The Fourth was anxious for the bottom line. He didn’t want a biography.
“Did you pick him up?”
“No. I was waiting to talk to you. We don’t want any screwups.”
“You’ve certainly got grounds to pick him up for questioning. Take his blood, see if it matches. Put him in a lineup and let the neighbors pick him out.”
Clay started to walk out of his office. It was his signal to Wes that the meeting was over, but the portly detective didn’t move.
“There is one problem,” he added before the Fourth could sweep out of the room to go God knew where. Clay stopped in his tracks and wheeled around.
“A problem? What problem?” He was in his superior role now, glaring down at the pudgy little detective. Wes wanted to drop the bastard right there but this was important business.
“You know about the semen?” Wes asked.
“Of course.” Harry Tuthill had filled him in that very morning.
“We were able to get a blood type from it. The blood type in the living room and on the glass is O positive but the blood type in the semen is AB.”
Clay turned this new information around in his brain. Two people did this murder? Not likely. A robbery or a burglary maybe, but not this. This could be a problem. A thought rolled around in the Fourth’s devious skull but he needed more information to pursue it.
“Bring the kid in right away for questioning. If he’s as dumb as you say he is, maybe he’ll confess. Do your first interview without a video or a tape recorder. If he gives you something, you can always redo it on tape. If he’s wishy-washy, it’s your word against his.”
Wes knew exactly what Clay was talking about. He’d used the same tactic many times in the past. It was strange, he had never seen this side of Clay before. Usually Clay didn’t give a shit one way or the other. He headed for the door but the Fourth called him back.
“Who else knows about the blood samples?” he asked.
“Just me and Harry.”
“Don’t tell a soul about it. I’ll talk to Harry.”
“Will do,” Wes replied. He knew the Fourth was up to something, but he couldn’t tell what.
Five
Rudy had a morning ritual before going to work. After breakfast he would take his boat and go fishing down the Okalatchee. “Boat” was stretching it-it was actuary an old dinghy he’d bought from one of the sailboat owners who docked on the river at night. The owner had hung a “Dinghy For Sale” sign on his mast and was asking a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it.
“I’ve got thirty-five cash in my pocket,” Rudy told him. He had his mother’s directness and some of her bargaining skills, which he’d picked up by watching her over the years.
The boat owner, a retired IBM executive, was amused by Rudy’s attempt to tantalize him with the cash. He had no need for the money or the sale but he saw an opportunity to let this kid win for once in his life. He crossed his arms and rubbed his chin with his right hand. They were standing on the dock and Rudy kept stealing glances at the dinghy, his boat. Finally, when the older man figured he’d built up enough anticipation, he relented.
“You drive a hard bargain, son, but if you’ve got the cash right now, I’ve got to sell this boat to you.” Rudy practically hugged him. He helped him take the dinghy off the sailboat and in five minutes it was in the water and he was heading down the river. That was three years ago, and since then Rudy had learned to take the little engine on his boat apart and put it back together again with his eyes closed. It was something he could get his hands on and his mind around.
The Okalatchee was Rudy’s daily escape from the world. The birds didn’t look at him like he was stupid. Nobody yelled at him for making the wrong change. Out on the river, he fit in. The fishing pole was his prop. Although he threw it in the water once in a while and even caught a fish or two from time to time, mostly he drove around exploring. When he found his perfect place for the day, he turned the motor off and drifted, watching and listening. He didn’t stick to the main waterways either. The river had a thousand winding little fingers that led to nowhere, and Rudy was determined to explore them all. When he turned off the river, he was immediately lost in a world bordered by thick mangroves and tall pines that shot up from roots deep under the water’s surface-a world where the gator ruled the water and the osprey ruled the trees.
The osprey wasn’t like the gator. He allowed the herons and the egrets to poach in his waters and the other birds to sing and fly. His was a benevolent kingdom. But when he took to flight, his white chest protruding, his massive brown wings extended, there was no doubt who ruled. Rudy sometimes imagined himself to be an osprey, perched high above the madness, proud and brave. As an osprey, he had no fear.
In Rudy’s mind, this was the real world, a world that had not changed since God first created it The other world was temporary, unreal, out of harmony with the universe.
While Rudy was getting ready for work after spending Thursday morning on the river, Wesley Brume was at the convenience store talking to his boss.
“I want to take your boy in for questioning when he comes in for work this afternoon,” he told the owner, Benny Dragone.
“What for?” Benny asked. He hated cops, especially the fat little bastard standing in front of him. He’d seen Wes in action before.
“I’m not at liberty to say. It’s police business.”
“You’re not at liberty to say. Does his mother know about it?”
“What are you, his fucking father or something? Is there something going on here I don’t know about?” Wes was getting his dander up a bit.
“No, I just watch out for the kid. I don’t want you guys fucking with him. You know he’s not all there. I’m not going to let you talk to him without his mother’s permission.”
“You’re not, eh? How about if we fuck with you instead? How about I get the health department over here right now? Check out your bathrooms, check out your walk-in.”
“Wait a minute. Hold on here. We don’t have to get drastic about this. I was just asking a question, that’s all.” Benny was from Chicago. He knew how bad things could get if the cops got city hall on your ass.
Wes knew from Benny’s demeanor he had the upper hand.
“No offense taken, Benny. I just want to talk to the kid for a while. If you can stay here for a bit I’d appreciate it. I’ll have him back as soon as I can.”
Benny thought about it for a minute. It stunk. He’d heard the rumors about Rudy being at Lucy’s house the night of the murder. It was all over the neighborhood. He was sure the cops had leaked the story and now they wanted to talk to Rudy. He also knew that Rudy was too stupid to defend himself. But what could he do? He didn’t like it but he had a business to run.
“All right,” he responded weakly. “But take it easy on him.”
“I know. I talked to his principal. You can count on me, Benny.” Sure, Benny thought, I can count on you to bend me over a sink somewhere in the middle of the night.
Wes was there when Rudy showed up for work. Benny introduced him.
“He wants to take you down to the station to talk to you. It won’t take long. I’ll cover you here and you won’t lose any money, I promise.”
Benny felt like the gatekeeper at the Colosseum feeding one more Christian to the lions. He saw Wes standing there licking his chops. Rudy could see Benny’s fear, but he had just come from the river and he had seen an osprey. He had seen him float down from his perch high in the sky and scoop up a fish in his talons. Rudy felt like an osprey, strong and fearless. Nobody was going to get the best of him today.
“It’s okay, Benny. I’ll go, no problem.” Benny watched as the kid led the fat little grunt out of his store.
As soon as Wes’s unmarked Ford left the parking lot, Benny picked up the phone and called Elena. He had always liked Elena. Ever since his wife Maria had died, he had fantasized about being with Elena. It was one of the reasons he hired young Rudy. Why else would I
hire a kid who has trouble making change for a dollar? But Elena had no time for him or any other man.
“Elena,” he said when she picked up the phone in the hotel lobby. “It’s me, Benny. The police just picked Rudy up for questioning. They’re taking him down to the station.”
Elena was alarmed but not overly so. Working at the hotel, she had not heard the scuttlebutt about Rudy and Lucy that was spreading through the barrio like so much cow manure.
“Now Benny, what would the police want with my Rudy?” she asked lightly, almost as if she was trying to calm Benny down instead of it being the other way around.
“They’re questioning him about the murder over here in the barrio.” That made some sense to Elena. Rudy worked nights at the convenience store. He might have heard something. But why the station?
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked, a little more worry in her voice. Benny hesitated. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell her that her son was suspected of killing Lucy Ochoa.
“No. I’m just concerned, that’s all. I don’t trust those damn cops. And Rudy, sometimes he’s his own worst enemy.”
It wasn’t his words but the hesitation in his voice that made her suspect this might be a little more serious than Benny was letting on. To be safe, she decided to put her head waitress, Teresa, in charge and head down to the station to find out firsthand what was going on. She thanked Benny for his concern and hung up the phone.
Five minutes later, after she had given Teresa explicit instructions, Elena stepped into her beat-up old Camry and headed for the police station a few short blocks away. It was a beautiful afternoon, a little nippy with a slight breeze blowing. She would have preferred to walk but there was no time to waste.
The receptionist politely assured Elena that someone would be with her in a minute and asked her to take a seat. It was a small room with only a few chairs and a door that presumably led to the inner offices of the police department. Rudy was in there somewhere, but the door was closed. The sign on the wall next to it said it was locked and could be used only by police personnel. Big deal, Elena thought. They make it sound like people actually want to go in there. But at that moment there was nothing she wanted more. The only possibility was to get the young woman at the receptionist window to buzz her in. She decided to sit and wait, at least for a few minutes. She looked at the clock above the receptionist’s desk. It was 3:16 p.m.
After a few minutes she walked up to the window. “Please, Miss, could you please call back there and let them know I’m here? I really don’t want anyone talking to my son outside of my presence.” The receptionist gave her a look but picked up the phone and delivered the message to someone on the other end of the line.
“And can you please write down that I arrived here at 3:16?” Elena didn’t know why she did that. It might be important later on, she told herself.
Inside the station, Wes Brume was about to start questioning Rudy. He led him to the interrogation “facility,” an eight-by-ten-foot bare room with olive walls and a concrete floor. The furniture consisted of a nondescript metal table in the middle surrounded by four metal chairs. There was no two-way mirror for other cops to observe the festivities, but there was a tape recorder on the table and a video recorder had been permanently installed to record a suspect’s every facial expression during an interview. The Grunt did as he’d been told and left both devices off. He motioned Rudy to sit in one chair and he sat directly across from him with a new yellow pad and pen in front of him. He handed Rudy a document spelling out his Miranda rights and told him to sign it. “Just a formality,” he assured him. Rudy pretended to read through it but barely did so, then signed his name at the bottom.
Wes had played this interview over in his mind several times before he’d picked Rudy up. He decided to start by handing Rudy the rope and seeing if he could fit it around his own neck. He leaned over and spoke softly, almost in a whisper.
“Do you know why you’re here, Rudy?”
“No, sir.”
“I want to ask you some questions about the Lucy Ochoa murder. Did you know Lucy?” Rudy hesitated for a moment. He knew he couldn’t lie.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me everything you know about her murder.” Rudy was relieved the question wasn’t directed towards him personally. This was a question he could answer without hesitation. As he began to speak, the Grunt started writing on his yellow pad. Rudy looked at the ceiling as he tried to recall everything he had read in the newspaper.
“I know the murder occurred between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. on the night of January 16th.” His eyes were almost closed as he strained to remember. “I know her body was found in the bedroom and she was naked. I know her throat had been cut with a knife. I know she was lying on the bed.” Rudy hesitated; his eyes were completely closed now as he searched his brain for any other facts he might have read. Wes waited patiently. He noted in his pad that Rudy had closed his eyes when he spoke, “as if he was recalling a past event in his mind.”
“That’s it,” Rudy concluded with a smile of satisfaction. “That’s all I know.”
“That’s good. Very good.” Wes had picked up on the play, realizing his was the role of the satisfied schoolteacher. Manipulation was the name of the game. No open-minded reasonable observer of this conversation would ever have suspected Rudy of being the murderer. The Grunt didn’t fall into that category, however. His mind was already made up. What he was doing now was window dressing-filling in the necessary blanks to feed a hungry jury.
“Now, Rudy,” Wes continued, “I have to ask you some personal questions about that night. It’s important for me to know everybody who was in the vicinity of the murder so I can eliminate them as suspects. You understand, don’t you?” Rudy nodded his head. He was starting to feel comfortable with Officer Brume. “Some of the neighbors indicated that you were on Mercer Street a little after eleven o’clock on the night of the murder, is that true?”
“Yessir.” Rudy was a little afraid, even embarrassed about the admission, but he was glad too. Glad to get it off his chest, especially in a nice conversation like this.
Elena had been sitting in the waiting room for twenty minutes. She had grown more and more impatient, and now was starting to suspect that something really wasn’t right. She walked up to the window again.
“I’ve been waiting twenty minutes. I want to know where my son is,” she said in a firm but steady voice.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the woman replied. “I’ll call back there again.” Elena stayed at the window, watching as the woman called. After a moment she hung up and said, “Someone’s coming out to talk to you.” Elena stayed where she was. If someone didn’t walk through that door immediately, she was going to do something-she didn’t know what. All she knew was that the time for being polite was over. Almost immediately, a man walked through the door from the inner sanctum. He was dressed in black pants, a short-sleeve white shirt and a plain black tie, open at the collar. Elena guessed he was in his mid-thirties. He was as nondescript as his attire, neither short nor tall, fat nor skinny, handsome nor ugly-the perfect face in the crowd.
“Ma’am, I’m Del Shorter.” He stuck his hand out, which Elena stiffly accepted. Del motioned to the waiting room chairs. Elena noticed that he had closed the door to the inner sanctum behind him. She reluctantly sat down. “Ma’am,” Del began, “my partner, Detective Brume, is talking to your son as we speak. We’re investigating the Lucy Ochoa murder and your son may be able to help us. He works at the convenience store nearby. He may know the girl, know who she was coming in the store with. Maybe even saw her that night. These are things we need to know. We need descriptions. We’re showing him photographs. He could be a big help to us.”
It was a lie but a plausible lie, something that played into Elena’s own thoughts about the matter. Still, she wasn’t ready to sit calmly and wait. Rudy was too vulnerable.
“I accept what you’re saying but I’d like to see
Rudy. I’d like to be there when you’re questioning him.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s against department procedure.” Del knew he was treading on thin ice so he supplemented his response. “Technically, since this is an investigative stop, we’ve advised Rudy of his rights, so I’ll advise you as well. He does have the right to remain silent, he does have the right to an attorney — ” Elena interrupted him.
“Mr. Shorter, you don’t understand. Rudy’s a little slow. If someone asks him a question, he’s going to answer it whether you advise him of his rights or not. I’m his mother, and I don’t want him answering questions.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. He’s an adult and he must make those decisions himself. But you can hire an attorney for him and if his attorney advises us that we cannot talk to him, we’ll certainly stop.” Elena finally got it This was a stonewall. And why would they be stonewalling her if her son was not a suspect? She glared at Del Shorter.
“You’re not going to let me see him?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And you’re going to continue to talk to him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Elena turned to leave. She had to get a lawyer over there immediately. But who do I know? And then she had a thought. “Is there a public phone here?” she asked the receptionist.
“Yes, ma’am, right outside the front doors.”
In the other room, Wes’s chat with Rudy was moving along quite well.
“Rudy, were you in Lucy Ochoa’s house that night?”
“Yessir.”
“What time?”
“I’m not sure but I close the store at eleven and I walked right over.” Rudy knew the next question would be about what he did at Lucy’s house and when he left. This was nothing like he imagined. He felt comfortable, relieved. He would tell Wes what happened and then he would go home. Unfortunately, his new best buddy, Wesley Brume, did not ask the logical next question.
The Mayor of Lexington Avenue jt-1 Page 3
