November's Past (Larry Macklin Mysteries Book 1)

by A. E. Howe

  “Okay, yeah, I could think of one or two things that you might have on me, but it’s mostly stupid shit. Now I know why you were there. That body they found.”

  “Do you know anything about it?” I leaned in closer.

  He raised his hands. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything. And I don’t know anything. Friend of mine from the trucking company I talked to after I ran said you’d found some body in a ditch not far from AmMex. That’s it. Swear.” He shrugged.

  “But you ran anyway?”

  This time he leaned forward. His voice was almost a whisper. “I told you, I was wearing panties.”

  Back to the panties. “What the hell?”

  “I’m a cross-dresser. I like wearing lacy black panties. Now you can understand, I couldn’t take a chance you might arrest me and bring me to jail. Things might not go so well if other people found out.”

  “Are you shitting me?” I watched his eyes, but he seemed to be dead serious.

  “No, in fact, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Now he was whispering. “I need you to swear we aren’t being recorded.”

  I had no idea where this was going. I pulled out my phone and showed him the recording app, currently not running. “If I got in here and felt like I needed to record a statement, I’d use this. But I’m not now.”

  He reached for my pad and pen. He looked me in the eyes one more time, then wrote on the pad, passing it to me when he was done. The note said: I got information on some bad cops.

  “Here?” My voice was deadly serious.

  His fingers were tapping nervously on the table and there was fear in his eyes. “Yeah, and in town too.” He said the words fast, as though he wanted to get them out of his mouth and gone as quickly as possible.

  I leaned back. I needed to think about this. The last thing a law enforcement officer wants to hear is that his department has corrupt officers in it. My dad being the sheriff made it twice as bad. I didn’t want anything to do with it, but I didn’t have a choice.

  “Nothing is being recorded… that I know of.”

  He caught my drift right away. I really didn’t think we were being recorded, but how the hell could I be sure? I didn’t really believe there were any corrupt deputies; well, none that would do more than fudge their overtime slips, but here was an informant telling me that he had information.

  I wrote I’ll pick you up in one hour at Jefferson and Park on the pad and showed it to him. Eddie nodded. I got up and escorted him to the front desk, telling the sergeant at the desk that Eddie was free to go. The door buzzed and Eddie left while I went to retrieve my gun and mull over what he’d said and hadn’t said.

  Chapter Six

  I drove back to the murder scene, but in all honesty my mind wasn’t on the case. Why the hell did this corrupt cop thing have to fall into my lap? I was wondering. I don’t even like this job that much. Good thing, because if this goes anywhere I’ll probably be out of the department. Hell, I might be in the witness protection program. Bad cops are bad news.

  Pulling up at the warehouse, I found the evidence collection well underway. Pictures were being taken and everything was being examined and marked as evidence or not.

  Shantel walked over to me. “This is a big pile of work you walked into.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m going to. The state boys are going to do most of the heavy lifting. We found some stains, most likely blood. We’ve swabbed it. Got someone trying to find the owner of the warehouse through the property records. He lives in Ohio or some such.”

  “Great,” I said, not looking forward to dealing with an absentee owner and not paying much attention to Shantel. The corner of Park and Jefferson was about five minutes from the warehouse so I had some time before I needed to go meet with Eddie. I was half hoping he wouldn’t show up.

  “No sign of them fingers yet.” She could tell my mind was on other things. “Am I boring you?” she asked, only half joking.

  “No, just trying to see what it all means,” I lied. The murder had slipped to second place in my priorities. “Who’s here from the state?”

  “You got lucky. They sent Trey.” Shantel went back to where Marcus was using a screwdriver to take the cover off the drain.

  I left the dismemberment site and walked out front to the murder scene. Trey Wilson finished talking to a photographer, patted him on the shoulder and came over to me.

  “It’s been here two days and you couldn’t wait until the morning to call us?” He stuck out his hand good-naturedly. “How’s your dad doing?” Trey was almost the same age as my dad, and had worked on a couple of important cases with him.

  “He’s doing great.”

  Trey was always a professional and was quick to move from the pleasantries into the nitty-gritty of the crime scene. “We’ve got a fairly confined area for the murder. This macadam makes it hard to pick up any tire tracks, but, on the good news side, if you can find the vehicle sooner rather than later, we might find some of the macadam stuck in the tire treads. Did you say the slug went through the body?”

  “Yes, probably a twelve- or twenty-gauge.”

  “Where did your witness place the victim and the shooter?”

  “He said the victim was on this side and the shooter close on that side.”

  “It’s going to be a challenge finding the slug and, being a shotgun, it’s not going to tell you too much without any rifling. But it would identify the gauge and possibly the make of the shell. Plus, when you find the perp you might find unfired shotgun shells that you can match it with. Can you give us some deputies to help search?”

  “No problem. I’ll get some guys together in the morning.”

  We went over a few more details before I glanced at my watch and saw that it was time to go meet my new best pain in the neck.

  It was almost four-thirty when I drove through the intersection of Park and Jefferson the first time. I’d chosen it because it was tree-lined, so someone could wait in the shadows and not be seen. I didn’t see him. It could mean that he was waiting in the shadows, hadn’t gotten there yet or, if I was lucky, he wasn’t going to show and I could forget he ever said anything.

  Third time around the block and I saw him sitting in an older pickup truck about halfway down the block. I pulled in front of him, my unmarked car not likely to garner any unwanted attention. I unlocked the doors. Eddie quickly got out of his truck, hurried to my passenger side and got in the car.

  “Shit, man.” From the way he said it I could tell he’d taken a hit of something. Great, I thought, just great.

  “Okay, what the hell do you know about crooked cops?” I was tired and really didn’t want to be doing this.

  “No. I want to work something out.”

  “What are you talking about? We didn’t arrest you so there isn’t anything to work out.”

  “This is about more than the cops.”

  I had known this was going to be complicated from the get-go. “Look, you got me here with the bad cops thing. That’s what I need to hear about.”

  “I can give you a lot more than a few cops. You said you knew who I was, right?”

  “Sure, you’re Eddie Thompson, a petty crook.”

  “I’m not really a crook. I don’t steal stuff.” He actually sounded offended.

  I thought back over the offenses on his record. “Okay, fair enough, you have a couple of possessions, an assault and one or two other misdemeanors. Let’s just admit you aren’t one of the pillars of this community.”

  “But I’m a Thompson. My dad is Justin Thompson. My granddad is Daniel Thompson.”

  “Yeah, I can see the resemblance,” I said sincerely.

  “Fuck you too.” The words were spit out with a harsh and bitter emotion.

  “No love lost for your family, I see.”

  “That’s why I want to work with you.”

  “What?” This was getting more confusing, not less.

  “I know a lot of things
about my family.”

  I remembered the Thompsons that worked in law enforcement and felt like I was beginning to see where this might be headed. “Like the Danny who works for our department?”

  “Danny is okay. I’m talking about others, and not just my family. And it’s not just the cops thing. In fact, I don’t want to tell you that yet.”

  “Look, I don’t have time for a bunch of bullshit.”

  “You really are bad at this, aren’t you?”

  What the hell? “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve heard them say that you don’t want to be a deputy. You just sleepwalk through the job. You solve cases, but you don’t really care.”

  “Look…” I really didn’t know how to respond since it was pretty much the truth.

  “See, I hear things. I can be your… informant.”

  “I still don’t see your motivation.”

  “I told you. I’m a cross-dresser.” He turned and looked out the window. “I didn’t know what I was doing when I started dressing up. It just felt right. The day my dad caught me wearing my sister’s panties and bra, he beat me so bad I couldn’t go to school for a week. Mom and Dad told everyone I had the flu. I was eleven. I got caught again when I was thirteen taking a pair of my cousin’s Hello Kitty socks, and they found my stash of girl’s clothes. Dad didn’t beat me as bad, but he never let up after that. Cruel jokes at my expense. There was rough-housing where he’d encourage bigger boys to beat me up, put lipstick on me, all kinds of sadistic shit.” His voice trailed off and he kept looking out the window.

  I had gone from being annoyed to feeling quite a bit of sympathy for what he had to go through. Growing up with my dad had never been easy, but I’d always known that he loved me and would never purposefully hurt me. Eddie was clearly scarred by his experiences, but there was a strength to his words and emotions that proved he had not been drowned by the cruelty.

  “I’ll help you, but you’re going to help me,” he said, turning to look me in the face. I realized then that this might be the beginning of, not a friendship, but possibly some sort of strange partnership. “I’m saving the cops. If I gave you their names and what I know about them now, it wouldn’t do you any good because I don’t have any evidence.”

  “We can get the evidence if we know what we’re looking for and who we’re looking at.”

  “No way. If you act on what I know now, they’ll be able to work it back and figure out it was me that told you. Other stuff first, and the cops later.”

  I thought about this. Pushing him too hard now might be a mistake. But it was going to be a bitch knowing that there were possibly corrupt deputies in our department and cops in town and not knowing who they were. But what choice did I have?

  “Okay, we can play it your way for a while. But why me?”

  “I figured you didn’t care enough to beat the information out of me.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. I’ve got two cases I need information on. First is the murder. Happened at the warehouse where the tracks cross Jefferson. Second is a fire in the Deep Water area.”

  “I’ll get you something.”

  “If I don’t hear from you pretty soon, I’m going to come back wanting to know a lot more about those cops. Understand?”

  He looked at me and smiled. “You aren’t very good at the tough guy routine.”

  “Screw you. Don’t push it.”

  He nodded and got out of the car.

  Back at the crime scene, Pete had arrived and was looking over the warehouse. He helped me organize half a dozen deputies and we scoured the area for the shotgun slug. Even using the height of the wound on the victim and the almost-level path of the bullet through his chest, without knowing exactly where he was standing and what angle he was facing it was a long shot. No luck. I called it off after four hours.

  I was in the office before noon and got on the phone to New Orleans.

  “Oh, right, I heard you called. Got the email.” Dahlia sounded more upbeat and eager than I had imagined. I’d pictured a tattooed Goth girl in a permanent mope.

  “Did you recognize the tattoo?”

  “That’s my work. And, oh yeah, I remember. Guy was pretty nice, but super particular about the needles and hygiene and everything. Not that I blame him. Just seemed a bit anal. Guess that’s funny since I was tattooing his ass. So he’s, like, dead?”

  “Murdered.”

  “Really? Wow. Who would have thought that?”

  “We’re trying to figure out who he is. When did you do the tattoo?”

  “A couple years ago. On… let’s see… August second.”

  “You keep a record?”

  “Well, I take a picture and there’s a date on it. You got to have a book of your art. That way people can see if they want you to ink them or not. Lots of different artists, lots of different styles.”

  “But you didn’t write down his name or anything?”

  “No, it’s about the art, not the person.”

  “But you talked to him, right?”

  “Sure, it took hours to do this. Pretty complex design.”

  “Did he live in New Orleans? Or close by?”

  “Noooo, I don’t think so. We get some local business, but we’re pretty close to the Quarter and most of it’s tourists. Like I said, he seemed very concerned that we follow all the health regulations. This was his first tattoo.”

  “And his last. You don’t remember his name? Or anything else?”

  “I’m rotten with names. Show me a piece of art, and I’ll remember where and when I saw it, but a name, nah. Hey, wait, he did talk about his job, I think. Something funny… I wasn’t too interested, but I thought it odd that he did it.”

  “Anything might help. Was it odd because he did the job or was the job itself odd?”

  “Ohhhh, I’m thinking. Oh, yeah, he like, sold stuff to hospitals. Like beds and machines and stuff. Just seemed funny.”

  Something else occurred to me. I’ve been to New Orleans a number of times, and with that tattoo… “Was he gay?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I don’t think he was very effeminate, but sexual preference didn’t really come up.”

  I could tell the question irritated her a little. “I’m just trying to find out who he was and what happened to him.”

  “It was August. I’d have to look, but I think it was before Southern Decadence.”

  “Southern Decadence?”

  “The big gay pride thing here in New Orleans. Takes place every August. I think it was later than the second. If it was during the event, well then, most of our customers who come in are there for the event.”

  I figured I’d milked this for everything I was going to get. So I asked her to send me a copy of her picture for the record and got some other contact information from her.

  I went back to the crime scene after the call. Everything had pretty much been done except for taking the drain completely apart. I’d finally gotten in touch with the owner and brought him up to date. I’d asked him for permission to take the drain apart. He was very cooperative and told me to do whatever I needed to do. Usually with a business property, the first question you get is “Are you going to pay to put it back together?” anytime you have to start dismantling stuff. But there really are nice guys who just want to help. I made up my mind that we would do a good job putting everything back together and leave the place better than we found it.

  Chapter Seven

  I was just thinking about a late lunch when I got a text from Dad: Meet me at the hospital in Tallahassee. Why would you send that to a family member without elaborating? A couple more messages back and forth told me that he just wanted me to be there when he went to visit an old friend. This all made sense. Dad hated hospitals more than most people. I wasn’t real fond of them for the same reason. We’d spent a wretched month at the hospital as my mother was dying.

  I found him leaning against his car in the parking lot. It was a beautiful sunny day with a
cool fall wind out of the north.

  “I hate hospitals,” he stated as I walked up. “You know, I cannot forget the odor of the place when your mother was lying there with tubes running in her arms and down her throat. And the worthless doctors telling me there was nothing that could be done.” Anger lived in every word.

  I patted him on the shoulder.

  “Anyway, thanks for coming. I need to see Jim. From what I’ve heard he’s not going to know I’m there, but…”

  Jim Devries was one of the largest land-owners in the county and came from one of the first families to settle there back in the 1830s. He was also an old friend of Dad’s. They’d grown up together. Jim had had a stroke about a week ago, followed closely by a heart attack. He couldn’t breathe on his own and the stroke had left him incoherent.

  Coming off the elevator on the third floor, we turned right and headed to the ICU. Little had changed from a decade earlier when I ran down the hall to find my father crying and pounding on the wall with his fist. My mother had had an aneurism and was in a coma by the time they moved her up to the ICU. Sudden, unexpected, tragic—all the words mean nothing when you’re left reeling in pain and anger. It was almost a month before the machines were turned off and my mother went back to Adams County to rest beneath a sycamore tree in Abagail Cemetery.

  In the small family area outside of the ICU we met Tim, Jim’s son. A few years older than me, he was stocky and round-faced. There was just a touch of premature grey around his temples. He smiled when he saw us and came over, giving Dad a hardy handshake and a manly hug.

  “Thanks for coming,” Tim said. “I think a lot of folks have already put him in his grave.”

  “I understand how you feel.” I knew Dad meant that too. “He’s a good man. A strong man.”

  “I keep hoping something will change. It was so damn sudden.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “They aren’t giving him much chance of recovery. Yesterday one of them told me he wouldn’t be able to survive without the ventilator and that he’d suffered severe brain damage.” His voice was numb with grief. “You can go see him.”