Michael Lister - Soldier 03 - The Big Hello

by Michael Lister

  They both stepped forward and looked at it, neither bending over to see it any better.

  “Pross we pinched for solicitation,” Sam said.

  “Simple as they get,” Roy said.

  “Name sound familiar?” Collins asked.

  They nodded.

  “We’ve arrested her a few times,” Roy said. “Why?”

  “That the only reason?”

  They both appeared to think about it real hard.

  They nodded.

  “Think so, Chief,” Sam said. “Why? We missin’ somethin’?”

  “Remember earlier tonight at the Panther Room?” Collins said. “James told us who Dana was there to meet?”

  Sam did his thinking-hard look again. “Valerie something-another, wasn’t it?”

  “What about the vics at the Blue Line a little while ago?”

  “We didn’t catch that one,” he said.

  “And you haven’t heard the names?”

  “No sir,” he said. “We just heard it wasn’t your one-armed son and we were so relieved.”

  “You take chances, Sam,” Collins said. “You really do.”

  “We been busy working Dana’s case,” Roy said.

  “Oh yeah? Whatcha got so far for all of that?”

  “Not much, Chief. Just gettin’ started good.”

  “I see,” Collins said. “Well, the woman Dana was supposed to meet and one of the victims from the Blue Line is none other than your pinched pross Vanessa Patrick.”

  “Really?” Roy said.

  “Seriously?” Sam said.

  “And according to that log right there she’s still in my jail.”

  “You don’t say,” Roy said.

  “I do,” Collins said.

  “You’re kidding,” Sam said.

  “I don’t,” Collins said.

  “So she got Dana killed?” Sam said. “Any idea who killed her?”

  “So that’s the way you’re gonna play it, fellas?” Collins said. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  “We’re not playing anything, Chief,” Sam said. “On the level. We’re just as confused as you.”

  “I look confused?” Collins said.

  What he looked was immaculate, his uniform crisp and tight and wrinkle free, his eyes clear and bright, his posture erect, no sign of whiskers on his face and not a single hair out of place. It was as if he had just arrived for work after a good night’s sleep instead of the middle of the night after a long day with no sleep.

  “No sir. I just meant … We don’t know anything other than what we’ve told you.”

  “And if you really thought we did,” Roy added, “do you think it’s best to do this in front of a civilian and a nigger?”

  “You’re right,” Collins said. “Don’t know what I was thinking. I should have each of you in separate interview rooms.”

  Chapter 24

  Collins went at both his men hard and for a while, and I wondered if it was for me, but figured it was far more likely that he actually believed they were lying and the idea of his being out of control of his own men, his own jail, his own world in any way, was intolerable.

  I think that was what bothered him so much about me. He had been unable to control his own stepson, to break me, to mold me into his image and, therefore, I was intolerable for him.

  Clip and I were in a dark observation room with a couple of one-way mirrors in it, watching through the translucent glass into the interview rooms.

  Sam was sitting alone in his, stewing, waiting, while Collins was in Roy’s room going at him.

  We had front row seats to a police interrogation of police, something we shouldn’t have had––something we wouldn’t have had if Collins wasn’t an authority unto himself. I hoped for his sake that Average Sam and Tall Roy were guilty or that internal affairs didn’t find out about what he was doing.

  “Don’t look like they breakin’,” Clip said.

  Neither man had yet to say anything revealing or even suspicious, and unlike earlier they had dropped the caviler attitude and even the hint of insolence.

  “No it doesn’t.”

  “What we do if they don’t?”

  “Maybe they were acting the way they were because they truly had nothing to hide,” I said.

  “So what next?” he asked. “What we do if we get nothin’ from them?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “I’m at a loss again and all I can think of is Lauren’s life is on the line and I don’t know what to do, don’t know how to save her.”

  “Gots to let that part go,” he said. “Or collapse under the pressure of it.”

  I nodded slowly and frowned. “I know,” I said, “but knowing that and being able to do that are two different things.”

  “I’ve told you everything, Chief,” Roy was saying. “I’m on the level. Honest I am.”

  His voice came from within the interview room through a small speaker, low and a little garbled, not easy to understand.

  “Can’t tell you anything else ’less I start making it up,” he said. “I’ve already told you everything I know. I swear it. I’m not hiding anything. Come on, Chief, you know me. I’m a good cop. Sam is too. You know we wouldn’t be mixed up in somethin’ criminal.”

  “If you’re lying to me …” Collins said.

  “I’m not. I swear on my life.”

  “If the way you played it in my office caused us to waste time and costs the girl her life …”

  “What girl?” Roy said. “I thought she was dead.”

  “I know y’all can hear me,” Sam said.

  He was speaking loudly and looking toward us through the window.

  “I know y’all are watching,” he said. “Look soldier, I don’t know everything that’s going on, but whatever it is, my partner and I have nothing to do with it. I swear on my mother’s life. You’re wasting time on us when you could be trying to find out who really freed the hooker and killed our friend. Two things I’d be glad to help you with. Up to you, but if another cop gets killed or someone you care about, just remember I told you not to waste time on us.”

  ***

  “I think they’re clean,” Collins was saying.

  He was back in the observation room with us.

  “I know you’ll think I’m covering up some kind of crime my department committed but––”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “You do?”

  I nodded.

  “So cut ’em loose?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “They’re cocky and full of themselves, but they’re good cops.”

  “Grady track down who was working the desk the night Vanessa was taken out to play army nurse at Johnston’s?”

  “Must not have. He’s bringing him here when he does. I’m gonna go let my guys go then we’ll look for him.”

  I nodded.

  When he left the room, I yawned and stretched. Clip yawned in response and laughed.

  “Don’t care how tired you are,” he said, “we ain’t stopping ’til we find her.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for that,” I said. “I was just about to give up.”

  “I hope you boys understand,” Collins was saying, “I had to do it. And don’t think I did it for anyone but me. I had to know for sure so we could move forward.”

  He had Sam and Roy in the same room. All three men were standing.

  “You fellas are good cops,” he said. “Now that Dana’s gone, the best I got. I gotta be able to trust you, but good. I had to know.”

  They nodded.

  “We understand, Chief,” Roy said.

  “Now,” Collins said. “Go home. Get a little sleep. Get showered. Get back here in the morning ready to go.”

  “It one thing to think they not involved,” Clip said. “It another to send they asses home for some sleep.”

  After a quick light tap on the door, Grady entered the observation room.

  “Where’s the chief?” he said.

/>   I nodded toward the interview room, but the three men had already vacated it, and a moment later Collins was walking in.

  “Whatta you got for me, Sergeant?” he said.

  “Well, I confirmed with Fellows that it was Smith and Homan that brought in the Patrick dame,” he said.

  “Okay,” he said. “But we knew that. They never said they didn’t. We need to know who took her out.”

  “Fritz was working the night you asked me to check on,” he said. “Says Smith and Homan were around, but he didn’t see them take her out.”

  “Then who?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Grady said. “That was the night of the big fight.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Collins said. “Big inmate brawl. Nobody seriously hurt, but took a while to break it up, then we had medics come in.”

  “That was to distract everyone while they snuck her out,” I said.

  “Who?” Grady said.

  I shrugged. “Smith and Homan?”

  He shook his head. “I was called in. Saw the aftermath firsthand. They helped break up the fight, helped separate them in different cells––oh hell.”

  “What?” Collins said. “And language, Sergeant.”

  “Hers was one of the cells we used to separate them. It was already empty by then.”

  “Because she was taken out during the fight,” I said.

  “Any of the inmates involved in the fight still in custody?” I asked.

  Grady nodded.

  “We need to talk to them. See who bribed them to fight.”

  Another knock on the door was followed by a sleepy-looking sergeant with thick black hair and a five o’clock shadow sticking his head in the door.

  “We got an emergency call for Jimmy Riley,” he said. “Panama City PD.”

  Collins nodded.

  I followed the sergeant to a phone.

  It was at an empty desk in the dim, vacant squad room.

  “Riley,” I said.

  “Jimmy, it’s Iris.”

  Iris was Henry Folsom’s secretary. She had been for as long as I could remember. A kind but tough older lady who had acted more and more like a mother to Folsom as Gladys got worse and worse over the years, Iris was efficient and sensitive, and had always been particularly fond of me.

  “It’s Henry,” she said.

  It was the first time she had referred to him as anything but Captain Folsom.

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s been shot. He’s in the hospital. They’re pretty sure De Grasse did it. He got away, but one of the witnesses said he had a woman with him matching Lauren’s description.”

  Chapter 25

  Henry Folsom’s room had that middle-of-the-night quietness and dimness that was different in tone and quality from any other time.

  He wasn’t conscious, and I didn’t know if he was sleeping or in a coma.

  He was tall and large, with a big frame and a certain muscular thickness that he had managed to retain even past middle age, and he eclipsed the hospital bed beneath him.

  On the drive back over from Tallahassee I had done what I had been doing all night––questioned whether I was doing the right thing. Was it right to return to Panama City? Was Lauren really here? Did Flaxon De Grasse have her? Was he preparing even now to make her his last work of art, his masterpiece?

  Images of his victims had flashed in my mind. Horrific. Disturbing. Vivid. Continual.

  All of them the same.

  A beautiful woman in life … retaining a certain bloom in death.

  No blood.

  Skin impossibly white.

  Hair impossibly dark.

  Posed on black satin.

  The high contrast between the background and her body was severe and served to heighten the shocking impact of the image, and though the photograph was black and white, the subject matter was such that it would’ve looked the same at the scene.

  Her legs were spread open, her feet extended up and out. There was something subtly but decidedly sexual about the pose. Above her legs, the top half of her bloodless bisected body was only a few inches away, but had not been lined up precisely, so the two parts were slightly askew.

  Her arms were up, one draped over her eyes, as if sleeping while shading from a bright light, the other bent so that her hand fell gently between her breasts.

  But what if De Grasse didn’t have Lauren?

  Should I have stayed in Tallahassee? Should I be talking to inmates with Collins to see who staged the distraction in order to break Vanessa Patrick out?

  The threat from De Grasse, if there was one, seemed more imminent than anything else, so I had made my decision, but that didn’t mean I didn’t doubt it, didn’t mean I wouldn’t drive myself crazy questioning whether what I was doing was ensuring I would lose Lauren forever. Or maybe I already had. Maybe every move I made was futile. There was no way to know and it had never mattered more.

  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew I had to stop in and see Henry before I did anything else.

  Gladys couldn’t be here. He was alone.

  He had been more like a father to me than anyone since mine died, far more than Darryl Collins or even my old partner and father figure Ray Parker.

  I couldn’t not stop in for a moment to show concern, express respects, acknowledge all he had done for me.

  I thought about how many times he and Gladys had me over for dinner, how often he’d call me to his office and hand me a brown paper bag lunch and say, “Gladys said you’re looking a little too thin.”

  When my arm had been blown off, when my world had imploded in on me, when I lost Lauren and was as alone as I had ever been, it had been Henry and Gladys I had opened my eyes to in my lonely hospital room, Henry and Gladys who had visited every day, Henry and Gladys who had stayed until made to leave by the nurses.

  I needed to find out where Gladys was and go see her. Should have already.

  A nurse came in to check Folsom’s vitals and startled when she saw me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “What’re you doing here? It’s one-thirty in the morning. Visiting hours are long since––”

  “I just got back in town,” I said. “I had to see him for a second. I was about to go. Can you just tell me how he is.”

  “I’m afraid he’s not good,” she said. “He was shot. The bullet did a lot of damage. He survived surgery, but a man his age …”

  “I ain’t dead yet,” he said.

  We both turned toward him. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Well hey, Captain Folsom,” she said. “Welcome back.”

  “So you can’t start planning my funeral just yet,” he said.

  “I was just telling your son that a man as big and strong and mean as you eats bullets for breakfast and will be just fine. Just fine.”

  “Lady, lying to a cop is not a smart thing to do. Now, excuse me and this young man for a couple of minutes. We got important police business.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Yes you do. Grant a dying man his wish. Come back in a few minutes. If I’m still kicking you can kick him out. Hell, he looks worse than I do. Look at the size of that knot on his head.”

  Finally, begrudgingly, she left.

  “What happened to your head?” he asked.

  “I bumped it.”

  “And your gut … did you reopen the wound? You’re bleeding.”

  “Skip it,” I said. “I’m fine. How are you? Really.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Listen. I’ll be fine. Or I won’t. But you’ve got to find Lauren. I think De Grasse has her.”

  Flaxon De Grasse had pretended to be a surrealist art gallery owner named Adrian Fromerson. He was a dainty, diminutive man, gaudy and gaunt. He had bleach-blond hair that was short and stood up in jagged clumps, and his skin was pasty. He looked nothing like what he was––a vicious, brutal butcher the likes of which I had never heard of.

  “And if anything does happen to me,” h
e was saying, “I need you to look after Gladys.”

  “I hope you know you don’t have to ask.”

  “I know how you feel about Lauren,” he said. “You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Anything?”

  “Anything,” I said.

  “Well, imagine how much more true it’d be if you’d been together over thirty years.”

  I nodded again. I understood what he was saying, though I couldn’t imagine being any more in love, any more willing to do anything for Lauren than I was now.

  “If you make it out of this and I don’t,” he said, “take care of my girl.”

  “I will.”

  “If I make it out of this and you don’t, I’ll take care of yours,” he said. “Swear it.”

  I nodded. “I know,” I said. “So tell me what happened.”

  “I played a hunch,” he said. “Knew the net we had around him was tight. Knew he had very few options. Couldn’t get out of town. Couldn’t hide very many places. So I figured he might go back to someplace familiar, someplace we wouldn’t suspect because he’d been there before. I didn’t have any men to spare, so I went myself.”

  “Where?”

  “The old house,” he said. “Victorian in St. Andrews with the art where he left his last victim before he disappeared.”

  As Adrian Fromerson, De Grasse had owned and operated a kind of surrealist art gallery in an old three-story Victorian house in St. Andrews and actually assisted in the investigation.

  “I searched the place,” he was saying. “Thought it was clean. Was actually walking back downstairs to leave. He turned the corner to come up the stairs. Don’t think he knew I was there. We both drew. He fired first. Three shots. One got me. I hesitated because … he had a … someone with him. I think it was Lauren.”

  “Any idea where he went?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “I went down. All I could do was try not to tumble down the stairs. I’m sorry. I should’ve … He left. Eventually, I made it down and called for help. Neighbor heard him screeching away and looked out. Gave a description of him and a girl that looked like Lauren.”