd only be one reason to become a cop again, Rufus, and that is --"

  "To put Norris Peterson behind bars," finished Rufus. "Yeah, I been hearing that for a couple of years now, boss. But even if you was a cop, you probably couldn't touch him. That man has protection. Besides, your cop days are over. You're one of us now."

  MacFarland started warming up two hot dogs for Rufus. "Yeah, that's true. Though, something strange happened the other day. Remember that fancy-dressed lawyer that's been coming around? Well, he's asked me to help him solve a case he has."

  Rufus stared in front of him, almost afraid to look in MacFarland's direction. He sipped the last of his coffee, suddenly aware of how cold the coffee had gotten. "You gonna help him?"

  "I'm not sure," said MacFarland. "My instincts tell me to stay out of it. But there is something odd about the case they have against the alleged murderer. Cyn thinks she is innocent, Baker thinks she is innocent. And something I read or heard bothers me, but I can't put my finger on it. I find it very frustrating that I can't remember what struck me as odd."

  "You ain't been drinking again, have you boss?"

  MacFarland shook his head. "No, Rufus, I'm dry. Though I've been missing my AA meetings. It's not booze affecting my memory. You're right, though. This is my life now, and I shouldn't even consider helping this guy.” He wrapped up the two hot dogs for Rufus, pulled out a ten dollar bill and handed everything to his friend.

  Rufus looked at him intensely as he reached out for the food and money. Finally, after a long hard stare at his friend, Rufus shook his head. "I know you, boss. You're going to help this lawyer dude, aren't you?'

  "No, Rufus, I'm not. Not unless helping him would help me put Peterson away.” He laughed. "If I thought that, then hell yeah, I would take the case. But that isn't going to happen. I'll just stay here, selling hot dogs."

  "At least you won't get hurt selling hot dogs, boss. Just keep that in mind."

  "I'll do exactly that, Rufus. Now get going before your ugly mug scares all my customers away.”

  Rufus started to head towards Colfax, but he stopped and faced MacFarland. “You know, there’s one other reason why you might help that suspect.”

  MacFarland cocked his head quizzically. “Why is that, Rufus?”

  “Because you think she really is innocent.”

 

 

 

  Chapter 23

  Thursday, December 10, 1125 Hours

 

  When it was this close to Christmas, many judges tried to get smaller cases resolved before the holiday break. Most judges didn't want a trial that extended over the holidays. Jurors didn't like it, but more importantly, the judges didn't like it. So trials were shorter, ended earlier in the week, and generally, those civic-minded people lucky enough to complete their one-day or one-trial duty within a few days, were in a better mood. Despite that good mood, the number of people coming around for hot dogs or bratwursts was quite low. Also, there were not many stores nearby--the court was quite distant from the Sixteenth Street Mall, which was the nearest major shopping area—so there wasn't much holiday traffic either. MacFarland didn't mind the lack of business. He put his headphones on and slipped another language CD into his player. For the next hour, he silently mouthed the correct responses to the language lesson questions and dialogs.

  When a couple of detectives from MacFarland's old unit came by, MacFarland put aside his usual feelings of annoyance, took off his headphones, and greeted the two men with friendly holiday cheer. They didn't reciprocate. These two detectives had been new recruits at the time he was dismissed from the department, so though he recognized them by sight, he knew very little about them. If they knew, remembered, or cared that he had once worked in their department, their behavior indicated the opposite. They just ignored him, carrying on with their on-going discussion. MacFarland was once again one of the invisible people.

  "I tell you, there was no blood at the crime scene," said one detective.

  "There must have been some," said the other. "Wasn't the vic shot, twice?"

  "Yeah, twice. Once in the side of the head, the other time in the chest. Sure, there was some blood, but it was just blood on his clothes. That got transferred to the garage floor. But no pools of blood."

  MacFarland knew instantly that they were talking about the Otto Freeman murder. The crime scene report indicated that the body had bled out, but there was little blood pooling around the body. The forensic techs who examined the body believed that the bullet to the head had caused fatality, and the shot to the chest had been a second shot, fired after the vic was already dead. It had been cold the night the victim was shot, and perhaps the body had been on its back when that second shot was fired. Although the defendant said no one had moved the body, the CSI techs were quite certain that the body had been transported. But from where?

  "Sounds like the vic was killed someplace else and the body deposited in the garage," said MacFarland. As soon as he had spoken the words, he regretted his action. The two detectives stared coldly at him.

  "And what the fuck would you know about it?" asked one of the detectives. "We already know the body was moved."

  "No, no, let's hear what the Hot Dog Detective has to say about this crime, Mike. So, where was the victim killed, smart ass?"

  MacFarland tried to withdraw from the conversation. "I spoke out of turn," he said. "It's none of my business. You guys are the experts."

  "Damn right, Hot Dog Detective! You just stick to your job and leave the police work up to the professionals."

  The two detectives started back towards the police headquarters building, laughing at the temerity of civilians to try to do police work.

  MacFarland angrily began to wipe off his cart. He put his headphones back on, but for some reason, his interest in learning Spanish had suddenly faded.

 

 

 

  Chapter 24

  Thursday, December 10, 1400 Hours

 

  Where exactly had Otto Freeman been killed? This question had been bothering MacFarland all afternoon. That night, when he got back to his room, he pulled out the copies of the file that he had made. He hadn't told Pierson that he had made the copies, knowing that she would object. She was taking enough risk by simply showing him the file.

  He was really surprised at how fragmented the forensics and autopsy reports were. Perhaps he was only seeing a portion of the lab reports. One report that was included particularly interested him. This report described the particulates on Freeman's clothes. Leaf debris, pine needles, dirt and rock particles inconsistent with the scene where the body was found or with the surrounding terrain. The CSI had concluded that the victim had been killed elsewhere and moved to the garage. What made the evidence suspect, however, was that Mrs. Freeman, upon discovering her dead husband, had covered him with a blanket found in the garage. The blanket had been used on numerous picnics and mountain trip excursions, and effectively contaminated all of the particulate evidence.

  The autopsy report had indicated that the victim had initially been shot in the side of the head. When he had fallen down to his knees (confirmed by dirt stains on his knees, although the CSI had stated that the stains could have been caused by the victim simply kneeling), he had been turned over and shot in the chest while lying prone. There had been a description of the angles of bullet entry, but MacFarland trusted the crime lab enough to believe that their scenario had been correct. The victim had lain on his back for some time, causing the blood to pool on the bottom side of the body. Yet when the uniforms who first arrived on the scene found the body, it had been placed in a semi-upright position. Mrs. Freeman initially denied that she had touched the body, but later admitted to the detectives that she had covered the body with an old blanket and moved it into the sitting position.

  "I couldn't stand seeing him just lyin
g there," she had said.

  There was additional evidence that the body had been covered and moved on Saturday morning, yet time of death was established as late Thursday afternoon.

  Iverson, the detective in charge, had written that the victim was probably killed in the back yard and dragged into the garage. That didn't make sense to MacFarland, and it wasn't even consistent with one observation by one CSI tech whose initials were CAB. MacFarland took particular interest in Item 138. This piece of evidence consisted of four pine tree needles, identified as Psuedotsuga menziesii, or Douglas fir. The tech had written a note on the evidence tag: "The pine needles have traces of the fire retardant TetraKO on them.” The report went on to say that since TetraKO™ is biodegradable, its presence must indicate that it was applied within the last three months. Apparently the product had been field tested or used over that time period in a variety of locations. The technician had included a list of the most recent test locations. It was a relatively extensive list. Just within a two hour drive of Denver, there were more than thirty sites where the product had been used. There was also a note that the product was available for commercial use by farmers and ranchers, but there was no record of whether the product was available for household use.

  The CSI technician said that the grounds around the domicile had been examined, but no indication of TetraKO use had been detected. Nor were any containers of the product found in the garage.

  Why hadn't Iverson followed up on this information? Perhaps he had. MacFarland had no way of knowing what direction the investigation was going. That was something he would have to ask Pierson about.

  He stared at the list of sites where TetraKO had been recently used. Thirty possible sites within two hours of Denver.

  The more he stared at that list, the more he was convinced that Otto Freeman had been killed at one of those spots. But which one?

  On the other hand, what difference did it make? It wasn't his case to solve, no matter how intriguing he found the case. He was a hot dog vendor, not a detective, and the sooner he accepted those facts, the easier his life would be.

  As much as he wanted to walk away from the case, he found it difficult to do so. Of course he liked the challenge of solving a crime. Even more, he wanted to bring whoever committed the crime to justice. And he wanted to protect those who were falsely accused of the crime. Rufus was right about him. MacFarland did not like to see innocent people accused of a crime. But he disliked even more the guilty going free.

  In the case of the murder of Otto Freeman, he was becoming convinced that Jerry Baker's gut feelings of Maureen Freeman's innocence were true.

  Why didn't anyone who was actually working on this case not see that simple truth? He knew the answer in the case of Alan Iverson. The man was an ass.

  Chapter 25

  Friday, December 11, 0830 Hours

 

  MacFarland waited in the kitchen for Pierson to come down for breakfast. Normally he was preoccupied with preparing his product for the day, then cleaning up before she got up. Since a lot of her work was done at night, she often slept late. He hoped that this morning would be one of her early days. He sighed with relief when she came downstairs at eight-thirty. She seemed surprised to find him still at the house. He immediately put a cup of hot coffee in her hand. Pierson was always easier to deal with if her shooting hand held something besides a gun.

  She glanced up at the clock on the wall of the kitchen. "Don't you try to be at your corner before nine o'clock? You're going to be late."

  "I needed to talk to you."

  "Really? I don’t have much time.” Pierson had gotten home late last night, probably after MacFarland had gone to bed. Not that she needed to see him. She had gotten quite used to living alone, and while she had offered him a place to stay, she actually appreciated the fact that they actually saw very little of each other. Of course, his presence might complicate her life if she ever met "Mr. Right.” Given her dedication to her career, there were very few Mr. Rights in the world, so she didn't think there was much risk of that happening.

  "I needed to ask you a question about the Freeman investigation."

  "I'm not working on that," she said almost immediately. "Now that the DA is preparing the case to go to court, it's going to be very hard to get hold of the files."

  "I'm not asking you to do that," MacFarland said quickly. "I just wanted to know if you had any knowledge about what direction the investigation is going."

  Pierson shrugged, then busied herself getting a cup of coffee. "I've only heard the usual scuttlebutt that floats around the office. Why? What specifically do you want to know?”

  MacFarland sat down at the kitchen table, then gestured for Pierson to do the same. She frowned, looked at the clock, then reluctantly sat down. "I don't have a lot of time," she repeated, clutching her coffee cup nervously.

  "Relax, Cyn, I'm not planning on keeping you here all day. I had a question about the case, and I was hoping you had the answer. It's not as if I could go to Iverson and ask him."

  In spite of her impatience, Pierson smirked, then tried to hide her reaction by sipping her coffee. She only succeeded in choking on her coffee. When she stopped coughing, she said, "Go ahead, ask away."

  "The CSI had some data on a chemical found on some debris on Freeman's clothes. They also provided a list of sites where he might have come into contact with this chemical. So I wanted to know, have they followed up by checking any of those sites?"

  "Are the sites in the Denver metro area? If not, the answer is no. In fact, Iverson's team has been cut back. Department belt-cinching, as you might expect. Though it seems to have hit Iverson's investigation pretty hard. Now that is something that he has been really vocal about. Can't blame him, either. If my investigation got ham-strung by the top brass, I'd be screaming bloody murder too."

  MacFarland considered her comments carefully. "So no teams have gone to various mountain sites to see if the murder happened there?"

  Pierson shook her head, then got up to get another cup of coffee. "I should have picked up some Danish at the store," she muttered to herself. She came back to the table. "No one has gone anywhere, Mac. A couple of the crime lab guys said that the murder didn't occur in the garage, and probably not anywhere nearby. But Iverson feels that he has enough evidence linking Mrs. Freeman to the crime that he isn't concerned about that."

  MacFarland laughed. "Baker will rip that to shreds," he said.

  "Baker?"

  "Jerry Baker, Freeman's attorney. Remember, you met him the other day at my cart?"

  Pierson nodded. "Yeah, I’ve seen him a couple of times. I don't hang with defense lawyers," she said. "My job is to put the scumbags in jail, not get them out."

  There was a time when MacFarland thought the same way Pierson and most other cops felt. Once he had regarded defense lawyers as an undesirable evil, usually unscrupulous individuals who would do whatever it took to get their client off. He had especially thought that defense lawyers were scum when Norris Peterson walked free. Then he had learned that the sheen of corruption extended to the defenders of justice--the police department and the district attorney's office. "I think Baker is different. Or at least a little different. He asked me to look into Mrs. Freeman's case."

  Pierson was surprised by his admission. "Are you going to help him?"

  MacFarland shook his head. "I'm not a cop, and certainly not a PI. I just think there are some problems with the case. If Iverson would just follow up the leads and evidence, he would see that he's got the wrong suspect."

  "That's the key, Mac. He's got a suspect. With the budget cuts, we have too large a caseload to follow up every lead. I am not saying that I agree with the way he's handling the case. I also happen to think that the defendant’s innocent. But I also know what constraints the department is operating under. Remember, it's not our job to prosecute the case. We just get the evidence that the DA needs. The people driving this case, rightly or wrongly, are in the DA's office."r />
 

 

  Chapter 26

  Friday, December 16, 1620 hours

 

  The sky was overcast, and the threat of rain, or even snow if the temperature continued to drop, was quite real. A heavy, musty smell hung in the air, masking the smell of exhaust and soot from the passing cars. MacFarland buttoned up his coat and looked up and down the street. He didn't see any customers searching anxiously for a hot dog stand. Most people were hurrying home before the roads became slick and hazardous. MacFarland started packing up, looking at the amount of product he would have to trash. Even his homeless friends hadn't come around. He hoped they all found a nice warm place to spend the night.

  As he loaded his cart onto the trailer, a cold drizzle started. He secured his cart and climbed into his truck. For a few minutes, he simply sat there, listening to the icy rain hit the roof of the cab. He held the key in his hand, thinking about his discussion with Pierson. He realized that even if he were still on the force, he would have the same limitations that Iverson faced. How could he honestly criticize the other detective's efforts, if someone in the brass was actually calling the shots?

  This was turning out to be one of those days when MacFarland was almost pleased that he was off the force. He could never say that he didn't miss being a detective. It was the one job that gave him the most satisfaction. MacFarland had always been a "street" cop. He disliked rules and regulations, and while he always followed them, for the most part, he preferred a bit of freedom and spontaneity in doing his job. Pierson had always been a good partner for him, since she made sure that the two of them followed the rules. They had frequently joked together that he caught the crooks but she made sure that they would be locked up.

  The problem with Iverson was that he was more of a "management" cop than even Pierson was. He took his orders, followed the book, and never, never stepped outside the boundaries that he was given. Surely, if MacFarland had been in charge of this case, he would have crossed many of those boundaries. And just as surely, he would have been in hot water with his commander and chief.