Bury the Past

by James L'Etoile

  “You have a key for these?” she asked.

  “Depends on who’s asking,” a voice from behind Paula called out.

  “Mr. Benton, these police officers have something you need to hear.” The way Brian spoke, the words were carefully chosen to direct the owner’s attention to the fact that the police were here and to not escalate the situation with a short temper.

  “Cops, huh? Mind if I see some ID?” Benton was an oaf of a man: short, round, and balding. He wore the same uniform shirt as Brian, but truck grease had left permanent stains. He rubbed an oil-laden towel in his hands.

  Benton nodded at the identification offered and tossed the dirty towel on the floor. “What do you need?”

  “Was Larry Burger working last night?” John asked.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “What time did he leave?”

  Benton shrugged. “I don’t know; I’d have to check his time card.”

  “Anyone unusual hanging out last night?”

  “Have you looked around? All we got here is unusual.”

  “We believe Burger was killed on his way home after work,” John said.

  The corner of Benton’s mouth turned up. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Why’s that?” Paula asked, stepping closer to the man.

  “He was gonna self-destruct one of these days. Kinda surprised it didn’t happen way before now.”

  Brian shook his head.

  “Is that what you came to tell me? I’ve got a transmission to put back together.”

  “Larry Burger was murdered,” John said.

  An arched eyebrow was the sole reaction from his former employer.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” It was Brian who broke the uncomfortable silence.

  “Looks like his car was disabled and someone beat him to death,” John said.

  “Damn. He was already gone by the time I got here this morning. At six thirty,” Brian said.

  “Whatever he got himself into, it’s got nothing to do with me,” Benton said and turned to leave.

  Paula spied a surveillance camera above the main door pointing at the counter and cash register where Brian stood. “That work?” she asked, pointing at the camera.

  “Yeah,” Benton said. “Records for five days.”

  “Can we take a look at the recording from last night?” Paula said.

  Benton shrugged again. “Why not? Come with me.”

  The owner led them to a small office past the lockers and showers. He pulled out a knot of keys on a retractable keychain attached to what John assumed was a belt. Whatever it connected to was concealed by a beer belly. The office was more of a storage room. Excess cleaning supplies, parts catalogs, and cartons of toilet paper everywhere.

  Benton caught John surveying the supplies. “I gotta keep this stuff locked up, or it seems to walk away.” He moved a box of urinal cakes off the desk and uncovered a small twenty-inch monitor that displayed the front of the store. Brian was behind the counter, and the date and time were arranged on the bottom of the picture.

  “Can you back this up to last night?” John said.

  “Sure. Let me find the remote.” Benton patted a lump of paper towels, opened a drawer, and fished around before he found what he was looking for. He pressed the rewind button, and the screen replayed a jittery version of events, including their arrival at the truck stop. The lighting changed, indicating the angle of the sun had moved down, toward sunrise. Brian appeared, and moments earlier, Larry Burger appeared.

  In the rewound frames, Larry walked backward, leaving at the end of his shift. Benton was going to press the stop button. “Let it rewind and see if Burger had any contact with anyone during his shift,” John said.

  A trucker came, paid for an energy drink and a shower. Three times, Burger left the counter and appeared to look around before heading to his locker in the hallway. He’d opened the locker and taken something from it each time. The locker door hid the contents from the camera.

  The shadow of another body came into view. Even in the small grainy picture, Burger looked nervous. A twitchy, anxious response to whomever this new customer was. A moment later, they saw why. A uniformed Sacramento sheriff’s deputy approached the counter and seemed to argue with Burger.

  John took the remote and hit the stop button, then pressed play. The deputy was having a heated discussion with Burger, pointing his finger in the man’s face. At one point, he grabbed Burger by his collar to make his point.

  The deputy pulled Burger to the bank of employee lockers and threw the smaller man against the metal doors. He jabbed a finger at Burger, which must have been a demand to open the locker, because Burger quickly unlocked it and stepped aside.

  Burger’s eyes were cast downward as the deputy searched the locker and withdrew an envelope. The big man’s shoulders tensed as he asked Burger something. He opened the envelope and withdrew the contents, which looked like three or four handwritten pages.

  Burger looked like he was trying to explain, but the deputy shoved him in the chest and walked out of the store.

  Paula looked over at John, tilted her head, and mouthed, “What the hell?”

  At that point, John stopped the playback. “I’m gonna need this recording.”

  “I figured as much.” Benton hit eject and handed a tape cartridge to the detective.

  When Benton locked the office, Paula said, “Mind if we take a look in that locker—the one Burger kept going to?”

  “Don’t you need a warrant for something like that?”

  “The coroner’s office gives us the authority to take possession of the deceased person’s property,” Paula said.

  John craned his neck around Benton, looking at his partner. “Bullshit,” he mouthed behind Benton’s back with a smile.

  The owner selected another key from his collection and opened Burger’s locker.

  Paula pushed in front of Benton and peered inside. The locker was empty except for a 750 milliliter bottle of vodka and an envelope. Two-thirds of the cheap spirit was gone. The camera video showed Burger going to his locker for a drink throughout his shift. She donned a pair of latex gloves, opened the envelope, and confirmed it was empty. But the handwritten address on the front turned her blood cold.

  It was addressed to Detective Paula Newberry, Sacramento Police Department.

  EIGHT

  Paula reread the envelope for the sixth time on the drive back to the office. “What’s this supposed to mean? What the hell was in here? I don’t know anything about this,” she said. She slid it into a plastic evidence bag.

  “It’s gonna be tough to get a handwriting analysis on this to prove Burger actually wrote it, him being dead and all,” John said.

  “First we have Bullet saying that Burger mentioned my name before he was killed and now this. I’m starting to get a little paranoid.”

  “You sure he didn’t try to get in touch?”

  She shook her head. “He left that message to call him, but nothing more. But I can’t dwell on it too much. I want to find out who that deputy was. Him arguing with Burger a few hours before Burger gets offed has to be connected somehow.”

  John’s cell phone rang, and he handed it to Paula while he drove. She looked at the display screen.

  “It’s the lieutenant.” She answered, “Detective Newberry.” She listened for a moment. John heard the low rumble of the lieutenant’s voice. He couldn’t make out what was said, but the pace of his speech marked it at urgent or frustrated.

  “We’re ten minutes out,” she said before disconnecting.

  “What’s up?”

  “The lieutenant wants us in his office. He said it has something to do with Larry Burger’s testimony and the DA’s office. It didn’t sound like we’re going in for a warm and fuzzy chat.”

  “With Burger unable to testify, the Fed’s new case just went down the tubes along with the DA’s news-grabbing headlines for her reelection campaign.”

  When John and Paula reach
ed Lieutenant Barnes’s office, he wasn’t alone. District Attorney Linda Clarke stood next to his desk. John didn’t exactly know what a “power suit” was, but he was certain the attorney wore one. Tight, tailored, and red.

  Barnes gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. Linda Clarke was having none of it. She crossed her arms and glared at the detectives. The opposite of the image she portrayed in front of the camera. Confident, sure, and calculating marked her public persona. Out of the camera’s eye, in the lieutenant’s office, she fumed. The tight-lipped tension added five years to her face.

  “Ms. Clarke has just delivered a bombshell. She hasn’t gone public yet and wanted to give us a courtesy heads-up—” Barnes started.

  “Courtesy, my ass! You’ve burned my case to the ground. Without Burger, we have nothing,” Clarke said.

  “We’ve burned? What are you talking about? What case about Burger?” Paula asked.

  Clarke squared up and looked Paula straight in the eye. “The court might grant Charles Sherman a new trial. Without Burger, the entire SSPNET case goes up in smoke.”

  “Wait, what case are we talking about?” John asked.

  “The original prosecution of Sherman, Burger, and the SSPNET officers,” Barnes added.

  “So what if the court orders a new trial? Re-try them and be done with it,” Paula said.

  “I can’t. We don’t have a credible witness.”

  “We have the IA investigation. We can read Burger’s testimony into the record. I can testify again,” Paula said.

  “It’s not enough. The court will toss Burger’s testimony based on the appearance of prosecutorial misconduct,” Clarke said.

  “Misconduct?” John asked.

  “Sherman’s attorney received an affidavit from Larry Burger claiming he was paid to testify.”

  “That’s bullshit! Who was supposed to have paid him off?” Paula said.

  “You,” Clarke said looking at Paula.

  Paula shot from her chair. “That’s absurd. No one paid that piece of shit to testify.”

  “The attorney for the petitioner filed copies of two city checks issued to Burger, totaling five thousand dollars.”

  “What? No frickin’ way.”

  “We’re following up on the check issuance now,” Barnes said.

  “Good,” Paula followed. “Still, we have enough to keep Sherman in prison.”

  “I don’t think we do,” Clarke said. “Unless we get new evidence, the convictions of Sherman and the others will likely be set aside. He’ll get a new trial—a trial with very little evidence to present.”

  “How long do we have?” John said.

  “I’d say a week at most before the court orders a new trial because of the alleged misconduct.”

  John stood. “Then we’d best get started. Lieutenant, can you have IA give us access to the files and notes on Sherman and the others? The IA folks get a bit squirrelly about turning over their case files.”

  “I’ll make the call,” Barnes said.

  “I should demand that you be suspended pending a full investigation, Detective,” Clarke addressed Paula directly. “This is your one shot to clean this up, or you’ll go down in flames. Someone’s getting nailed for this mess, and I don’t really care who. You or Sherman. I have a nice warm vacation coming up, and I want this wrapped up before I leave.” Clarke turned to the lieutenant. “I expect regular updates.” Then she strode from the office.

  “Well shit,” Paula said as she collapsed into the chair. “Why has this become my cross to bear?”

  “I don’t know what to make of the court’s review of an appeal from Sherman. Convicts appeal everything from broken cookies in their lunch bag to the size of their prison cell. Why is this one so different?” John said.

  “For the DA, it’s political. A huge case she prosecuted turns to shit and there is no way she can distance herself from it. The whole thing stinks. If the case against Sherman and the others gets tossed, the taint of corruption will hang over the department for years. The city will pay out thousands for civil claims to the imprisoned SSPNET cops. Hell, they might even get their jobs back. If that happens—”

  “I’m toast,” Paula said.

  “Let’s not let that happen, shall we? Any ideas where to start on this mess?” Barnes said.

  “I want to take a look at the IA files to get the lay of the land. Paula has that background, but I’m a few steps behind,” John said.

  “I need to look into this new affidavit from Sherman’s attorney. And I wanna know who the hell cut city checks in my name.”

  Barnes shook his head. “You can’t get involved in the check issuance matter—IA will handle that. You need to steer clear. Get your old case files and see if they make anything bubble up for you. If you look into Burger-Sherman connection, just know that the DA is watching, and she needs a scapegoat.”

  NINE

  The detectives hadn’t stepped ten feet outside the lieutenant’s office when John’s phone rang.

  “Penley here.”

  “Detective, it’s Karen Baylor. I found something you need to take a look at. Can you swing by the office?”

  “We’re in the building now. What do you have?”

  “Blood—and it’s not from our victim.”

  “The killer left his blood at the scene?” Penley said so his partner could follow. He tipped his head toward the hallway that led to Karen’s workspace.

  “Could be,” Karen replied. “But there’s something not quite right. That’s why I’d like you to take a look at what I’ve got here.”

  Karen’s workspace was part lab, part machine shop, with a bit of mad-scientist decor thrown in for ambiance. When John and Paula arrived, the crime scene investigator was bent over a microscope. She glanced up. “Come here.” She pushed back from the instrument. “Take a look.”

  Paula stepped forward and looked through the eyepiece. “What am I looking at? It looks like strawberry jam.”

  “I scraped that from our victim’s clothing. I took a small sample after I ran a test with Tetramethylbenzidine. It’s blood.”

  “Why don’t you sound convinced about that?” John said.

  Karen went to a worktable, took a glass microscope slide from a tray, and set it up on another scope next to Paula. “This is the blood from our victim. Check it out.”

  Paula scooted over to the microscope. “Okay. Red, flaky, powdery stuff—so?”

  John looked at the first sample. “The first one you had me look at is darker and ‘thicker,’ I guess is the word I’m looking for.” He swung over to the second scope. “Yeah, the vic’s is definitely lighter in color.”

  “So what’s this mean?” Paula said.

  “If you have blood at a crime scene, and it’s from the victim or the killer, you assume that it happened at nearly the same time, right? A killer cuts himself while stabbing the victim. Happens all the time. The blood left behind dries at the same rate—or should.”

  “But these look different,” John said.

  “Are you saying that they were left at different times?” Paula followed.

  “Yes and no. But you’ve hit upon the right question.” Karen returned to the worktable with a swatch of material cut from the victim’s clothing. She put this on a lit surface and swung a magnification panel over the fabric. A projection of the image appeared on a whiteboard behind Paula. “The darker, thicker blood is on top of the victim’s blood.”

  “So the blood splattered after our victim’s blood?” John said.

  “You would think . . .”

  “But?” John said.

  Karen switched off the viewer. “The darker blood is older than the blood underneath. I’m still testing some ideas, but the moisture content of the blood is lower, meaning it’s been drying longer. It shouldn’t be on top of the more recent blood.”

  “What would explain that?” Paula asked.

  “I’m not sure, and it’s pissing me off,” Karen said.

  “You’re
certain it’s not our victim’s blood?”

  Karen shook her head. “I did a quick blood type test, and the victim was O positive. The older, darker blood doesn’t match. Different types, different sources. I have the Department of Justice running the DNA, but that might take a while.”

  “Any medical reason that would explain the blood drying at different rates? Like hemophilia, or anemia?” John asked.

  “I don’t know. The viscosity of the blood could correlate with what we’re seeing. But it’s more than drying and evaporation. It has to do with the age of the samples. I’m going to rerun all these again in case I screwed something up. But the DNA profile is our best bet right now.”

  “What are the chances it came from someone already in CAL-DNA?” John asked.

  “There are two and a half million DNA profiles in the system, collected in the last thirteen years. Even if we get a hit on our sample, it could take some time to track it down,” Karen said.

  John nodded. “Keep us posted?”

  “You know I will. Have you heard anything from the medical examiner on the autopsy on your victim?”

  “Nothing yet. With the budget cuts over there, probably won’t get anything going until tomorrow,” John said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Dr. Kelly will find something during her autopsy that will explain the differing blood profiles. I’m kinda stumped, and I don’t like that feeling.”

  “I don’t like anything about this case. There’s some weird shit going on,” Paula said.

  Paula’s cell phone chirped—literally, as she had the ringtone set to sound like a field of crickets.

  “Newberry.”

  “Detective Newberry, this is Amanda Farney over at the Sacramento Bee.” Amanda was a mostly fair reporter at the local newspaper, one that hit up Paula from time to time for an exclusive.

  Paula clenched her jaw. “Amanda, how’d you get this number?”

  “A girl’s got her sources.”

  Probably bought the watch commander a drink after work. “I’m kinda tied up right now. Why don’t you call my office line and leave a message—”