Hate Crime

by William Bernhardt

  Baxter cleared her throat. “We need an agreement. That it won’t happen again.”

  “We do? All right. We do.”

  “I’m not saying it was unpleasant. My lips went willingly. But we have to keep our heads clear. Unmuddled.”

  “Of course.”

  “There’s no telling what Blackwell would do if he found out. Probably suspend us on the spot.”

  “Quite possible.”

  “But most important-I can’t afford to let the word get out about this. Not after what happened in Oklahoma City.”

  Mike had no problem placing that reference, either. She’d had an inopportune affair with the OKC chief of police-a man much older than she was and married to boot-and once it was known in the department, she was hopelessly compromised. Not to mention the butt of scurrilous jokes and sexist remarks.

  “I understand entirely,” Mike said. “So what are you thinking? We should ask Blackwell to split us up?”

  “I’m just thinking there can’t be any more smooching. Can you handle that?”

  Sure, he thought. I’d rather skip ahead to third base anyway. “Not a problem.” He kept his eyes dead ahead.

  “Good. Well, I just thought we needed to get that established.”

  “Right you were.” He turned the wheel hard to the left. “Break out the barf bags. We’ve arrived.”

  When Mike opened the door to the toolshed behind the house, he uncovered a grisly tableau that defied his powers of description. He had never seen anything like this before. And he’d seen a lot of homicide in his time.

  After an initial glance, he excused himself, stepped outside, covered his mouth with a handkerchief, and did his level best to keep from being sick. When he returned, Baxter had already begun gathering some preliminary information. She seemed remarkably undisturbed by the scene around her. In fact-was he imagining it?-there was a tiny smirk on her face.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not okay. If anybody can see this and be okay, they’ve got serious problems.”

  “I can cover if you want to wait outside.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant, but I think I’ll do my job myself, just the same.”

  What had he expected anyway? A power drill inserted into the cranium-no way that was going to create a pretty picture. Like a firecracker tossed inside a jack-o’-lantern. Now the shattered shell lay at his feet, and the seeds and stuffing covered the walls.

  Mike closed his eyes. “Philip Larkin was right. ‘Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a coastal shelf.’ ”

  “God, not with the poetry again. I feel like I’m going to hurl as it is. Don’t push me over the edge.”

  Happily, Mike didn’t hear her. His eyes were fixed and all his other senses were focused on the tiny toolshed that surrounded him.

  “Are you doing something?” Baxter asked, after enduring a minute or so of this.

  “I’m listening.”

  “To what?”

  “The room.”

  “Oh, cool. I love this part.”

  He stood in one place by the door, absorbing everything around him. “The best way to get a grip on what happened. Even better than forensics. Open your eyes and ears and drink it all in.”

  “Sure. So what are you drinking?”

  Mike paused before answering, giving every syllable slow and deliberate emphasis. “This… is the victim’s toolshed.”

  “That much I got.”

  “He loved this place. It was his favorite room. His retreat.” Mike moved through the small space. “He came here to be alone. For peace of mind. To calm himself.” Mike smiled. “He knew his killer.”

  “I’m glad to hear it wasn’t a random drilling.”

  “It had to be someone he knew well.” He paused a moment, lost in thought. “The killer let himself in, came back here, and found the guy working on his shelves.”

  “So it was a close friend.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Baxter frowned, arms akimbo. “You’ve lost me.”

  “I don’t think it was a friend. I don’t think it was someone he wanted to see at all.”

  “Given how it turned out, I don’t blame him.”

  “Something bad was going on. Something that got him killed.”

  “And the room told you all this?”

  “Yup.” Mike did a small pirouette in the center of the room. “Do you smell anything?”

  “Are you kidding? Someone was killed in here.”

  “Something else. Musk, I think.”

  “Musk?”

  “Probably a cologne or aftershave. And if I can still smell it, he must’ve put it on pretty heavy.”

  “Who? The victim, or the killer?”

  “That would be a good thing to know.”

  Baxter rolled her eyes. “Great. Musk. Now we’ve got a lead.”

  “Did anyone see anything? Hear anything?”

  “We’ve got uniforms blanketing the neighborhood. So far they haven’t turned up anything.”

  “The killer used a power tool, for God’s sake. Someone must’ve heard something.”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t sound like a murder. More like someone… mowing their lawn. Nothing to get alarmed about.”

  Mike stood to one side and watched the crime scene technicians go about their work. He always tried to give them a clear field; he knew they wouldn’t tolerate interference, not even from a senior homicide detective. There was a time when these guys considered themselves ancillary technicians, subordinate to the detectives, and behaved accordingly. Then that TV show-CSI-became a hit. Now they all thought Mike worked for them.

  Which was not a problem for Mike. They had the hard job, as far as he was concerned-the videographers, the hair and fiber team, the prints man, the coroner. The guys in coveralls crawling around on their hands and knees looking for trace evidence. Their work paid off. More often than not, if a case didn’t have an obvious suspect, it was forensic evidence that would lead him to one.

  “Check his wallet?” Mike asked.

  “What do you take me for? He didn’t have one.”

  “No ID at all?”

  “None. This house was being rented to a Philip Norton, but that appears to be a pseudonym.”

  “Any photos inside the house? Any photos of him?”

  “ ‘Fraid not.”

  Naturally. That would’ve been too helpful. The victim’s head was such a mess they couldn’t possibly tell what he looked like now. So they had no face and no name. Great.

  “Anything of interest in the house?”

  “The place has been trashed. Still, I managed to find a noteworthy item or two.”

  “Wanna give me a hint?”

  “Packed suitcase in the bedroom. Apparently the poor guy thought he was going somewhere.”

  Mike grunted. “He was right about that. He had a one-way ticket to ‘the undiscovered country from whose bourn / no traveler returns.’ ”

  “Morelli, if you keep going with the poetry, I might have to use a power tool myself.”

  “Any idea where he was headed?”

  “North.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “He didn’t leave behind a bus ticket, Morelli. But I did notice that he was packing sweaters. So he wasn’t hanging around here and he wasn’t headed for Mexico.”

  Mike nodded. “What else was in the house?”

  “Fifty thousand dollars in cash.”

  Mike did a double take. “Fifty thousand?”

  “You got it, tiger. Hidden under a floorboard. Whoever tore the house apart never found it.”

  He pivoted and reluctantly glanced again at the mess on the toolshed floor. “Our poor victim must’ve pulled some sort of heist.”

  “Looks that way. I’ll start checking the wire reports. See if I can figure out what he did.”

  “I don’t know what to think. But it’s very strange. Get some serial numbers off that money and run it past the FBI. They might be able
to help you figure out where it came from.” Mike took another long look at the toolshed. He wouldn’t mind having a place like this of his own one day. Except not splattered with blood and brain matter. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah-this.” Baxter produced what appeared to be a photocopy of a newspaper article placed inside a clear plastic evidence bag. “Found this in the end table by the bed.”

  Mike scanned the headline. FBI PROBES PARTY DRUG RING. He couldn’t tell what paper it had come from.

  “Why was this of such interest that he made a copy?” she asked.

  “Darn good question. Wish I knew the answer. But photocopies can yield information beyond the mere text.”

  “You think there’s a connection between the murder and illegal drugs?”

  “I don’t know. God, I hope not.” He looked one more time around the shed, then passed through the door. “ ‘And our little life is rounded by a sleep.’ ”

  Baxter followed him. “Robert Frost?”

  Mike shook his head. “Shakespeare. Again.”

  “He was a cheery soul. Aren’t there any poets who are pleasant to read?”

  Mike considered a moment. “You might go for Theodore Geisel.”

  “Really?”

  “Possible.”

  “If I learned to spout poetry like you do, you think we’d get along better?”

  “Possible.”

  “And you’d stop treating me like your ignorant secretary?”

  “Possible.”

  “And you’d let me drive the Trans Am?”

  “Not a chance.”

  6

  South Side of Chicago

  near Jackson Park

  Charlie the Chicken was running scared.

  That was why he blew town. That was why he was now back, albeit functioning under a different professional name. That was why he had buzzed his hair off, ditched his glasses, changed his look. He wasn’t working the same neighborhoods and he hadn’t haunted the old haunts. Hadn’t gone anywhere near Remote Control. In short, he had burned all his bridges and forsaken all traces of his former existence.

  And none of it would be enough.

  Charlie recounted the change in his pocket. This was getting ridiculous. He couldn’t make the pathetic fifty-dollar-a-week rent for this hellhole of a room in a part of Kenwood that urban renewal never touched. He couldn’t even feed himself. He was a prisoner, just as much as if he were behind bars, except that behind bars he’d be a lot safer and better fed than he was out here. Safe or not, he had no choice. He was going to have to get out. Go to work. Earn some scratch.

  But he had to be careful, too. Because his old friend, the one he had seen on that dark and rainy night, would be looking for him. He was sure of it.

  He’d followed the case in the newspapers, of course. Who hadn’t? Every dramatic development. So far, no one had a clue what had really happened. His friend had to be feeling fairly secure right about now. Impervious. About the only thing that could possibly go wrong would be if Charlie the Chicken opened his big mouth.

  He wondered if that was what had happened to Manny. That hick had never had the sense God gave a carrot. Probably swapping testosterone with their mutual friend-until it went too far. And then-Charlie winced just to think about what had happened to the stupid slob. And to realize how easily it could happen to him. The smartest thing he could do was stay out of the way. Way far out of the way. Even if that meant there would be no transfer. He couldn’t give their friend a chance at him.

  If there was to be no transfer, then tomorrow he would have to start the job hunt. He had no choice. Back to the wonderful world of sex, oral and anal, licking and spitting, fancy French terms for things kids whispered about on playgrounds. Bathroom stalls. Adult parlors. Society cotillions. It’s a wonderful life.

  He wondered if he would ever be safe. When the trial restarted, that would help. A little. But would it be enough? Wouldn’t his friend still be concerned about the havoc that could be wrought by skinny, hair-gelled, dimple-chinned Charlie the Chicken?

  Would he ever be safe?

  Somehow, he didn’t think this was the life his parents had mapped out for him, back when they gave him birth and raised him in the Windy City’s Cabrini-Green housing project. Good Catholic upbringing, decent schools. They’d thought he was going to grow up to be a doctor. Well, they’d missed that mark by a hell of a distance, hadn’t they?

  What had happened to him? He had always been rebellious, true, but this life was something else again. He’d always been fascinated by sex, too-but what teenage boy wasn’t? Most of them didn’t end up like him, doing the things he did. He couldn’t even blame drugs or booze, like most of those in his line. He’d never been attached to either of them. Not an addictive personality. So what explanation did that leave? Just plain stupid?

  His life was one big screwup, and he knew it. And it was about to be damned short, if he didn’t do something to straighten himself out. So what was it going to be?

  One day at a time, as the AA crowd liked to say. First work. Then money. Then food. Then flight. And keep the fear under lock and key.

  Except the fear was already with him. Always with him. Time had not dulled its edge. And, quite possibly, nothing could.

  Because a person capable of doing what had happened to Manny was capable of anything. Absolutely anything. At any time. To anyone.

  Even Charlie the Chicken.

  7

  Cook County Detention Center

  County Jail

  26th and California Avenue

  Christina hated this part of her job. She didn’t know why, exactly. Objectively speaking, it wasn’t that difficult. Didn’t require much preparation. Didn’t depend on quick reflexes, listening skills, or a mnemonic aptitude for arcane case law. Bottom line, all she had to do was show up and take notes.

  So why did she hate it so much?

  She stared at her reflection in the acrylic panel. Well, for starters, jails smelled. Always. Apparently it was a universal constant; even with its big-city budget, this Chicago joint was no better than the one she was accustomed to back in Tulsa. Possibly worse. The man at the front desk assured her that they scrubbed the place down regularly, but it didn’t kill the stench. And she didn’t like the paint, or the furnishings or, for that matter, most of the inhabitants.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was seeing all these men restrained, locked up, trapped behind bars. The older she got, the more she thought she might be claustrophobic. Or maybe it wasn’t a phobia. Maybe it was memory. She’d been locked up once, and it just about killed her. She never wanted to go through that again.

  And she thought Ben understood that, even though they had never directly discussed it, which was why he always handled these lockup interviews and brought her along only if it was absolutely necessary. Except now, since he inexplicably refused to have anything to do with this case. What was up with that, anyway? It was so unlike Ben. She’d worked with him all these years; she’d never once seen him back away from someone who needed help, much less someone particularly asking for his help.

  Jones thought maybe Ben wanted no part of it because the accused was obviously homophobic, violent, and thoroughly twisted. The press had crucified him; they would likely do the same to his lawyer. But that didn’t ring true. Ben had agreed to represent an avowed member of a white racist militia group, for God’s sake, not to mention a host of other undesirables. After all that, he’s going to turn his back on some college kid? It just didn’t make sense. There had to be something more.

  The door on the other side of the acrylic barrier opened, and a moment later, her new client, Johnny Christensen, was escorted into the room. He was wearing the standard orange coveralls and leg restraints.

  She picked up the phone. “Hello. I’m Christina McCall.”

  He looked strong, like he’d been working out while he was in lockup, which she supposed was possible, since he had little else to do. He had sandy hair and stub
ble, a strong, chiseled chin. All in all, a very appealing package. If it weren’t for the murder thing.

  “Yo,” he replied, a small smile on his face. He was a flirt; Christina saw that immediately. A kid who was accustomed to using charm and good looks to win people over and get whatever he wanted.

  “Your mother has hired me to take your case.”

  The smile increased. “Great.”

  “You’re the client, though. You make the final decision. If you want someone else, just say so.”

  “No, this is great. I’m looking forward to working with you.” The smile, the teeth, the cocked eyebrow-what a package. He must’ve had every sorority girl in the city at his fingertips.

  “Your previous attorney, Kevin Mahoney, will be working with me as a consultant. But since he hasn’t been released from the hospital, you need someone else to take the lead.”

  “I get that. Cool.”

  “You understand that the court has denied your motion for a further continuance?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the trial starts up again Monday morning at nine o’clock sharp. We’ve chosen not to ask for a mistrial, and the judge hasn’t done it sui sponte-he’s probably concerned about double jeopardy. So it’s same place, same judge, same jury. The only change is that you’ll be a solo defendant and you’ll have me sitting next to you at counsel table.”

  “Monday. Man.” He stretched, flexing his biceps, which sent a ripple through the tattoo on his upper arm: BETAS FOREVER. “Are you going to be able to get ready in time?”

  “I’ll have to be. Fortunately, my predecessor kept good files and careful notes. I’ve already started devouring them. And Kevin may be feeling puny, but he’s also bored to tears. So he won’t mind helping. Don’t worry, Johnny. I can handle it.”

  “You’re going to try the case alone? By yourself?”

  Christina drew in her breath. “I have a partner. But he’s been unable to assist so far. Ben Kincaid.”