Caught Red-Handed

by Jan Burke

  * * *

  Mrs. Erkstrom asked, “Is he in there?”

  He broke a rule and nodded.

  He thought she might start babbling at him again, but to his surprise, she turned away and went inside her trailer without another word.

  He walked back to the car and sat down.

  Bear was quiet for a long time, then said, “Bad one?”

  Frank nodded.

  “You never forget your first one.”

  “That’s the worst news I’ve had all day.”

  Bear made the radio call. Detectives and the coroner would be called out. They were given further instructions.

  Bear turned off the mike. “So, the body snatchers will bring the meat wagon whenever they get a moment, but in the meantime, we’re supposed to make sure no one else is in there, maybe wounded.”

  “Someone alive?”

  “Yeah, I know, you’re thinking, ‘only if they can breathe through their ass, like a maggot.’ But you’d be surprised. One time, when I was about as new on the job as you are, I was sent inside a stinking apartment. I go in, find an old man dead on the bed and rotting away. I step closer and I hear a moan. I just about shit myself.

  “I hear another moan, look over on the far side of the bed, and there’s the guy’s old lady, on the floor between the bed and the wall. I get a closer look, see that she was wounded but alive.”

  “She make it?”

  He hesitated and then said, “For a while. But that’s all any of us do, really.” Then he grinned and said, “Harriman?”

  “Yes?”

  “Before you break into that trailer, you may want to dust off your ass. You forgot about the bag of flour.” He made no attempt to stifle his laughter as Frank stepped out of the vehicle. Cussing as he removed the bag, Frank was tempted to toss it in Bear’s face.

  Bear grinned knowingly, then relented. “Check under the metal steps for a key holder. People are idiots. Especially old men.”

  So Frank caught a break. Searching under the steps, he saw a magnetic key hider. He put on a pair of gloves and pulled it loose. It contained two keys. One was clearly a post-office box key. The other unlocked the trailer. He glanced back at Bear, who flashed him a peace sign.

  Bear was a clown who didn’t know that no one flashed the peace sign anymore—or did know and thought he was being funny—but he wasn’t an idiot. And he wasn’t old, either—not really. He was a little younger than Frank’s dad, in his early forties. And unlike some of the guys with twenty years in, Bear was in good shape.

  Opening the trailer door let out a cloud of flies and stench, although he was almost getting used to the smell. He had heard stories of detectives putting a pan of coffee on the stove at a scene like this, heating it until its aroma masked the odor of decomp. He was the rookie here, though, and didn’t dare mess with anything. He reminded himself that he was just here to take a quick look around, to make sure there were no additional victims.

  Insect life and bad air aside, the inside of the trailer was beautiful, lined with curving honey-colored birch that gave it a golden glow. O’Keefe kept the place clean and neat. There was a small living room, then a kitchen, a bathroom, and the bedroom beyond. Frank steeled himself and made his way toward it.

  The heat inside the trailer was punishing. He was drenched in sweat by the time he made the short walk to the back.

  O’Keefe looked even worse up close and personal, but Frank had expected that.

  He turned away, toward the television. It was louder here, distracting. How would he hear anyone sigh over that? He noted the volume level and channel and turned it off. He might get in trouble, but he couldn’t think with it on.

  In the ensuing silence, he listened for a moment, but all he heard were flies and a crackling sound. After a second, he realized the crackling sound was being made by maggots. He again managed not to let nausea get the better of him, then tried to keep his thoughts clear, detached. It was a struggle.

  He glanced around the bed and peered into the bathroom and the front closet. No wounded spouses, gagged hostages, or other living individuals who might have needed his help. There was a closet in the bedroom he hadn’t checked. Did he really need to do that?

  “You want to work homicide?” he murmured to himself. He forced himself to do what he’d been avoiding—to go into the bedroom again and look at the victim.

  O’Keefe’s head and face were a mess, but there were two oddities he noticed having to do with O’Keefe’s right arm and his left hand. His right arm rested behind his head—O’Keefe had apparently propped his head on this arm, which seemed an odd position to be in to commit suicide. It would have been a natural one for watching television, though. Why would someone who’s committing suicide have the television on? It hadn’t been on at a volume that would have covered a gunshot, if that was what he had intended.

  There was a gun in O’Keefe’s left hand. His fingers were curled around the grip.

  Frank frowned.

  He was distracted by a whistling sound. The wind had come up, and he could hear whistling from windows and the vent above, and, at a different pitch—somewhere to his right as he faced the bed. He looked at the wall and saw a small circle of light and damaged paneling.

  It looked for all the world as if someone had fired a bullet into the trailer.

  * * *

  He drew in a sharp breath, regretted it, and made another check of the trailer. Certain no one else was inside, he left, locked the door, and went around to the other side of the trailer. There was a hole, and if he looked through it, he was looking at Donnie O’Keefe’s head wound.

  He turned around. There was a hole in Tomcat’s trailer, directly opposite the one in O’Keefe’s. Around the hole, the torn metal of the siding flared out.

  When he walked back around to the patrol car, Bear was standing beside it, talking to Mrs. Erkstrom, who had reemerged from her trailer. They fell silent when they saw him approach.

  “Just the one,” Frank said to Bear, then turned to Mrs. Erkstrom. “Do you know Tomcat’s real name?”

  “No. When I tried to introduce myself, he played deaf and ignored me. So I said to myself, ‘Well, nuts to you, buddy.’ Most people here are really nice and friendly. Not him. He was a jerk. You act like that, one day you’re in trouble, nobody’s going to help you out. Even a saint will flip you the bird, and I’m no saint.”

  “Sorry he was rude to you.”

  “Now see, you—you’re a polite young man.”

  Bear snickered.

  She turned to him with a frown. “You, on the other hand—”

  Frank intervened with another question. “Mrs. Erkstrom, do you happen to know whether Mr. O’Keefe was left-handed or right-handed?”

  “He was right-handed. At least, that’s the hand he wrote with.”

  “Thanks.”

  Bear raised his brows. Mrs. Erkstrom watched Frank in anticipation. Fortunately, they heard the approach of a car, so he was spared explaining his question. It was an unmarked black sedan. As they emerged from the car, Frank recognized two friends of his dad, Detective Mattson and Detective Tucker.

  They wore suits—although each had taken his suit coat off and left it in the car—and carried less equipment than Frank or Bear, but they looked nearly as overheated.

  Some detectives snubbed uniformed officers once they were promoted. Mattson and Tucker didn’t have that attitude. They had known Bear Bradshaw and Brian Harriman for many years, and they had each been to the Harriman house for parties and barbeques. Of the two, Frank knew John Mattson the best.

  Ike Tucker was the one who initially spent time talking to Frank, while Mattson conferred with Bear. Other neighbors were now coming out of their homes, walking toward whatever excitement this promised.

  “You’re getting a baptism of fire,” Ike said, when Frank had given hi
m the first few bits of information. “I thought the SOC was supposed to be out this way today.”

  Frank tried unsuccessfully to hide his surprise.

  “Oh yes, we all call the little son of a bitch that. As a matter of fact—”

  Whatever else Ike was going to say was cut off when Mattson called to Frank from the far end of the Vagabond. Frank walked toward him, wondering if he should just let the detectives notice things on their own or point out what he had noticed. Would they resent it? Would they be mad about the TV being off? That he had been walking through the trailer, coming up with theories? Tucker knew he had been inside, but didn’t seem upset about it. Frank decided that getting his ass chewed out wouldn’t be as bad as not doing right by Mr. O’Keefe. If you wore a uniform and you entered a man’s home and saw him in that condition, you ought to do what you could on his behalf.

  Still, he knew that rookies were infamous for overstepping boundaries. He didn’t want to act like a horse’s ass before he had a month on the job. They might all come up with some awful nickname for him, the way they had for Darryl, the SOC.

  “So,” Mattson said, “Bear tells me you’ve wanted to work homicide since you were twelve.”

  “I know I can’t do that right away,” Frank said.

  “Of course not. But you’re Brian Harriman’s son, which leads me to believe you are no dummy, and besides, Bear seems to think you’ve noticed something.”

  “How could he—”

  “Bear notices things, too. Like your dad, he should have been promoted to detective a long time ago. While he and Tucker talk to the neighbors, you talk to me.”

  So Frank told Mattson what he had learned from Mrs. Erkstrom about Donnie O’Keefe’s background and habits, about his own look through the trailer, and about the troublesome former neighbor.

  “Probably should have left the television alone,” Mattson said mildly. “Your job in this situation is to observe and secure the scene, not to touch. The coroner and the Kern County crime lab folks get unhappy when we do anything that might change the temperature in the room, or if we drag in whatever little fibers or hairs or—ahem!—flour that was previously clinging to our asses. All of that disturbs the scene. To some extent, that can’t be helped, of course. But the television—well, you’ll know for next time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So—what bothered you other than the stink and the flies and the heat?”

  “I saw a couple of things that don’t make sense.”

  “Name them.”

  “The position of O’Keefe’s right arm didn’t seem likely for suicide. He was positioned as if he had been relaxed and slightly propped up, watching TV on a hot night in the nude—not attractive, but would someone committing suicide want to be found in the nude?”

  “Naked suicide isn’t all that common, but it isn’t unheard of, especially not in indoor suicide cases.” Mattson paused. “Don’t see it much in suicide-by-firearm cases.”

  “Why was the television on? The volume wasn’t up high enough to cover the sound of a shot.”

  “Another unknown. Televisions provide the illusion of companionship. Maybe he wanted company, of a kind. What else bothered you?”

  “Why would he put his dominant hand behind his head and shoot with his left?”

  “That’s a little harder to figure out.”

  “Also, his fingers were wrapped around the grip of the gun—”

  “That can happen—it’s called cadaveric spasm.”

  “But he didn’t have a finger on the trigger.”

  Mattson raised his brows. “No shit. That’s the trouble for killers—can’t make it look like cadaveric spasm after the fact.” He made a few notes, then asked, “You didn’t touch anything other than the TV, right?”

  “Right, except a couple of doors, when I was making sure no one was in a closet or the bathroom. I wore gloves.”

  “Good. Well—”

  “There’s more.”

  Mattson smiled. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  Frank explained about the holes in the two trailers.

  “Show me.”

  After looking at them, Mattson stared at the other trailer. “What do we know about the owner?”

  “Not much. We didn’t get to see the manager, so we don’t have a name. I’m not even sure he’s the owner of the trailer, but the person who was living there until recently is a young man O’Keefe and Mrs. Erkstrom nicknamed ‘Tomcat.’”

  “Did you get a description of him from her?”

  “No, not really,” Frank said, feeling foolish for not asking her for more details. “She did say he was clean-cut and, um . . .”

  “Sexually active with numerous partners?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could have guessed that from the nickname. Females?”

  “She only mentioned women.”

  He made more notes, then looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle. “Here comes the meat wagon. Go help Bear to keep the neighbors back. Also try to keep them from talking to one another about anything they may have seen or heard, so we can get witness statements—although based on how long they waited to call about this smell, I’ll be surprised if we get anything from them.”

  * * *

  Eventually, Frank and Bear went back to patrolling the part of town originally assigned to them. Bear was cracking jokes. Frank was trying to decide if he could really still smell decomp or if it was his imagination when Bear asked him if he thought he could shower and change and still have time to eat something on their dinner break.

  “You know,” Bear said suddenly, “too much of this job is just sad shit, but today I’m going to get to do the amount of ass-kicking I need to do to cheer myself up.”

  He pulled over, jumped out of the car, and started running. By then Frank had seen why he’d stopped—Mouse was getting beat up by her pimp, Alvin.

  Mouse was April Strange, Leticia Anderson, Bonnie Boone, or Callie Comet, depending on which ID she had on her at the time. She was an addict who supported her habit through prostitution. She was petite, improbably blonde, and thin to the point of fragility. She wore a red crop top, hot pants, fishnet stockings, and platform heels, which likely had made it impossible for her to keep her balance after Alvin struck the first blow. Alvin, five times her size, straddled her now, pinning her to the sidewalk and raining blows on her face. A crowd was gathering, but no one intervened.

  Bear shouted, “Step away from her, Alvin, and keep your hands where I can see them!”

  Alvin took one look at Bear, already halfway to him, and took off. Frank was just steps behind his TO when Bear caught Alvin and tackled him to the ground. “Take care of Mouse,” Bear said, as he put the cuffs on Alvin.

  Frank still felt adrenaline pumping through him, but Bear was cool and calm. Bear took out his reading glasses and began to read from his Miranda card, all to hooting from the crowd. Frank was relieved to see that they were rooting for Bear.

  “I’m done with that bitch!” Alvin shouted from the ground.

  When Frank came closer to Mouse, stooping down next to her where she lay curled up on the hot sidewalk, she flinched away.

  “Hey, Mouse, it’s Frank Harriman. You remember me, don’t you?”

  Mouse’s face was a mess. Her eyes were beginning to swell shut, her nose was bleeding, and her lips were cut. She was crying and seemed dazed.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said. “You’re Brian’s kid.”

  Kid. She was younger than he was. In years, anyway.

  “Yes,” he said, “he’s my dad.”

  “You smell weird.”

  “Sorry about that. Visited a dead guy in a trailer today and haven’t had time to clean up. I’ll bet you feel worse than I smell,” he said, handing her a Kleenex.

  “I’m not sure about that,” she said, wrinkling he
r nose. “Had the dead guy been there a long time?”

  “Hard to tell, with all the heat lately.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Hard to tell that, too.” He could see that she was looking for distraction from her pain, though, so he added, “It’s a beautiful old trailer, although I don’t know if they’ll ever get the stink out of it now. You’d like it—it’s your favorite color.”

  “Red?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it at Lazy Acres Trailer Park?”

  Surprised, he said, “Yes.”

  “I think I’ve seen it. At the back?”

  “Yes,” he said, realizing that she might have been there with a john. “You ever been inside it?”

  “No.”

  Bear passed them with Alvin, giving Frank a grin and saying, “Guess who didn’t have time to dump his weapon or take the coke out of his pockets?” He glanced at Mouse and added, “I’ll call for an ambulance. Go with her, I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  He almost asked Bear if he was going to need help handling Alvin, but stopped himself. Bear had been at this job a long time. He knew his limits.

  Mouse slowly moved herself to a sitting position, but didn’t try to stand. Doing even that much seemed to make her dizzy. She closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. “Alvin’s gonna kill me,” she said softly.

  “Looks like he already made a try.”

  “He’ll get out. He always does. He knows people—not all cops are like you, baby. He’ll pay them off, they’ll let him out, he’ll come looking for me, and that will be that.”

  “You know people, too,” Frank said, thinking of Bear.

  “That little bastard?” She glanced up at him and sighed. “Hell, I wish I didn’t.”

  At Frank’s puzzled look, she said, “You know Alvin lets the dude have it for free.”

  “Who?”

  She frowned, then glanced at the thinning crowd. “Forget I mentioned it.”