Heroes Often Fail rcc-2

by Frank Zafiro

  She saw the look of horror on the face of the baby’s mother as the woman was huddled in a blanket and pulled away. Forced herself to endure the look of blame that the mother shot at Katie right as they put her into a car.

  The lyrics from the song on the radio cut into her thoughts.

  When you reach the part where the heartaches come

  The hero would be me

  But heroes often fail.

  Katie slammed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. The singer’s voice and the flowing guitar washed over her.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  She ran the scenario through her mind again, like a video tape alternating between rewind and play. She imagined different actions she might have taken. None of them realistically changed the outcome.

  She couldn’t save him, but it wasn’t her fault. It was a terrible thing, one of many she’d seen. Hell, probably one of many she would see in the future.

  But it wasn’t her fault.

  She wondered if she would ever believe that.

  0823 hours

  Fred Henderson was proving to be tougher than Tower foretold. Browning figured that it hearkened back to the prison stretch Fred had served when in Colorado. So far, he’d resisted Browning’s gentle suggestions and mild persuasions and he continued to maintain the party line. Still, his constant shifting in his seat, darting eyes and sweaty upper lip told Browning he was on the right track.

  “I’ve never even met that little girl, detective,” he said. “The one time Nancy has seen her since we’ve been married, I wasn’t there. It was just Nancy, her daughter and the little girl.”

  It was his fifth denial since they’d entered the room. Browning decided to get a couple more.

  “Ever talk to her on the telephone?”

  “No,” Fred said.

  “Sneak into a school play or something?”

  “Never.”

  “Did Nancy?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Would you know if she did?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  Browning paused in his questioning then glanced imperceptibly toward Tower.

  Tower leaned forward, a hard look painted on his face. “How many vehicles do you own, Fred?”

  “Just the Ford Taurus. Nancy took it shopping.”

  Tower slammed his palm down on the interview table, causing Fred to jump. Browning watched as the suspect eyed Tower cautiously.

  “Fred,” Tower gritted, “if you‘re going to lie to us, then we are going to start to think terrible things about you.”

  “I’m not lying,” Fred said, but his words were slightly shaky.

  “Yes,” Tower told him. “You are. So let me tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to stop this interview until you decide you want to tell us the truth. Okay?”

  “Fine,” Fred bristled. “Maybe I’ll even go get a lawyer.”

  “You go right ahead,” Tower said. “In the meantime, we wait for the forensics to come back.”

  Fred’s eyes widened slightly.

  Tower nodded, “Yeah, we have some evidence being processed in the lab right now. And we’ll get some more, I’m sure, when we go back to your house and poke around with a platelet detector.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “The detector thing,” Fred asked. “What’s that? I never heard of it.”

  Tower shrugged. “That doesn’t surprise me. It’s an expensive piece of equipment.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “It detects blood or blood traces down to the platelet level,” Tower said. “Which works really slick, because even if someone cleans up and bleaches the area, there’s still enough blood for the instrument to detect.”

  Fred whitened, but said nothing. Browning pretended to write something on his notepad.

  “So we’ll go back through your house with the instrument and we’ll see what we find,” Tower told him evenly. “On top of that, we’ll finish examining the evidence collected from the burned out van.”

  “What van?” Fred’s voice wavered.

  Tower gave him a look and said, “Come on, Fred. You think we’re stupid? The van you bought up in Hillyard from Brad Dexter. You paid cash and didn’t transfer the title.”

  Fred said nothing, but trembled slightly.

  “The van you burned up down by the river last night,” Tower continued.

  Fred wiped sweat from his upper lip.

  “The van you and Nancy used to grab up Amy Dugger.”

  Fred shook his head, small little shakes that resembled shivers. “I–I didn’t-“

  “Drop it, Fred,” Tower said. “It’s not a question of whether you two took Amy anymore. It’s only a matter of why.”

  “You can’t prove anything,” Fred said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself.

  Tower raised his eyebrows. “Really? I can’t prove anything? Well, I can guarantee you that when we do our search of your home with the platelet detector, we will find some blood. Probably in the attic. When we find that, we’ll do a closer search for hair and skin that’s been shed. Do you know how much hair and skin we shed every day? Thousands of cells, Fred. Thousands.”

  Fred began his small headshakes again. He opened his mouth to protest, but Tower raised his hand to cut him off.

  “No, I’m going to answer your question, Fred. It’s important that you listen to me. See, at the same time we’ll have people collecting the blood, hair and skin cells from your house that will prove Amy was there, we’ll have another team doing the same thing at the van.”

  “I thought that was burned up,” Fred said. Browning sensed a combination of worry and hope in his tone.

  “Some of it was,” Tower said. “But parts of it didn’t get fully involved and blood plasma is very resistive to flame. I’m sure they’ll find something. It doesn’t matter, though. The VIN didn’t burn up. Do you know what the VIN is, Fred?”

  Fred wiped his lip again and shook his head.

  “It stands for Vehicle Identification Number,” Tower told him. “Every vehicle has one and they are all unique. The one on the van down by the river is the same one you bought from Brad Dexter.”

  “He must be mistaken,” Fred said. “I don’t know anyone named-“

  Tower held up the black and white faxed copy of Fred Henderson’s Colorado booking photo. “Funny then, isn’t it? How he was able to say this was the guy that bought the van from him?”

  Fred’s whiteness deepened. He wiped away the sweat that was forming at his temples with shaking fingers.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said.

  “And you only did a year,” Tower said. “Was it easy time?”

  Fred’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no easy time in prison.”

  “Touche,” Tower conceded. “But back to answering your question about proving things. Do you know about Locard’s Law?”

  Fred shook his head.

  “Locard’s Law,” Tower said, “is the law of transfer. It forms the cornerstone of modern forensic investigation. It’s like Newton’s laws of physics. It’s that important.”

  Fred didn’t answer, but listened intently.

  “Locard’s Law simply states that whenever there is interaction at a crime scene, transfer occurs,” Tower explained. “Take a burglary, for instance. The law of transfer says that the burglar will bring something foreign with him to the scene of the burglary. During his activity, however brief, at the scene, he will leave something at the scene. And when he leaves the scene, he will take something from the scene with him. Make sense?”

  Fred nodded reluctantly.

  “Good,” Tower said, “because the messier the crime, the more transfer that occurs. For example, let’s say we find a body in the middle of a field in a plastic garbage bag. The body was obviously dumped there after the murder happened somewhere else. But the body left something behind where the murder occurred, and we’ll find it. And the body is going to
have something from that murder scene still with it and when we find that, it’ll tie the body to the original scene of the crime. Most importantly, whoever did it will have left something on the body or the bag. We’ll find that, too.”

  Tower leaned forward, bringing his face close to Fred’s.

  “And then we’ll have our proof,” he whispered. “Because no one is perfect, Fred. Everyone makes mistakes. It might be a fingerprint on the garbage bag or some hair or skin that was shed and ended up on the body. But there’s always physical evidence. And that’s not even counting witnesses, all of whom saw just a little piece of the puzzle. You know, a nosy neighbor who watched the whole thing and thought someone was just dumping garbage and didn’t bother to call. A jogger heading across the T.J. Meenach Bridge who looked down to see someone running away from a burning van. Things like that.”

  Fred’s lips trembled, but he said nothing. His small head shakes had slowly faded throughout Tower’s explanation and now his head only twitched slightly while he listened.

  “So you see, Fred,” Tower said, “it isn’t a question of whether you took Amy any more. It isn’t a question whether or not she was killed. The only fact that we haven’t pulled from the evidence yet is whether it was you or if it was Nancy that killed her. And then the most important question-why?”

  “We didn’t-”

  Tower slammed his palm on the table again. “Don’t you fucking lie to me, Fred!”

  “I-”

  “Don’t you fucking lie! I just explained all this shit to you. Are you going to sit there and argue with science?”

  Fred opened his mouth and closed it. He nodded.

  Tower’s jaw fell open. “You son of a bitch.” He looked over at Browning, which was his cue. “Jesus Christ. Maybe he did do it. I thought for sure it was the grandmother.”

  Browning winced, hoping that it looked convincing. “John-”

  “Here’s our guy, Ray.” He pointed at Browning. “Here’s the fucking guy who-”

  “Detective Tower,” Browning began.

  “He’s our guy!” Tower slammed his fist on the interview table.

  “Detective Tower!” Browning’s voice boomed.

  Tower sat back quickly, his lips pressing together. “What?”

  “I think you should leave.”

  “What?!”

  “I want you to leave the room. Now.”

  There was a moment of tense silence. Then Tower shook his head incredulously. He pushed his chair abruptly back from the table.

  “Unbelievable,” he muttered and strode out of the interview. He left the door open behind him.

  Browning rose and closed the door. Then he sat back down and looked directly into Fred’s face. “I’m sorry about that. He’s very emotional.”

  Fred nodded, relief obvious on his face. “I thought he was going to hit me.”

  “Like I said, he’s emotional. He has three little girls and the middle one is Amy’s age. So you can see how a guy would get wrapped up.”

  “I suppose.”

  “The problem is, Fred, that even though he’s a little upset, he’s right.”

  Fred was nodding along until Browning finished the sentence. Then he stopped in mid-nod and stared at Browning.

  “He’s right,” Browning continued, “about all of the investigative science he described. And he’s right about this case. It’s no longer a matter of what happened, but a matter of why it happened. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  “I-”

  “Fred, you don’t have to talk to me. You can have a lawyer if you want. You understand that?”

  “Yeah, I-”

  “But if we don’t get this out on the table right now, it isn’t going to be worth anything later on. Timing is everything.”

  Fred paused. He licked his lips nervously. “What do you mean, timing is everything?”

  “In the eyes of a judge or a jury, timing is everything. Did a guy tell the truth when he had the chance? Or did he wait until the very last moment, when all the evidence was analyzed and catalogued and it was a slam dunk anyway?” Browning steepled his fingers. “The truth is a powerful thing, Fred. And when a person chooses to tell the truth matters. It matters a lot.”

  Fred sighed, but said nothing.

  Browning went on, “Let me tell you what I think, Fred. I think you’re basically a good guy. I think you made some mistakes a long time ago and you paid your dues for that and you moved to River City for a fresh start. Am I right?”

  “Yeah,” Fred said quietly.

  “Everyone deserves a fresh start. And you’ve made the most of yours. You work, right? You pay your taxes. You got married and you built a life for yourself. Most people don’t make that much out of their second opportunity.”

  Browning leaned forward slightly, maintaining eye contact with Fred. He kept his expression sympathetic, despite the fact that he was cringing inside. “That’s why I don’t think this was your master plan, Fred. I think that it was Nancy’s idea, Nancy’s plan, Nancy’s whole show.”

  “There was no plan,” Fred whispered. “We didn’t-”

  Browning ignored him and continued. “And I think you probably tried to talk her out of it, too. But she is a strong-willed woman, isn’t she, Fred?”

  Fred paused, then gave Browning a resigned nod. “Yeah. She is.”

  “And you loved her, so you went along with her plan. Maybe you even went along with it thinking you could keep an eye on things to make sure nothing went wrong. The kind of guy you are, I could definitely see that being the case.”

  “I didn’t-”

  Browning raised his hand. “Hold on, Fred. This is important. You need to hear it.”

  Fred stopped and waited.

  Browning continued. “Like I said, I don’t think this was your plan. I don’t think you were behind the whole thing. I think that you went along with it reluctantly. And I think you’re the only one that can give us a satisfying answer as to why this happened. You’re the only one who can tell the truth in a time frame that matters.”

  Fred shook his head weakly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t-”

  “Fred,” Browning said, “our investigation clearly shows that you’re involved. That’s not in question. I’m only talking to you to find out why. Some people don’t think the ‘why’ matters. They only care about the facts. Who did it. How they did it. The evidence. That’s it.”

  Browning could hear Fred’s labored breathing as he spoke. The balding man absently made short nods in agreement

  “I care about the why in a case,” Browning said. “I care because it matters why someone did something as much as it matters what they did. Maybe even more. And it matters when a person tells the truth about the why in a situation. That’s why I’m talking with you here. To understand the why of things.”

  Fred kept nodding and Browning wondered if he were aware of it. He hoped not.

  “Ultimately, Fred, why something happened is the lynchpin,” Browning told him. “It shows what kind of person someone is. It has a profound effect on how things are handled later on. But only if the explanation comes early. It matters if it comes right now, while you and I are sitting here. If some explanation comes from some attorney later on in court, juries always wonder, ‘Well, why didn’t he say that before?’ And they tend to doubt it, even if it’s the truth. But if a guy tells the truth now and that’s the same truth he tells later, people believe him. Does that make sense to you, Fred?”

  Fred’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t plan this, did you, Fred?” Browning asked.

  “No.” He dropped his eyes.

  “It was Nancy’s idea, wasn’t it? It was her plan.”

  Fred hesitated.

  “Just tell the truth, Fred,” Browning urged.

  Fred bit his lip.

  “I already know everything I need to know except why this happened,” Browning said. “I need to know why. I need to k
now I’m right about you, Fred. You’re not a bad guy. You didn’t plan this, did you?”

  “No.”

  “It was Nancy’s plan?”

  Fred swallowed. Then he nodded and moaned. “Yeah,” he answered in a thick voice.

  Browning tried to contain the rush of adrenaline he felt with the first admission. He maintained his expression of calmness and sympathy.

  “Did you try to talk her out of it?”

  Fred began to cry. “For weeks. I tried for weeks.”

  0839 hours

  Tower stood next to Lieutenant Crawford in the observation room and watched the scene unfold through the narrow window of one-way glass.

  “Classic interview,” he whispered to Crawford. He took a sip from the small white Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Beautifully played. Ray is a master.”

  Crawford grunted and shifted his unlit cigar to the other corner of his mouth.

  Both men stood silently and listened as Fred outlined all the details of the abduction plan and how they brought Amy Dugger back to the house on Swanson.

  “Ray figured his prison stretch would’ve made him a tougher interrogation,” Tower said.

  “That was twelve years ago,” Crawford answered.

  “Eleven.”

  “Whatever.”

  Tower smiled slightly. He wished his role in the interview had not been so small. He wanted badly to be in the room with Browning, but he knew that a confession would never have come if there were two of them in the room. A confession was an intimate act. It had to happen one-on-one.

  “How’d you like my bad cop role, Lieutenant?” he asked.

  “Shut up, Tower,” Crawford said, chewing on his cigar.

  Tower smiled more widely. He sipped his coffee. They’d broken this case open. Even though he hated what had happened, he felt some satisfaction at having helped solve it.

  Then Fred said something to Browning and most of that satisfaction melted away.

  0841 hours

  “You took care of Amy, right?” Browning asked.

  “Of course.”

  “She got enough to eat?”

  “I fed her all the time,” Fred said. “Good food. I even made Mickey Mouse pancakes.”

  “And she had a cushion to sleep on? In the attic?”

  Fred nodded. “A big cushion. One of those…whaddaya call-its.”