Doubt in the 2nd Degree

by Marc Krulewitch

“Kate McCall is innocent. You can afford a good lawyer if it should come to that.”

  I turned to leave. Henry grabbed my arm with both hands. “Goddamn you!” he yelled and shoved me as a frustrated little boy might do. Had there not been an obstacle behind me, the incident would’ve been laughable, but I stumbled over the chair, onto the floor, where DeWeldt’s bouncer felt the need to place his foot over my throat. DeWeldt stared at me a moment then said, “Let him up.”

  I sat up, felt my throat. “Thank you for being so reasonable,” I said then walked out.

  —

  Sitting on the grass near Lurie Garden, I held the phone to my ear while massaging my neck with the other hand. A pleasant female voice answered at the National Council of Nonprofits.

  “I have a question about salaries,” I said.

  “How much is too much?”

  “I get the feeling someone asked this question once before.”

  The woman laughed. “What position?”

  “CEO of animal shelter.”

  “Around here, eighty K to low hundreds.”

  “What if the development director was getting paid more than the CEO?”

  “Too much. Way too much.”

  I thanked her, closed my eyes, let the ugliness of my job dissipate into the warm breeze of a June afternoon. The world couldn’t possibly be as miserable a place as it seemed. Then my phone rang.

  “I’m at the Taverna with Brookstone,” Kalijero said. “He asked me to set up a meeting.”

  “Why’re you going out of your way for that guy?”

  “Because that’s what cops do.”

  “That badge never comes off, does it?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand loyalty, brotherhood, that kind of stuff.”

  “That kind of stuff should be earned, not just pinned to your shirt. Anyway, I’ll be there. In the meantime, ask Brookstone about yesterday’s rendezvous and how I was ready to draw down on his psychotic ass.”

  “Do me the smallest favor, Landau. I’ll even say please. Try not to be a prick.”

  Chapter 27

  Through no fault of its own, Anagnostou’s Taverna had transcended the “sleazy saloon” identity to reach the revered rank of anti-renovation establishment, complete with a “cool” nuance. Protocol dictated that barstools belonged to old-timers while hipsters, emos, and post-rockers bellied up to the bar only long enough to get their Schlitz, Pabst, or Old Style, before decamping to a table of chipped Formica and cigarette burns.

  Ordinarily, the bar was Kalijero’s home, but today he and Brookstone occupied a vinyl booth accented with duct tape. I slid in next to Kalijero.

  “Happy to see me, Brookie?”

  “I’m happy to rub that smile off your face.”

  “All right, all right,” Kalijero said. “You’re on the same goddamn team.”

  “DeWeldt’s paying Brookstone to ensure an innocent person goes to prison in his place. That ain’t my team.”

  “You’re a sucker,” Brookstone said. “You think that McCall broad is just some dumb hick? She’s making a fool out of you, Landau. I’ve been over to the jail, I’ve seen her tears. All bullshit.”

  “How about we find some common ground?” Kalijero said. “You both think there’s a second person involved, right?”

  “And don’t say DeWeldt,” Brookstone said.

  “What about the doctor?” Kalijero said. “Give us what you got on the doctor.”

  Kalijero’s presumption irked me. “I should just readily hand over my hard work to Brookstone?”

  “What difference does it make?” Kalijero said.

  “I got a lot more experience than you, Landau,” Brookstone said.

  “Oh, I see. I owe it to you, as a public service—”

  Kalijero banged his fist on the table hard enough for all patrons to take a look. “Landau, you asked me to help you, remember? That’s what I’m doing. You’ve got nothing to lose by sharing info with Brookstone.”

  I enjoyed seeing Kalijero fired up. I said, “I need to see a little effort before I start giving up info.”

  The two venerable lions sized up a crippled gazelle. Kalijero said, “Brookstone says you been spending lots of time talking with that doorman.”

  I laughed. “Manny Alvarez. Brookstone thinks he ordered a hit on Linda Napier as he stood manning his doorman post.”

  Brookstone said, “You said yourself Alvarez called someone as soon as Linda Napier left and that Alvarez may have been the last person to see Linda Napier alive—besides you, that is. Manny Alvarez got a connection with Jackie Whitney you don’t want us to know?”

  “Get his cellphone records if you’re so hot for him,” I said. “Maybe he called Kessler, who moonlights as a hit man.”

  “Answer the question!” Brookstone said. “You got a connection?”

  “He works as a doorman in the building where Jackie Whitney lived.”

  Kalijero kicked me hard in the shin. “You got anything or not?” he said.

  “Brookie, what if I found solid, undisputable proof that DeWeldt was at least involved in the murder? Would you take a closer look or does he have too much money for you to see straight?”

  “If it’s DNA-solid, Brookstone wouldn’t ignore it,” Kalijero said.

  “I want to hear Brookstone say it. And, Jimmy, are you sure you’re helping me and not working for this shithead?”

  “Shithead?” Brookstone said. “That hurts my feelings.”

  Kalijero closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, swore in Greek.

  “It’s not Jimmy’s fault,” Brookstone said. “When I found out you was helping that public defender, I called in a favor because I knew you’d be the pain in the ass you are.”

  Kalijero had no comment. He should’ve told me about owing a debt to this ass-clown. “I’ll make a deal with you, Detective Brookstone,” I said. “If I show you DNA-solid proof of a DeWeldt murder-for-hire scheme, you’ll promise to sniff out every square inch of him, expose all his crimes, and present everything to the DA or the FBI. That includes his corrupt network at the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission. In exchange, I’ll tell you right now about Kessler’s fat, juicy lie.”

  Brookstone squirmed a bit, looked around, exchanged glances with Kalijero. “Just agree,” Kalijero said. “If Landau really gets the proof, it’ll help people forget that bartender business.”

  “Fine,” Brookstone said. “But it’s gonna have to be damn good evidence for me to go after DeWeldt.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Kessler returned to Jackie Whitney’s building after he said he had moved out for good.”

  “This better not be bullshit,” Brookstone said.

  “He came back at two or three in the morning of the seventeenth, to collect things he forgot to pack. He was inside Jackie Whitney’s apartment. Scout’s honor.”

  “He was there!” Brookstone said, banging his fist on the table. “That lying piece a shit! Gone on the fifteenth, my ass.”

  “How do you know he came back?” Kalijero said.

  “I said I had a video showing him entering the building and he was glad to tell me. Two others accompanied him to her apartment.”

  “Who are they?” Brookstone said.

  “One’s already dead.” I waited for a lightbulb.

  “That Linda Napier junkie!” Brookstone said, his face aglow. “That’s why she’s dead. You can’t trust a junkie to keep her mouth shut. She tried to blackmail money out of Kessler, so he had someone shut her mouth for good.”

  “Who’s the other witness?” Kalijero said.

  “Really, Brookie? Now it’s an orthopedic surgeon hiring a hit man? Maybe Kate McCall broke out of jail, killed Linda Napier, then snuck back to her cell. And when she gets acquitted, she and Kessler are gonna run away together!”

  “Landau!” Kalijero said. “Who’s the other witness?”

  “I get it,” Brookstone said, leaning over the table. “You kind of like saying Kessler might be the
accomplice because that’s reasonable fucking doubt. You and that lawyer-bitch are just drooling over getting another murderer out of prison.”

  “Isn’t that ironic?” I said. “The woman-beating cop helping the bleeding-heart public defender spring McCall from jail.”

  Brookstone grabbed my arm, tried twisting it off my shoulder. Kalijero passively watched our struggle until Brookstone let go and swore.

  “Who’s the other witness?” Kalijero said.

  “Marv, the graveyard doorman. Didn’t you interview him? You want me to explain what irony is, Brookie?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Kalijero said, kicking me again.

  Brookstone said, “Maybe Alvarez and Kessler are working together. That’s why Alvarez made sure I knew McCall came in on the eighteenth, but he didn’t tell Landau.” Brookstone looked at me. “How do you know for sure that doorman went inside Jackie Whitney’s apartment?”

  “His name’s Marv,” I said. “And who knows anything for sure?”

  “Here’s what I think,” Brookstone said. “Marv got paid off to allegedly witness Kessler grab the stuff he forgot to pack, and then leave. Nothing more.”

  Kalijero said, “But how do you place McCall with Kessler or Alvarez at the crime scene?”

  “We’ll bring all three in, then play them off each other. Someone’s going to crack, and when they do, McCall will cut a deal. Either way, Landau, your client is going bye-bye.”

  “Impressive how you deductively reasoned DeWeldt’s money into your pocket. Remember our deal.”

  Kalijero turned to me. “And you remember the evidence against McCall. The victim’s jewelry in McCall’s home. McCall’s fingerprint on the weapon. The victim’s car registration, keys, and prescription in the trash at McCall’s job. McCall had the victim’s apartment key. McCall had signature privileges on the victim’s safe-deposit box. McCall didn’t tell you about going to the victim’s building on the eighteenth. The victim treated McCall like a stupid cracker. The bottom line is that McCall had plenty of motive and plenty of access to the victim.”

  “And don’t forget the cops’ talent for beating false statements out of people.”

  Brookstone leaned over the table. “You better hope you don’t got Daddy’s brain-rot going on,” he said, “because I want you to understand I don’t give a shit you’re working for the defense. If McCall doesn’t get convicted and I find out you’ve been holding back anything, you’re going to wish you was locked away with Daddy in some nuthouse—”

  “I’m curious. So after you’re done ripping off old ladies, does DeWeldt pay you extra to suck his cock, or do you do that for free?”

  Once again, the stubby Brookstone impressed me with his agility, first jumping to his seat then diving across the table. For the second time in two hours, somebody had ahold of my neck.

  “You think you’re so special?” Brookstone snarled. “You want murderers going free?”

  “Let him go, Tommy!” Kalijero shouted as he tried to pry Brookstone’s hands off my neck. I focused on easing the pressure of his thumbs against my trachea. Panic began creeping in as my ability to breathe weakened. I moved my hand under my jacket, un-holstered my .40 caliber, then pushed the barrel against Brookstone’s forehead.

  Kalijero took his turn climbing up to the seat before launching his body across our outstretched arms, pinning my gun hand and one of Brookstone’s arms underneath him, but my neck remained in the grip of Brookstone’s other hand. Somehow, Kalijero found the leverage to bring his arm back far enough to deliver his fist square into Brookstone’s face, stunning him long enough for Kalijero to freely repeat the action until my assailant fell over, semiconscious.

  I sat on the floor, catching my breath. Patrons walked over. A bartender holding a billy club asked Kalijero if everything was okay.

  “We’re good, Dino,” Kalijero said, panting.

  I got to my feet. Kalijero looked at me, then turned away. I left without saying goodbye.

  A phantom compression around my throat accompanied the drive home and stayed all the way back to my couch. Sipping ginger tea helped loosen the grip, although it hurt to swallow. Images of Brookstone’s maniacal eyes and gritted teeth had been stamped into my consciousness during the struggle. I wanted to declare that Brookstone tried to kill me, but was it true? Then I thought how convenient it was to blame murder on an uneducated woman from Appalachia. Who knows anything for sure? I had rhetorically asked Brookstone and Kalijero, unconsciously waxing on the human condition. I sure as hell didn’t.

  Neck bruising and hoarseness greeted me the next morning. From the Internet, I learned of fatal outcomes associated with collapsing windpipes. I called Kalijero. No answer. I waited a few minutes then called again. Still no answer. On the third attempt, I told his answering machine I was on my way over.

  Chapter 28

  Kalijero lived in a one-story brick worker’s cottage about five miles west of downtown. The outer bands of Hurricane Gentrify first brushed the neighborhood last year, raining permit applications over empty lots. Now “Coming Soon!” signs on former dollar stores and bodegas warned of vintage clothing boutiques, cafés, and yoga studios. I parked in front of his house and slammed the car door. By the time I crossed the weed-infested strip of dirt between the street and the sidewalk, Kalijero was stepping out the front door. He hobbled toward two metal chairs looking like a retired linebacker after a career on painkillers.

  “Have you checked the value of your house lately?” I said while climbing the short flight of concrete steps leading to the porch. I sat next to him. Together we stared across the street at a boarded-up warehouse waiting to become loft condominiums.

  “You sound terrible,” Kalijero said. “If your voice doesn’t get better soon, get it checked out by a doctor.”

  “You may have saved my life yesterday,” I said. “You also saved me from manslaughter charges.”

  “No way you were pulling that trigger.”

  “Ever had someone choking off your oxygen? I guarantee I would’ve pulled that trigger.”

  “Fine. What are you doing here?”

  “You were in a galaxy of pain walking out of your house.”

  “I paid a price for saving your miserable life.”

  I flashed back to the Taverna. Kalijero sprawled across the table, his torso dangerously torqued while he punched Brookstone’s face. “I’d say your debt to Brookstone is paid up.”

  “I doubt he’d see it that way.”

  “Let me guess. When you guys were both cops, you did something stupid. Meaning, you got accused of something, Brookstone took credit for saving your ass even though his contribution was dubious at best.”

  “What do you want, Landau?”

  “Just to say thanks and also fill in a few blanks from yesterday.”

  A group of kids on skateboards and bicycles rolled past. “What’re they so damn happy about?” Kalijero said.

  “It’s weird,” I said. “Every spring, unvaccinated kids fall victim to joy and optimism.”

  Kalijero took out a stick of gum. He didn’t offer me one. “All right,” he said, “tell me about these blanks you want to fill in.”

  “It’s about when Kessler and Linda Napier came back to Jackie Whitney’s building. They didn’t arrive together. She got there first and said there was no one around. So while she’s waiting for Kessler to get there, the elevator door opens and out comes the graveyard-shift doorman.”

  “What do you know about this guy?”

  “Only that he was at Outpost Harry during the Korean War.”

  “He’s gotta be in his eighties.”

  “You know anything about Outpost Harry?”

  Kalijero journeyed beyond the bounds of space and time awhile, then said, “My uncle Kostas was part of the Greek Expeditionary Force. Sparta Battalion. For eight days Greek and American troops held the hill against artillery, mortar fire, and thousands of Chinese swarming over their position. Eight straight days of hand-to-hand combat i
n the trenches. He called it a slaughterhouse.”

  I got the feeling Uncle Kostas had shared some other gory details with his nephew. I said, “Imagine carrying that around the rest of your life from age eighteen or nineteen.”

  Kalijero turned toward me, grimacing as if his back were on fire. “Are you saying an old man killed Jackie Whitney?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. But if he was really coming out of the elevator like Linda Napier said, he would’ve been up there alone.”

  Kalijero righted himself. “Alone anywhere in the building. And the motive was what? PTSD?”

  “More reasonable doubt to throw at a jury.”

  “You’re starting to sound desperate, you know that?”

  I knew it and I didn’t like it. “DeWeldt had motive, damn it. He probably used a contract killer. Flies in, does the job, flies out.”

  Kalijero’s glare filled my periphery. “Why would a hit man hang around to put a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound body inside a bag, then deadlift it over his head to put it on a shelf?”

  “Maybe that was part of the deal. Hide the body. Maybe Kate McCall helped lift it.”

  “Whoa! Where’d that come from?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Brookstone’s right. She’s not a dumb hick. In fact, she’s crafty as hell.”

  Silence, then Kalijero said, “But how do you connect DeWeldt and McCall?”

  I turned my chair to face Kalijero. “If I could connect them, do you think Brookstone would really honor our agreement? Despite what happened yesterday?”

  Kalijero didn’t need to think long. “Brookstone’s been dreaming about DeWeldt’s money, that’s for sure. But a high-profile murder case that he gets all the glory for cracking? If you can really deliver on the evidence, he’d forget what happened yesterday and he’d forget DeWeldt’s money.”

  Silence again until Kalijero said, “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden? You been hiding something?”

  “Let’s say I ask you to bring Brookstone to meet me somewhere. You think you can do it?”

  “What do I tell him?”

  “Tell him I’m going to lay out the whole story and that he was right about McCall. Tell him I’m ready to prove who her accomplice was. Tell him he’ll get all the credit because if I turn on my employer, my name would be dirt in this town. Tell him you don’t owe him anything and describe his grip on my throat. Then remind him what second-degree murder is.”