Killing Zone

by Rex Burns

  “Cuff that fucker! Get the fucking cuffs on him!”

  “Goddamn motherfucking—”

  “Get the cuffs on him!”

  “Stay down, both of you!” Wager, out of the car, shouted at the two huddled women and rested his pistol on the roof as he searched the dark emptiness of housetops and driveways for the flash of a weapon or the spurt of fire in a Molotov cocktail. “Stay in the car—stay down!”

  “My God,” the councilwoman’s voice was muffled by her hands. “It happened so fast!”

  “Cuff his goddamn feet.”

  Hannah Green, the silent microphone still gripped in her fist, stared through the broken windows streaked with spittle, her own cheeks streaked with tears.

  CHAPTER 14

  SUNDAY, 15 JUNE, 0916 Hours

  The clock radio woke him with the cadenced earnestness of a sermon, and he lay under the sheet, half-listening to the voice but not hearing all the words. It was something to do with God’s forgiveness, and that was fine with Wager—he couldn’t think of anyone who didn’t need forgiving for something, himself and God included; and the urgent voice, full of pauses and emphases, seemed certain that God would welcome all sinners. Why not? He put them here in the first place. Yawning with a weariness that lingered in his burning eyes and in the cottony feeling surrounding his thoughts, Wager stumbled into the kitchen to start water for coffee and to slice into one of the Rocky Ford cantaloupes he’d found last night at a twenty-four-hour supermarket. He could still remember the strange dislocation of the early morning quiet, wandering along the neatly ordered rows of food while twenty minutes across town the sirens, the tear gas, the batons were cleaning up the last of the rioters.

  After the mob swept across the car, Councilwoman Voss agreed with Wager that Mrs. Green should quit, but the woman held on long enough to make one more tour around the edges of the neighborhood. Her voice was hard to understand because she kept catching the words in tears and gasps. Neither woman urged Wager to drive into the neighborhood’s center, where more reports of quick strikes by gangs kept erupting on the radio. Finally, they convinced Mrs. Green she had done enough.

  The papers said YOUTH KILLED IN FIVE POINTS RIOTS and named a fourteen-year-old boy who had been shot, although it wasn’t clear whether the bullet had come from rioters or from the police. Some civilians in the neighborhood blamed the police for the death, while others said the youth was shot when two gangs tangled over a looted store. The chief said the matter was under intense investigation and he expected to have a formal statement within twenty-four hours. Wager figured Max and Devereaux were still at work taking statements and collating the physical evidence on that one. Eighteen other civilians had been arrested allegedly for rioting and looting, and, far down the front-page story, a brief paragraph noted that an officer had suffered a heart attack while chasing a group of fugitives down an alley. Damage estimates were mounting—added to, Wager reckoned, by more than one shop owner who saw a chance to clear out his inventory for the insurance. The Post editorial lamented the death and destruction and called for calm; the News ran a story on the bottom of the front page headlined GANG LEADERS PROMISE WORSE TO COME. A spokesman for the Uhuru Warriors, photographed in his dashiki, warned that last night was only a warm-up and that tonight there would be massive riots to protest the murder of a brother by the police.

  Wager sipped his coffee and folded the newspapers onto the stack saved up for the apartment’s recycling drive. One of the tenants had organized the Saturday collection to earn money for handicapped children, and it was as good a cause as any. The world was full of causes—good, bad, all kinds. And Wager was faced with his own: Councilman Horace Green’s death. He refilled his cup and cleared the breakfast table to spread the papers and notes he’d accumulated in the last three days. One sheet listed the times and events of Green’s final day—Wednesday, the eleventh—and a little star was penciled by time periods that had not yet been accounted for. A separate sheet listed the restaurants Mrs. Green had given him last night, and he would start that round of the investigation when they began to open today.

  Another sheet held a series of questions, some crossed off now and a lot added. A few of them had little stars, too: “Killed nearby? Killer would have looked for a safer dump but was in a hurry?” The answer for Wager was that Green had probably been killed in his car—another starred question—and then dumped. Which brought a new question to Wager’s mind and he glanced through a Xerox copy of the wound chart. One close-range shot to the back of the head—entering just to the right of centerline. That was consistent with Green sitting in the driver’s seat, turning his head to the left, being shot by someone in the rider’s seat. Then they would have to slide the body across the seat and walk around to drive the car. If that’s what happened, there would be plenty of evidence in that vehicle. All they had to do was find it—which, another phone call told him, MVD had not yet been able to do.

  But, and this managed to work its way through the slowly ebbing fog of a lack of sleep, that car could help explain the killer’s haste: As Fat Willy said, everybody knew that vehicle. A car that big with Green’s vanity plates. Parked where it could easily be seen. Driven through familiar streets. Half the people in the district recognized it. And, quite possibly, the killer believed that those who knew the car would also remember who was driving it and where. Someone driving that car who could be recognized. Or who shouldn’t be behind that wheel—a white man, perhaps … Cowboy boots. Vote buying. An urgency in getting rid of the body in order to get rid of that car. Why not leave the body in the car … ? Simply shoot him and walk away? Same reason: The killer might be noticed walking in that neighborhood. The car was needed for escape. To get back to wherever the alibi was, or to the killer’s own car or motorcycle. Shoot Green quickly before he could become suspicious or could call for help, dump the body as soon as possible so the killer or killers wouldn’t be seen driving that car, use it to get back to cover. Why not just drive to the other car or alibi with the body still in the Lincoln? Why stop to dump it? Perhaps—and here Wager’s pencil started another little star—because the body might have been seen in the car? Or because the killer had been seen recently in the car with Green? Where would the car be driven that Green’s body might have been seen? Who might have seen Green and his killer in the car? A parking attendant … a security gate with a guard … a ticket booth … A lot of possibilities but fewer than before. He made a note to himself and turned to his section of notes on K and E Construction and began going once more over those items. The construction firm’s name had come up with persistency—enough to make Wager want to dig for more. But proving any link between Green and K and E would be tough.

  He glanced at the clock and decided to take a chance on calling this early. After four or five rings, the woman’s sleepy voice mumbled hello. “Miss Andersen? This is Detective Wager. I wonder if I could come over and talk with you for a few minutes?”

  “It’s … it’s Sunday morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there in about a half hour.”

  “But …”

  He hung up before she could think of some objection; in less than half an hour he nosed the Trans-Am slowly past groups of condominiums, built to look like mansions that spread over the dark green of lushly watered lawns and thin new trees. Tasteful wooden signs listed the house numbers for each cluster, and he finally found the one he looked for. It was a middle unit, two buildings away from the street, and as Wager walked down the gently arcing sidewalk he could hear carried from the distance the amplified chime of a church carillon ringing a half-familiar hymn. At the far end of the trimmed green, he saw the white frame of a lifeguard tower and a young couple, towels slung around their necks, walking toward the pool, holding hands. Miss Andersen answered the door in jeans and a sweatshirt; the lined paleness of her face was accentuated by the lack of makeup, and she was awake now but said nothing.

  Wager smiled. “Can I come in?”

  Still
silent, she stepped back, turning to lead him into a living room that was designed to make up in height and openness what it lost in narrowness and a lack of windows in two walls. “Would you like some coffee?” A pot steamed on a divider between the kitchen and dining area. “I just made some.”

  He watched her fill the blue cup, a slight tremor in her hands. This morning her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail that made her seem less enameled and more vulnerable. “Are you going to the funeral?”

  “I don’t know. I want to. He was my employer and, if I don’t, it’ll look …” She gestured at the cream pitcher and sugar bowl; Wager shook his head. “But I don’t know if I ought to.”

  “His wife knows about you. She’s known for a long time.”

  “Oh.”

  He sipped, studying the woman’s face. It was good coffee—freshly ground and made with some kind of filter machine. Wager had been thinking of trying one, but it might spoil his ability to stomach the coffee at the office.

  “I suppose I’d better not, then.” The gray eyes looked up. “Perhaps the interment. I can stay at the edge of the crowd.” Her voice broke slightly as she explained. “I just want to say good-bye!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He watched her walk slowly past the fireplace and settle on the tan rug to lean back against a raised hearth. “There’ll be a big crowd.”

  “I know.”

  “You are the only one who handles the books for the store?”

  “What? Oh—I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else. The books? Yes—I do the books.”

  “You’re the only one?”

  “Yes. Horace would look them over once a week, but I make all the entries.”

  “Was the store profitable?”

  “Yes.” She looked puzzled. “You’ve asked me that before. Why?”

  Wager smiled. “Sometimes I forget what I’ve asked. Furniture sales—that’s the store’s total source of income?”

  “Sales and leasing. We lease some items but we don’t really advertise that side of the business; it’s more of a service for certain clients. I don’t understand the question—what else would a furniture store do?”

  “Some business owners run their personal income through corporations so they can get a better tax break.”

  She shook her head. “No—not Horace. His councilman’s salary was taxed before he got it.”

  “Investments?”

  “A few. Real estate, mostly. But I don’t know much about that side of his finances.” He had all her attention now. “Why are you asking me these things?”

  “There’s a rumor,” Wager emphasized the word, “that he might have been involved in selling votes on his zoning committee. If so, he might have run the money through the furniture company so he could account for it.”

  “No—not Horace.”

  “It’s just a rumor, Miss Andersen. Something I have to check out.”

  “He wouldn’t do that. He didn’t!”

  “You saw nothing like that in the company books?”

  “No. And it would be hard to do—the books are a simple credit and debit system. Income in one column, expenses in the other, and each item noted. I set it up that way when I came in so we could tell what pieces were selling well and which ones weren’t. It’s as much a running inventory as an accounting sheet.” She shook her head again. “There’s no way to bring in any extra money without selling an item.”

  “What about false sales?”

  She thought a moment, diverted from the idea of Green as a crooked politician by the challenge of an accounting problem. “It would be too easy to spot—the invoices: stock numbers and delivery sheets. Just cross-check the invoices with the income record.”

  “Can you tell me anything at all about his real estate investments?”

  “Not much, no. He mentioned them a time or two—he had a lot in Arvada he was going to sell, but it fell through, I think.” She remembered something and it pushed her chin out a bit: “He did tell me once he was worried about being an investor in a group that intended to apply to his committee for a zoning variance, so he bought out of it. He didn’t want any hint of conflict of interest. Does that sound like a man who would sell votes, Officer? I don’t think it does. I know Horace would not do something like that.”

  “Did he need money?”

  “No. I don’t think so. He never said so.”

  And nothing Wager had seen so far indicated the man was living beyond his means, but that was a step that would have to come later: subpoenas for bank records, financial statements, property records—all the documents of one’s financial life that needed probable cause to be opened to investigation. And it was a step he couldn’t take by himself. “Miss Andersen, you say you and Green made love regularly in the afternoons between five and six.”

  “ … Yes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “What?”

  “Where did you go to make love, Miss Andersen? It’s too far to drive down here. Did you stay at the store?”

  “No. The first time … No.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “He had an apartment.” Even in the room’s silence, it was hard to hear her answers.

  “Address?”

  “Centennial Towers. Number ten-fifty-one.”

  That was a large residential complex in lower downtown, one of those clusters of high rises that formed its own courtyard and had commercial space on the first two floors and apartments with individual balconies all the way up to the thirtieth. “Did he rent it for you and him?”

  “No. He had it before we met. He said he used it to get away from the telephones—it was his refuge, he said.” She added, “He needed someplace like that, some place where he could just lie down and listen to nothing but quietness.” Her eyes met Wager’s. “A lot of times we didn’t make love. He just slept. We held each other, we talked, he would rest for a little while.”

  “But not on Wednesday?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “We …” She hesitated, then lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “We made love. I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”

  Wager wasn’t, either, but he knew he wanted to understand this man who was a mixture of saint and sinner as well as a victim of someone’s hatred or fear. “Was it like the other times? Was there anything different about him?”

  She watched the light hairs on her arm flip in a gold blur as her fingers ran slowly up her flesh. “He seemed … wounded.”

  “Wounded? Where?”

  “Not that way—physically. Mentally. It was as if I reassured him in some way. As if I returned something to him. He was very yearning and … tender …” A small sound of irritation. “I don’t know exactly—he didn’t say anything was bothering him. But when we left, he seemed more at peace.”

  “He was worried?”

  “He didn’t tell me what it was; he never liked to bring his troubles there, he said. But something was bothering him. I didn’t want to ask what it was.”

  Wager gave her a few moments, but she said nothing more. “Did you eat supper there?”

  Sonja Andersen was reliving that last day. Wager could see it in the wetness that hovered at the edge of her eyelids. “No.”

  “Did he ever go there with anyone else?”

  “He gave parties there two or three times a year for jobbers or big buyers—he could write most of it off as a business expense that way.”

  Tax-supported fun and games. Why not? That was the meaning of free enterprise. “Did he ever take other women there?”

  The blond ponytail wagged no. “He told me I was the only one who knew about it. It was our space. Only the two of us.”

  Wager wanted to be certain. “His wife didn’t know about it? Or his aide, Julia Wilfong?”

  “They never telephoned him there. No one did.” She added, more to herself than to him, “I should cancel the lease, shouldn’t I? There’s no reason for her to find out about
it now.”

  “It’s in the account books?”

  “Under fixed expenses. Rent.”

  Wager rose and paused to look at the scarlet dots of color tumbling down among the greenness of a plant hanging in the sunlight of a shallow bay window. It was the same kind of plant that his mother used to have in her kitchen window and for some reason he remembered its name: bleeding heart. “Thank you, Miss Andersen. We may have to take a look at the books later. They may be subpoenaed.” He explained, “You won’t want to remove them or alter them in any way.”

  She didn’t answer or stand. On his back, as he closed the door behind him, he could feel her large gray eyes, empty of everything except sadness.

  1004 Hours

  He radioed for a telephone warrant, hoping that a bailiff could find a judge on duty, and get it signed before he reached Centennial Towers. It should be routine, but a lot depended on which judge and what he’d had for breakfast. That was the way of the court many times: Judges expected the police to obey every rule of evidence courts invented, but when it came to providing their help in obeying, a lot of judges were a lot less dedicated. Some cops saw that hypocrisy as anti-police feeling, but Wager didn’t think that was it. To him, it came from arrogance; a judge had the power to tell the law “Do as I say” and that made most of them resent being told the same thing, such as “Sign a warrant.” If they were subject to orders, then they weren’t any better than the people they ordered, and once they got on the bench, damned few of them could stomach that idea.

  The apartment hideaway was something he should have discovered earlier, and he felt a little self-contempt for not thinking of it sooner. What he was thinking of now, of course, was Green’s missing dinner: It could explain the gap between taking Sonie Andersen back to the furniture store and showing up at the Vitaco reception. It could also be the place he went after he left the reception—he, and whoever went there to meet him.