“What happened?” Baird asked.
Leo shook his head, remembering. “Well, the sergeant had finished his investigation and was about to leave, you know? So I poured him a freebee, and what does he do? He turns it down. I say, ‘Hey, what kinda paisan are you anyway?’ And he says, ‘I ain’t no fuckin paisan. I’m three-quarters Nordern European.’ By then I’m already a little pissed, so I say, ‘Nordern European, huh? Is that like in Nazi?’ Well, he stands there for a minute just lookin at me, you know? And mind you, there ain’t all that much to him, just another pasty-faced, overweight little fucker with glasses. And he says, ‘Yeah, that’s right—like in Nazi. Only next time, we ain’t gonna do the Jews—we’re just gonna do ghinnies.’”
At that, old Ralston and Wyatt whooped with laughter, while the others looked more aghast than anything else, undoubtedly trying to picture someone crazy enough to call Leo a ghinny to his face.
“And—?” Baird said.
“I was coming out from behind the bar, that’s what. Cop or no cop, I was gonna toss his ass out the door.” Leo laughed now, glancing at Sally. “You remember what the asshole did then?”
“Hell yes, I remember! I almost peed in my pants!”
“Get this,” Leo said to Baird. “Mister Nordern European reaches down and unbuttons his sportcoat! Yeah, like old Wyatt down there. Like he was some fuckin gunfighter, for Christ sake, and we was gonna have a fuckin shoot-out!”
“No shit,” Baird said.
“No shit. He unbuttons his coat! And he slips his hand underneath, up near his chest, cuz he’s wearing a shoulder holster. Well, of course I stop dead. I can’t believe my eyes. And I say, ‘So what the fuck is this? You gonna shoot an unarmed man right in front of his wife and friends?’ And then he kinda catches himself. He just stands there for a couple seconds, like he’s froze stiff. Then he drops his hands and gives me this shit-eater grin. ‘Naa,’ he says. ‘It was just a little joke, that’s all.’”
“Yeah, like hell it was,” Sally put in. “He just lost it. He panicked.”
“Can’t figure that out,” Ralston said. “Leo come after me, I’d just kick his ass.”
Baird and the others laughed.
Leo picked up his bar rag and wiped at a spot. “I’ll say this for the guy, though—he knew his business. By the next morning, he already had our burglar. Knew exactly who he was, just by the way he broke in and what he took.”
Sally had lit another cigarette. “What about him?” she said to Baird. “He gonna help you with this creep bothering Kathy?”
“He’s the one we talked with anyway.”
“You didn’t like him?”
Baird shrugged. “Well, the man did give us a few precious minutes of his time. But he made it clear he had a lot more important things on his mind than our little problem. He kept tapping his pencil.” Baird looked up at the Donatos and smiled. “I sure wanted to break that pencil.”
Later, as he was about to leave, Baird saw Detective Jeffers come in off the street, frowning slightly in the dimness. Since women seldom came into the place alone at night, especially any that looked like Jeffers, the men at the bar swiveled and gawked as if Cleopatra herself had come to entertain them. Though Baird suspected that the detective was there to see him, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by getting up to greet her, only to have her pass on by. The regulars would have enjoyed that too much. So all he did was glance at her as she came striding back. She came straight to his stool.
“Could we talk?”
“Of course.” Taking his drink, he got up. “Why don’t we go into the restaurant section? It’s quieter over there.”
She nodded and led the way, still wearing her tight jeans and boots, though with the addition of a suede jacket. As the two of them passed the reception counter, Sally gave Baird a look of comic disapproval, as if she were scandalized. And he could see that she already didn’t much care for Detective Jeffers, who superficially at least was a younger, taller, sexier version of herself. Following them to a booth along the far wall, she got out a lighter and flicked it on, about to touch the flame to a candle in a red glass bowl.
Detective Jeffers waved her off. “That won’t be necessary.”
Sally didn’t like that. “Whatever you say.”
“Would you like a drink?” Baird asked the detective. “Or something to eat?”
“Just a beer,” she said to Sally. “A Henry’s, if you’ve got it.”
Sally gave her a killer smile. “I think we just might have one or two.”
Baird touched his glass and nodded. “I guess one more, Sally,” he said.
She turned the smile on him. “Of course, sir.”
Before Baird could introduce the two of them, Sally abruptly departed.
The detective smiled coolly. “Mister Baird, I’m Detective Jeffers. Sergeant Lucca doesn’t always observe the amenities.”
“I noticed that.”
“Mind if I smoke?” She was already getting out a cigarette.
“No, go ahead.”
As she lit it and dragged, Baird found himself wondering about her, the touch of exotica in her looks. Along with the dramatic green eyes and olive skin, she had full, shapely lips and teeth that were an almost indecent white. He noticed that she wore no wedding ring.
“I called your home and your wife said you might be here,” she said now. “First of all, as I told her, the hearing for the restraining order is the day after tomorrow in district court. Judge Ruskin. You should be there by ten. Room E-Twelve.”
“That soon, huh? Thank you. Or was it Lucca who pushed it?”
She shrugged. “I know Slade a little better, that’s all. I served him this afternoon. I doubt that he’ll show up, though.”
“That won’t matter?”
“No. It’s not like a trial. I’m sure the judge will grant the order.”
“Good.”
Jeffers dragged again and blew the smoke away from the table. She looked solemn, almost grim. “I could have called you about the hearing,” she said. “But there are some other things I felt you and your wife should know, and your daughter too.”
Baird was already feeling uneasy. He knew he was going to hear things he didn’t want to. “About Slade,” he said.
She nodded. “The rape case Sergeant Lucca mentioned—it’s my case actually. I was the arresting officer. If I’d been there when you came in, I’m the one you would’ve talked with, not Lucca.”
“What about the case?” Baird asked.
“The woman came to the department with the same complaints your daughter has. She was in her late twenties—I mean, she is in her late twenties—and she’s very pretty, like your daughter. But there was nothing we could do then either, except help her get a restraining order, which she says Slade totally ignored. No one was able to catch him in the act, though. There are so many cases like this, most of them domestic complaints. And of course we’ve got our hands full just trying to keep up with crimes that have already been committed.”
“I understand that.” Baird was feeling a growing impatience. “But what happened with the woman? What did Slade do?”
Sally brought their drinks then, so Baird had to wait a few more seconds. And even after Sally had left, Detective Jeffers didn’t answer immediately, just sat there looking at Baird, her eyes cold with anger. She dragged again and stubbed out her cigarette.
“He beat her, and he raped her, and he cut her,” she said finally. “The victim knows it, and I know it, and I imagine even Sergeant Lucca knows it. Unfortunately that isn’t enough for a conviction. Or in this case, even an indictment.”
Baird was holding his drink so tightly he wouldn’t have been surprised if the glass had shattered. He felt shaky with fear and rage. A rill of sweat slid down his spine.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why wouldn’t Lucca tell us this?”
“Because we don’t know for sure that Slade did it. And we’re still working on it, still trying to nai
l him. Also, Lucca doesn’t like civilians getting in the way.”
“And my daughter—what about her? Do we just leave her out there dangling, like live bait?”
Jeffers sighed. “I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Baird felt like an idiot. The woman had come on her own time, had gone out of her way to help Kathy, to help him.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I do appreciate you coming here. I know it’s above and beyond—and I thank you for it.”
“That’s all right. I couldn’t leave it the way it was.”
“And Lucca doesn’t know?”
She shook her head.
Baird sat there for a few moments, saying nothing, thinking. “About the woman,” he said finally. “The victim. I have to know what Slade did. Like how, where, when?”
Jeffers nodded. “Yes, I know.” Despite her look of anger, she went on in the flat, offhand way of police officers everywhere—or at least those on the TV news—calmly speaking about the unspeakable, the mundane horrors of their workaday lives. The victim’s name was Barbara Evans. She was twenty-nine, a divorcée, a loan officer at Seafirst Bank. Like Kathy, she rode the bus, in her case to the Ravenna district north of the university, where she shared a small house with her mother. Slade was often her co-rider, boarding the bus where she boarded it, getting off where she got off and tagging along beside her, telling her about stabbings and orgasms and her inevitable desperate need for him. She was also visited by Slade at work. She would look up from her desk and see him watching her. He would smile, lick the air salaciously, then disappear, only to show up later at the bus stop.
Then, on a wet February night two weeks after the restraining order had gone into effect, the woman was walking hurriedly from the bus stop to her home, her hand thrust into her open purse, gripping a can of Mace, when she was suddenly struck from behind and dragged senseless into some bushes. A rag was stuffed into her mouth and her clothes were slashed from her body, the knife finding skin and blood with every swipe. Then she was sodomized “in the mouth and anus,” Jeffers said, making sure Baird fully understood the woman’s violation.
“After that, he beat her with his fists,” she went on. “Barbara said the man wore rough leather gloves. She was in the hospital for almost a month. She lost three teeth and most of the vision in one eye. She needed three hundred random stitches and was operated on for internal bleeding. She limps now and will never have any children.”
Baird took a deep drink of the vodka, hoping it would calm him. “And Slade did it? You know Slade did it?”
“She says it was him. She says she smelled him, a cheap cologne he uses. Her wounds were consistent with a large, sharp knife. And of course there was his record with her, all the harassment, the restraining order.”
“Yet he walked?”
Jeffers nodded. “His word against hers. And the hospital somehow lost the hair and semen samples. Also, we didn’t come up with anything. His room, his car—everything was clean. We didn’t find a knife. There were no gloves, no marks on him, not even a scratch. And a buddy alibied him. The D.A. wouldn’t prosecute, said we had no case. So that was that.”
By now Baird was so overwhelmed by the problem, so frightened for Kathy, that he found himself just sitting there staring at Jeffers, unable to focus his thoughts.
But Jeffers had more for him, much more.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t end there either. Last Christmas a teaching assistant at the university was found dead in Discovery Park. She was very pretty and had complained to friends that some guy was harassing her. Only she never named him or described him to anybody. She lived alone, near the park. We assume she was on her way home when she was abducted and taken to the park. As wild as it is there, her body wasn’t found for days. She was just lying out there in the rain.”
“Yes, I remember reading about her,” Baird said.
“And then there was the jogger two nights ago, in your area.”
Baird could barely find his voice. “You think Slade did that too?”
Jeffers shrugged. “We don’t know yet. In all three cases, there are similarities, but not enough of them. The student’s clothes had been cut off her, and she had knife wounds, and she was severely beaten. In fact it was a blow to the head that killed her. But there was no semen in her, no sign of penetration anywhere. The jogger was badly beaten too and never saw her assailant, but there are no knife wounds, and once again, no semen. It seems that only Barbara Evans got the full treatment. So it’s hard to know. Maybe we’re talking about three different men—three different animals. That’s what Sergeant Lucca thinks.”
Baird said nothing for a time, just sat there looking at Jeffers, this lovely messenger with the terrible message. When he finally spoke, his voice almost cracked.
“This whole thing—it’s a bit much for me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Just do the obvious,” she said. “Protect your daughter. Go with her everywhere for a while. Maybe even send her away.”
Earlier Baird had considered that very option: sending Kathy to stay with his brother and sister-in-law in Illinois. But then, as now, he kept seeing Slade’s face, the look of insolence and fanaticism. “You think he’d lose interest in her then? Would he turn to someone else?”
The detective lit another cigarette. “I can’t answer that.”
“Incidentally, he’s either bisexual or a prostitute. When I followed him last night, he stopped at that sewer in Volunteer Park and picked up a guy.”
She nodded. “Yes, we know he does a little hooking. After Barbara Evans’ rape, we surveilled him around the clock. He also pushes drugs and works in a restaurant. Washes dishes.”
“I didn’t want to bring it up in front of my daughter.”
“She should know,” Jeffers said.
“I suppose so.” But Baird didn’t want to think about that now. “Sergeant Lucca—” he said “—what is it with him? Why didn’t he tell us all this? Instead, he acts as if it was damned impertinent of us to come in and waste his valuable time.”
Jeffers smiled wryly. “It’s hard to say. I’m his partner, and I’m usually in the dark too. I think he felt the desk made a mistake, that you should have been sent downstairs for the uniforms to handle. Protocol, you know.”
Baird drained the last of his drink. “No, I’m not sure I do know. If he knew about these other cases, then he knew we weren’t making some candy-ass complaint.”
“What can I say? He’s second in command of the Metro Squad. He’s my boss.”
Baird made no response to that, and Jeffers fell silent for a short time too. Finally she sighed.
“There’s one more thing,” she said. “You remember what Lucca said about Slade’s juvenile record? That those records are sealed? Well, they’re not—not to us. If we have a crime suspect and it would help to have his juvy record, we can get it.”
“Which you did with Slade?”
Nodding, she took a final drag on her cigarette and put it out. “When he was twelve, he molested a seven-year-old girl. Two years later he beat his foster mother with a broom handle. Almost killed her. While she was helpless, he repeatedly raped her.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He spent most of his childhood in one juvenile facility after another. Foster families in between. His mother was a heroin addict. Father’s unknown.”
“I don’t care about reasons,” Baird said. “I don’t give a damn why he’s like he is.”
For a time, Jeffers just sat there looking at Baird, not even blinking. Finally she spoke.
“I don’t either. We don’t have that luxury anymore.”
On the way out, Baird finally introduced her to Sally, knowing that if he hadn’t done so, his hostess would have made him pay in the days ahead. But as for Leo and the regulars at the bar, he decided to let them enjoy their salacious suspicions, at least until Sally deflated them with the truth.
Outside, Baird asked Jeffers where her car
was parked, and she gave him a look.
“You’re going to walk me to my car?”
“Of course.”
“Mr. Baird, I’m armed.”
“Good. Then you can protect me.”
Shaking her head, but smiling, she led the way to her car, parked half a block down, on the other side of the street. Before she got in, she put out her hand and he took it in both of his.
“I want to thank you again,” he said. “I’m indebted to you.”
She shrugged. “It’s my job.”
“Not everyone does their job.”
“No, I guess not.” She started to get in her car, then stopped and turned to him. “Remember, I told you all this so you can protect your daughter—not try something against Slade. That would be—”
“Stupid?” he said.
“Yes. And dangerous.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not the vigilante type.”
“Good.”
Four
Two days later, at eleven in the morning, Kathy got her restraining order. Jimbo Slade was now forbidden by law to come within one hundred feet of her. The hearing itself lasted only a few minutes. The judge was a chubby, unkempt woman with a voice like a chain saw. After scanning the report that Jeffers gave her, she asked the detective a few questions, ascertaining that Slade was absent by choice, having been served his papers the previous day. She then asked Kathy a few questions, seemed satisfied with the girl’s answers, and granted the order. Finished, she shoved the paperwork toward a clerk, tapped her gavel, and bawled “Next!”
Though Baird was pleased that everything had gone smoothly, he couldn’t help feeling that Kathy and the other litigants were being served a McDonald’s Hamburger version of justice. And out in the corridor, as he and Kathy were leaving, Detective Jeffers only added to this feeling.
“I’ll see Slade gets a copy,” she said. “But I want to remind you—if he violates the order, don’t call us—I mean me or Sergeant Lucca. Just dial nine-one-one and get the uniformed police. They’ll handle it.”
A Man's Game Page 6
