Private Heat

by Robert E. Bailey

  “Did he ask you for a statement?”

  “He asked me if I had anything to add.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said that I couldn’t add anything to what had been said.”

  “Arthur, you can’t testify,” said Finney. “Just what do you want me to do?”

  “Defend me.”

  Finney shook his head and picked up his pen. “What about Mr. Craig?” he asked and tapped his pad with the end of his pen. “Did he participate in this little charade?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I had him drop us off and leave before he could be questioned.”

  “He made no statement to the police on the scene?”

  “No, sir.”

  Finney let a smile creep onto his face again. “What time did Mr. Craig pick you up at Howard Johnson’s?”

  “One-fifteenish,” I said. “He was waiting for us.”

  “What time did you arrive at your residence?”

  “Little after two. It’s about forty-five or fifty minutes out to my place.”

  “When did Mr. Craig depart?”

  “Ron didn’t leave until around four-thirty. I fixed everyone a little early breakfast.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “Collapsed,” I said. “I’m getting old.”

  “What time did you get up?”

  “Marg called at about a quarter to ten,” I said. “The feds were looking for Karen.”

  “They were looking for Karen at the Union address at seven in the morning,” said Pete. “All they found was Officer Talon.”

  “That little weasel!”

  “Which weasel would that be?”

  “Neil Carter,” I said. “He knew that Talon was dead and never said a word.”

  “Yes, he did,” said Finney. “He just said it to Detectives Cox and Shephart. The marshal called in your location. That’s how you got your ride to the Hall of Justice. And, by the way, you are not out of the woods with Mr. Carter yet. He said you as much as dared him to arrest you.”

  I shrugged. “He pissed me off,” I said. “I only did what I had to do to protect my client. The house was no longer habitable, and I didn’t think she would be safe there.”

  “We can take that up with Carter,” he said. “Was there anyone who saw you at your house and would know what time you returned and left again?”

  “My wife was up when we got there, but she crashed out before two-thirty. She was already up when I got up to take the call from Marg.”

  “You sleep with your wife?”

  “Of course.”

  “How provincial,” he said with a little merriment wrinkled at the corner of his eyes.

  “It’s the right-wing politics,” I said. “It leads to aberrant behavior.” I waited for him to finish his note. “What do they figure as the time of death?”

  “Officer Talon appears to have been murdered in the garage and then dragged through the house and deposited, fully clothed, into the heated Jacuzzi. The pictures are frightful, and they’re having the devil’s own time computing a time of death.”

  “Sometime between one A.M. and seven A.M.,” I said.

  “Actually, it’s a bit narrower than that. Officer Franklin dropped Talon off at the YMCA at about a quarter to two, but I’m afraid that doesn’t help you much. This may well turn on what time your wife got out of bed. Hal Flowers is the assistant prosecutor on this, and he’s hot to get you arraigned.”

  “He running for judge again?”

  “He’d like a little ink,” said Finney.

  “Christ,” I said, “between political ambitions and professional jealousies, Lady Justice needs a blindfold just to keep from throwing up.”

  “What professional jealousies?”

  “It’s been a carnival all day,” I said. “They started with a snitch in the holding cell, and then Cox told me that he didn’t care if I was guilty or not so long as I took the fall.”

  Finney fell back in his chair and studied me with knitted brows. “You can’t be serious!”

  “You always look at me like that,” I said.

  “What did you tell this person, the person you thought to be an informant?”

  “That I got busted for mopary and I thought he was a snitch.”

  “What did you tell Detective Cox?”

  “I told Cox I wanted to speak with my attorney.”

  “And he said he didn’t care if you did this?” Finney’s face had not improved.

  “He said I was good for it and that I could rot.” I shrugged. “I cued their video recorder. The pedal is on the floor here.”

  Finney looked under the table. “How does it work?”

  “Step on it once,” I said, “you turn it on—step on it again, you turn it off.”

  “Where’s the camera?”

  “From the commotion, I’d say it was in the room next door, on the other side of that one-way mirror.”

  “And while the camera was on he said that he didn’t care if you were guilty.”

  “Yeah, when he stuck his face in mine and called me a ‘low-rent cocksucker.’”

  “And you know this is on film?”

  “They told him the camera was on when they came in here and peeled him off me.”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Shephart and Lieutenant Emmery.”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Finney.

  He wasn’t, he stayed gone for a very long time.

  “I don’t work for you and I don’t give a fat rat’s ass what you think,” said Detective Shephart as he walked in the door with Pete Finney.

  “I’ll bear that in mind and address myself to your lieutenant from now on,” said Finney. He turned to me and said, “We have this matter straightened out. The prosecutor has directed that you be released.”

  “Great,” I said. “Who killed Officer Talon?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” said Finney, “but the authorities are satisfied that it was not you.”

  “Mr. Hardin,” Shephart said, “I’m sorry about the inconvenience, but you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you would have just talked to us. All we’re doing is trying to find the truth here.”

  I looked over at Pete. He held his satchel of a briefcase in front of himself while studying the ceiling with upturned eyes and pursed lips.

  “Detective,” I said, “your partner and I have reached an agreement. He’s going to call me Art, and I’m going to call him Jim. If you could give up calling me a ‘low-rent cocksucker’ in private, you wouldn’t have to call me ‘Mr. Hardin’ in polite company.”

  Shephart motioned toward the door. “This way, Mister Hardin,” he said. He led us into Lieutenant Emmery’s office. Detective Cox and Lieutenant Emmery sat laughing about something, but their faces hardened when we walked into the room.

  “Mr. Hardin,” said Emmery, “I have some questions that I need you to answer.”

  I looked over at Finney. He said, “Mr. Hardin has made it abundantly clear that he is not going to make a statement.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Hardin is anxious to get out of here, but there’s a couple of things we need to clear up,” said Emmery.

  “Is it your intention to continue to detain my client?”

  “This isn’t about the murder of Officer Talon,” said Emmery. “Just a couple of minor questions about the conduct of his business last night.”

  “My client is not required to tell you anything about his personal affairs or the legal conduct of his licensed business.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” said Emmery and looked at me. “How about it, Hardin, you want to get out of here or what?”

  “Lieutenant,” I said, “Public Act Two-Eighty-Five of the State of Michigan makes it a misdemeanor to reveal privileged information about my clients or the matters they hired me to look into.”

  “So you’re telling me that you broke the law and that you’re taking the Fifth,” said Emmery.

  I put my hands out in front of me. “
Slap on the cuffs,” I said. “If you’re stupid enough to arrest me for refusing to break the law, I want you to get on with it.” I waggled my hands up and down. “Come on, Lieutenant, I need the money.”

  Emmery pointed a finger. “You’re going to talk to me.”

  “The law does not require anyone to do more than accurately identify himself to a police officer and display any required license,” said Finney. “Let me assure you that this is Arthur Hardin. Would you care to see his driver’s license or his private investigator’s license?”

  “I can hold him for seventy-two hours,” said Emmery. “How about it, Hardin, you want out of here or not? You can go home or you can go over to the county jail.”

  Finney picked up the handset of Emmery’s telephone and held it out for him to take. “I’ve already talked to the prosecutor,” he said. “Let’s get him on the line and try to determine why it is that you are trying to abrogate the deal he’s already made.”

  Emmery stared hotly at me and ignored Finney. “I want to know what Officer Talon said to you last night.”

  “Talk to my attorney.”

  Emmery took the telephone and hung it up. He rolled open a desk drawer, extracted the envelope containing my personal property, and skidded the envelope across the desk. “The prosecutor doesn’t feel there’s sufficient evidence to proceed against you, at this time,” he said, and banged the drawer shut.

  I poured the contents of the envelope onto the lieutenant’s desk and looped my tie around my neck, then fingered through the pocket litter and put it away.

  “I told them to bring you up here. You need to understand that Detectives Shephart and Cox were only doing their job when they arrested you. Given the circumstances, I feel that they were doing their job very well.”

  “They had a good reason to interview me,” I said. “But when they arrested me, they had their dicks in their hands and their eyes closed.”

  “You interfered in a police investigation,” said Emmery. “If you had been straight with Sergeant Franklin last night, Randy Talon would be in custody, not in the morgue.”

  “Randy Talon has been on his way to the morgue for a long time,” I said. “He didn’t start the trip last night.” I started my belt through the loops on my trousers.

  Emmery leaned forward, shifted his weight to his feet, and pointed at me. “I don’t think I like your mouth!” he said.

  “Really?” I said. “Then let me quote your detective as he spoke to my attorney. ‘I don’t work for you, and I don’t give a fat rat’s ass what you think.’”

  Emmery turned his face to Shephart. Shephart shrugged.

  “There are no misprision statutes in this state,” said Finney.

  Emmery fixed his hot stare on Finney. “Your client did far more than know of a crime and fail to report it.”

  “Lieutenant Emmery,” said Finney, “my client’s involvement in the matter is entirely the result of the court’s recognition of Police Officer Randal Talon’s penchant for criminal violence. Mr. Hardin was hired because Karen Smith’s family was terrified of Officer Talon and they doubted your department’s resolve to protect her.”

  “Hardin should never have stuck his nose in,” said Emmery.

  “It’s my client’s fault that Officer Talon assaulted Sergeant Franklin?”

  “That’s not in the reports,” said Emmery.

  Finney pointed at the telephone. “The information is a phone call away.”

  “It’s not important now,” said Emmery. “The point is that your client interfered in a police investigation.”

  “Maybe it would have been easier for the police department if Officer Talon had simply been allowed to continue brutalizing his wife. He was a brutal and violent man. He may have used his experience and authority as a police officer to coerce Karen Smith into lying and my client into silence.”

  “I’d like to see someone coerce Hardin,” said Emmery.

  “Have another look at the videotape of Detective Cox in the interrogation room.”

  Emmery settled his weight back into his chair and looked around the room for an answer. He couldn’t find any words, so he settled for laying a mean face on Detective Cox.

  “Perhaps,” said Finney, “you just needed to shoot at him a few times the way you say Officer Talon did.”

  “Hardin’s fucking palm print was on the murder weapon,” said Emmery, his face red.

  “Yes,” said Finney, “he had a defensive palm print on the head of the axe. A palm print that was partially obscured by blood. Mr. Hardin’s prints were not on the handle of the hatchet. Officer Talon was not bludgeoned to death with the blunt end, was he? Officer Talon’s blood got on the business end of that hatchet at some time after Mr. Hardin had fended it off.”

  Emmery blanched white as he dropped his hands into his lap and leaned back in his chair. “That’s your interpretation,” he said. “My detectives had a different interpretation.”

  “The state police examiner didn’t agree with them, and your detectives were hounding the prosecutor for an arrest warrant before they even had the report in their hands.”

  I threaded my magazine pouch then my holster, onto the belt. I looked at Shephart and stuck out my hand. “Give,” I said, beckoning with my fingers.

  “The prosecutor agreed with them and so did the judge who signed the warrant,” said Emmery.

  “Gimme,” I said, and Shephart’s jaws locked up tight.

  “The prosecutor took as much of the story as they were given at face value,” said Finney. “Maybe you did, too.”

  “Pete!” I said.

  “What?”

  “I want my sidearm back.”

  “We’re not going to have the results of the ballistic tests for several days,” said Shephart.

  “Officer Talon was not shot,” said Finney. “I want you to return my client’s property immediately, and I want all the pictures, fingerprint cards, and any videotapes or audiotapes that were produced as a result of this improper arrest.”

  Emmery opened his top desk drawer and flopped a second large brown envelope onto the desk in front of Finney. “Give him the goddam piece, Shep,” said Emmery.

  “I didn’t bring it,” said Shephart. “It might be down in property, but they’re closed now. Maybe Mr. Hardin could come back tomorrow and ask the property guys to give it to him.” Shephart smiled at Emmery like they were sharing an inside joke.

  Emmery wasn’t smiling. “It might be at property?” he said. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” Emmery wasn’t looking for an answer and Shephart didn’t try to make one. “It might be locked in your goddam desk drawer! In three minutes there’s going to be a gun on this desk. It might be Mr. Hardin’s, or it might be yours and your badge as well.”

  Shephart bolted from his chair and stormed out of the room.

  I picked up my spare magazines, and they were both light. I thumbed the rounds out onto the desk. Nine rounds were missing. “What’s the deal?” I said.

  “The state police fire any weapon we confiscate,” said Emmery. “They compare them with a want list for open cases.”

  “Two, three rounds,” I said and made an affirmative nod.

  “I have no fucking idea,” said Emmery.

  Cox shuffled his feet and studied the floor. “We cranked off a couple of rounds,” he said and looked up. “Down at the range, you know.” He shrugged. “You don’t see a big bore on a small frame like that very often.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll bring you a box of ammo, and you guys can bang away to your heart’s content.” I thumbed the remaining ammo into a magazine, which left me with a couple of loose rounds. I stowed them in the right-hand pocket of my sport jacket.

  Cox held up his right hand. There was a bright red pinch on the webbing between his thumb and his index finger. “Don’t bother,” he said. “The damn thing bites.”

  Shephart returned, clunked a heavy brown envelope onto the desk, and started for the door.

/>   “Sit!” said Emmery.

  Shephart piled himself into a chair. I tore open the envelope and extracted my sidearm. The magazine had been removed and emptied. Loose rounds rolled around in the envelope. Shephart had engraved his initials and badge number a half-inch tall on both sides of the frame. I racked the slide to the rear and locked it in place. The chamber was empty. I handed the weapon to Emmery.

  “I think you need to buy your boy some crayons,” I said. “He likes to color big, and he has no idea how to mark evidence.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and listen to some security guard in a suit lecture me on marking evidence,” said Shephart.

  “Shep,” I said, “I was marking evidence when your mommy was taping your best work on the front of the refrigerator.” I pointed to the frame of my weapon, “What do you call this? Forensic taxidermy? You were making a trophy.”

  “Don’t call me Shep,” he said.

  “We need to discuss this right now,” said Finney.

  Emmery’s face took up a sneer. “If you want to bitch about Detective Shephart, go down to the desk and ask for Internal Affairs. In the meantime, take your goddam gun and the rest of your shit and get the fuck out of my office.”

  I picked up my weapon, pointed it at the floor, and thumbed the slide stop. The slide slammed home. Activity inside and outside the office came to a stop. I eased the hammer down on the empty chamber. When I looked up, an errant detective stood looking in the door with a question on his face and a fat nine in his hand. Emmery shook his head in the negative, and the detective turned away and holstered his weapon. The buzz and shuffle of the office returned, and I slammed the magazine into the handle and holstered my piece.

  Pete and I walked out through the front door and found Wendy and Ron sitting in the waiting room. Wendy had changed into a flowing blue-print skirt and a cream-colored knit shell under a blue blazer for her trip to town. Ron had abandoned his coveralls in favor of a black pin-striped suit with a stark white shirt and red tie. Wendy bolted up for a hug, which I was pleased to return. I took Ron’s offered hand with Wendy still draped around my neck. A blinding flash lit up the room. The plainclothes detective at the bureau desk jumped up and yelled, “Hey, goddamit!” A press photographer bolted from the detective bureau and ran down the hall.