False Witness

by Scott Cook

  The men looked uncomfortable. Trinh put on his theatrical smile again. “They just stopped by to say hello. They’re not staying.”

  “But you are,” Crowe interjected. “Another pint for both of us.”

  “No, really,” said Trinh.

  “I insist,” said Crowe. He smiled at the blonde. “And bring the tab to him.”

  Trinh laughed heartily as the girl left with their order, then stopped abruptly as soon as she was inside. “So I told my brother about it. I said it was a chance for him to make some money for his bastard.”

  “Which you would administer, of course.”

  Trinh’s smile was genuine this time. “Call it a management fee.”

  “And it never occurred to you that this was out of the ordinary? A woman phoning you up out of the blue to offer you a hundred grand to have a prison inmate killed? The day after that inmate’s associate murdered Chuck Palliser and Richie Duff in an extremely ugly fashion?”

  “She said you – you personally, Mr. Crowe, not the Wild Roses – had made a huge mistake. That the police would be watching you so closely from that moment on that it would be child’s play to swoop in and take over your distribution network. Not your cooks, of course, because they were in the wind as soon as Hodge was arrested. But eventually they will surface, looking for work. And your dealers have been scrounging for nine months now. They are desperate for product.”

  “And all you needed to do was take out Hodge.”

  “Again, Mr. Crowe, business. The idea was sound. If it worked, the Dragons would become unstoppable. If it didn’t, I still had twenty thousand in cash. There is no way to lose in that scenario.”

  “Unless, of course, you count your brother being killed as a loss.”

  Trinh scowled. “My brother was an idiot. That’s why he ended up in prison. The world is a better place without him. There are many more Dragons in the Badlands who can take over operations inside.”

  Crowe chuckled. “I’m pretty sure my boss will have something to say about that.”

  “It’s no matter. What happens in the Badlands is insignificant.”

  “So nothing more about the woman? An accent? Speech impediment? Particular slang?”

  Trinh pooched his lips out in concentration. “Her voice sounded very confident. Assertive. Like a woman who could handle herself.”

  Crowe sat back, bemused. He didn’t want to allow himself to think too hard about who that sounded like; not just yet. “Nothing else?”

  “I truly am sorry. This woman has also caused me a great deal of trouble.”

  The waitress arrived with their beers. Unibrow and Hairy Arms had migrated to a designated smoking area nearby. Crowe raised his glass in a toast. “To cooperation,” he said.

  Trinh touched his glass to Crowe’s. “Yes.”

  They both drank deeply. As he did, Crowe surreptitiously pushed the toe of his right boot into the heel of his left, concealing the triangular blade once more with a quiet snik. After a few moments, both men had drained their glasses and Trinh looked down between his legs. Apparently satisfied, he stood up, took a pair of well-used twenties from his wallet and dropped them on the table.

  Crow smiled. “I was kidding about the tab.”

  “Think of it as a gesture of good will. When you find this woman, I would ask that you consider leaving something for me.”

  “I won’t make any promises, but I’ll keep it in mind. One last thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Where did she make the cash drop?”

  Trinh thought a moment. “Behind a toilet in the men’s room of Saigon Palace. Do you know it?”

  Shit. He couldn’t help but think about it now. “Yeah,” he said heavily. “I know it. Thanks.”

  The two men parted company with a silent nod. Unibrow and Hairy Arms rejoined their boss and headed towards the parking lot behind the market. When they were out of sight, Crowe called Digger on his cell and told him to stand down. Then he hit a number in his contact list. It rang twice before being answered by a cheery woman.

  “Ledger, Larson and Manning,” she chimed. “How may I help you?”

  “Stella, it’s Jason Crowe,” he said. “Is Diane in?”

  “Well hello, handsome,” the woman purred. “Sorry, Ms. Manning’s out right now. She’s just up the street grabbing a late lunch at the Saigon Palace.”

  Shit, he thought bitterly. Shit, shit, shit.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sam had only known Mickey Horvath for a few minutes, and the guy already put his teeth on edge. He and Tess were barely through the door of Horvath’s office at Stampede Security – really just a wood-paneled hole in the wall at the back of an old strip mall in Chinatown – before the old bastard had Sam’s back up.

  “Am I gettin paid for this?” Horvath asked. He was in his sixties, with thinning white hair, a round body, and almost laughably skinny legs for his size. Sam thought he resembled a bowling ball with two pencils stuck in it. He motioned Sam and Tess towards a pair of folding chairs in front of his desk. The air conditioner in the window chugged and wheezed, as if to argue against the fact that Sam felt nothing but punishing heat in the room. “I heard some newspapers pay for interviews.”

  Sam opened his mouth, but Tess beat him to the punch, which was good, because what Sam was going to say might have shut things down before they began. “I’m afraid not.” Her sweet smile suggested she was just as sad to tell Horvath the news as he was to hear it. “It’s mostly the British tabloids that do things that way, and their circulation is about twenty times the Chronicle’s.”

  Horvath laced thick fingers over his expansive belly. “Huh,” he intoned, his voice oddly soft for such a large man. Dull eyes sized up his guests from deep inside his fleshy face. “Too bad. So whaddaya want from me?”

  Tess gave Sam a look that said It’s your show, but watch your step. He knew that much; they were on paper-thin ice this afternoon, and the slightest misstep could blow the whole plan. Horvath looked and sounded dumb, but he was still ex-RCMP, and they had better respect that if they didn’t want him to phone up Bob Shippobotham to complain about two reporters wasting his time, sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. If he did, Ship would start asking questions that they didn’t want to answer.

  Sam withdrew a spiral notebook and a pen from the breast pocket of his shirt. “Mr. Horvath,” he began.

  “Call me Mickey.”

  “Mickey it is, then.” He smiled and glanced at Tess. See, I can drip honey, too. “Mickey, we’re interested in some information you might have on the Tom Ferbey murder case.”

  Horvath’s eyes betrayed nothing. “What about it?”

  “Nothing sinister,” Sam chuckled. “No, we’re just looking at double-checking all our facts, sort of creating a timeline of events for that night.”

  “Cops already did that. Part of their case in the trial.”

  “Yes sir, they did. We’re just looking to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Accuracy is important in the newspaper game. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, especially on social media. Unfortunately, the police don’t consult with us on everything; we have to live on what they feed us, unless we hunt it down ourselves. I’m sure you understand, being a law enforcement man yourself.”

  “Huh,” Horvath said again. It seemed to be his catch-all phrase. “I was strictly small town, a county Mountie. I never talked to reporters. That was the commanding officer’s job.”

  Yeah, Sam thought. And I bet you spent many a Saturday night busting heads, too. He had grown up outside a small town, and was all too familiar with Horvath’s type. “Okay, well, we just wanted to run a few things by you and then we’ll get out of your hair.” He made a show of flipping the pages in his notebook. “So, Tom Ferbey completed his patrol log at the Highland Storage Yard up until nine p.m. the night of the murder, correct?”

  “Yeah. I told the cops that. They took his log book for evidence.”

  “And you’re positive th
at he actually completed his rounds?”

  “What’re you sayin?”

  “Just curious.” Sam raised his hands. “Police said there are no security cameras at the facility, so if Mr. Ferbey didn’t walk his rounds, you wouldn’t know. Is that correct?”

  “You sayin Tom was sleepin on the job?” There was a shadow of consternation on Horvath’s face now. “My guys don’t sleep on the job. I’ll fuckin fire em if they do.”

  “Of course you will,” said Tess. “And we would never accuse Tom of such a thing. We were just wondering if there was any way to prove that Tom made his rounds that night, other than his say-so in the log book. I imagine your clients wonder the same thing when they hire your firm.”

  Horvath settled back in his chair. “Damn right we do. We use watchmen’s clocks.”

  Sam lifted his eyebrows. “And that is…?”

  “A box that the guards carry. There’s eight keys hangin from chains at different spots around the Highland. The guards have to insert every key into the clock box and turn it. It makes a time stamp on a piece of tape inside the box to prove they been there. At the end of the shift, they’re supposed to take the tape out and staple it to their log sheet.”

  Sam and Tess exchanged a glance. “This is the first we’re hearing about any tape,” Sam said warily. “I don’t recall seeing anything like that presented as evidence when I covered the trial.”

  Horvath’s beady eyes narrowed. “No, you didn’t, cause the cops never took it. It was still inside the clock. Tom still had three hours left in his shift when he was shot, so he never got the chance to take it out put it in the log book. I found the box on the path by the storage unit that blew up.”

  “Huh,” said Sam. Great, now I’m doing it. “Why do you think the police didn’t take it?”

  “Why would they?” Horvath was definitely affronted now. “I woulda given it to em if they’d asked, but they didn’t. Anyone coulda taken the clock around the place and turned the keys. Tom’s logbook was written in his own handwriting, which I’m pretty sure some expert verified in the trial.”

  Tess stepped in again, but not before flashing a subdued scowl at Sam. “Mickey, we are positive that your organization is completely professional, and that you cooperated fully with the authorities.”

  “Damn right I did.”

  “Again, we’re just trying to get our facts straight. Did you personally look at the clock tape for the night that Mr. Ferbey was killed?”

  Horvath, who had been leaning so far back in his dilapidated office chair that Sam thought it would surely break and send him flying to the floor, stopped cold. Slowly, Horvath leaned forward in the chair and placed a meaty hand on his mouth. His little eyes darted around the room as if searching for something.

  “I,” he said, then stopped. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “I don’t think I did.”

  Sam took the opportunity to get back into the fat man’s good graces. “Mickey, we’re not here to point fingers. And all this is off the record. Anything we talk about stays between us.”

  “Yeah?” Horvath looked like a child who didn’t quite believe he got away with filching a cookie. “Off the record, huh?”

  “Absolutely. This isn’t even for a story, Mickey. It’s for our own purposes. Just double checking our facts.”

  Sam thought he saw Horvath relax a bit, so he picked up the questioning from Tess. “Is there any chance we could see the tape? Just out of curiosity.”

  “Yeah, I’m curious myself now,” said Horvath, hoisting his bulk out of the chair and carrying it on those ridiculous legs to an adjoining room filled with cardboard boxes labeled Palliser Distilleries. Apparently that was Stampede Security’s filing system. “I left the clock in a drawer back here. Lemme get it.”

  As Horvath rummaged, Tess leaned over to whisper in Sam’s ear. The scent of her perfume was maddening. “What are you hoping to get out of this?”

  “I have no idea,” he whispered back.

  “We better make sure the cops don’t get wind of this.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, Sam thought, as Horvath waddled back into the room. He placed a black plastic box, about the size of a woman’s wallet, on the desk in front of them and sat down. Then he slid a small brass key into a hole in the cover of the box and turned it. The box popped open, revealing a geared mechanism inside next to a roll of white tickertape. Horvath reached in and unspooled the tape towards him, tilting his head back to squint at the tiny red lettering on it. Sam half expected the man’s tongue to pop out between his teeth.

  “Huh,” said Horvath. “Well, that’s weird.”

  The reporters spoke as one: “What’s weird?”

  Horvath looked up at them. His eyes looked to Sam like buttons in the face of an overstuffed doll. “The last time stamp is at 7:12 p.m.”

  He turned the tape towards Sam and Tess for their inspection, as if he needed them to verify the information. Sam saw the little red digits for himself: 19:12. He looked at Tess; she gave him a facial shrug. Don’t look at me, hotshot, this was your idea.

  “Did Tom ever miss his clock rounds before that night?” Sam asked.

  Horvath shook his head. “Never. Anybody did, they’d be shitcanned, unless they had a helluva good excuse.”

  Getting shot point blank in the head sounds like a helluva good excuse. Sam didn’t know what to think of this new twist, except that it added another layer to his theory that something was out of whack with Tom Ferbey’s murder, at least in the official story that was presented at trial. The more he thought about it, the more questions whispered to him: Why would Tom fill in his logs but not make his rounds, especially when he knew it was a firing offense? What happened between seven and nine o’clock that night? And what did it have to do with the man who called Dunn, pretending to be Tom Ferbey?

  Tess saw the wheels spinning in Sam’s head, so she spoke to keep Horvath from noticing, too. “Well, I guess we’ll never know the answer, will we? The only person who could tell us is dead.”

  Horvath’s chair groaned in protest as he sat back down. He looked pensive. “Maybe I should tell the cops about it.”

  Sam’s eyes widened; Tess beat him to the punch again. “I don’t really see the point,” she said, tossing her auburn mane as she leaned towards Horvath. “I mean, Rufus Hodge is in prison for the rest of his life. I can’t imagine it would make any difference to anyone. Why rock the boat?”

  “Mm,” said Horvath. The man has made grunting into poetry, Sam thought. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t wanna throw a wrench into things.” He raised a sausage finger and wagged it at Sam and Tess. “That Chuck Palliser was a helluva cop. Helluva cop. Made this city safer for the rest of us, you know?”

  Tess smiled. “I’m sure you did the same for the communities you served, Mickey.”

  Horvath shook his head. “Nuh. Nothin ever happened out in the boonies. Broke up bar fights, pulled over speeders. Searched for missing people once in awhile. Palliser was different. He was the kinda cop you see on TV, with the car chases and shootouts. Goddam shame what happened to him.”

  If Chuck Palliser was such a great cop, why didn’t he know about the clock tape? And why didn’t he figure out that Dunn’s phone calls from Tom Ferbey had been fakes? Sam felt a twinge of guilt over his cynicism, but the questions still itched in his mind.

  Whatever the answers were, he doubted he’d find them here. He stood up and extended his hand. “I think that’s all we need, Mickey,” he said. “We really appreciate your time and effort for us today.”

  Horvath took the offered hand and shook it once. He did the same with Tess. “I appreciate you keepin things to yourselves.”

  Tess beamed. “Absolutely, Mickey. As far as Sam and I are concerned, we were never here, and you never opened that clock.”

  “All right, then.” Horvath escorted them to the door. “See ya.”

  As they left the office and entered the alley, Sam was sure he could hear the clink of glass thro
ugh Stampede Security’s open window, and the sound of liquid being poured.

  #

  “Well, he was a real spitfire.”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Tess said mildly as they emerged from the alley onto the streets of Chinatown. “He might not win Miss Congeniality, but he gave us something we can use. And he’s not going to rat us out, which I think we can both agree is a very good thing.”

  She looked ridiculously cool in her silk blouse and knee-length skirt, as if she had a force field to protect her from the hammering sun. Sam, who looked as rumpled and wilted as he felt, wondered how she did it.

  They ducked into a little café to escape the heat in actual air conditioning. Sam ordered an iced coffee while Tess ordered hot green tea.

  “Hot tea on a day like today?”

  “Don’t you know that hot drinks cool you down?”

  A sarcastic retort came to mind, but Sam held his tongue. He was sweating, she wasn’t – who was he to argue? They sat in silence as they waited for their drinks, basking in the A/C. They had both taken the week off, which was fine with Bob Shippobotham; news took a vacation in the summer, just like everyone else. Tess’s coverage of the mayoral race wouldn’t heat up until the end of August, and the crime beat had been quiet as a corpse lately. Except, of course, for Tom Ferbey’s corpse; it seemed to have quite a lot to say these days.

  Even the so-called tip Darcy Flowers had given him about Hodge’s days being numbered turned out to be a bust. Sam thought either the cop or his “inside guy” had been full of shit; maybe both. The “hit” turned out to be nothing more than a prison brawl. Sure, it had left Billy Trinh dead, but Trinh was no media darling. Hodge’s death would have been front page; Trinh’s barely warranted the second page of the local news section. Sam figured Trinh’s killer had been a nobody trying to make a name for himself inside by taking on two big guns, and ended up in a coma for his troubles. Whatever the case was, Hodge was still alive and well. The story was nothing more than a brief interview with the Badlands’ official spokesman – which was standard operating procedure when it came to almost all incidents within its walls – and some background about the Hodge case. Ten inches of copy, which took him less than an hour to research and write. As far as he knew, only a couple of the wire affiliates had even picked up the story.