Three-Ways: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  “Like you said, Brian’ll turn up,” I said.

  “The officers on campus have issued the alerts—all the instant messages and e-mails to students. They’ve locked it down. The Tactical Unit will be ready in twelve minutes.”

  “Are there any injuries?”

  “One of the secretaries reports that the English Department chair screamed a couple of times, but no reports of gunfire.” He paused. “You two’ve been in that office, right?”

  Ryan and I nodded.

  “Can the Tactical Unit set up for a clear shot?”

  “Depends on where exactly Brian is in the office. There’s a floor-to-ceiling window—how wide is it, Ryan?”

  “Four feet,” he said. “Maybe five.”

  “I don’t want the Tactical Unit set up on the quad there,” I said. “Brian sticks his head out, he’ll see them plain as day. He knows he’s hurt Tiffany, and if the department chair was screaming, Brian’s probably roughed him up already. He knows he’s not walking out of there without doing some serious jail time. So he might as well start firing.”

  “So what’re you saying, Karen?”

  “Two things: have the Tactical Unit work with the Substation officers to make sure they set up so Brian can’t see them. And let me and Ryan go over there now.”

  “How do you want to play it?”

  “I’ll go in, unarmed. You’re sure the hospital hasn’t leaked that Tiffany’s dead, right?”

  “I can’t vouch for what every doc or nurse might have said off-duty,” the chief said, “but yes, they’ve assured me they’ve locked down the whole case. Her charts on the system are secured.”

  “Well, that’s our best chance of turning the heat down—make Brian think he hasn’t already fucked things up beyond repair.”

  The chief turned to Ryan. “You on board?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “All right,” the chief said. But he wasn’t looking happy. “You two get going. I’ll work with the Substation officers and the Tactical Unit.”

  We rushed downstairs to the parking lot behind headquarters and got in the Charger. It’s the version with all the emergency lights mounted inside. I flipped them all on, the red, blue, and yellow flashing on the grill, inside the windshield, on the rear deck, and on the rear bumper. I’d never stood on the Charger’s pedal before. We were on campus in less than four minutes.

  I parked it out behind the Humanities Building, on the other side from the English department’s main office. An officer from the Substation was over to my door before we could get out. The badge said Betz.

  “What have you got?”

  “Male gunman, early twenties, white. Looks like one handgun. In the English department main office. He might have beat up the guy in the office.”

  “Any other hostages?”

  “No, all the staff are out. We’ve cleared out all the offices and the classrooms in the building.”

  “Have you had any contact with him?”

  “No, we haven’t seen him. All we have on him is what I told you. From a secretary.”

  “He hasn’t made contact with anyone.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “All right, Betz. The Tactical Unit will be here in less than ten. The chief is coordinating that. If they park back here, tell them they’re not to set up in the quad where he can see them.”

  “What about the library? They can get a clean shot from the roof.”

  “What’s the distance?”

  “Less than three-hundred feet.”

  “If you have to. My partner and I are going up to make contact with him.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not sure, but we think he’s named Brian Hawser. He’s a suspect in the Austin Sulenka case—the grad student from Sunday night?”

  “Big guy? Two-hundred pounds?”

  “Yeah. That what the secretary said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Ryan and I headed inside the building, up to the third floor. We stood at the end of the hall. I could see the door to the English Department half open. There was nobody in the hall.

  “See the glass?” The interior wall of each office had a glass panel from the ceiling down to about seven feet off the ground. The glass was there to let daylight into the hallway from the exterior windows in the offices. “Help me get that table over to the glass outside the chairman’s office,” I said. It was a small work table, maybe four feet by three, located twenty feet away from the door to the department.

  We walked over as quietly as we could, lifted the table, and carried it over to the chair’s office.

  “Get up on the table,” I said to Ryan. He grimaced as he lifted his leg to get up. “Lean on me,” I said. He put his hand on my shoulder and hoisted himself onto the table. He stayed crouched down so Brian wouldn’t be able to see him through the glass from inside the office.

  “Okay,” I said. “You got your phone?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Phone the department office. I’m gonna talk to Brian.”

  Ryan pulled his phone from his inside jacket pocket, opened it, and hit some buttons.

  “Give it to me,” I said. I heard the phone ringing from inside the office. Two rings, three, four. Finally, someone picked up.

  “Brian, this is Detective Karen Seagate, Rawlings Police Department.”

  I looked up at Ryan, standing on the table, looking through the glass. He nodded to let me know it was Brian who’d picked up the phone.

  “Brian, I’m gonna come in. Unarmed.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “I just want to talk, that’s all.”

  “It’s a little late for talking, don’t you think?”

  “No, Brian, it’s never too late for talking. We can resolve this thing. You and me.”

  “You’re right about that,” Brian said. “I could finish off this shithead right now, then take myself out before you can shoot me.”

  “Yeah, you could do that. But there’s not gonna be any shooting. I’m coming in. Unarmed.”

  I shut the phone and handed it to Ryan.

  “I don’t like it. Wait for the Tactical Unit, Karen. It’ll be five minutes, tops.”

  “No, I got it,” I said. “Me going in is our best shot at cooling this down.”

  “Let me go in,” he said.

  “No way. You got a wife, two little kids,” I said. “Besides, you can’t even get onto a table by yourself.”

  He smiled, but I could see the concern in his eyes.

  I looked at his hand, which was gripping his service pistol. “You stay right where you are. You see him come at me—” I held my hand out. I didn’t have to finish that sentence. Ryan nodded.

  My big shoulder bag, with my holster and pistol, was on the table, next to Ryan. I took off my coat so Brian would see I was unarmed. I walked over to the office door. I looked back at Ryan, who gave me a thumbs-up. He raised his pistol to the window, resting the barrel on the metal flashing that separated the window from the drywall.

  It would help things a lot if Brian didn’t look up and see that pistol barrel. If he threw a shot at Ryan, the drywall wouldn’t even slow it down.

  I walked slowly into the outer office, my hands up. The door to the chairman’s office was opened. “Brian, I’m coming in. I’m unarmed.”

  I walked toward the chairman’s office. From the doorway, I could see Brian, a .45 in his hand, looking down. I couldn’t see the chairman, Jonathan Van Vleet, who was hidden by his desk, but I could hear him breathing, loud and shallow.

  Brian looked up at me, then raised the pistol to a firing position. His face was shiny, his eyes red-rimmed, jumpy. Maybe Ryan was right about waiting for the Tactical Unit guys. “I told you,” Brian Hawser said. “There’s no point.”

  “Yes, there is, Brian.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s over.”

  “Is he dead?” I pointed to Van Vleet.

  “No
t yet,” Brian said.

  “He’s not shot, is he?”

  “I hit him,” Brian said. “With this.” He lowered the barrel of the pistol an inch, then raised it again, aiming it right at my chest.

  “Okay,” I said. “There’s nothing’s happened here we can’t work through.”

  He smirked. “How do you see that?”

  “Van Vleet’s a simple assault,” I said. “I can talk him down from that.”

  He shook his head. “Really?” Sarcastic. His shoulder twitched so bad I was afraid he might squeeze the trigger by mistake.

  “He knows you got a bad deal. He’ll want to make that right.”

  Brian just looked at me.

  “I’ve talked with him about it. The grad student, Austin Sulenka. Van Vleet knows what Sulenka did was wrong. You give me the gun, I promise you, you will not do any time for hitting this guy.” I put out my hand, palm up, and started walking toward him.

  “Stop,” Brian said. “Don’t play me. You’ll get the first bullet. I’ll get the second.” He glanced out the window, down at the quad. “Where’s the SWAT team?”

  “There’s no SWAT team. I told my chief I wanted to talk to you. Said I could work this out with you.”

  “I told you not to play me.”

  “It’s the truth, Brian. I know this looks bad—I mean, from your perspective—but listen to me. I can get the assault suspended.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  I shook my head. “Brian, I’ve seen situations look worse than this, but they ended okay.”

  “So this fucker,” he said, nodding his head toward Van Vleet, “he’s gonna not press charges. Tell me all about that,” he said.

  “Way I figure it, he feels responsible for what Austin did. You know, it was on his watch this happened. He gets a little roughed up, he decides not to press charges. He gets to look like a hero.”

  He stood there, motionless, for the longest time. “And Tiffany, she wants to look like a hero, too?”

  “I was just talking with Tiffany, this morning. She’s feeling better. She loves you. You know that. She told me she’s not gonna press charges.”

  “That’s what she said to you,” Brian said, nodding. “She said that to you this morning.”

  I was in too far to turn back now. If he knew she was dead, he would probably pull the trigger right now, just like he said. First bullet for me, second one for himself. “That’s right,” I said. “She knows you didn’t mean to push her like that. It was an argument, that’s all. An argument that got a little out of hand.”

  He looked like he was going to start crying. I couldn’t tell if he was buying what I was saying. But I was all in now.

  “She loves you, Brian. You know she does. You’ll work this out with her. I know you can.”

  The pistol was aimed right at my heart. “I tried to get back to our apartment,’ he said. “I saw your squad car.”

  “That’s just routine. Whenever there’s a domestic. That doesn’t mean anything.” My saliva tasted metallic. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest.

  “So Tiffany’s not gonna press charges. And you’ve got a squad car in front of my apartment. Two officers in it. Eating sandwiches, drinking coffee, laughing.” He nodded. “Because she’s not gonna press charges.”

  “That’s right, Brian. That’s just a state law, a requirement. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  He squinted, like he was looking down the sight of his pistol. “Tell me what you and Tiffany talked about, this morning.”

  “Like I said, how she loves you. She knows it was an argument. That’s all.”

  He nodded his head. “What were we arguing about?”

  Shit, he knows I’m lying. But there was nothing I could do to change the story now. “It was about Austin. That thing last semester. That’s what it was.”

  He gave me a sad smile. “You didn’t talk to her this morning.” He began to shake his head, like he was sorry that this was how it was going to end. “She told me what really happened. She was fucking the grad student all along. She fucked him the night he got killed.”

  “No, Brian,” I said. “That wasn’t what happened.”

  His shoulder twitching, he shifted his weight. “I’m done being lied to. She told me about fucking the grad student, then how she fucked those two guys over at her girlfriend’s apartment.”

  He didn’t know she was dead. “Don’t you see what she was doing, Brian?” I was making it up now, hoping the sentences would hang together. Hang together enough, anyway, to convince this exhausted son of a bitch pointing the .45 at me. “She knows she’s made some mistakes, just like you have. Just like we all do. She loves you, Brian. You have to know that. And you love her, too.” He squinted, looking down the barrel of his pistol. “She wants to make it right with you. That’s what she was doing. That’s all it was.”

  “You’ve just told your last lie,” he said as he started to walk toward me slowly. I closed my eyes, waiting for the sound and the impact.

  I flinched at the explosion from Ryan’s pistol. Glass shards stung the side of my face. Brian spun around and grabbed at his right shoulder as the gun flew out of his hand and bounced off the glass of the exterior window before falling to the carpet. Brian was hunched over, silent, holding his shoulder.

  I rushed over and retrieved the pistol. I pulled out the magazine. It was full. I was slamming it back in when Ryan made it into the office. Brian let out a cry of pain as Ryan pulled his arms behind his back with some energy and cuffed him.

  I went over to the other side of the desk, where Van Vleet was crumpled on the floor. He had a couple nasty red bruises on his face. Blood was trickling down from the one above his left temple; the one on the right side of his jaw was the size of a golf ball.

  “Van Vleet, can you hear me?” His eyes were cloudy and half-closed, but he made some kind of sound I interpreted as yes. “It’s all over,” I said. “You’ll be okay.”

  I picked up his desk phone and punched in 911. “This is Detective Seagate,” I said. “Send two buses to the English department, on University Drive. Third floor.”

  Chapter 31

  “What’s that, involuntary manslaughter, for killing his girlfriend?” the chief said to Larry Klein.

  “We call it negligent homicide, for some reason, but yeah, that’s what it’ll be.”

  The chief was still getting used to Montana terminology. In most states, negligent homicide is used mainly for killing someone when you’re driving drunk, whereas manslaughter is for punching your girlfriend in the face so hard she cracks her skull open on a cabinet and dies of a brain bleed.

  But negligent homicide makes sense, too, since Brian Hawser was negligent in not thinking of what her head was going to smack into after he punched her. If he’d taken the time to set up some pillows, all he’d be looking at is simple assault, which is five-hundred bucks and six months—provided the court concluded Tiffany’s busted cheekbone wasn’t that big a deal. If they decided it was a serious injury, it would be aggravated assault, which would cost him fifty-thousand bucks and twenty years, the same as he’ll get for the negligent homicide.

  Technicalities aside, if he’d bothered to set up the pillows, Tiffany would be drinking her meals through a straw for a while, but she’d still be alive. Another option: when he found himself arguing with her, he could have turned and walked away without even punching her in the face at all. That way, right around now he could be pursuing his normal routine: sitting on his couch in his living room, playing video games, eating Slim Jims, and leaning over every once in a while to rip a good fart.

  Ryan and I, along with the chief and the prosecutor, were standing in the narrow hallway between the two interview rooms, behind the door marked Janitor. From there, we could look through the one-way glass into either of the rooms. Brian Hawser was sitting in Interview 1. He had a shirt draped over his right shoulder, which was bandaged up tight from Ryan’s bullet that he’d taken this morning.

>   I told the doc we were going to question him, so don’t dope him up too much. The doc asked me if he’d be okay with some pain. I assured him he would.

  Brian was looking kind of wrung out, sitting there at the table with his right shoulder higher than the left. His eyes were about half open, with big black bags beneath them. It had been about thirty-six hours since he popped his girlfriend, then decided to pack a light bag and take a drive. Ryan and I didn’t know where he had gone or how he had spent those hours, but it didn’t look like he’d spent any of them sleeping.

  “That’s twenty years, right?” the chief said. “How much of that do you think you can get?”

  “With his priors and the restraining order, maybe fifteen. He’d be out in eight or ten.” Larry Klein adjusted his glasses. “Of course, it’d be nice if you could get him to sign a piece of paper.”

  The chief nodded.

  “You don’t need to assign him a public defender?” I said.

  “Not yet. As soon as he asks for one, or when you charge him and I arraign him.”

  “Well, let’s see if we can keep him from asking,” I said.

  Ryan turned to me. “Mind if I do Tiffany?”

  “Fine with me. I’ll do Austin Sulenka.” I turned to Larry. “Any reason we shouldn’t try to get him to go for the two cases at the same time?”

  He scratched at his thick, close-cropped hair. “Just make sure you don’t officially charge him if you can get a statement on the domestic. Try to get both statements, then break the news that the girlfriend is dead.”

  “You’re assuming he’s going to confess on Austin Sulenka,” Ryan said.

  Larry shrugged his narrow shoulders in his black suit. “I’m not assuming anything. If he admits to it, we charge him. If he doesn’t, we don’t.”

  “If we can get him to admit to beating up his girlfriend, then we tell him she’s dead, we might have a better shot at getting him to sign off on Austin.”

  “Because he knows he’s going inside anyway?” the chief said.

  “Sure,” I said. “He might be smart enough to want to deal down the charges on Austin. Package them together, get a discount.”