Soft Case (Book 1 of the John Keegan Mystery Series)

by John Misak

too.”

  Stevie-boy didn’t seem to enjoy that comment.

  “Sondra is a good woman, from what I know of her. Every one of his accusations came up empty.”

  He really was protecting Sondra. Why not let it ride even further?

  “Well, if I was her, I’d be looking to get out of that marriage, if that’s what he was doing.”

  “You are considering her a suspect,” Steve said.

  “I told you the first time we met, I consider everyone a suspect. Though she has a great alibi, I still have to explore the possibility that she has something to do with it.” I stood up. “Listen, these drinks ran right through me. I’m gonna go take a leak.”

  “Yeah,” he said, a bit angry. “No problem.”

  I walked over to the bathroom, which was right next to the bar. When I got there, I noticed that the television was set to NBC, and there was a bulletin.

  “We now bring you to a live broadcast of a press conference from Commissioner Agnelli of the New York Police Department,” the blonde anchorwoman said. For all the good luck I had experienced that day, it was all turning to shit.

  “Turn up the volume,” one of the men at the bar said. John complied, and I ran into the bathroom, hoping Steve wouldn’t overhear the press conference, which undoubtedly was about the Mullins case, and how the department was officially closing it as a suicide. This wasn’t good.

  I walked into one of the stalls, and pulled out the transmitter. Before I switched it off, I decided to alert Jacob of my situation.

  “If you’re hearing this, I just want you to know that things are getting interesting. They are playing the press conference on the television,” I said, talking toward my collar, and feeling like an idiot for doing it. I looked down at the transmitter for second. I assumed the battery was near dead.

  Before I had a chance to switch the transmitter off and turn on the new one, the door to the stall busted open, smashing me in the back and knocking me into the wall behind the toilet. I dropped the transmitter on the floor and couldn’t see it.

  “You son of a bitch,” Steve said from behind me. “You were trying to make me give up Sondra, weren’t you?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I said, still not able to turn around.

  “You know damn well what I am talking about. I saw the press conference. The case is closed. What the hell were you trying to do?”

  Before I had the chance to politely respond, he rammed his fist into the middle of my back. I wanted to thank him for doing that for me, and moving four of my vertebrae out of place. I didn’t get the opportunity because he hit me again, this time a little higher. Let me tell you something, fighting in a bathroom stall is no fun. To make matters worse, I was facing the wrong way, and getting closer to the toilet.

  Luckily, it was clean. Well, sort of.

  “Sondra didn’t have anything to do with her husband’s death, you understand that? Nothing to do with it!”

  “She’s a whore,” I said, and tried to kick him to knock him back a bit. I succeeded, but it wasn’t enough. I turned around, only to catch a stiff right hand in the mouth. I fell back, and started to feel a bit queasy. Not like I have a glass jaw or anything, but Steve, if I haven’t said this before, was put together pretty well, and obviously had enough training in the art of fighting. I did too, but I was working at a major disadvantage.

  Steve grabbed me, and turned me around. I tried to resist, but I was a little out of it, and he was a lot stronger than me. He pushed my head toward the toilet. I’ll do you the favor of not making any wisecracks about that situation. I’m sure you can figure them out.

  “Sondra was too good of a woman for Mullins. She was trapped in that marriage. You understand that? Your own department has even said Mullins killed himself. What are you doing poking around? Why are you questioning me about Sondra?”

  And why was he beating the shit out of me, and stuffing my head down the toilet? Of course, I couldn’t ask that question. My head was about to be submerged in toilet water. How nice.

  Though my face was submerged, I could still hear him speak.

  “He was killing her. He couldn’t offer her what she needed. I could. He was just in the way. The same way you are.”

  He lifted my head out of the water, then smashed it on the edge of the toilet. If you’ve never had something like this happen to you, let me tell you that the edge of a toilet is probably one of the hardest surfaces in the world. I had been helping a friend get through a drunken episode one time when I was a teenager. He was puking his brains out, and I was getting him through it. His head was buried in the toilet, so I picked him up by the back of his hair. I looked at him, and asked him if he was okay. He said yes. I told him I was going to let him go. He said okay. I let him go, and his forehead slammed right on the edge of the toilet bowl. It made a thud unlike any other I have heard before. He didn’t make a sound. He was knocked out cold, and he had a mark on his head for a week. The pain I felt from Steve slamming my head on the toilet was possibly the worst I’d ever experienced, as far as blows to that head are concerned. And, I didn’t have the good fortune my friend had. I didn’t pass out.

  “Thank you for that,” I muttered. I realized it was getting to the point my life was in danger. Steve had obviously disposed of Mullins, and he probably was intending to do the same thing to me. I reached down by my ankle for the small gun I kept there. My hand almost made it, too.

  “You stupid son of a bitch. You never even came close to figuring out what happened to Mullins. Chapman. How the fuck could you possibly think that Chapman could murder Mullins?” He picked my head up again, as I was just about to grab the gun. “Chapman wanted to do it, I am sure. From what I know, he might have even had it planned. But he doesn’t have the balls.”

  I had my hand on the handle of the gun. I couldn’t get it out of the holster. I felt like Fredo, from The Godfather, when his father is about to get shot. Helpless is the word I am looking for. Idiot would work too, of course.

  “So, I guess you do,” I mumbled. I wasn’t sure the words actually came out right, but he replied, so they must have.

  “Of course I do. And you had no idea, did you?”

  Did he want me to answer?

  He slammed my head against the edge of the toilet, and the last thing I heard before I went completely unconscious was, “Yeah, and I have the balls for killing you too.”

  Everything went black. I know that is a stock phrase, but if you really think about it, there is no better way to describe it. I have no recollection of what happened afterward.

  Epilogue

  I woke up in a hospital bed the next morning. My head felt swollen, and was throbbing. I thought hangovers were the worst. This beat a hangover by a long shot. I put my hand to my forehead, and felt tape, which I realized was covering stitches. The bastard had cut me. I had gotten through youth and adolescence without any scars on my face. Now, I would most likely have one sitting right in the middle of my forehead. Of course, I should have been happy that I wasn’t dead. But I wasn’t. I was pissed.

  No one was in the room when I woke up. Maybe I should have expected that, but considering the questions I had about what had happened, it would have been nice. Instead, I was left there for three hours, wondering what the Hell I had been through, and whether or not Steve got away clean. I hoped he didn’t. Actually, I hoped he died in a pool of his own urine.

  I know what you are thinking. The supposed hero ended up with his head in the toilet. Also, I was wishing bad things on the guy who bested me in a fight, if that’s what you want to call it. Hey, it’s how it happened, and there is nothing I can do about that.

  It was about two in the afternoon when I received a visitor. The nurse came in first, an ugly nurse let me tell you, and asked if I wanted to see someone. She didn’t say who it was. I figured it was probably my mother, or someone else in my family. I was wrong.

  It was Geiger.

  “Hey pal,” he said, smiling at me. H
e was holding a basket of fruit, of all things.

  “Boss.”

  “Some night you had, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I knew you would come through.”

  “Hey, I appreciate the visit and the small talk, but I’d really like you to tell me what happened.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Steve Eckert first.”

  “He’s been arrested for the murder of Mullins, along with assault on a police officer.”

  That was nice to hear.

  “We have a case against him?”

  “Of course. Jacob got the whole thing on tape.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything. He said your transmitter kept working after you dropped it. He pretty much confessed, especially after he heard the tape.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “The uniforms I sent over to save your ass roughed him up pretty good, if you care to know.”

  I did. “How bad?”

  “He’s got more stitches than you do.”

  “What about Agnelli?”

  “Fired. Arrested for his involvement in your setup. The FBI is going to take a long look at his association with Chapman.”

  “What about him?”

  “Officially resigned from Techdata this morning.”

  “Was the tape aired?”

  “Well, while you were having your head flushed down the toilet, NBC interrupted the press conference with the footage you provided. Reporters questioned Agnelli right then and there. It was beautiful.”

  That was a comforting image. The bastard