by Ted Wood
He unclasped his hands and laid them on the desk carefully, as if they were evidence in the case. “I am not a stupid man, Bennett, and I don't think you are, either. It occurs to me that someone sent you here to investigate the department.”
He looked at me levelly. I returned his gaze, frowning slightly as if I were puzzled, until he went on. “I know there have been rumors, stories of corruption in town. I've heard them, followed up on them, but never found any substance. Just the anger and hatred that most police departments generate among the criminal fringes of society.”
I shrugged. “Nobody likes cops.”
He suddenly slapped his right hand on the desk startlingly. “But since you came here, everything has escalated.” He stood up again, rigid with anger. “Who sent you, Bennett?”
I sat back, acting startled. “I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I came up here looking for a job and a quiet life. I fill the job description. I do my work, I go home. Now you're talking about conspiracies. You're not making any sense.”
He glared at me, then ticked off on his fingers. “One, you talk to Berger at the hotel and the next thing he's calling and asking me to get you off his back. Two. You arrest young Wilcox, and the next thing I know there's been a very suspicious accident in the mine. Three, you find this whore with a kimono sleeve around her neck and I discover her money in your lunch box.”
It was time to counterattack, before he got too close to the truth. “Okay.” I stood up and shouted at him, “I didn't put that goddamn money in there and I want to know who did. Was it Ferris? And why did Ferris interfere in my meeting with Nunziatta this evening? Why did he give him a gun? And why did he come back here and blow his brains out on the guardroom floor? He's the guy you should be investigating. Have you checked his bank account? Have you ever thought for two seconds that the corruption stories might be true, that maybe your sergeant was ripping off the people in this town? Have you?”
He sat down carefully, as if his bones were very brittle. He looked old and tired. “Yes,” he said softly. “I've thought that, once or twice, but nothing ever substantiated what I was thinking. Sgt. Ferris had enemies. He was too quick to hand out physical punishment, but he was straight. I had tips, anonymous mostly, and when I followed them up there was nothing in them.”
“More than one anonymous call? About the same guy? Didn't that make you suspicious? How many of the other guys were accused?”
“The other men didn't have the same reputation for toughness.” Harding said. He sounded weary.
“He was crooked,” I said angrily. “He gave my gun to some rounder. What's all that about?”
“That's something I intend to find out from our friend Nunziatta,” he said.
“And where do I fit in?”
He sniffed, staring down at his desk. “I am going to make a public statement in the morning saying that Sgt. Ferris's suicide is conclusive proof that you did not take that money and that you are forthwith reinstated.”
“Well thank you for that, chief.”
He nodded, tight-lipped. “We'll have a total housecleaning in this department. You can be in charge of it.”
“Me? What are the other guys going to say?”
“They're going to call you sergeant and do what you tell them.” He grinned briefly, a courtesy.
“You're promoting me?”
“Yes.” He nodded to dismiss any thanks. “You've got the experience. None of these guys could detect a bad smell if they were standing in it. I'm making you the sergeant and giving you the responsibility for digging into whatever it is that Ferris was doing in town.”
I stood up and thrust out my hand, grinning. “Hey, thank you, chief. I'll do the best job you've ever seen.”
“You'd better,” he said, giving my hand a perfunctory shake. “Right now I want you to investigate the killing. Then go over to his house and take it to pieces, find out if he had any money squirreled away, any drugs, anything.”
“I'll need a search warrant.”
“You'll have it.” He was enjoying being decisive. “You've got a free hand.”
“What about Nunziatta? He says he saw Ferris at the Headframe parking lot. He could be lying, he could have seen him here, shot him and then come up to try to shoot me.”
“Work on him as well. I want this whole thing resolved.”
“Yessir.” I nodded. “I'll get on it right away.”
“Good,” he said. “Send Walker in here and start.”
“Right.” I came to attention and turned smartly. If I was his man, I'd better start acting the part.
Walker was in the front office, pecking away on the office typewriter while Nunziatta sat opposite him, smoking and sweating. Walker looked up when I came in. “Heading home?”
“No. I'm back on the job,” I said.
He grinned and stood up. “Hey, great. I didn't think you'd taken that broad's money.”
“Thanks.” I shook hands with him. “The chief wants to see you. I'll baby-sit Frankie until you get back.”
He put his hat on and walked down the corridor. I leaned over the typewriter and checked the statement he was taking. It was essentially the story I had come up with on the spur of the moment. I looked up and found Nunziatta grinning at me. “I got it right?” he queried.
“You're going to have to do better than this, Frank. I want the truth.”
He exploded. “Shit. I was jus’ doin’ like you said, coverin’ your ass.”
“And your own.” I tapped the typewriter. “When Mr. Walker comes back I'm telling him to tear this crap up and start again. This time I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“Where'd you get off ordering me around?”
“You surrendered your license to lie when you took that shot at me,” I said.
“We had a deal,” he spluttered.
“We still do.” I leaned across the desk and smiled into his soul. “That's why you're sitting here instead of on a bench in the cells. But I want the whole truth in that statement. That means you're out of the dope business for keeps.”
He swore and scrubbed his hand over his head, ruffling his hair. “I'll take that wire as well,” I said, holding out my hand.
He opened his shirt and pulled it off his chest, hissing as a chunk of his chest fur came away with the tape. I took the device and stuck it away in my pocket. Then, as he was buttoning his shirt, we heard footsteps in the corridor, and Walker came back, looking startled. He came up and stuck out his hand. “Congratulations, Reid. The chief just told me.”
“Told you what?” Nunziatta asked in a squawk.
“Mr. Bennett is the sergeant here,” Walker said. His voice was high, full of pep, but I could read his bitterness. He was the man who should have got the job, he thought.
“Thanks, Jeff,” I said. “Now I'm going to have a look in the other room. I've had a talk to Mr. Nunziatta and he's going to tell you the truth. You'll need a new statement form; this one is incorrect.”
Walker pulled the paper out of the machine and laid it aside. “Right, sarge,” he said and I grinned.
I left them sitting there and walked back to the guardroom, closing the door. First I went over and crouched by the body, making sure I wasn't obscuring any evidence. The entrance wound had powder burns around it. He had been shot from within inches. It didn't automatically mean he'd done it himself, it just meant that the gun had been close to his head. I squatted lower and peered at the other side of his head. I could see there was massive damage, the kind that would be caused by a hollow point round. I stood up, standing where I thought he must have stood and crouching slightly so I would be the same height as he had been in life, and pointed my finger at my temple. It gave me an approximate entry angle. I stepped over the body and inspected the far wall.
I found the hole, up close to the ceiling, punched through the drywall covering. I made a circle around it with my pencil and walked back to the body, very slowly, looking up at the
ceiling for bloodstains. The ceiling hadn't been painted for a long time and there were flyspecks everywhere, but I saw a few spots that might have been cranial matter and I penciled each of them. There were a few more on the floor, which was waxed every week and was cleaner.
Then I checked the location of the gun. It was lying where it would have fallen from his lifeless hand, blown backwards by the recoil. I didn't touch it but went back down to Harding's office and tapped on the door. He was on the telephone, and he waved me in. “Yes, I'm sorry doctor, but it's an emergency, a fatality. Could you come over right away?”
He waited, then thanked the person at the other end and hung up. “What does it look like?”
“Looks kosher to me, chief. I want to fingerprint the weapon and the rounds, and I'd like permission to dig out a chunk of the guardroom wall.”
“Right. The photographer will be here in a few minutes. Wait until he's taken his pictures before you change anything. Anything else?”
I needed a statement from Walker. After that I wanted to backtrack the sergeant's movements to see if anyone had seen him since he spoke to Nunziatta.
Harding looked startled. “You think Nunziatta did it?”
“It would fit with his having my gun,” I said. “But he's not acting like a guy who just blew a man's brains out. I'm going to talk to him.”
“Lean on him,” Harding said. “I want the truth.”
He waved, dismissing me, and I went out to the front office. Walker looked up. “Is this right? He says Ferris gave him a gun and told him to shoot you.”
“Seems that way.” I stood beside Nunziatta. “What I want to know, Frankie, is where you were between nine o'clock, when you say you got this gun, and eleven, which is when you tried to kill me.”
“I had things to do,” Nunziatta said.
“Like what? A house call in your pharmacy business?”
He shrugged, pursing his lips. “Yeah, well.”
“Where did you go?”
Now he was uncomfortable. “Look, I saw some guys, okay?”
“Which guys, where? In case the thought hasn't crossed your mind, you're the number-one suspect in the death of Sgt. Ferris,” I said.
He stood up, half shouting his answer. “Are you crazy? I told you, I saw him in the parking lot outside the Headframe Hotel. That was two hours before I saw you on the side road. He was alive then, drivin’ his car.”
“We only have your word for that, Frankie, until we check with these customers of yours.”
Walker took over smoothly. “No big deal, Frank. You tell us who you went to see, we check with them, you're in the clear.”
Nunziatta sat and thought for a moment, frowning with the effort. “Yeah, well, I did see a couple guys.”
“Where and when?”
“The first one was outside the community center.”
“What's the guy's name?”
He swallowed hard. “Look, I don't want no trouble.”
“You've already got all the trouble you can handle. Who did you see?”
“Jacques, you know, the guy as runs the place.”
The news surprised me. I wouldn't have expected Jacques to be doing business with Nunziatta. I had pegged him as squarer than that. “What time was this?”
“Around nine-thirty.”
“What took you so long? You could have been there in two minutes.”
“I had to go and pick up the merchandise.”
“Where from?”
“From my stash.” He became excited again. “Listen. Do I have to go over all this?”
“For sure. Where's your stash?”
“Over in the old town.”
“Where exactly in the old town?”
He got cunning again. “Somewhere safe.” He looked up at me with a smug half grin. “You gotta be careful.”
“I told you, you're out of business, Frankie,” I said. “When Mr. Walker is through with this statement he'll go there with you and pick up your supply.”
He opened his mouth to argue but thought better of it and said nothing. I dropped the next question on him. “What did you sell to Jacques?”
“Grass,” he said. “I see him every week. He gets a bag, that's all.”
“Then where'd you go?”
“Out to the mine site.”
“And saw who?”
“Couple guys from my shift in the mine. One's called George, the other one's Vlad. I don’ know their last names.”
“Okay, so you used up about an hour. Where else did you go before you came to see me?”
“I went to the Headframe. I was kind of shook. You know, what he asked me to do an’ all. I had a drink.”
“What time was that?”
He shrugged again and his voice was impatient. “I don't know.”
“Don't give me this macho garbage, Frankie. I was up there when you were crying, ‘don't shoot, please don't shoot me,’ like a kid. You're gutless and we both know it. Just answer the question.”
“Awright. I'm sorry. I don’ know what time I got there. I left at ten to eleven. I know that.”
I stepped back a pace and nodded to Walker. He got up and followed me as I retreated down the corridor into the guardroom. I stopped, out of earshot of Nunziatta, who was straining to hear us. “When you're through with his statement go with him. Pick up his stash, then check with all three of his customers on time and place of their meetings. They'll lie, but tell them you'll search their places and lay charges if they don't talk. Then charge Nunziatta with trafficking and put him in the cells.”
“Right, sarge.” The rank came more easily this time.
I patted him on the shoulder and went into the guardroom. There were still a couple of things to do before I surrendered the body. But first I had to wait for the photographer. He arrived a few minutes later. He was shaken by the sight of Ferris's body, and he didn't say much, but once he got behind his viewfinder he became professional and took the shots I needed. Harding came in and watched the photographer work. He didn't speak. He looked out of his depth. I wondered how much he had depended on Ferris for support.
When the photographer had finished and gone, Harding stayed there, still not speaking, as I blackened Ferris's fingertips and rolled each one on the appropriate place on the page. After that I lifted the gun, using a pencil inserted into the barrel so I wouldn't disturb any prints. It was meaningless, probably. If somebody else had shot him they would have wiped it down. Otherwise I would find his prints.
A few minutes later the doctor arrived, the same man who had attended the strangled woman.
He looked at me oddly. “I thought you were suspended,” he said.
“Not anymore,” I said, and the chief came alive suddenly and explained for me.
“In case you're wondering what's happening, doctor, I believe that Sgt. Ferris was responsible for the attack on that woman, last night. When she survived, I think he panicked and did this to himself. In the meantime, the charges against Officer Bennett have been dropped and he is reinstated with promotion to sergeant.”
The doctor grinned and gave me his hand. “Glad to hear that, sergeant. My wife is attending the drama class your wife's started. She was very upset when she heard you'd been suspended.”
“Thanks. So was I.”
He nodded, tightly, indicating that playtime was over, then crouched by Ferris's body, looking at the head injury as far as he could without moving anything. “Well, he's dead. They don't come any deader.”
“Thank you, doctor. If your men can move him, please. There'll be an inquest.”
He smiled wryly. “More work.”
“That your job, too?”
“There's only two of us on staff at the hospital, and I'm the senior man.”
“How are you with forensics, doctor?”
“I'm no expert, but I know the fundamentals.”
“Good. Can you test his hand for me, please? See if there's any powder traces on it.”
He narrowed his ey
es. “Don't you think he shot himself?”
“Routine,” I said, for the chief's benefit. “I'd like to be sure.”
He stood back, motioning down the corridor to the ambulance attendants. They came in and looked at the body. One of them was young and hip with his hair long enough to cover his ears and his cap tipped sideways. The other one was older and squarer. They were startled when they recognized the body, but only the younger one spoke. “Well, well,” he said knowingly.
We all watched as they loaded Ferris into a body bag and put the bundle on their gurney. As they trundled it out I turned to the doctor. “How soon do you think you can check the powder deposits, doc?”
He sucked his teeth, thinking. “The materials have to be flown in from the forensics center in Toronto. I won't be able to do anything until they arrive.”
I nodded. “If you would do it when you can, please, we need to know.” I was sorry he didn't have the materials at hand. It would have been good to test both the chief and Walker as well as the corpse.
He left and I got out my pocketknife and chipped away the drywall around the bullet hole. I was lucky. The stud was right behind it and the bullet was embedded in the soft pine. I cut it out and put the bullet in an evidence bag for comparison with the shells in Ferris's gun. Then I stuck the bag in my pocket and turned to the chief, who was still watching me, doing nothing, like any spectator at an accident. He was not acting the way a policeman, especially a senior officer, should act. He seemed empty, useless.
“I'm going to backtrack the sergeant's movements since nine,” I said. “Walker is going to take Nunziatta over to pick up his drugs and question some guys he dealt with tonight. I'll radio from wherever I get to if I need help.”
Harding pulled himself together. “Right. Will you need extra men?”
“Who's available?”
“Levesque is off at midnight. I can keep him on if you need him.”
“Thanks, chief. I'll let you know.”
I put my parka back on and took the keys to one of the cars from the board, nodded at Harding and left.
The first thing I did was drive home to give Fred a two-minute update. She was anxious. “You've been ages,” she said, holding me. “What happened?”
