Soft Case: (Book 1 in the John Keegan Mystery Series)

by John Misak

With not much else to do, I went to my computer to do a little research. I had an old computer, one they were throwing out down at the department. I don’t know much about computers, other than the fact that the one I had was a relic. It connected to the Internet, slowly, and I could send an email to friends I didn’t feel like talking to.

  I signed on to my computer and opened my email program, which cheerfully let me know I had mail. Big deal. I didn’t bother checking it. I went to Techdata’s website first, out of curiosity. It was a fairly basic site, nothing that looked cutting edge at all. I expected more.

  I checked a few things out on the site, and came to the announcement that they were considering a merger with a company called Onyx, supposedly a big name in broadband communications. I had never heard of the company, which didn’t surprise me. I found this in the “What’s New” section. Funny, there was no mention of Mullins’ death. I figured they didn’t want to scare their potential investors too much. I wondered if that deal with Onyx would go through, with Mullins out of the picture. I couldn’t remember if Sondra had mentioned anything about that, and I reminded myself to check Rick’s trusty notepad. No more than a second later, my cell phone rang. It was in my jacket pocket, across the room. I didn’t feel like answering it.

  I did, anyway.

  “Yeah,” I said, after fumbling through the jacket to find the phone.

  “It’s Geiger.”

  “Good morning.”

  “I’ve got some news.”

  “Go ahead.” I cringed at the thought of what he was going to say. I smelled bad news coming.

  “I just got a call from Agnelli. He’s satisfied with the fact that it was a suicide. He said the tape proves it,” Geiger said. He didn’t sound like he believed it either.

  “Okay.”

  “He wants the investigation closed.”

  “But we don’t have any hard evidence,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Like hell it didn’t.

  “So, that’s it?”

  “Officially yes. But I see nothing wrong with you investigating it for a few more days. I want you to. Agnelli won’t know what you are working on either way.”

  “That tape doesn’t prove anything. What is Agnelli up to?” I asked. I didn’t know enough about him to decide if he was dirty. He may have just been stupid.

  “I don’t think he wants to risk making the Precinct look bad. I can’t blame him for that. But this stinks, if you want my opinion.”

  “It does.”

  “Also, Harold Chapman got in last night. He’s scheduled a press conference for twelve. I want you there, and I want you to talk to him.”

  “Okay,” I said. I tried to be brief with the boss.

  “Get to the bottom of this, and do it quickly.”

  “Okay. You speak to Calhill yet?”

  “No, I called you first. He’s probably still getting his beauty sleep.” I loved the fact that, in the middle of a mess, Geiger kept his sense of humor.

  “Probably. Either that, or he is doing crunches and can’t be bothered.”

  Geiger chuckled. “Call him in an hour. I want you two here before nine. Few things I want to go over.”

  “You got it.”

  “See you then.”

  I flipped the phone closed, and went back to my computer. I printed up the news release about Techdata and Onyx, grabbed a can of soda out of the fridge and went into the shower.

  This was going to be a hell of a day.

  I called Rick forty-five minutes later. He sounded wide-awake, almost chipper. I couldn’t imagine how someone could do that.

  “What do you think is going on?” he asked me, after I explained the situation to him.

  “Agnelli doesn’t want bad publicity.”

  “Wouldn’t not finding the truth be bad publicity?” Rick asked.

  “Depends on how you look at it, I guess.”

  “There’s only one way to look at it.”

  “Not when politics are involved. They can think of ways neither you or I could even conceive.”

  “True. I’ll be there in forty minutes,” Rick said.

  “Okay. That roll/coffee thing was nice yesterday.”

  “Give me forty-five.”

  “See you then.”

  Another free meal. I guess that’s what you get for being the digital Heavyweight Champion of the World. Or for being one of the biggest pains in the ass known to modern man. It didn’t make a difference. Not to me, at least.

  I got dressed, in the sport jacket from early in the week. I got together some stuff I could bring to the same-day dry cleaner on the way to the station. Hadn’t seen them in quite a while, the dry cleaner people. I grabbed my favorite blue suit, a dark green one, and four shirts, which were scattered across my bedroom floor.

  I needed a maid.

  Rick picked me up, we dropped off the clothes, and I wolfed down the roll and coffee. The roll tasted a little stale, crumbly actually, but I was hungry. The coffee was better. Real coffee, in a world of flavored coffees. The coffee world had become the ice cream world. You needed 31 flavors to compete. Actually, the next big thing would probably be flavored-coffee-flavored ice cream. Like Hazelnut Crunch Coffee ice cream, or something like that. Maybe I should have gone into business. I had vision. But I liked real coffee.

  Only problem with that breakfast combo was the fact that it was thrown on top of half a pie of sausage and extra cheese pizza from Dante’s. The coffee and roll were all the pizza needed to be thrust back out into the world. The pain hit hard, just below the waist, right in the middle of traffic.

  “You see a place that looks like it has a bathroom, you stop,” I said to Rick. “And I mean business here. You got that?”

  “Can’t you wait? We’ll be at the station in ten minutes.”

  I looked at him through strained eyes.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Got it.”

  Rick swerved and pulled over in front of a McDonald’s. He cut off two taxis and a black Lincoln. He didn’t use the lights or the siren, which I would have, but he got the job done. Good man.

  I got out of the car, hunched over slightly, and entered the McDonald’s, a big one on Lexington. The place was packed, lines almost to the door. For what, Egg McMuffins? The smell of the place didn’t interact well with my bowel troubles. With no other alternative, I forced my way to the front of the line, amidst a bunch of comments from the people on it.

  “Sir,” a middle-aged woman in a McDonald’s hat said to me, “you’ll have to wait in line.”

  “Bathroom,” I muttered.

  “That’s for customers only.”

  I produced my badge. “Where is it?”

  She pointed toward the staircase, by the right comer of the building. “Upstairs, to the right.”

  I made my way back through the line, made more difficult because the people that were pissed at me decided not to budge, and got to the staircase. Another pain wave hit. My body was letting me know it was entering ‘evacuate’ stage. I had precious seconds left. Seconds.

  The upstairs section was quiet, with only two teenagers sitting in a comer by the window, sneaking cigarettes. I found the door the men’s room. It was locked. The clock was ticking. I knocked, hard.

  No answer. I could hear two people talking in there.

  “It’s occupied,” one of the teenagers said from the corner table.

  I knocked again.

  Nothing.

  The final warning pain wave hit, and I had to use every bit of muscle control and concentration to prevent myself from letting go right there. I mustered up whatever strength I had left, and kicked the door in. I knew my cop training would help me in a real life situation one day.

  The door gave way, and flew open, bashing into a kid standing by it. He went flying into the wall, and ended up half-slumped behind the door. Another kid, about sixteen, I would say, was standing over the sink with what looked like a pipe in his hand. The smell gave it all away. Crack.
My badge was still in my left hand, so I flashed it to him when he turned around. Needing to act quickly, I grabbed the pipe from the idiot kid, and smashed it on the floor. I grabbed him by the belt of his ridiculously oversized jeans, and flung him out the door.

  “Get out of here, before I lock you up,” I said. He fell to the floor just outside the bathroom. The other kid, who rubbed the back of his head, left on his own accord. He picked his friend up, and they ran down the stairs. Maybe I should have arrested them, or gave them a speech about not doing drugs. I didn’t have the time.

  I closed the door, which surprisingly still worked, and did what I went there to do. The toilet seat was dirty, but I didn’t have the time to take care of that. I half-sat, half-squatted. It was all I could do. No need to go into further details. Everyone knows how human bodily functions go. This was an explosive bodily function, and it near scared me. All that talk Rick gave me about my colon and the like had stuck in my head. He deserved a #2 pencil jammed in his neck, but fortunately for him, I didn’t have one on me.

  After I finished, I got up, buckled my pants, and walked out the door. The two teenagers seated in the comer were gone, and there was no sign of the other two. As I made my way up the stairs, a man in a McDonald’s swear came up.

  “What happened up here?” he asked.

  “I had to use the bathroom.”

  “I had four kids run out the door as soon as you came up here. Did anything happen?”

  I thought about opening the bathroom door to show him the broken crack pipe, but I figured he wouldn’t be able to survive the climate in there.

  “They were doing drugs in your bathroom. Perhaps you should consider putting a lock on it, and handing the key out from behind the counter.”

  “Who are you?”

  I flashed my badge.

  “Homicide? Someone die in there?”

  No, but it sure smelled like it. “I was just using your bathroom when I encountered them. You had better keep an eye on such things.”

  He nodded. Good boy.

  I walked down the stairs and out the front door. When I looked left, I saw the two kids who were sitting at the table, standing on the comer. When they saw me, they ran down the side street. It might have been fun, but I had Geiger to deal with that morning, and busting teenagers just wasn’t my job. A call to the Vice guys might help keep that place in control, I figured.

  When I got into the car, Rick said, “What happened in there? You try and steal a kid’s fries or something?”

  “Funny.”

  “No, seriously. I saw four kids run out of there like they had the fear of God put into them.”

  “Just a couple of punks who thought the bathroom was a crack house. No big deal.”

  “Shouldn’t you have called that in?”

  “Right, and deal with the paperwork while Geiger is waiting for us? And besides, if you thought there was trouble, why didn’t you go in and see what was going on, partner?”

  “I know you can handle yourself.”

  “Thanks for the concern.”

  This time, when we got to the station, we couldn’t avoid the media. There were about six reporters hanging around the front, and two of them had strategically placed themselves by the rear entrance. A lot of cops hate reporters. Some love them, love the attention. I fell in the middle. I really wasn’t an attention grabber, but I understood they had a job to do. As long as they went about it in a fair way, I didn’t have a problem. One time, however, a reporter from the New York Post misquoted me about a suspect. I had said we weren’t considering the person a suspect, he wrote that we were. I went straight to his office, caught him in the parking lot, and basically told him that I would give him a good look at his intestines if he ever did something like that again. The next day, right on the second page was a retraction of that comment. Other than that, I had no problems with the press.

  “We might as well face the music,” I said. “Let’s give those two over there a shot. Reward them for their smart work.”

  “Jesus,” Rick said, and pulled into the parking lot.

  We got out of the car, and one of the reporters walked over to us. I recognized him from the Daily News. Didn’t remember his name. He was about thirty-five, lanky, with thinning sand-colored hair. “Detective Keegan, Robbie Bryan, from The Daily News.”

  “Hi Robbie.”

  He nodded at Rick. “Detective Calhill. You guys are working on the Mullins investigation?”

  “We are.”

  “Any news?”

  “Not much, Robbie,” I said.

  “Care to make a comment about the investigation?”

  “Not really.”

  “Come on, give me something.”

  “Let’s just say that we will leave no stone unturned in finding out what happened to Mullins.”

  “Any interesting stones been unturned yet?”

  I laughed. “No, not yet.”

  “Thank you,” Robbie said. He jotted a few things down on a battered notepad. He walked away, toward the other guy, who was young, and appeared to be an intern, or a trainee. The other reporters, who were in front of the building, caught on, and started moving toward us, shouting questions as they approached.

  “Let’s get inside while the going’s good,” I said.

  “Good idea,” Rick replied.

  Geiger didn’twaiting for us in the hallway this time. We walked into the department, and into his office. He was on the phone, and looked stressed. He kept tapping his fingers on his desk. I didn’t see him do that too often. He motioned for us to sit down. We did.

  “I have them in here now,” he said into the phone, “Yes, I am aware of that. Of course. They know. Yes. I will. Don’t worry about that. We’ll do our job, and you do yours.”

  He hung up the phone.

  “Fucking disaster.”

  “What’s going on now?”

  “That was Agnelli again. For some reason, he wants this case closed. I told him you guys have to do a few more routine things, like he didn’t know that already. Pain in the ass.”

  We didn’t say anything.

  “Press catch you outside?”

  “I spoke to Robbie Bryan, from The News. Didn’t really tell him anything. Just said we would cover all bases, find the truth, that sort of thing.”

  “Okay, good. At least it doesn’t look like you are completely avoiding the press. Remember, Agnelli is going to watch the press closely, and will be on your ass for anything you say that he doesn’t think is appropriate.”

  “Great.”

  “Now, I’m not sold on this being a suicide any more than you two do.”

  “I never said I doubted it was a suicide,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I know what you are thinking. A few things don’t make sense here. And when a few things don’t make sense, there are usually a bunch more behind them.” He paused for a moment, and looked at a piece of paper. “This Chapman guy strikes me as strange.”

  “I don’t know much about him,” I said.

  “Neither do I,” Rick chimed in.

  “That’s what I don’t like. He avoided the public eye, compared to his partner, who seemed to be in the media on a weekly basis.”

  “Could be because he wasn’t as capable. Preferred to stay in the background and not make a fool of himself.”

  “Oh, he’s no fool. From what I hear, he’s a shrewd guy.”

  “You think he has something to hide?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Possibly. But we’ll have to handle it carefully. I want information from him. Anything. But it’ll have to be something that we can sink our teeth into, so we can get Agnelli off our backs.”

  “We could always fabricate something.” Joke. Geiger didn’t laugh. Again, the audience thing. And timing too. I sucked at timing.

  Geiger looked directly at me. “Just get some information. If all he has to say is that his partner was depressed and a candidate for suicide, then so be it. But analyze what he says,
and don’t let him smooth talk you. I’ve got the feeling he is good at that.”

  “So am I.”

  “Good.” He checked his watch. “Jacob is looking for you, so why don’t you go see him, find out more information on the car, if there is any, and then get to that press conference.”

  “Okay boss.” I realized that I had shut off the cell phone early, like an idiot.

  Jacob was busy munching on an egg sandwich when I walked into his office. The room smelled like eggs. Nice smell. He looked up at me when I walked in the room.

  “I tried calling you three times last night.” He sounded frustrated. He didn’t sound that way often.

  “I was busy.” Winning the Heavyweight title. I would have told Jacob because the geek in him would understand but didn’t want to seem so lax about the case. Jacob clearly liked Mullins.

  “That tape, I’ve been listening to it ever since you gave it to me. I’ve played it dozens of times,” Jacob said,

  “Find anything?” I asked, eager to make some ground on this case. I felt I had the whole world watching me on this one.

  “I think so. I did some analysis of it, against some audio of Mullins talking. It’s definitely him. I mean, that really wasn’t in question, but I had to check.” Jacob’s eyes darted back and forth as he spoke, something that took a little getting used to. At first, it weirded me out.

  “Okay,” I said, for lack of anything better.

  “And there’s something else.” He reached over to get his headphones. He handed them toward me. “Listen.”

  I put the headphones on. They were huge, and they blocked out all background sounds. Jacob could have yelled at me, and I wouldn’t hear it.

  Jacob popped the tape into the cassette player. Before he played it, he motioned for me to take the headphones off. I did.

  “I’m going to play you the very end of the tape, and focus on low sounds. Tell me what you hear.”

  I put the headphones on. The tape played. All the interference we heard when we played it in the car was gone, and I could hear the engine of Mullins’ car, I think, and other cars around. After about fifteen seconds, I heard what sounded like Mullins whispering, “Oh, my God.”

  I took the headphones off. “He said, ‘Oh, my God,’ I think.”