None So Deadly

by David A. Poulsen

  “You would have had to be quite expert with the various elements of the cameras and recording equipment.”

  “I’m not sure I would call me an expert. He gave me a bit of a crash course on the workings of the equipment, told me to note everything I saw that looked like it might deserve his attention. But you likely already know that from the notations I made in his notebooks.”

  She glanced at her notes. “You showed up in the alley a few times prior to your filling in for him, and you went into the alley again on one occasion during your time in Kennedy’s house. So tell me about those visits to what was once a murder scene. And was about to become one again.”

  Things were moving into dicey territory and I wasn’t sure how much more I should say. But again I opted for candour, this time a little less confident that honesty was the best policy.

  “I’d first heard about the murder of Faith Unruh from my girlfriend’s daughter and her friend. Cobb filled me in on what details he knew about the case, and to be honest I became somewhat obsessed by it. I drove down that alley and walked there a few times, as well. Of course, Kennedy saw me; he tracked me down and eventually confronted me in the area behind my apartment, where I park my car. I was able to convince him that I was not the person he was looking for. As for the time I went there while I was looking after the surveillance, that was because I thought I saw movement, something in the alley. I went over to check it out but I didn’t see anything suspicious or otherwise.”

  “This confrontation with Kennedy, tell me more about that.”

  I decided it was time to deviate slightly from my being honest and forthright with her.

  “He was waiting for me in the lane behind my apartment. He asked me what I’d been doing in the vicinity of where Faith’s body had been found. I told him. He seemed a little doubtful, but when I told him about my connection with Cobb, he seemed more inclined to believe me.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a confrontation.” She was looking hard at me. “It sounds more like a conversation.”

  I nodded agreement. “Confrontation might have been the wrong word.”

  “Where were you the night Kennedy was killed, Mr. Cullen?”

  Trick question and I knew it. If I fired out the answer right off the top of my head, it would look like I knew I’d need an alibi at some point. And if I floundered around too much, I knew that, too, would make me look bad … or worse, suspicious.

  “Sorry, I can’t remember. But I’ll look back at the date and let you know.”

  “Do you drive an SUV?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Honda Accord.”

  “But you do.” She turned again to Cobb.

  “Yes, I do. In fact, it’s in the parking lot right now, if you’d like to check the tire impressions from the homicide vehicle against mine.”

  “I might want to do that at some point.” She stood up. “I think we’re done here. Thanks for coming by. I do appreciate it. You think of something useful on Ike Groves or this girl who worked for him, I’d be grateful for a call.”

  Cobb and I stood up. I wanted to yell, “She’s not this girl! She has a name!” but I remained silent.

  Cobb spoke instead. “See you in the morning.”

  Landry nodded and Cobb and I turned in unison. No goodbyes. I didn’t get a sense that we parted on bad terms, but it wasn’t cordial either.

  When Cobb and I were out of the building and standing on the sidewalk, I took a long, deep breath, let it out slowly. “Shit,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit, shit, shit.”

  Cobb pointed down the street with his chin, indicating maybe we should walk. It felt like a good idea. I’d barely known the girl named Pink but I was sickened that her life was over. Another horribly premature death.

  And most sickening of all was the thought that her death might have been connected to the Scubberd set-up. And the fact that operation only happened because of my getting tied up with the MFs in the first place.

  We walked a few blocks in silence. Finally, I said, “How’d I do under cross-examination?”

  “Not bad,” Cobb replied. “You didn’t over-talk it and that was good. She could have gone after you a lot harder and she didn’t, so maybe she doesn’t see you as worth pursuing. Or she’s planning to take another run at you when I’m not there and Chisholm is. I’d get your alibi sorted out right away. Call her tomorrow. I’m hoping that wasn’t a night you spent at home by yourself.”

  “Yeah, I’m hoping that, too.”

  We’d circled around and were back at the parking lot.

  Cobb took hold of my arm. “This isn’t on you.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not. The world that people like Grover and Pink live in is dangerous. People die in that world. Drugs kill them, they kill each other. Every day — lots of them die very young. They choose the life they live. And in a way they choose the way they die.”

  “She didn’t choose this … I did.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I know that.” I fumbled for my keys.

  “You up for a late breakfast?”

  “I had breakfast.”

  “How about an early lunch?”

  “Inventive,” I said. “Yeah, okay … lunch.”

  Forty-five minutes later I was staring down at a good-looking bowl of chili at Bumpy’s Café while Cobb was enjoying the first bite of the mac and cheese.

  I needed to talk and I needed the topic to be something other than Pink’s death. “I’ve been having this weird thought,” I said.

  Cobb gestured with his fork that I should continue.

  “I keep coming back to the idea that Maughan’s kid was an accomplice in the Faith Unruh thing … or at least involved. Is there someone deranged enough to take his kid along to be part of a rape and murder?”

  Cobb chewed, swallowed, and set his fork down. “One of the things I learned as a cop is that you cannot overestimate the extremes of human degeneracy. So, in answer to your question, yes, it’s possible. But it seems to me there are other possibilities. There’s the possibility that Terry Maughan could be the perpetrator. So, let’s think about that. It’s likely that Faith was lured into that backyard. She was eleven years old and not likely to go there with a stranger. Could she have been drawn there by a schoolmate? Maybe. And there’s the fact that the murder was, in many ways, botched. A lot of it points to an amateur as the attacker. Maybe it wasn’t even supposed to be a murder. Maybe the perp intended only to rape her, but things went wrong — maybe she fought harder than he expected, and he panicked and killed her. And in one of those remarkably lucky situations for the killer, things got messed up in the investigation either deliberately or otherwise and he got away with it.”

  “She was strangled. You think a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old kid would be strong enough?”

  “Don’t know. I’d have to see the kid.”

  I nodded and worked away at the chili for a while. It was very good but I wasn’t giving it my best effort. “Why didn’t you tell Landry about Maughan’s kid going to the same school and knowing Faith?”

  “I don’t like to give away all of our bargaining chips at once.”

  I had another thought. “That could explain the irregularities in the investigation. Maybe it was Maughan, but he wasn’t messing with the investigation into his own crime. He was covering for his kid.”

  Cobb shrugged. “It’s a possibility. It would be good if we could talk to Terry Maughan.”

  “I haven’t been able to find him yet.”

  “Maybe we need to concentrate on that for the moment.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “I’ll make a couple of calls in the morning. You okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You look a little shaky is all.”

  “Guess I’m not used to being a suspect in a murder.”

  “If you were a serious suspect, that would have been a very different conversat
ion. The bad cop wasn’t even there. She was doing her due diligence in case it gets asked about at a meeting. So don’t flatter yourself — you’re not that big a deal. At least not yet.”

  “Gee thanks, I feel a lot better now.”

  Cobb grinned. “Anytime.”

  Drake and Rihanna’s “Take Care” announced that I had a call.

  “Whoa.” Cobb stared at my phone in something close to disbelief. “I’ll say one thing, you are full of surprises.”

  I smiled and took the call. It was Lorne Cooney.

  “Hey, what’s up, Lorne?”

  “Hey, Cullen, I’m on my way out the door, but I just got a little insight into your friend Claiborne.”

  “The late Claiborne?” I said. “He was never my friend.”

  “Yeah, well, friend or not, it seems that the gentleman liked to patronize ladies of the evening.”

  “Hookers?”

  “So the story goes.”

  “That surprises me. This is a guy who had gorgeous, interesting women at his side almost all the time.”

  “Key word in that sentence is almost, mon. Apparently, that wasn’t quite enough for him. Anyway, like I said, I gotta split. Thought you’d like to know.”

  “How solid is this, Lorne?”

  “I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t solid.”

  “Much appreciated. Have a nice evening.”

  “That’s the plan, my friend. Later.”

  He ended the call and I looked at Cobb. “You get all that?”

  He nodded. “I think so. Claiborne apparently enjoyed the company of prostitutes.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I didn’t see that one coming. Question is, how relevant is it to finding the killer?”

  “Good question. Maybe gives us a few more people with reason to take Claiborne out.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but it also provides another motive for Rachel Claiborne.”

  “Yes, it does. The cops will like that.”

  We sat for a couple of minutes in silence. I wasn’t sure what Cobb was thinking about, but my own thoughts weren’t pleasant ones.

  “Damn it, Mike … Pink.”

  He nodded slowly. “That’s a tough one. I’m not sure how they found her or even found out about her.”

  “You think it was the MFs?”

  “That’s where I’d put my money.”

  I had to agree. It was where I’d put my money, too — about twenty-five thousand dollars.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Mike said. “And if you’re all about self-recrimination then you better take a look at the other half of this partnership. I was the one who came up with the idea for the con, put the plan together, decided that one of Grover’s girls would be perfect — if he had one who looked young enough. He did and I ran with that. Now Pink’s dead. So if blame’s the game you need to play, then pencil me in for a big share. And just so you know, it’s not my first time in the Fuck-Up Hotel.”

  There wasn’t much I could say to that, at least nothing that came to me right then.

  Our server came by, topped up our coffees, asked about dessert — we both declined — and he moved on to another table.

  Cobb added milk to his coffee, took a long, slow sip and set the cup down. He stared out the window blankly. Then he began to talk. “I’d been in homicide for just under two years. My partner was a veteran who’d been on the force for twenty-six years, about half of that in homicide. Glenn Sheffield. It’s a quiet afternoon and we’re interviewing a witness in a homicide we’re investigating — a fairly famous sportscaster — Gilbert Arnold — was messing with a guy’s wife and the husband didn’t take kindly to it.”

  “I remember Arnold,” I said. “The guy was a legend. Hockey, football, he did it all. And I remember reading about his murder. But I don’t know if I paid attention to the details.”

  “Yeah, well, the details were pretty straightforward — jealous husband plunks wife’s boyfriend. Slam dunk. Except that the guy has an alibi — provided by the wife.

  “So, Glenn and I are interviewing another of Gilbert’s former flames, a singer in a blues band that was kind of a big deal at the time — they were called The Blue Blues Confederation.”

  “Heard of them, too,” I said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I have one or two of their albums in the collection.”

  “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The singer’s name is Iris Speck — and we’re just trying to get a little background on Arnold and his meanderings.”

  “Looking for dirt.”

  Cobb shrugged. “Essentially, yeah. Though we prefer the term evidence. So, we get to her house and she’s got a guy there, a guy named Louis D’urrville; I’m pretty sure it’s a fake name — the guy’s as French as a Ford Fairlane. We can see right away that he’s on something and pretty mouthy. Glenn was pretty cool in those situations, but I was a bit of a hothead and wanted to do a little damage to this guy. Glenn kept me from doing that. Anyway, while we’re trying to interview her and keep D’urrville quiet so we can actually talk to her, there’s pounding on the front door. It’s the next-door neighbour.

  “This guy is fruitcake nuts right from the get-go, but he’s figured out that we’re cops and he wants to lay a charge against D’urrville about some damage he did to the neighbour’s house when he was cutting down a tree in the backyard. Tree fell the wrong way and totalled the guy’s deck and pretty much destroyed his barbecue.

  “So now we’ve got the blues singer, who, by the way, was a right bitch. She had a tough time getting through maybe six words, seven tops, without the use of some derivative of fuck. And we’ve got the methed-out boyfriend and the nutso neighbour. Sounds like a scene from a bad sitcom, except these people were real. So, while I’m trying to usher the neighbour back out the front door, Iris freaks out and is trying to get at the guy. Glenn’s holding her off. I finally get the neighbour out and the door closed and I turn around and D’urrville’s standing there holding a rifle. There’s a shitload of noise — both Iris and D’urrville are yelling, the guy outside is pounding on the door again, and Glenn’s trying to get people settled down.

  “But all I see is that gun in the hands of a space cadet. I give him the spiel, the one they teach you in cop school — I need you to put the rifle down, Louis. About then in all this chaos, Iris loses what little sanity there is left in the whole goddamn mess, and she’s trying to hit Glenn with a poker from the fireplace. So now we’ve got two people and both of them have weapons. She misses with her first try, but I’m thinking if she hits him with that thing she’s liable to kill him. And Glenn, as he’s trying to dodge her attack and keep his head from being caved in, trips over something, a piece of furniture or something, and falls.

  “And that’s when the comedy show ended and the shitshow began. Looking back on it now, I honestly believe Iris had realized this whole thing wasn’t good and was about to pull back. But then D’urrville comes racing across the room with the rifle and he’s screaming.”

  Cobb’s voice got quieter. “I’m sure he’s going to shoot Glenn. I assume the position and yell for him to freeze. He slows down but he keeps moving toward Glenn. I yell again but he still doesn’t freeze and now he’s six feet from Glenn, who’s still on the floor, and he has the rifle pointed at my partner for Christ’s sake, and I’ve got to do something. I fire my weapon. First time I’d ever had to do that, and maybe that’s why I missed him. Point-blank and I miss.” Cobb stopped then, swallowed, looked at me for a second then back outside.

  “At least I miss D’urrville. I hit Iris Speck. She goes down and D’urrville drops the rifle and throws himself across her on the floor and now the screaming’s started again.

  “And then suddenly it’s over. It’s all over. She’s lying there on the floor and D’urrville’s on top of her crying. Glenn gets up off the floor and we call for backup and an ambulance.”

  Cobb stopped talking, almost as if he were resting from the
exertion of telling the story.

  “She … Iris … did she live?”

  Cobb nodded. “Yeah, she lived. She’s a paraplegic. I’ve gone to visit her once a month ever since. She’s never said an unkind word to me, never failed to smile at me when I walk in the door.”

  “Nobody could ever blame you,” I said.

  “No?” Cobb looked hard at me. “The rifle D’urrville was carrying was a pellet gun. Might have posed a big-time danger to a squirrel.”

  I thought about that. “Doesn’t matter. There’s no way you could have known — it was an insane scene and you did your best.”

  “That’s right,” Cobb said, his voice January-cold. “I did my best and I messed up. So don’t talk to me about making a mistake. I put that woman in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. And I’d give anything to live those two minutes of my life over again. But that’s not how it works. You get on with doing what you’re doing because it’s important. There’s no guarantee that I won’t make another mistake or that you won’t. But think about the good things we’ve done. Think about those things when you’re not too busy feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Cobb stood up. “I’m picking up that homicide report from Landry in the morning. I should be in the office by ten. It’d be good if you were there to look at it with me.”

  He turned and walked away.

  FIFTEEN

  I arrived at Cobb’s office just after ten with a coffee in each hand. The light in his office was on. He was already at his desk, head down, concentrating on what I guessed was the report on the homicide that had been investigated by Maughan and Kinley, as I struggled with the door, cursing the coffees that were depositing hot liquid on my hands. He looked up and smiled. “How’s that goin’ for ya?”

  “I say we switch to orange juice.”

  “We could do that, but we’d both be either in therapy or dead within a month.”

  “Both of which might be preferable to scalded hands.” I set his coffee on the desk in front of him. “Learning anything?”