Measure Twice

by J. J. Hensley

  Lambert drove north through town past Three Rivers University. Channing remembered that the university was the focal point of a series of mysterious deaths a few years earlier. Channing grabbed the paper cup of coffee from the car’s cup holder and took a sip. He winced and nearly spit it back in the cup. Police station coffee. Seriously, why was it always so bad? He placed the cup back in the hole and stared out the window.

  Without looking at his partner, Channing said, “You came by the house last night, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Channing tried to remember their conversation, but could only recall portions.

  “I talked about Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the basement?”

  “Some of it.”

  He paused before saying, “I’m not a bad man.”

  Lambert remained focused on the road. “I know,” she replied without any hostility.

  When they arrived at a rundown two-story house near Ohio River Boulevard, Channing did his best to reset his mind and concentrate on the task at hand. Then it occurred to him that he had no idea what that task was.

  “Why are we here?”

  Lambert checked an address in her notebook and, without looking up, replied, “Following a lead.”

  “What lead?”

  Mockingly, Lambert said, “Oh…you want to participate? I don’t want to inconvenience you or anything.”

  Rolling his eyes, Channing said, “Drop the attitude and tell me why we are here.”

  Lambert started to say something, but then stopped herself. She had dealt with bad cops before and had a mental folder of insults ready to heap upon anyone who could make her look bad because they were too lazy, apathetic, or incompetent to do a proper job. But Channing was not one of them. She remembered the zeal he showed when re-enacting the murder. And he was bright. There was no mistaking that. Behind those bloodshot eyes, there was a keen mind and a type of insightfulness that was rare. It was not just intelligence either. He was politically aware in a way she was not. He had tried to tell her that they would not be allowed to issue a lookout for a white van, but she did not listen. Her new partner gave the impression that he understood how all the parts moved together to create a working timepiece and, in spite of his lack of contributions to the current case, there was a combination of scientific analysis and intuition present in his work.

  Obviously, he was a drunk, but who could blame him? She was not part of the white-man’s network, so she did not hear all the gossip, but now she had heard enough to know the man had made a grim trip to Hell and back. She could not be surprised if he happened to bring home a few psychological souvenirs.

  “We’re talking to a man named Stuart Middlebury. Harris sent Terio and Belton to the brokerage firm where Culligan worked before he ran for office. They asked around to see if Culligan received any threats during his time there. His former secretary pulled out a box of letters and some emails she had printed off that contained complaints about Culligan. Apparently, toward the end of his time there, Culligan steered a bunch of investors toward the failed Cityflash scheme, hoping that if he could pump enough money into it, it would stay afloat. It didn’t, and a lot of people got screwed over when the company crashed. When it came out that Culligan knew the whole scandal was about to come out and he kept advising his people to invest in Cityflash, a lot of people were irate.”

  “Why wasn’t he ever indicted for insider trading?” asked Channing.

  “I called both the District Attorney’s office and the U.S. Attorney’s office. The prosecutors could never prove that Culligan received any special information. Everyone knew he had a cousin with the city of Detroit who probably tipped him off, but the cousin wouldn’t testify against him. Besides, when you can go after a bunch of high-profile city officials and grab big headlines, who cares about the little fish?”

  Channing could not disagree.

  “So this guy, Middleton—”

  “Middlebury,” Lambert interrupted. “He wrote the most threatening letter. There was nothing overt in the letter, but Middlebury said that Culligan should ‘fear the reaper’.”

  “Like the song?”

  His much younger partner tilted down her sunglasses and looked at him, “What?”

  “You know, The Blue Oyster Cult.”

  She stared blankly.

  “How about the Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken?” He made animated gestures with both hands and yelled in his best Walken-like voice, “More cowbell! More cowbell!”

  She blinked, and after a few beats said, “Do you need me to call you a doctor?”

  Channing lowered his hands, grabbed the cup of police station coffee, and took a punitive swallow.

  He put the cup down, then suggested, “Let’s go talk to this guy.”

  Lambert raised both eyebrows, replaced her sunglasses, and said, “Good idea,” then turned and opened the door. She got out of the car quickly, not wanting him to see the smile that was coming across her face.

  – – –

  It had been a long time since Mayton slept past noon. He had arrived back at his house after six o’clock and repeated the chore of cleaning the van and scrubbing his body. Not that he cared about getting caught. In fact, he expected he would eventually be captured. As long as he had time to finish his work, that was all he cared about. There was nothing for him past that point other than the afterlife, but he could not let himself think of that now.

  He had given in to weakness when he stopped and prayed. He had given in to stupidity when he made that phone call. Those mistakes had almost ruined everything. A delivery truck had pulled in behind his van just as he returned from unloading Abdella’s body. The driver of the truck had not seen Mayton’s face, but could have read the license plate. But why would he? In a few hours, the driver might report that he had seen a van there in the early morning hours, but there was no reason for anyone to notice it. His van looked like any other delivery vehicle supplying the city with some useless item. Mayton smiled at that. In a sense, he supposed that was true.

  Mayton looked at his watch. It was already three-thirty in the afternoon. He had time for a quick workout, and then he would head downtown to watch the festivities. He wished God would make him stronger—mentally. It was mistakes like this morning’s that could derail him. To be the perfect servant, his imperfections would have to be removed. He had been forged in the fire, and now he had to become cold, hard, and flawless.

  – – –

  “Does this guy have a record?” Channing asked as the two detectives approached the house with once-white siding, now gray with patches of green mildew in various spots.

  The badly-chipped sidewalk leading up to the front porch had abundant cracks from which blades of wintered-out grass peeked through. Lambert surveyed the windows on the front of the house, scanning for threats, but only finding damaged screens and partially dislodged shutters.

  She led the way onto a covered entryway that housed an old refrigerator and a porch swing that at one time hung from rings.

  Trying to look inside through a clouded window next to the door, she said, “Four assault charges and some citations for disturbing the peace. I pulled the reports. Looks like mostly bar fights. Usually the same bar.”

  Channing stood to one side of the door and noticed an oil covered shirt balled up at his feet. The shirt bore some sort of logo and he used his foot to straighten the material enough for him to see the design. Lambert stood on the opposite side of the door, looked down at a doorbell fixture that was missing a button, and proceeded to knock.

  The design on the shirt was somehow familiar to Channing.

  He continued to unfold it with his foot and a sense of urgency crept into his voice as he asked, “What bar?”

  Lambert was knocking again, this time more loudly.

  She yelled, “Mr. Middlebury? Stuart Middlebury?”

  “What bar?” Channing repeated.

  “What? Oh…some place
called Truwicks down in Sewickley.”

  Channing heard a floorboard creak behind the door. He quickly strode across the doorway, grabbed his partner by the arm, and violently pulled her down the steps of the porch.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she yanked her arm away from him.

  Channing remained silent, his eyes on the door, and drew his newly issued GLOCK. Reflexively, Lambert mirrored his actions and took a position of concealment behind one of the rotting posts holding up the porch roof.

  Channing knelt on the ground and aimed his GLOCK at the door.

  In a voice that was not quite his, Channing announced, “Middlebury! It’s the Sherriff’s Department! We ain’t here to arrest ya!”

  Lambert shifted her eyes from the door to Channing. What was he up to? And why in God’s name was he talking like that? Using that accent, he sounded like some sort of redneck. And the Sherriff’s Department?

  “My partner’s goin’ back to the car! Then, I want you to open the door and talk ta me, but I don’t wanna see no gun in your hands, okay?”

  A voice came through the door.

  “Alright. But you ain’t gonna haul me off?”

  “No sir. Just wanna talk to you. Heard you got robbed by a snake named Culligan. We’re try’n to figure out how many people he scammed.”

  The detectives heard a muffled thud as Middlebury set something down on the floor.

  Without looking at Lambert, Channing commanded, “Walk back to the car and keep your eyes on those windows.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Do it now.”

  It was the way he said it that stopped her from arguing. His voice was dead calm, but there was no mistaking the life-or-death tone behind his words. She walked backwards to the car, her eyes moving from one dirt-streaked window to the next, and had repeated the pattern several times by the time she took a position of cover behind the vehicle’s engine block.

  With a low squeak, the door opened a few inches.

  “Come on out,” Channing said. “When I see your hands are empty, I’ll put the gun away.”

  The door swung open and a scraggly man wearing ripped jeans and a twenty-year-old Harley Davidson T-shirt emerged. Middlebury stood no taller than five foot four and was less than one-hundred-fifty pounds. Channing tried to imagine the diminutive man dragging a body around and tossing it off a bridge. Of course, he could have had help.

  Looking at Channing, the man held up his hands to show they were empty and took two steps out onto the porch.

  “He didn’t rip me off. I never had no money to invest in nothin’. It was my mama. Took all her savings.”

  Channing lowered his weapon, but did not place it back in the holster. He backed up into the front yard, inviting the man to follow. The rush of adrenaline had temporarily relieved his headache, but now he felt the weight of his own head again.

  “Where you from, officer?”

  Channing started to correct him by stating his actual title, but thought better of it.

  “Wheeling.”

  The rough man, who was fifty, but looked seventy, nodded with some level of approval.

  “Moved up here to find work, ended up doin’ this,” explained Channing.

  Middlebury gave a little smile, understanding the need to move to wherever the work was. He walked down the steps of the porch and stood in the yard, fifteen feet from Channing.

  From her position, Lambert could barely hear the conversation, but she thought she heard her partner say he was from Wheeling. Wheeling, West Virginia? What on earth was he talking about? She did not know much about him, but she knew he was originally from somewhere around Cincinnati and had gone to college in North Carolina.

  “I guess you wanna know if I killed that snake oil salesman,” said the little man. “I saw it on the TV. Can’t say I’m sorry.”

  Ideally, Channing would not have conducted the interview while standing in the man’s front yard, holding a gun at his side, but he knew there was no way Middlebury would let him in the house, much less allow himself to be put in an interview room.

  “So…did ya kill him? Nobody would really blame ya for it.”

  The rough man turned his head and spit in the direction of a broken cinder block.

  “Nah. You kill a white politician and some nigger takes his place. What’s the use?”

  Lambert still could not hear what was going on, but she could see the man was unarmed and seemed to be cooperating. She held her weapon at her side and started walking around the car.

  Channing saw something in Middlebury’s expression change and his hand tightened around his pistol. Middlebury took a step back toward the doorway and Channing turned toward Lambert.

  Holding up a hand, he yelled, “Stop. We’re fine. Go back to the car.”

  She was not some rookie. In fact, this was her case. That was right. It was her case, and a drunk who could not even make it to work on time was yanking her around and giving orders. She continued her path into the yard.

  Again, Channing told her to stop, but she was not going to play second fiddle to anyone. This was her chance to make a name for herself. She had her career path all planned out: sergeant by thirty, lieutenant by thirty-five, captain by forty—and so on until chief by forty-five. Even if she only made it somewhere close to the top in this place, she could always jump ship, head over to some other department as a chief. She had her plan and this boozer and the rest of the boy’s club were not going to hold her back. She advanced.

  Realizing his partner was not going to veer off, Channing turned his attention back to Middlebury, who was walking backwards, making a slow retreat to the house. Without hesitation, Channing took off in a dead sprint toward the man, who then turned and ran in the direction of his home. Middlebury reached his doorway and was stretching his arm around the corner when Channing, running at a speed he did not think he could obtain anymore, leveled him with a shoulder. The shotgun positioned behind the door fell to the floor as both men tumbled through the living room, sliding a small rug out of place.

  Both men got to their feet at the same time and Middlebury sized up his opponent. Channing stood a good eight inches taller, but having been involved in countless fights throughout his life, Middlebury decided to take his chances. Assuming a boxer’s stance, the wiry man circled Channing and made several faints, attempting to get Channing to react and open himself up for a punch.

  Channing holstered the pistol that had been in his hand and said, “Come on, Stuart. Now I’ve got to take you in. You shouldn’t have gone for the gun.”

  Middlebury continued his dance around Channing. Lambert arrived in the doorway and aimed her gun at the man who was circling her partner.

  Looking at Channing, Middlebury screamed, “Come on, cop! You can’t shoot me! I ain’t got no gun now. You and me gonna have to fight it out. Unless you’re gonna let the nigger girl do your fighting for you.”

  Again, Channing attempted to convince the man to come along peacefully, and received a string of curses as a reply.

  “Look, Stuart. I’ve got a killer headache. I’m tired. If my partner shoots you, I’ll be filling out paperwork for a month, and we all know you didn’t kill Culligan.”

  Now Middlebury was bouncing up and down as he circled. His breathing became labored. “Maybe I did. Maybe me and the boys lynched him,” he said while firing a menacing look at Lambert. “Like we would do to her if things was right in this country. Maybe I stood on that bridge and listened to him beg before his neck snapped at the end of that rope. We had to make a statement. Time for the white people in this city to rise up against the Jew oppress—”

  Channing bent over and grabbed the end of the rug that lay at his feet. The other end was planted firmly under Middlebury’s size eights. In one swift motion, Channing yanked the rug, flipping the older man upside down. The paranoid racist’s head pounded against the wooden floor and he lost consciousness. The man’s chest heaved up and down, his respiratory system still trying
to recover from all the bouncing around. Channing reached in his pocket and retrieved his cell phone.

  “I’ll call an ambulance. Would you mind cuffing him before he wakes up?”

  Shaking her head in astonishment, Lambert holstered her weapon and grabbed her cuffs.

  – – –

  Andy Lach was on his fourth glass of wine. He rarely had more than a few sips, but today he would indulge himself. Andriy Mykhailo Lach and his parents left their Ukrainian village when he was just nine years old. His father, Pavlo, had relatives working in the steel mills of Pittsburgh and promised jobs were available for those who were not afraid of hard work. By the time the only son of Pavlo was eleven, he was going to school during the week and spending the weekends unloading produce from trucks that pulled into the city’s Strip District.

  By the early 1960s, Andriy, or Andy as he now preferred, was on his own and looking for work. The wholesale produce suppliers were losing out to supermarkets and the need for manual labor was declining. At least he only had to worry about himself. His father—and the steel mills—had died off a few years prior and his mother followed shortly thereafter. He had been sitting down by the Allegheny River reading the want ads when he overheard some men talking about the Incline. Apparently, that old cable car contraption on the side of Mt. Washington was opening up again.

  The heavier of the men said, “Well, there you go. Maybe you can drive one of those things. It’d be hard for you to wreck one of those!”

  The men laughed hard and continued talking about the thinner man’s poor driving, but Andy’s mind was already racing.

  Well, somebody must drive those things? Why not me?

  The next morning, the unemployed Ukrainian immigrant with a high school education was standing at the Duquesne Incline station waiting for someone to arrive. Within an hour, a man in a suit was unlocking the door to the station. Andy approached him and tried to hide his accent as he asked him if any work was available. Perhaps he could drive one of the cars up and down the hill?