by Dorien Grey
When I returned to the office, I placed a call to Brian Oaks’ home and left a message on his machine asking him to please call me.
I devoted the rest of the day to trying, with increasing frustration, to write out a report to Bradshaw, basically laying out the entire case to the present moment. I realized I was doing it as much—if not more—for myself as for him. But by 3:00 all I had was a wastebasket full of crumpled paper and a foul mood.
When I hadn’t heard from Brian Oaks by 3:30, I picked up the phone to try again, then remembered Monday, Thursday, and Friday were his days at Qualicare. While I really wanted to talk to him, I didn’t want to try to bother him there. I could always call when I got home.
I really rarely get into a foul mood, but when I do, it tends to be a real show-stopper. I realized on the way home that biting the heads off random passersby might be all well and good when I could just go home and sit there and sulk, but it wouldn’t work when there was somebody I really cared about waiting for me who certainly didn’t deserve to be exposed to all my pent-up frustration. So on the drive home, as soon as I reached a spot where I could see there weren’t any other cars in my immediate vicinity, I rolled up the windows and let out a bellow of rage that I could literally feel rattle the whole car. I then rolled the window back down and forced myself to repeat one of my standard mini-mantras: “I work to live, I do not live to work.”
*
Luckily, it was the weekend and, other than trying a couple more times to reach Brian Oaks, I determined that I would not so much as think of the case. It almost worked.
Saturday night we’d arranged, finally, to go out with Mollie Marino and her lover Barb, and Phil and Tim joined us. It was exactly what I needed. We went to dinner at Rasputin’s, then hit Steamroller Junction and wrapped up the evening at Griff’s, and I laughed more in those couple of hours than I’d done in the past couple of weeks. Never, ever underestimate the therapeutic benefits of laughter!
We’d sort of anticipated Jared’s coming into town for the weekend and getting together with him for brunch, but when he didn’t show up, Jonathan and I had brunch alone on the patio of Calypso’s, then drove out to Jessup Reservoir and just walked through the woods stopping, when we found a particularly idyllic grove of trees hidden away from the main trail, for a very pleasant game of “Horny Lumberjacks”.
Wonderful weekend!
*
Monday morning Jonathan and I were standing outside the doors of the DMV when it opened. Jonathan, of course, had a hard time just standing still and kept peering through the glass doors looking at the clock on the far wall, waiting for someone to open the doors. When they finally did, I waited around while Jonathan went to take his test, have it checked (he missed one question out of twenty-five, and that one only because he misunderstood it). Then there was another wait for an examiner to call his name. I watched them walk out to the car and drive off. A few minutes later, the car came back, and a beaming Jonathan emerged and followed the examiner back into the building.
Twenty minutes later, Jonathan was officially a licensed driver.
*
The fact that Brian Oaks had not returned my several phone calls—and there was no message from him on my machine at the office—kind of irked me. It was bad enough I didn’t know why he’d decided to suspend the group, but the thought that he might be avoiding me, and the reasons why, really niggled at me. Plus the sudden recollection of that corner-of-my-eye reaction to my mention of Charles Whitaker…well, it bothered me.
I decided to call him at Qualicare, even though I really shouldn’t. But then I’ve never let a little thing like “I really shouldn’t” stand in the way of my doing it anyway.
I looked up Qualicare’s main number and called, asking to speak to Brian Oaks. There was a rather long pause, then a woman’s voice: “May I help you?”
“Yes, I was wondering if I might speak to Brian Oaks.”
“Is this in regard to an appointment?”
“No, I’m a member of his Thursday night group, and I needed to speak to him.”
Another pause and then: “I’m sorry, Mr. Oaks is not in today.”
Odd. “I thought he worked Monday, Thursday, and Friday.”
“Yes, that’s correct, but he has not been in since Thursday.”
Why did my stomach just hit the floor? I wondered.
I managed to thank her, hung up, and immediately dialed Brian Oaks’ home number.
“This is Brian Oaks. I’m with someone right now, but if you’ll leave your name…”
“Brian, this is Dick Hardesty. It’s very important that I speak with you right away. It’s now…” I checked my watch “…ten-fifteen on Monday. If I’ve not heard from you by eleven-thirty, I’ll take a drive over to your house. Hope to hear from you. Thanks.”
What are you panicking for? my mind voice asked. So he’s not at work. The guy’s entitled to some time off. And he never answers his home phone anyway…
Well, it was my gut I was listening to at the moment and it was telling me a little panic might be well justified.
10:30. Nothing.
Well, his “fifty-minute hours” run until ten ’til. If he’s with a patient…
10:45. Still nothing.
Hold your horses. If he is with a patient, he’s got five more minutes.
10:50. God, I hate this!
10:55, 11:00, 11:03, 11:04…
What the hell is with you, Hardesty?
At 11:29 I was out the door and heading for the elevator.
*
You know, sometimes I think you need a good psychologist, my mind observed on the drive toward Ridge.
I pulled up in front of Oaks’ house. No other cars around. None in the driveway. The garage door open; no car there, either.
See? my mind said. He’s just out somewhere. The grocery store. The dentist…
I got out of the car and walked down the sidewalk toward the back of the house. No sign of life. No sounds from inside.
I reached the side door and took a couple steps beyond, looking into the back yard. Nothing. A spade was sticking up out of a freshly dug extension to one of the flowerbeds, but no one was around. I returned to the door. The inner door was open. Odd.
“Hello?” I called, peering into the interior of the house.
Nothing. I tried the latch, and the door opened easily. I stepped inside.
“Hello? Brian?”
Nothing.
I walked up the steps into the reception area. Nothing. The door to the office was open, and I could see it was empty. Nothing out of place that I could tell, although I noticed that the lights were on.
I entered the office, expecting any minute to hear Brian or his lover…Chad?…say “What are you doing here?” Nothing.
The door to the rest of the house was open, showing a short hallway down which I could look into the living room.
“Brian? Chad? Hello?”
A door to the left of the hall, about halfway down, was open and I hesitantly walked toward it, my stomach increasingly queasy. I reached the door and looked in. A bedroom. Very neat. But the dresser drawers were open, and so were the double closet doors. There were several large gaps in the row of clothes hanging there, as if someone had just grabbed them. There was a hanger on the floor, just outside the closet. The ceiling light was on.
The bed, neatly made, had a rectangular indentation near the foot, as though a large suitcase had been laid there.
I heard a small whisper in the back of my mind: I don’t like this, it said. I didn’t, either.
I left the bedroom and, sure now that no one was around, moved quickly through the rest of the house. All neat. Spotless. I went upstairs. A good sized bedroom occupied the front half of the slope-roofed space, the back half was set up as an artist’s studio, with easels and canvases and palates and things I could not identify but assumed had something to do with an artist’s work. A partly-finished canvas stood on an easel in the middle of the room, and besi
de it on a tall three-legged stool was a palate with a paint-dipped brush lying across it, as though it had just been set down. A large window, apparently added some time recently, looked out over the back yard and let in plenty of natural light. But several lights were on around the room.
I walked back downstairs, through the house and into Oaks’ office, when I happened to glance down at the floor near his desk and saw a small red stain about the size of a fifty-cent piece on the smoke grey carpet. My eyes instinctively moved from the spot, across the floor, and up the wall to the window, from which I could see the back yard and the spade standing in the plot of fresh dirt.
I reached for the phone.
Chapter 12
“Lieutenant Richman.”
“Lieutenant! Jesus, I’m glad you’re there!”
“Yeah, I took an early lunch.” Then a sudden alertness as he picked up on the edge in my voice: “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Well, I hope I’m just going through a serious psychotic moment, but I’m afraid not. Can you send a squad over to 4220 Ridge right away?”
“Hold on. Don’t hang up!”
I heard a click, then silence, then Richman’s voice: “Are you still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“There’s a squad on the way. Now, tell me exactly what’s wrong.”
And I did.
*
After I hung up from Richman, I wandered back to the bedroom to check the open dresser drawers. The top two were completely empty; the lower two had a few things in them but seemed also to be largely empty.
I was just leaving the side door of the house when a squad car pulled up into the driveway and two officers got out and approached me.
“Mr. Hardesty?” the one from the passenger’s side asked.
“Yes. Thanks for coming.”
Now that was a lame remark! I thought.
I walked them to the back of the house and into the back yard.
“I sure as hell hope that you guys are going to think I’m a nut, and this turns out to be a real false alarm, but…” I pointed to the shovel “…I’ve got a really bad feeling about this whole thing.”
The two officers looked at the shovel, looked around the yard, then looked at me. It was very evident that they agreed with my assessment: I was a nut, and this was a false alarm.
“We got a call from Captain Offermann on the way over. He’s sending a couple detectives to check this out. They should be here shortly.”
“I appreciate it, officers.”
They introduced themselves, reaffirming what I’d already read on their name patches over their shirt pockets: Officer Sleight and Officer Kuklenski. While Sleight stood and made idle conversation, Kuklenski took out his flashlight—though it was broad daylight—and took a walk around the house, looking for whatever it is police officers look for under similar circumstances.
We walked back up the driveway toward the front of the house just as another car—a grey four-door unmarked sedan—pulled up in front of the house.
I recognized the two men the minute they got out of the car, and thought: Oh, shit!
Plainclothes detectives Carpenter and Couch, who had a magic knack of showing up on every case I’ve ever been on where the presence of plainclothes detectives was required. God, with a police force as large as ours, you’d think they could send someone else! But then I realized they weren’t just plainclothes detectives: they were plainclothes homicide detectives.
They weren’t bad guys, but the very first time I’d run into them, I’d managed to piss Detective Couch off royally, and he’d never really gotten over it. Plus the fact that when it came to gays, he could be a real jackass. I could see from the look on Couch’s face as he recognized me that things hadn’t changed much.
Detective Carpenter, the taller and more open minded of the two, came up to me first, extending his hand. “Dick,” he said, by way of greeting.
Ah, Hardesty, my mind sighed; you’re on a first-name basis with homicide detectives, now! Whatever’s going to become of you?
“Detective,” I said in reply, mainly because I had never heard his first name.
Couch largely ignored me and went directly to the two uniformed officers, and the three of them stepped aside and huddled in lowered-voice conversation.
“So tell me why we’re here,” Carpenter said, and I did.
Couch came over while I was explaining the situation to Carpenter: the two uniformed officers stayed where they were. I walked the two detectives, as I had the two officers, to the back yard and to the freshly dug plot with the spade.
When I’d finished, Couch shook his head and said: “Sounds like pretty damned flimsy evidence to me.”
Both Carpenter and I ignored him. Carpenter suddenly walked to the garage, went in, and came back out a moment later with another spade. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he picked up the first spade by the shaft and set it carefully aside. Then he stepped toward the plot of ground with the second shovel.
“What’re you doing?” Couch asked. “We don’t have permission to dig up other people’s yards.”
“Yeah,” Carpenter said, “Like anyone will object.” And he began to dig.
I went into the garage and found what looked like an old coal shovel and returned to join Carpenter.
We dug in silence for a few minutes, while Couch stood by with his arms folded, watching us.
Suddenly, Carpenter put his foot on the edge of the spade, stepped down, and stopped before it had gone all the way in. “Uh, oh,” he said. He turned to me. “Give your shovel to Detective Couch, Dick, and go take a little walk.”
Oh, Jeezus! I thought, and quickly handed my shovel to a startled-looking Detective Couch.
I walked toward the two uniformed officers, who were suddenly looking attentively toward the detectives. As I reached them, they said: “Excuse us a minute” and moved toward the garage.
I didn’t even look back; I just walked to the front of the house and sat down on the front porch steps.
A few minutes later, one of the uniformed officers came rapidly up to the patrol car and leaned through the open window for the unit’s microphone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could guess. He replaced the microphone and went back down the driveway.
Another few minutes, and Carpenter came up to me.
“You know the owner of the house?”
I nodded. “Brian Oaks.”
“Uh, if you feel up to it, do you think you could come back and…see if you recognize the, uh, person we found?”
“Sure.” I got up from the steps.
Calm down, my mind voice soothed. You’ve seen dead bodies before.
Yeah, I replied, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I liked it.
The body on the grass was definitely a male, barefoot, wearing jeans and a tee shirt. It was obvious he hadn’t been in the ground very long. Carpenter was kneeling over him as I approached, blocking the guy’s face. I took a really deep breath as Carpenter looked up at me, then rose to his feet. I forced my eyes up the guy’s body from his bare feet to his waist to his chest to his neck, to…
I’d never seen the guy before in my life.
I shook my head.
“Did…” Couch looked at a notepad in his hand “…Brian Oaks live here alone?’
I shook my head again. “No,” I said. “He has a partner. First name is Chad. I’ve never met him.”
“Well, it looks like they’re not ‘partners’ anymore,” Couch said.
I was startled to hear my own voice, and was further surprised by how completely calm it was as it said: “You fucking son-of-a-bitch!”
Couch looked as though I’d just slugged him, which I was more than tempted to do, and his face flushed in anger, but Carpenter stepped quickly between us.
“That’s way out of line, Earl!”
Couch’s face suddenly reflected the awareness of what he’d said. He dropped his eyes. “Sorry,” he said.
> I just stared at him until he moved away toward the front of the house.
The corner’s van came to pick up the body, wheeling the gurney through a growing crowd of neighbors and onlookers, and I decided it was time I left. I went up to Detective Carpenter.
“If you don’t need me…”
“No, go on home. We’ll undoubtedly have a lot of questions, but we can call you. Thanks for your help. And I’m sorry for Earl’s remark. He’s not a bad guy, he just doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”
I nodded. “Just keep him away from me.”
I’d made it to my car and had just opened the door when one of the uniformed officers…Kuklenski?…motioned to me. We started toward one another and met in the middle of the street.
“Captain Offermann wants to know if you can go down to the Annex. He’d like to talk to you.”
Yeah, I figured he might, I thought. I was surprised by how tired I felt.
“Tell him I’m on my way.”
*
I parked in the Warman Park underground garage and walked the two blocks to the City Building Annex, stopping at a pay phone to leave a message at Jonathan’s work; I asked them to tell him that I might be late getting home.
I walked through the lobby of the Annex, got only a casual glance from the security guard at the check-in desk, and walked to the elevators. I was the only one in the car, and I leaned forward to press my forehead against the cool metal. I was really tired. Not sleepy. Tired.
Offermann’s secretary motioned me directly into the conference room next to his office, where I found the captain, Mark Richman, two other apparently high ranking officers I did not recognize, and…somewhat to my surprise…Marty Gresham.
Offermann introduced the two men I did not know as Deputy Chief Daniel Buralli and Lieutenant Theodore Ingram of Homicide. After the customary round of handshakes, Offermann motioned me to a seat.
