Silent Son

by Gallatin Warfield

  “And in what capacity?”

  “Undercover shoplift patrol.”

  Gardner opened a plastic bag and pulled out a dark blue pair of pants. “Let me show you this item, and ask if you can identify it?”

  The witness took the pants, and looked at a dangling tag. “It’s one of ours. Sportswear.”

  Gardner slowly walked back to his table. “Can you be more specific?”

  “Cran Mart’s.”

  Gardner rubbed his neck. “More specific than that?”

  “Crandall Market, Incorporated, trading as Cran Mart.”

  “Thank you.” Gardner’s mind was wandering again. Now he was at Bowers Corner, the last time he had taken Granville to see the rabbits. “Uh, can you tell the court when you last saw that item?”

  “On March fourth, a customer placed this pair of pants in a shopping bag and left the store.”

  Gardner was still watching Granville and the rabbit in his mind.

  “Uh, was there any attempt to pay for the item?”

  “No, sir.”

  The rabbit was kicking, and Granville was holding on for dear life.

  “Uh, what was the value of the item?”

  “Thirty-nine ninety-five.”

  “And there was no attempt to pay?”

  “None, sir.”

  Gardner leaned back in his chair, and placed both hands over his eyes. The images were still coming on strong. “And you apprehended the customer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gardner leaned forward and scanned the report. “Uh, and he, uh, he confessed to taking the pants?”

  “Yes, sir, he did. Said he’d like to pay for them after he got caught, but I told him it was too late.”

  Gardner ran his finger down the report. “Uh, and the item, again… the item was the property of whom?”

  “Cran Mart.”

  The prosecutor glared scornfully at the witness.

  “Sorry. Crandall Market, Incorporated, trading as Cran Mart.”

  “Thank you.” There was a long silence.

  “Anything more, Mr. Lawson?” Judge Danforth asked impatiently.

  “Uh, no sir. Your witness.” He glanced at the PD.

  The ingenue stood up. “No questions, Your Honor.” She was smiling broadly.

  “Any other witnesses, State?”

  Gardner checked his notes. “Uh, no. No other witnesses. We rest.”

  The assistant PD was on her feet in a flash. “Motion for judgment of acquittal, Your Honor!” Her expression was one of triumph.

  “Grounds, Counsel?”

  The PD’s smile broadened. “There has been no identification of the defendant as the person who took the goods, Judge. That’s an essential element, and it’s missing.”

  Gardner suddenly woke up. She was right. That detail had been omitted. It was something a good prosecutor never left out, but today he had.

  “Response, Mr. Lawson?” Danforth knew it was all over, but he wanted to give Gardner a chance to pull it out.

  “Uh, there was, uh, an implied ID…” Gardner stuttered.

  “There must be an actual, unequivocal identification, or the case fails,” the PD interjected smugly.

  Danforth nodded, and the prosecutor knew it was no use. An identification is the cornerstone of conviction. Without it, the prosecution is dead.

  “Motion granted,” Danforth said solemnly. “Case dismissed.”

  Gardner rose and extended his hand to the public defender. “Nice job,” he said without enthusiasm.

  She smiled. “Thank you.” After all she had heard about Gardner, it was too easy. This was definitely not the man she had expected.

  The prosecutor gathered his books and slowly walked toward the door. He pushed through it and left the courtroom. He’d quit the Bowers case because he couldn’t be objective. And now the malaise had spread to everything else.

  IV Starke sat on the bed and punched a set of numbers into his cordless phone. His dorm room was of standard boarding school dimensions: short in length, shorter in width, a warren for sleeping and studying, and not much more. But IV’s was opulent in its decor, decorated with fancy curtains, bedspread, and pillows, with a state-of-the-art sound system, computer, television, VCR, and leather easy chair. And of course, there was a telephone.

  The other students had to use the pay phones in the lower hallways of their dormitories. The rules were strict in that regard. But IV’s father, a wealthy contributor to the annual fund, had suggested that they be set aside for his son. And thus IV became the only kid in town with his own private communications network.

  The line buzzed, and a female voice answered.

  “Maria, this is IV, let me speak to Dad.”

  A moment later, Wellington Starke came on the line. “IV?” There was a hint of concern in his tone.

  “It’s me.”

  “Haven’t heard from you for a while.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “On schoolwork?”

  “Uh-huh.” IV wanted to get right to the point. He knew his dad was going to bust an artery when he got the news, so he figured he’d get it over with. “Uh, Dad, I might get put on suspension…”

  Wellington Starke took a deep breath. “Suspension?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why, son?” He was trying to control his anger.

  “Uh, had a problem at the skeet meet. They say I threatened one of the judges.”

  Another deep breath on the phone. “Did you?”

  “No!” IV raised his voice. “Those creeps tried to disqualify me!”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Nothing!”

  “They don’t suspend for nothing, IV,” his dad replied. “You must have done something.”

  “All I did was suggest it might not be a good idea to keep me out of the meet.”

  “That’s all?” Wellington knew there was more.

  “Well, I was sort of holding a shotgun at the time.”

  “Oh God!”

  “They said I pointed it at the chief judge, but I didn’t! I swear! They just wanted me out because they knew I was gonna win!”

  The deep breaths were coming faster over the line. “When are they going to make their decision?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Headmaster Charles is having a meeting with the athletic association. If those guys push it, Mr. Charles says they’re gonna have to bust me.” There was a plea in IV’s voice.

  “Okay, okay, okay.” His father let out a long, plaintive sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Okay, okay.” Wellington Starke sounded weary from the conversation.

  “Oh, yeah, Dad. There is one more thing.”

  Silence on the other end.

  “I’m gonna need some money.”

  “You got your trust check this week.”

  “I know, but—”

  “My God, son, it’s ten thousand dollars!”

  “I know, Dad, but—”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve spent it all!”

  “I need some more.”

  “How much?” The exasperation became resignation.

  “Twenty.”

  “Twenty?”

  “Yeah, Dad. I’m on the hook. I need another twenty grand.”

  There was no reply, but it didn’t matter. The old man was going to come through. He huffed and puffed, but he always came through. What else was he going to do? Say no to his namesake?

  IV told his father good-bye and hung up. He smiled, and thought about tomorrow. If things took their normal course, his problems would soon be solved.

  Granville was on the floor of the therapist’s office, and Gardner was again watching through the one-way glass. Nancy Meyers had tried to run the routine again: small talk, playtime, and drawing. Granville was still taciturn and uncooperative, not interested in talking, not interested in toys, not interested in drawing. They were nearing the end of the session, and nothing had been accomplished.


  “Here,” Meyers said. “Take this and draw me a nice picture.” She handed Granville the pad that he’d previously rejected. “1 hear you’re a great artist. That’s what your dad and mom told me.”

  She was right, Gardner thought. The boy had some talent. He stayed within the lines in his coloring books, and his freehand sketches were remarkably able.

  Granville took the pad across his knees, and scraped his pencil across the page.

  “Good!” Meyers exclaimed.

  Granville then crossed back with another line.

  “Okay!” Meyers said. At least he was drawing something.

  Suddenly Granville’s hand began moving rapidly, and he scribbled up and down the page.

  “Good, good,” the therapist cheered.

  Granville was drawing furiously now, and Gardner strained to make out the image.

  Finally, he put the pad down and crossed his arms.

  “Bravo!” Meyers chanted.

  Gardner looked at the marks on the page, nothing but a bunch of meaningless scrawls. Elliptical lines that went around and around a central point, then crossed over one another.

  “What is it?” Nancy Meyers said.

  Granville shrugged his shoulders.

  Gardner studied the page. The drawing looked like a jumbled attempt at an atom symbol. Nothing coherent about it at all. What was Granville trying to say?

  The crime laboratory at police headquarters was equipped with most of the modern devices that forensic scientists had developed in recent years. There was a fingerprint classification computer, a chemical substance analysis kit, a digital breathalizer, a high-power microscope, and a wide assortment of eavesdropping, wiretapping, and long-range surveillance gear.

  Brownie had put in a requisition every time a new gizmo came on the market, and, in deference to him, the department usually came through with the funds. His latest toy was a laser latent fingerprint reader. With it, prints that were invisible to traditional collection methods miraculously materialized under the intense light beam. He’d only had it a short time, but so far it had been used to solve a drive-by shooting and a string of commercial burglaries.

  He had already dusted the dented soup can from Bowers Corner with the black powder that would cling to the skin oils left behind. That’s what a latent print really was. A residue of body oil in the shape of the ruts and ridges on the end of the finger. The powder adhered to the oil, and the print emerged. But sometimes the touch was so brief, or the amount of oil so slight, that the powder didn’t cling. When that happened, the old method was useless. The only other hope for developing the print was the laser.

  Brownie placed the can in the chamber and sealed the lid. Then he dimmed the overhead light and adjusted the eyepiece on the machine. Finally he triggered the switch, and a whirring sound emitted from the cylindrical unit as the laser powered up. Zap. Zap. Zap. The beam pulsed against the can. Searching. Probing. At each pulse, a simultaneous macro photograph was snapped. Zap. Zap. Zap. The can rotated on an internal turntable, so the beam could reach every square inch of the can. Finally, the circular motion stopped, the zap, zap, zap quieted, and the whirring sound cut off. The procedure was complete.

  Brownie withdrew the film canister and placed it on the table. The person who removed the bullet at the Bowers’ had to have touched the can. There was no way to get to the wall without pushing it aside. If the laser did its job, it would not be long before he had a print. And then, all he had to do was put a face with the wobbly lines.

  “Brownie!”

  The officer turned and greeted Jennifer as she entered the lab. She was dressed in her field outfit of jeans and a light jacket.

  “Ready?” she asked. They were supposed to review the Bowers evidence, then drive to the crime scene.

  “Give me a minute, okay?” Brownie asked, as he walked the laser-print film over to the closet-sized darkroom. “Let me set these in here, and then we can get started.”

  Jennifer said okay and walked over to an examination table against the wall. Brownie had laid out the bullet fragments on a white cardboard sheet. Uneven and splintered, there was no semblance of a cone shape, but Brownie had tried to piece them together to get an idea of the overall dimensions.

  “Really strange,” Brownie said suddenly over her shoulder. “Never seen a bullet like that. Not in today’s market.”

  Jennifer leaned in to get a clearer look.

  “Too much lead there,” Brownie continued. “More than a .357 I’d say. And look at that.” He poked a long twisted splinter with the point of a pencil. “That’s an old chunk of metal.” He emphasized “old” as if it had some special significance. “Museum piece.”

  Jennifer turned and faced Brownie. “What does it mean?”

  “It means that it didn’t come from an ordinary gun. No way. Came from something special, a unique piece of weaponry…”

  Jennifer’s eyes blinked behind her glasses. “What kind, Brownie?”

  “Don’t know. Not yet… But I’m workin’ on it.”

  They walked to the center table and sat down. Brownie had laid out the police reports, the autopsy photos, and the pictures he had taken of Roscoe Miller the night he was picked up. Together, they went over each item, and Brownie summarized his conclusions as they went along.

  It had been a preplanned hit. Although it had the appearance of a robbery, there was no money taken. Addie and Henry’s inventory records were so poor they couldn’t be sure if any merchandise was missing. The shotguns and shells appeared to have been disturbed, but they couldn’t say for certain if any of those items were removed. The shells in Roscoe’s truck were run-of-the-mill 12 gauges. They could have come from anywhere, and without a serial number inventory list they could not be traced to the store. Brownie had checked the numbers on the boxes at Bowers and compared them to the tracking numbers on Miller’s shells. They were from a totally different series. The method of execution was professional. Clean. Deliberate. But there were some amateurish elements, such as allowing the perimeter to be penetrated by a child. This had led to the two-man theory.

  Brownie was about to continue when Jennifer stopped him. “Motive,” Jennifer said. “What was the motive?”

  Brownie shifted in his seat. “Been working on that. I tried to get bank records, but the Bowers apparently never used one…”

  Jennifer showed surprise. “No bank?”

  “No. Not as far as I could tell. Couldn’t find any record of an account.”

  “So they only used cash…” Jennifer’s mind was racing.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Maybe they saved some. Kept it at the store…”

  “Could have.”

  “And someone knew it, and killed them for it.”

  Brownie frowned his wide forehead. “That’s where I have a problem. If they were saving money they wouldn’t have kept it in the store. At least not downstairs. This thing went off too fast. The killers were in and out. Nothing upstairs was touched, and there wasn’t enough time to do everything and still grab the money.”

  “So maybe they left it, and came back later.” Jennifer was making notes as she talked.

  Brownie’s thoughts suddenly jumped to the hole in the wall above the shelf. “Well, somebody went back.” He then filled Jennifer in on the midnight visit to the store, the hole, the can, and the laser machine.

  “So we have a shot at a fingerprint!”

  “If Speedo over there is working properly,” Brownie answered, jerking his thumb toward the laser. “We’ll know as soon as the photos come out.”

  “How much money do you think they had?” Jennifer asked suddenly.

  “Don’t jump too fast, Jennifer,” Brownie warned. “We don’t know for sure if they had any. That store was not exactly a money machine.”

  “But it’s the only possible motive,” she argued.

  “So far,” Brownie replied. “There could be something else.”

  Jennifer picked up one of Roscoe Miller’s pictur
es. “So how does he fit in?”

  Brownie scowled. “He’s the shooter. I know it. Worthless piece of—”

  He caught Jennifer staring, “Uh, excuse me, Jennifer, I just—”

  Brownie stopped talking. He was a tough, almost nerveless cop. He cussed and spit, and fought, and got down and dirty with the best of them. But with women, he was a gentleman.

  “If Gard were here, you’d say it,” Jennifer continued. “But I’m running this case. He put me in charge. Now do me the favor of treating me the same way you’d treat him.”

  Brownie’s magic smile exploded on his face. “Piece of shit!” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, breaking into a grin. “Now let’s get back to work.”

  They spent another hour outlining the evidence, discussing Miller’s tentative ID by Jenneane Dorey on the day of the murder, why he might be riding in the back of his truck instead of up front, and his clammed-up attitude from the moment Brownie had first accosted him. “I know Miller did it,” Brownie said. “I just can’t prove it yet. Even a positive ID by Jenneane Dorey doesn’t put him at the scene, only near it. We’ve gotta get something more specific. Like Roscoe flashing a handful of money…”

  “So we’re back to the money again,” Jennifer said wistfully. “What’s your plan on that?”

  Brownie flipped a page on his note pad. “Put out a teletype… check if any of the local jurisdictions have seen Roscoe with cash. Ask around the neighborhood… Tomorrow I’m meeting with the nephew, Purvis Bowers. He was Henry and Addie’s accountant. He’s gotta know about their finances.”

  “Sounds good,” Jennifer said in a distracted voice. She had just focused on one of Roscoe’s photos. “Why did you take this one, Brownie?” It was a closeup of his hand, showing an evil-looking skull-and-bones tattoo across the wrist.

  Brownie picked up the glossy print and studied it. “Bastard claimed I beat him up, but look—not a scratch.”

  Jennifer was still staring at the skull.

  “Ugly damn thing, isn’t it?”

  “Charming,” Jennifer said

  Brownie picked up the photo. “Jennifer, if you saw something like that for the first time, you think you might remember it?”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “Me too. Sucker sticks out like a neon sign.”