Murder in the Choir (The Jazz Phillips Mystery Series)

by Joel B Reed

Walking back into my old office was a strange experience. This was the first time I had actually been there since retiring, although I had visited the lab several times. There had been other meetings in the building, but I had never gone to the area where Dee had his office. The staff were gone for the day when I got there, which made it easier in some ways, but having to wait in the foyer for an escort was a new experience. Nor did knowing why this was necessary change much in the way I felt.

  I was glad when Dee showed up to escort me to the office area himself. He was apologetic about it. “It won’t be long until I’ll have to have an escort, too,” he laughed. “Only, I don’t think I’ll be coming back.”

  “Any idea what you’re going to do?” I asked when we were in the elevator.

  “The first thing is trying to get my life back,” he answered. “I don’t know if my wife and I will make it, but I’ve got to try.” That was strange, the way Dee referred to her as his wife and not by her given name. It sounded to me like there was a lot of distance between them already. “I’m not sure what she wants to do,” he added. “She seems to be doing better now that we’re apart.”

  When the elevator stopped I was surprised to see we were on the lab floor. “I thought we would stop by here,” Dee explained. “Weaver called and asked me to bring you here first. He wants to fill us in together.”

  Weaver was waiting for us in the lab conference room. He was as excited as a young pup on its first hunt and was holding a FedEx envelope. When he saw us, he opened the envelope and set the papers in it on the table. Without pause for a greeting, he launched into his presentation. “This came this morning from the Department of Defense,” he said, handing us a letter encased in a clear plastic sheet protector. “No one from this office has touched these documents without gloves, and I was able to raise some good prints. The original paper looks like standard government bond.”

  Weaver handed us photocopies of the letter. It was on what looked like a Department of Defense letterhead and at the end was a scrawl that could have been made by a chicken scratching for food. The letter was addressed directly to Weaver as head of the CID, which was odd, and it was short and to the point:

  Enclosed you will find a DNA profile and fingerprint chart for 1st Sgt. Wilbur Edward Posey, deceased, United States Army. The profile was taken from blood on dog tags removed from Sgt. Posey’s body by Graves Registration in 1972. His remains are not available for examination. The date of his death and the manner of his death is classified. We affirm he died in service to his country. No further information is available. Our condolences to his family.

  “Is it just me, or is that exceptionally cold?” I asked.

  Both men nodded. “Even by Department of Defense standards,” Dee said. “Did you catch the name above the signature?”

  I nodded. “It appears our Captain Smith’s first name is John. He either doesn’t have a middle initial or didn’t bother with it.”

  “His fingerprints are classified, too,” Weaver told us. “I ran them as soon as I brought them up from the letter. There was only one set of prints, and we got a very fast bounce. The one thing that is for real is the FedEx account. This was sent from the Pentagon.” He stopped and let us absorb the news.

  “Why did he even bother leaving fingerprints,” Dee said. “Why not just send it without them? He could have worn gloves.”

  “To check us out,” I replied. Seeing the question in Dee’s eyes, I added. “I doubt the fingerprints on the letter are even his. However, he knows whose they are and just the fact that we ran them will give him a heads-up.”

  “Shit!” exclaimed Weaver. “I screwed up, didn’t I?”

  “Not at all,” I told him. “I would have done the same. Captain Smith was giving us the finger.”

  “Why send anything at all?” Dee asked.

  “To take the heat off the Pentagon is my guess,” I answered. “Or to take the heat off Posey if he’s still alive and working for them. It could be classic misdirection, telling us he’s dead when he’s not.”

  Dee shook his head. “On the other hand, this may be for real. At least, part of it may. They may actually believe Posey is dead. They may not know he deserted and went into business for himself.”

  “Or they may know he’s alive and may be using him as an outside contractor,” I added. “There’s no way of knowing, but Posey would be very deniable if an operation went south. Or maybe he switched over to CIA.”

  “Damn,” Weaver murmured. “Wheels within wheels within wheels!”

  “That’s the whole way this case has developed,” I said. “What I can’t figure out is whether there is a good reason for this, or if Smith is jerking us around just because he can. I think we have to assume there’s a good reason.”

  “Yeah,” Dee nodded. “Those bastards don’t do anything without a reason. It might be a twisted one, but there is some kind of logic involved.”

  “Just like a psychopath,” I said. “Accept their basic assumptions, and the crimes they commit make perfect sense. What’s twisted is how they see things.”

  “You want to know a really strange thing?” Weaver asked grinning. “I compared the DNA profile they sent with the blood from the outhouse door by the community center. It’s a perfect match. So is the DNA we were able to take off the pop can.”

  “So it’s Posey, then,” Dee said, nodding. “We’ve got our shooter, assuming it was his blood on the dog tags.”

  I laughed. “Rumors of his death were exaggerated, just like happened to Mark Twain. I still wonder what’s driving this thing. Why are they going to so much trouble covering for Posey? Or are they? You know, I really think they believe he’s dead.”

  “I almost hate to mention it, but there is another possibility,” Weaver said. “The blood could be from a twin.”

  I shook my head. “I checked the county birth records. Only one Posey child was registered with that date of birth.”

  “Yeah, but didn’t you tell me the grandfather registered Edward’s birth a couple of years after he was born?” Dee asked. “Maybe there were two kids born and he didn’t register one of them. Maybe we need to check the state records, too.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” I asked, but I knew the answer. Like everything else, it was a matter of perspective. If we knew what was in the grandfather’s mind, it would make perfect sense. “I shook my head. What else do you have?” I asked Weaver. “What about the cigarette butts?”

  “We got a good DNA sample from them,” he told me. “There is only about an eighty percent match between that and Posey. So they are closely related, but not the same person.”

  “Let me get the picture,” I interjected. “We have the same percentage match between Smiley and Edward as we do between Smiley and Slide, right?” Weaver nodded. “So Smiley could be the father of them both?”

  “Very likely,” Weaver affirmed. “The markers are perfect for that.”

  “You think Slide knows?” Dee asked me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think he would have told me, but I may be wrong. What about these bullets?” I asked Weaver. How soon can you get me a comparison on those?”

  “Right away,” he said. “Give me three minutes. It looks like there’s still enough left of this mushroomed one to compare, but the blood work will take a couple of days if you want DNA on that.”

  I told him that wasn’t necessary. Then I remembered the gob of snuff that Redbone recovered and asked him to run DNA on that. Weaver dropped it off for the night shift to run, and Dee and I followed him to his microscope station. He took the bullet taken from the tree and placed it in the clip along with the one taken from the store front. A moment later he said, “Bingo! It’s a different bullet maker but the same gun. Let’s see about the one that’s mushroomed.” This time the comparison took longer, but when he was done, Weaver nodded. “I would be willing to testify they’re from the same weapon. There’s a lot less to compare, but I’m ninety-eight percent certain it’s the same gu
n.” He began to give us the details, but we assured him his word was enough.

  “What about the lottery ticket?” I asked.

  “It was sold at a convenience store north of Texarkana, and there are two solid sets of prints. One belongs to Slide Jones and the other to another male. I also found two partials, front and back, on one of the corners of the ticket. They were from someone else. I would guess a female or a child from the size. It would help if you had a suspect for the third set.”

  I told him we did and that I would get him something to compare right away, but when I called Texarkana, there was no one on duty who could help me. “It’s all these budget cutbacks,” the voice at the other end told me. “We’re awful short handed these days. Why don’t you call back in the morning?”

  I gave Weaver the particulars on Louella, and he told me he would follow up the next day. While we were talking, the phone rang. Weaver answered it, but the call was for Dee. When he took it, he listened a while before asking a couple of questions. Then he thanked whoever was on the other end for calling.

  “That was the Highway Patrol,” he told us. “They just found someone in a pickup crashed between Nashville and Hope. It was a dead Negro male about forty-five years old. There is no identification, but he was dressed in camouflage and was carrying .223 ammunition. No weapon has been found yet, but they’re still looking. The cause of the wreck was apparently a skid that went out of control. It’s a deer crossing area.”

  “Could someone have found the wreck and taken the rifle?” I asked.

  “It could have happened, but I doubt it. The truck was at the bottom of a deep ravine. The trooper noticed skid marks on the road and investigated. He had to climb down the side of the ravine a good way before he could see the truck.”

  “Where are they taking the body?” I asked.

  “They’re still trying to get it out,” Dee told me. “The wrecker isn’t even there yet.”

  “Let’s go!” I said. “Call back and tell them to keep the body and the truck where they are until we get there. Tell them to treat it like a crime scene.”

  I turned to ask Weaver to come with us, but he was on another line telling his crew to meet us at the site. By the time Dee was off the phone, Weaver was holding two large duffel bags and asking me to carry another. “I’ll ride with you guys,” he said. “That will save some time.”

  I called Kruger to let him know what was going on and asked him to get in touch with Dill. When we arrived at the crash site a couple of hours later, both of them were there. “It’s Posey, all right,” Dill told us. “There was a flash fire but it didn’t burn everything. His face was hardly touched.”

  Weaver headed down the slope right away. His team had arrived twenty minutes before us and was already at work. Not that there was a lot to do. The fire had destroyed whatever evidence had been in the cab of the truck. All that was left was the remains of an automatic pistol stuffed behind the seat and some .223 rifle ammunition. There was no rifle.

  The light was beginning to fade fast, so Dill and Kruger organized a search for the rifle while Weaver talked to Dee and me. “I’ve never seen one quite like this,” Weaver told us. “The fire that burned the cab didn’t come from the engine or fuel tank. It came from what we used to call a Molotov cocktail—a bottle filled with gasoline and corked with a rag. It looks like our dead man was trying to light the thing with one hand while driving with the other. Why, I don’t know, unless he planned to give someone a nasty surprise. What I can’t figure out is why both hands are so badly burned.”

  “Maybe he tried to ditch it,” Dee suggested.

  “Yes, but that wouldn’t explain why both hands are so badly burned,” Ben mused. “Unless, of course, that was what made him veer off the road and he was using both hands trying to control the truck.” He shook his head. “We’ll need to get the truck to our garage in Little Rock and go over it more carefully. We’ve done about all we can do here.”

  I asked him to run DNA and dental records on the corpse right away. He agreed and was about to say something else when we were interrupted by a shout. It was Kruger. He’d found the rifle and was waving for one of the CSI technicians to come and take pictures.

  A few minutes later, we were looking at it. At first, I thought Kruger was mistaken. Except for the obvious workmanship, the weapon looked like a toy or something out of a science fiction catalogue. It was very light and the composite stock had a gray matte finish. There were no obvious sights, but there was an integral scope in what looked like a carrying handle, and the whole shape of the stock was smooth and streamlined. Nor was it damaged from being thrown from the truck. As I said, it looked like an expensive version of a prop from an old Buck Rogers movie.

  “Nice,” said Weaver, reverently. “I haven’t seen one of these except in a catalogue, thirty years ago. There weren’t that many of them made.”

  “So that’s the murder weapon?” Dee asked. His tone said he was having as hard a time as I was believing this was a real weapon.

  Weaver nodded. “Unless there are two of these in southern Arkansas, it is. I’ll know for sure when I get it back to the lab, but I’m almost certain. From all I read, it’s a deadly little beast.” He hefted it. “It feels like a toy.”

  “Well, I guess that about wraps it up, then,” Dee observed. “We have the killer and we have the murder weapon. Assuming lab results confirm it.”

  Weaver shook his head. He looked troubled. “Not if the bullet Jazz brought me this morning is a match,” he said. “Casey will be able to pinpoint the time of death much better than I can at the moment, but the initial evidence seems to point to something between eighteen and twenty-four hours. Assuming the new bullet is a match, then someone fired the shot this morning and then ditched the gun here later.” He shrugged and glanced at his watch. “I could be wrong, of course, but I think this guy has been dead longer than seven or eight hours.”

  “So our killer is still out there?” Dill responded. Weaver nodded. “With Posey dead, that leaves us with Slide as the best candidate,” Dee went on. “That doesn’t feel quite right.”

  “I can’t see Slide doing the attack this morning, either” I replied. “He doesn’t strike me as being in good enough shape to run off through the woods like our sniper did.” I looked at Dill. “Whoever it was could run fast enough to get away from you and Mason.”

  Dill nodded. “He had between fifteen and twenty-five seconds head start, at most. Mason took off after him right away, and I wasn’t far behind. Neither of us caught more than a glimpse.”

  “It looks like we’re back to square one,” I said. “Why don’t Kruger and I go to Texarkana and check out the lottery ticket? We’re not that far away and the same clerk may be on duty.”

  “Why don’t I come with you?” Dee asked. I knew he was hurt at not being included, but nothing showed.

  “Of course, Dee,” I told him. “You’re supposed to be on light duty. I don’t want to get you in a jam with your boss.”

  “Frag him and feed him to the fish,” Dee responded. “I’ll get some rest in the back seat if I get tired.”

  “Well, I’ll be at the motel,” Dill said. “You ladies can tell me all about it at tea tomorrow morning. I’m going to get some sleep.”

  * * *

  When we got to the convenience store, we were in luck. The clerk on duty recognized Slide’s picture and remembered his coming in. “He bought two tickets that night,” he said. “One of them was the big lottery, but he got a dollar scratch ticket, too. I remember because he won fifty dollars. You don’t see many of those.”

  “Do you remember what time this was?” Kruger asked.

  The clerk shook his head. “No, but it’s printed on the lottery ticket. Take a look at that.” He grinned. “It’s a lot more accurate than my watch.”

  That was a long drive for a short answer, even though it was useful. Just to be thorough, I pulled out a dollar and asked the clerk for a random numbered lottery ticket. When it w
as printed out, I picked it up carefully, being sure to touch only one corner. Sure enough, the time and date were printed at the same time my numbers were.

  Once we were outside, I put it in a plastic evidence bag and handed it to Dee. “There’s something else for Weaver to play with. The prints should match those on the other ticket. All I touched was the lower right hand corner.”

  It was getting late, but none of us had eaten, so we headed for one of the places Kruger and I had been before. That was closed, but a Chinese place down the street was still open, and we stopped. The food was singularly uninspired but not really bad, and we got a laugh out of Kruger’s fortune cookie. It read, “Hunger will strike you again in one hour.”

  We talked about the case a bit, but gave it up after a while. We were going over the same ground we covered before, and I think all of us were tired and disappointed. Kruger excused himself to report in to Lonnie, and while he was gone, Dee and I talked over what the next step might be. It looked like we were at a dead end unless something new popped up.

  I pulled out my notebook and glanced through it for any leads we had not followed. I came across the names of Posey’s honorary aunt and uncle who I had never gone by to see. I told Dee I might go by to let them know Edward had been killed in a car crash. He agreed, indifferent.

  “I guess someone needs to tell Pastor Jones, too,” I added. “I think it would be better done in person.”

  Again, he agreed. “You could save me a trip, if you don’t mind,” he said. “You’re a lot closer to him than I am, anyway. Maybe he’ll tell you something to get this case off dead center.” He sighed. “Not that I care that much, anyway. We have enough to clear the damned thing right now. Maybe that’s what we need to do. Clear the sucker and get on with our lives.”

  This was completely out of character for Dee. It told me how tired he must be, not tired in body, but in spirit. Neither of us would have stood for clearing the case the way things were in the old days, but that was then. The passion clearly wasn’t there any more for Dee, and I found it strange to find the same was true for me. I was tired of the world of ballistics and blood splatter and fabric samples and lying witnesses, not to mention political glory hounds who make our work even harder. I found myself anticipating doing some work for McKee. I realized I was more than ready to move on to something new.