Private Heat

by Robert E. Bailey

  He gave it up and laughed. After a minute or so, he made another run at it. “I hoped you was the guy that done that cop. I wanted to shake your hand, man.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Well, you know,” he said. “Cops, they get mean-ass.”

  “We have to have cops, man. We couldn’t operate an orderly society without them.”

  “Yeah, but they got an attitude!”

  “It takes a certain mindset to be a policeman, but who else you gonna call?”

  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

  “Yeah, well, I done my girlfriend, man,” he said in a whisper. “I done her with a knife ’cause she was comin’ at me. Man, I was hopin’, you know, like if you done that cop, you could tell me what to say.”

  “You want some advice on how to put a homicide in the best possible light?”

  “I need to make it sound righteous.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” I said and turned my head to fix his eyes directly. “Specifically, I have never considered the idea of how to murder someone, and then make it sound righteous.”

  “Oh.” He looked like someone had just strangled his kitty.

  “I do have some advice,” I said, “though I doubt that you would find it helpful.”

  “Yeah?” he whispered and put his head down close to mine. “Anything, man, anything you can tell me.”

  “Tell the truth,” I said. “Confession is good for the soul.”

  He curled a lip. “Fuck you!”

  I closed my eyes and turned my head back.

  “I should beat your ass,” he said.

  “You’re not going to do that,” I said, “because if I even mention the word ‘s-n-i-t-c-h,’ your life will be very short and real exciting.”

  He stood up, walked over to the bars, and stuck his arms into the hallway.

  It took less than five minutes by my reckoning. You can’t see a clock from the cell. A guard came and called a name. My conversationalist walked over to the inside door, and they took him away. My guess is that old Bert and Ernie didn’t have quite the handle on the case that they had led their boss to believe.

  A while later Sheila came back. “Hardin, you’re up,” she said with a smile.

  I sat up, pulled on my boots, stretched my cement-kinked back, and shrugged into my jacket.

  “What time is it?” one of the three street dealers asked.

  “You have another appointment?” she asked.

  “Yeah, honey,” he said, “how about an appointment with you?”

  “Your only appointment is with the judge,” she answered.

  I went to the door and Sheila let me out.

  “I done see’d da judge,” he said, “and she ug-lee.”

  The three laughed.

  “You like me so much,” said Sheila, “maybe you’ll be here for dinner. We still have some of those egg salad sandwiches.”

  “They nasty. I wants to bees’ at county for dinner.”

  “Then mind your manners,” said Sheila.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. They laughed some more.

  Cox waited for me at the intake desk. He’d shed his jacket and his holster, a rakish leather “jackass” rig, hung empty. I don’t know the origin of the name, but it’s a holster in which the pistol is carried upside down—all the better for a quick draw, I suppose. Mostly I figured you had to be a jackass to walk around with a pistol aimed at your own armpit all day.

  Cox had a folder in one hand and a ring of keys in the other. I followed his lead, off through a tunnel and up to an elevator. He used the keys to open the door. One floor up and we stepped out into the Detective Bureau, the first time I had come in the back door. He took me through a maze of desks and dividers, then to an interview room complete with one mirrored window that ran the length of the room.

  The room was decorated in textbook interrogation Renaissance, easily twelve by eighteen and painted a pale lime green with very bright fluorescent lighting. The only furnishings were a slate-gray table and two straight-backed wooden chairs. The table stood next to one wall. On the floor under the table was a foot pedal switch used to operate a video recorder concealed, no doubt, behind the one-way window. A cassette tape recorder sat on the desk. Cox motioned me to the chair farthest from the door, and I found that it was bolted to the floor just far enough away so that you couldn’t comfortably lean on the table without perching on the edge of the chair.

  Cox’s chair was loose, and he laid his file folder on the table. The folder was fat with paper, most of which I suspected was the Police Baseball League schedule. He casually stepped on the floor pedal—it made a click and he took his foot off—and keyed the cassette to record.

  I sat straight and all the way back in my chair with my feet flat on the floor and my hands folded in my lap.

  “I know I read you your rights on the way in, but we need to go over them again,” he said. He took a sheet of paper out of his folder and shoved it across the table toward me. “I want you to follow me on your paper as I read them to you.”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  We went over them one by one. I didn’t ask any questions. “About halfway down,” he said, “there’s a place for your signature. If you understand your rights, as I have read them to you, then you should sign on that line.” He clicked a black ballpoint pen and handed it to me.

  I examined the pen and the advertisement stenciled on it. “Hot Tubs Polynesian Spa?” I said.

  Cox pointed at the line where I was to sign. “Do you understand your rights?”

  “My rights I understand.”

  “Sign!”

  “I know you used to work vice,” I said and clicked the pen two or three times, “but this seems like kind of a new pen!”

  “Mr. Hardin,” he said and looked away, “if you understand your rights”—he paused for a beat, then went on—“please, sign on the line that I have designated.”

  I scooted up to the edge of the chair and signed. Below my signature another paragraph attested that even though I understood my rights, I wanted to make a statement. I left the second signature space blank and offered him back the paper and pen, but he showed me a halting hand.

  “Just lay it down in front of you for a minute,” he said.

  I set the paper and pen down and looked at him hard while I folded my hands again and sat back in the chair.

  “Mr. Hardin, we’ve known each other for a long time—professionally, I mean. I know we’ve never been friendly, but I wonder if I can call you Art?” He stuck his hand out.

  I let it hover over the desk. “Let’s examine some of the names you’ve used before,” I said and ticked off, ‘keyhole peeper,’ ‘sleazeball,’ ‘piece of shit,’ and then there’s Shephart’s all time favorite,”—Cox colored bright red, the tape was running—“‘low-rent cocksucker.’”

  “My partner is a little excitable,” he said and his hand wavered a little. “How about it?”

  I unfolded my arms and took his hand. “Sure,” I said. “Art would be a big improvement.”

  Cox smiled—not friendly, just pleased with himself. He gave my hand a firm shake and let go.

  I settled back into my chair.

  “We have always respected you,” he said—a lie of political proportions. “We just hated to see you walk into the courtroom, but so did the assistant prosecutors.” I knew the last part to be true. “You know,” he said and shrugged, “you only kid the people you like.”

  I tucked my chin to my chest and looked at him with rolled-up eyes.

  He closed his eyes and arched his eyebrows. “All right,” he said, “sometimes we got mad at you.” He opened his eyes and fixed me with a solid stare. “But this thing is important. We have a dead police officer. You can help us get to the truth.”

  I pushed the pen and paper back toward him.

  He showed me both open palms. “Look, we know that Talon had a problem. He had more steroids in him than a H
ereford and we found a Mauser twenty-two in his locker. We sent it over to the state police to see if we can make it for the dead accountant that his wife had cheated with.”

  I smiled.

  “He was out of control, all right? Maybe, he was a wrong guy.”

  “What’s a wrong guy?”

  Cox leaned back in his chair and issued an audible grunt from an angry face.

  “You mean like a wife beater. Or maybe a guy that walks into the courthouse, murders a judge, and then uses the excuse that the judge was his wife and they were having a spat. You mean like that? Like a criminal? Like cops are right guys but sometimes they can be wrong guys.”

  Cox looked over to the corner. “Yeah, like that.” He paused for a moment and turned his eyes back to me. He studied me carefully, then leaned conspiratorially into my space and said, “Let’s say you’re right. Talon was a cop but he was a wrong guy. A criminal. All right? Maybe you had to protect yourself and then you panicked,” he said. “Do yourself some good here. This could come out a lot better than you think.”

  I shook my head.

  “Christ’s sake, help us out for once,” he said, “instead of sitting there and busting my balls.” He laced his fingers into a double fist and held them up to his mouth with his elbows propped on the desk. He made a noisy inhale through his nose and then held his breath while he studied me sternly. Finally, he said, “Art, if you’ll talk to me, I think I can help you with this.”

  I leaned, perched on the edge of the chair, with my elbows on the table, and said, “Officer Cox, may I call you Jim?”

  “Sure,” he said. He tried to make a deadpan face to cover his amazement.

  “Jim, I have nothing but respect for you and the job you do,” I said. “I admire your courage and appreciate the fact that you serve the public at great personal peril.”

  Cox closed his eyes and groaned.

  “I regret that I have to tell you,” I said and paused to watch him grit his teeth and nod his head, “that I wish to see my attorney before we go any further.”

  Cox turned off the cassette and clicked the floor pedal switch with his foot. “Hey, fuck you!” he said as he erupted from the chair. “It ain’t like you’re a fucking civilian.”

  I stepped on the floor pedal. “Yes, I am,” I said, “and that grates your ass, and that’s just one thing. The other thing is that if you were sitting in this chair, you’d be demanding to see your attorney.”

  “I came in here to give you a chance,” he said.

  “Don’t kid a kidder,” I said.

  “I don’t have to kid you.” He bent down and put his fists on the table. “You low-rent cocksucker.” He pushed his face toward mine until we were nearly nose to nose. “I got you by the ass this time. No more shiny suit in the records room. No more chasing down your asshole Freedom of Information requests. No more of your smart-ass testimony and playing to the fucking idiots on the jury.”

  A loud crash came from the room on the other side of the one-way window. A door slammed open against a wall.

  “We got a dead cop.” He bumped my forehead with his, not hard, just failed to stop. “And you’re good for it,” he said and actually produced a little foam at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t care if you did it. You’re good for it. Whatever time you have left on this planet, you can spend it in prison. You can sit and watch yourself rot.”

  The door exploded open. Shephart and Lieutenant Emmery grabbed Cox, jerked him upright, and pulled him back.

  Emmery stood just over six foot, looked to weigh a lean one-eighty, and, in his mid-forties, probably already had twenty years on the police force. His face was cleanly shaven and he wore his dark brown hair short and brushed back without a part. The rest of him was a study in contrasts. He wore sharply creased wool trousers and a wash-and-wear polyester white shirt. He carried a bright chrome magnum revolver with a snubbed nose and wore an expensive watch on a cheap leather band.

  “The camera was on, you fucking meathead,” said Shephart. They grappled Cox back toward the door.

  “You’re out of your league!” said Cox, his face a bug-eyed crimson glower. He twisted his torso and lurched his shoulders in an attempt to free his arms from the grip of his lieutenant and his partner. “You fucking plastic badge wannabe,” was the last thing he managed to say before Emmery and Shephart got him into the hallway and pulled the door closed.

  I figured the same was probably true of overpaid parking enforcement, but I kept it to myself. In the hallway they got loud. I wiped Cox’s sweat and spit off my face with my hand.

  9

  Pete Finney headed the short list of defense counsels who forced the antacid tablets into full bloom at the County Prosecutor’s Office. He had sharp legal teeth, and juries fell in love with his English accent.

  Pete shambled in wearing a rumpled suit and took the chair that wasn’t bolted down. A man of average height, he was sliding into his fifth decade and losing the battle of the bulge. He had a close-cut beard and a full head of hair, both jet black despite his age, either by chance or design. I had never asked.

  “Well, Arthur,” he said, “you have them in quite a state.”

  “This place is wired.”

  “Believe me, Art,” he said and rummaged a yellow pad from his satchel, “they wouldn’t dare.”

  “They’re pretty desperate.”

  “You seem fairly calm, considering the circumstances.”

  “Oh, hell, I didn’t shoot the dumb bastard!”

  Pete raised his head to study me with raised eyebrows.

  After a moment of assessing my face he said, “I doubt that bloody matters. It’s not a question of guilt. It’s a question of whether or not they have an adequate case.”

  “Even Bert and Ernie, out there, can tell that my weapon hasn’t been fired.”

  “Officer Talon was murdered with a hatchet. A hatchet that bears a palm print and a thumb print they purport to be yours.”

  I leaned back in my chair. When I got my jaws back together, I said, “It probably is. Karen tried to part my hair with a hatchet. I took it from her and threw it back into the garage.”

  “Someone did part Randal Talon’s hair,” said Pete, “quite nearly down to his shoulder blades, and left the handle sticking out like a fucking wooden ponytail.” He flopped the yellow pad onto the desk and produced a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of his coat. “We’ll need to speak with Karen Smith.”

  “You are particularly well read in,” I said.

  “I’ve been here for two hours,” said Finney.

  “Karen took a handful of sleeping pills when she heard that Randy was dead,” I said. “She’s out at Mount Hollowview Hospital in Greenville. Marg said that she hadn’t come around yet.”

  “Not good,” said Finney. “When did you last see or speak with Randal Talon?”

  “It was at the house on Union Street at about one in the morning. He was in the company of Sergeant Franklin when we left. I put Karen in a cab and we went to HoJo’s.”

  Pete gave me a sly grin. “Well, there’s hope for you yet.”

  I laughed. “It wasn’t like that at all. I’d arranged for Ron Craig to pick us up there.”

  “That’s even better,” said Pete, smiling and scribbling on his pad. “A ménage à trois.”

  “I think you may be hopeless,” I said and chuckled. “Ron worked the outside on this job. He gave us a ride out to my place because my tires had been slashed earlier in the evening.”

  “Just what job was this?”

  “I thought you knew because you mentioned Karen Smith.”

  “Humor me.”

  I groaned. “Karen Smith worked for Wayne Campbell, Wayne Campbell—”

  “Is that where your involvement with these people began?”

  “No.”

  “The short version,” he said.

  “It all boiled down to a divorce. Martin Van Pelham is Karen Smith’s uncle. He hired me to protect Karen.”

  �
�You were at her residence pursuant to those duties?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Craig was also there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I was inside the house. Ron watched the outside.”

  “Officer Talon came to the house while you were there?”

  “Twice,” I said.

  “The first time was to pick up his personal property?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m told that you had some kind of altercation with him.”

  “He went nuts. I hosed him down with pepper spray.”

  “Why?”

  “He knocked down the sergeant and tried to get to Karen.”

  Finney’s eyes snapped up briefly from his pad and then he looked down and scribbled. “Sergeant who?”

  “Franklin,” I said. “Did they leave that part out?”

  Finney smiled without looking up. “Perhaps they didn’t feel it was relevant. You said he was there twice.”

  “Yeah, later, he kicked in the door and shot up the place.”

  “He was the intruder?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Shortly after eleven,” I said.

  “What, exactly, did he do?”

  “He cut the telephone line, smashed his way into the house from the garage, and shot the place up.”

  Finney rolled his eyes up from his pad and said, “You could have shot him at that point but you did not.”

  “No sir, I did not,” I said. “Karen and I fled the residence and were picked up by Ron Craig. Ron called the police.”

  “How did you come to be in Officer Talon’s company after the police arrived?”

  “Ron and I apprehended Officer Talon after he fled the residence when the police arrived.”

  “Why wasn’t he taken into custody?”

  “Karen covered for him.”

  Finney flopped his pen onto the pad and sat up. “You’re putting me on,” he said.

  “I guess you had to be there.”

  “That is asinine, Arthur.” He put his hands flat on the desk. “What exactly did you say to the police on the scene?”

  “Nothing. Sergeant Franklin was in charge of the scene and he told me not to speak unless he asked me a question.”