Incendiary Designs

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  The PD would’ve been a disaster as a poker player; Thinnes could see her think about it. But Hughes made the decision. He slid his hand along the table toward his lawyer, trying to get her attention. When that didn’t work, he tugged on her sleeve.

  “I think your client wants a word with you, counselor,” Thinnes said. Looking at the others, he pointed to the door.

  They stood in the hall talking until the PD called them back. When they were seated, she said, “My client’s prepared to make a statement in return for certain guarantees.” Hughes didn’t look ready for anything.

  “The only guarantee he’s going to get,” the ASA said, “is that we won’t ask for the death penalty if he cooperates.”

  Hughes was staring at a blank wall, chewing on his finger. “Fine.”

  The PD made a gesture that was half nod, half shrug.

  Hughes didn’t look at any of them. “We didn’t mean to kill her,” he said. “We were all high. An’ Wiley had us convinced the cops killed Brother John. He wanted revenge, to get a cop. That’s what he said, anyway. We thought he was just blowin’ smoke. Him an’ the crazy woman.” He looked up and apparently didn’t like what he saw. He dropped his eyes and continued. “We drove around all night, drinkin’ and doin’ a shit-load of drugs. In the church van. Then we parked. In a alley. Wiley and the bitch got out. An’ the next thing I know, Wiley’s shovin’ this woman in the back with us. They hit her in the head an’ she was half out of it—bleedin’ an’ pleadin’, let her go. Said she’s a cop. Said she had family.”

  Hughes wiped his face with his hand, then began to worry his thumb with his teeth. He stared at the table as if seeing the event replayed on its surface. “Wiley told us to tie her up an’ gag her. He said we weren’t gonna hurt her, just keep her outta things a while. Then she started screamin’ for help an’ he hit her with her gun until she was quiet.”

  “Was she dead?” the state’s attorney asked.

  “I don’t think so. But she was hurt bad.”

  “Where did this go down?” Oster asked.

  “A alley. I’m not sure. I was drunk. Wiley had it all worked out, we just did what he said.”

  “Then what?”

  “There was this cop car. Wiley drove it an’ Mackie drove the van for—it seemed like—hours. Then we were in the park. An’ Wiley had us all get out an’ put on those stupid Klan robes an’ chant. An’ he started pourin’ gas on the cop car. I thought he was just…,” he shrugged, “…burnin’ the car. I didn’t know there was cop in it. I mean that’s crazy! I was too drunk to think…” He glanced up at Oster as if trying to assess whether he was buying it.

  “Just when did you observe that there was someone in the car?” Oster said. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the sweat beading his temples. It wasn’t all that hot in the room.

  “When the jogger came, when him an’ Wiley got into it, that’s when I seen the cop inside the car. Wiley was tryin’a set it on fire. That’s when I started soberin’ up. Real fast. When that jogger dragged the cop outta the car an’ started runnin’ with ’im, that’s when I figured out that Wiley was really gonna torch it. I took off. I didn’t even think of the woman cop ’til I sobered up. I heard it on the news. I figured Wiley an’ the others must’a killed her to keep her from talkin’.” Hughes stared at the clock.

  Oster was squeezing the life out of his handkerchief, breathing as if he’d climbed a flight of stairs. “And like a good citizen, you came straight to the police with your information.”

  Hughes kept staring at the clock, refusing to look at him. The PD kept her eyes on her notepad.

  The state’s attorney finally said, “Then what happened?”

  “I figured I better get some money together and leave town. I figured I was a dead man if the cops found out I was in on it.” He glanced around at them.

  Thinnes followed his gaze. The PD was still writing. Oster was treating his handkerchief like he’d like to treat Hughes’s neck. Fuego was still as a cat stalking a roach. Hughes pulled the bottom of his shirt loose and wiped his face on it.

  Go ahead and sweat, you asshole, Thinnes thought. He asked, “What did you get from this Brother John? What was his deal?”

  Hughes paused before he answered. “At first, I thought he was just another con—what he was saying was crazy, really. But then—I don’t know—he just wore you down. He believed it, you know? And he would sort of like—hypnotize you. I don’t know how else to explain it. I mean, after a while I believed it. All that stuff. I couldn’t even tell you what it was now. But I would’ve tried to walk on the lake if he told me to.” He looked at them, maybe for confirmation that they understood, confirmation he didn’t get. He shrugged. “You ever hear him preach?”

  “No.”

  Hughes shrugged again. “I guess he was just a false prophet. Sometimes you don’t know…”

  No, Thinnes thought, you don’t. He remembered being moved by Martin Luther King’s dream speech—even though he wasn’t black or particularly interested in civil rights. “What made you choose Banks and Nolan?”

  “Was that their names? I never thought about ’em having names.”

  “Doesn’t look much like you can think,” Oster said.

  Thinnes was struck by how ugly anger made his partner. Was his own rage as obvious or off-putting?

  “It’s not necessary to be insulting, Detective,” the PD said. She must be noticing, too. Oster’s expression let her know what he thought of her interruption.

  “Why Banks and Nolan?” Thinnes repeated.

  “Wiley knew there were these two cops that always stopped for coffee at the same place and time every day. He said that if we did one of ’em, we wouldn’t be seen and they wouldn’t be missed right away—like they might be if we just flagged down a car in traffic.”

  “Go on,” the ASA said.

  “That’s all. Afterwards, I tried to put the touch on Wiley; he laughed at me. Said they avenged Brother John without me, but if I went to the cops, I’d go down for felony murder just the same. What could I do? When I tried to pick up a few bucks so I could get lost for a while, I got busted. That’s all I know.”

  “Why did Brother John keep Serena around?” Thinnes asked. “What did he want with a crazy woman?”

  “She wasn’t so bad when he was alive. When she was takin’ her medicine, she was almost normal. She only started getting goofy after John died—must’ve stopped takin’ her stuff.” They waited. The silence made Hughes nervous. He squirmed in his chair and said, “An’ she was real good at quotin’ from the Bible. She helped John with his sermons—sort of a human Bible encyclopedia.”

  “Where’s Wiley?” Fuego demanded.

  “I don’t know, I swear.” Hughes stared at him. “Don’t you think I’d try to cut a deal if I knew? I don’t know.”

  Oster stood up and shoved his handkerchief into his pocket. “You’re a pitiful excuse for a human being, you know that, Hughes?”

  “People been tellin’ me that all my life.”

  Twenty-Three

  The cops put on a pretty good funeral. Impressive numbers of officers showed up in full dress uniform, marched in formation, saluted in unison. The superintendent showed, sometimes even the mayor. Full court press. And bagpipes—a real media circus. Then it was over. The family had a flag and a handful of newspaper clippings and could point to a star on the wall at Eleventh and State. That was it. A videotape of the show wouldn’t be much comfort later when they were left with an empty house and a huge hole in their lives. Thinnes, Oster, Swann, and Ferris watched Banks’s funeral on the TV in the conference room. For once, no one had any smart remark to make.

  The funeral made Thinnes wonder how Banks’s husband was doing without her, which made him wonder what he’d do without Rhonda. The closest he ever came to praying was to thank God for her. She was his heart and soul, his polestar. He understood perfectly the insane rage and despair that drove some men to kill wives who’d left them. Not that
he could ever hate Rhonda that much. He might hate himself that much, though. If he ever lost her, he could see himself eating his gun. Or driving his car into a large tree.

  During a commercial break, Ferris said, “Hey Thinnes, I heard you’re letting that asshole, Hughes, plead.”

  “Saving the taxpayers the expense of the kind of media circus they got going on in L.A.”

  “Speaking of which,” Ferris said. “You know what O.J.’s last words to Nicole were?” Oster looked disgusted; he shook his head. “Swann?”

  Swann looked up from the paper. “I know what my last words to you would be—”

  “ ‘Your waiter will be right with you.’ ”

  Oster turned to Thinnes. “What was that definition of stress? The confusion in your gut when your head overrides the urge you have to beat the livin’ daylights outta someone?”

  “No, Carl,” Thinnes told him. “Stress is having to work in the same Area with Ferris.”

  Swann said, “Aw, shut up, you guys. It’s back on.”

  Thinnes walked into Evanger’s office and closed the door. The day had turned colder and snow dusted the fleet of squad cars in the lot below the window. Afternoon traffic was building on Western.

  Thinnes put the report on Evanger’s desk and dropped into the rolling chair in front of it. “We haven’t gotten near the bottom of this shit pile yet.” He slouched in the chair, resting his right ankle on his left knee, and drummed with his fingers on the side of his shoe.

  “You got a guilty plea from Hughes. And Cecci’ll never see the outside of a looney bin again. And it’s just a matter of time before Fahey and the others turn up. What do you want?”

  “A motive would be nice. I don’t buy it that any of these assholes loved English enough to kill a cop for him. And Cecci’s the only one crazy enough to think God put them up to it. Somebody had to be getting something else.”

  “But you didn’t find any evidence of that. And Banks’s family deserves some closure. Plus, we’ve got almost three homicides a day, citywide, and we’re over budget on OT. I want you to go home and spend Easter with your family. We’ll get the rest of these guys. And if we get them when you’re off duty, we’ll call you.”

  The Russian Tea Cafe wasn’t the sort of place the cops usually held meetings. Which was precisely why Thinnes had asked Caleb to meet him there. It was close to the doctor’s office—half a block west of Michigan Avenue, and it wasn’t likely that word would get back to Evanger.

  After they were seated and had their orders in, Thinnes said, “You remember how you felt the day you walked in and found Allen Finley’s corpse?” He meant the victim in the first homicide they’d worked together, Caleb’s patient.

  Caleb nodded. “Outraged.”

  “I feel that way about Banks. We only got two of her killers; Fahey’s still at large. And what if Cecci starts acting normal and they let her out? I don’t like it.”

  “She won’t be let out. What’s really bothering you?”

  Thinnes hated it when Caleb seemed to read his mind. But wasn’t that why he’d come? “My boss wants me to drop it, take Easter off, then come back and get on to the next case. It sucks.”

  “Would taking a few days off ruin your chances of eventually making an arrest?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well then?…”

  Twenty-Four

  Rosemary and Victor had bought the house in Kenilworth that Caleb grew up in—an ornate two-story Tudor-revival on Essex Road. He noticed, as he pulled up, that some of the oaks he’d climbed as a child were gone, but the survivors looked well cared for. Mature yews flanked the front porch; daffodils populated the flower beds still mulched for winter. Pulling in the drive was like coming home.

  He parked behind the house and went to the back door out of habit. A short upward flight of steps led to a hallway off of which were the basement stairs, and the kitchen. Caleb turned right, toward the source of a wonderful aroma.

  The room had been freshly painted and was cheerful if curiously old-fashioned, with the original, double-drain-board, cast-iron sink he remembered from childhood. Dried flowers and staples—pasta, beans, and rice—in mason jars continued the old-fashioned motif. The refrigerator was disguised as a pie safe, but when he opened it to put in the wine he’d brought, he saw that the inside was new.

  He took his coat off and stood for a moment sorting the new from the former, Rosemary from Consuelo, approving that the two styles blended like succeeding generations.

  A voice from the hall startled him as it echoed his feeling. “!Bienvenido, hermano!”

  Caleb turned to greet his brother-in-law, flattered that he’d been called brother instead of cuñado. He answered, “¿Que tal?”

  Victor Noguerra grinned. “Bastante bien.”

  Caleb’s father, Arthur, was sitting in the high-ceilinged living room, playing cards with a dark-haired boy of six. They both looked up when Caleb and Victor entered. Arthur nodded and said, “James.”

  “Hello, Arthur.”

  Keeping one eye on his cards, the boy said, “Hi, Uncle Jack.” Without looking at Arthur, he said, “Your turn, Grandpa.”

  Caleb said, “Hello, Jesse.”

  Arthur took a card from the face-down pile on the table, looked at it and put it down on the face-up pile.

  Jesse picked up the card and said, “Gin, Grandpa.” He laid his cards out for Arthur to see.

  Arthur seemed startled, and unsure whether to be upset or pleased that he’d been beaten by the boy. Rosemary saved him by sweeping into the room to give Caleb a hug and ask for volunteers to set the table. She was accompanied by an energetic black-and-white dog that Jesse introduced as Pete the Mutt. Pete looked like a border collie.

  “Millie’s hiding,” Jesse announced.

  “Millie?” Caleb said.

  “Millie’s our cat.” He patted the dog energetically.

  “Pete needs to go in the family room while we’re eating,” Rosemary said.

  “All right.” He took the dog by the collar and half led, half dragged him from the room.

  “Then wash your hands,” Victor called after him.

  “We weren’t going to have a dog,” Rosemary told Caleb, “but he was so cute…”

  Victor, who was standing behind her, laughed and wrapped his arms around her. He was tall enough that her head just fit under his chin. “So after swearing for years that I would have to choose between her or the dog if I brought a dog home, she didn’t even have to think about saying yes to Jesse.” He punctuated his complaint by kissing his wife on the cheek.

  “He’s a vast improvement over that setter you used to have,” Arthur said.

  “When you were a child, Querida?” Victor asked.

  “Yes,” said Rosemary. “Poor old Bridget.”

  “She was a beautiful dog,” Caleb told Victor. “But I’m sure there were goldfish with more brains.”

  They got almost all the way through dinner before Arthur said, “When are you going to marry that attractive divorcée you’ve been seeing, James?”

  Caleb forced himself to hide his annoyance. He squelched the obvious: None of your business and said, “We’ve had this conversation before…” He fought the urge to add Dad, saying instead, “…Arthur. The answer is still never.”

  Arthur raised his eyebrows, then looked from Rosemary to Victor. For support? If so, he didn’t get it. Rosemary looked at him as if he had just belched without apologizing. Victor could have been watching an exciting new game. This seemed to startle Arthur. He looked at Caleb. “I thought perhaps you’d grown out of all that nonsense.”

  “What nonsense, Grandpa?” Jesse asked.

  “Jesse,” Victor said, “Could you do me a huge favor and go see how much time is left on the stove timer? The pie has to come out as soon as it rings.”

  “Sure, Papa.”

  As soon as he was out of the room, Caleb said, “Arthur, to save us the tedium of rerunning this conversation, let me make something
clear: I’ll give up this nonsense shortly after I give up being right-handed. Or blue-eyed.”

  Either Arthur couldn’t think of a response, or wouldn’t make a scene by saying what he thought. There was an uncomfortable silence, before Victor said, “More mashed potatoes, Dad?”

  After the pie—three kinds, with real whipped cream and hard sauce made with genuine bourbon—and coffee, they talked about Victor’s business and Arthur’s recent invitation to consult on a particularly difficult surgery. He couldn’t resist saying, “I always thought you would’ve made a fine surgeon, James. Especially as you did so well as a medic in the service.”

  Caleb said, “Robert’s doing a fine job of being the son that you wanted.”

  Rosemary suddenly stood up and started clearing the table. Caleb was aware that she was angry without knowing which of them had offended her.

  Victor seemed unaware of the conflict. “Leave the dishes, Querida,” he said. “I’ll do them later. You cooked.”

  She looked at him and smiled briefly, then grabbed the coffee pot. “I think I’ll make another pot of coffee.” She hurried out of the room.

  Caleb excused himself and followed her into the kitchen, where he found her leaning against the stove, blushing with fury. “How can he be so insufferable? How can you stand it?”

  “I don’t. When he starts to get on my nerves, I go home.”

  “It’s not fair!”

  “It hasn’t bothered me since the day I realized I was a grown-up. Not only do I not have to do what he tells me anymore, I don’t have to disobey him.”

  When Arthur had gone home, while Victor was showing Jesse how to wash dishes while watching TV, Rosemary and Caleb went into the family room to visit. They had the game on the TV, but had turned off the sound. Caleb wasn’t even sure who was playing.

  “Mother used to say Arthur had the sense of humor beaten out of him as a child,” Caleb told her. “When I was younger, I was too preoccupied with my own pain to understand. I guess I’ve healed. He doesn’t make me angry any more—just sad. There’s almost no chance of his ever being happy.”