Past Sins

by Thomas Grant Bruso

  “Wait. Wait. Let me say something.”

  “What?” I stand and hold a hand out to him, helping him off the stool.

  “Do you love your job?”

  I hedge. “Most days.”

  “I thought you’d say that.”

  “Come on. You need to get home.”

  “You’d make a great lieutenant someday.” He slaps my face gently, and grins.

  I think about my five years on the police force working alongside Ryan. “We’ve had a lot of exciting times,” I say.

  He laughs, falling into my open arms, and I have to reach out for the counter behind me to keep from falling. Ryan’s strong weightlifter chest presses hard against me, pinning me between him and the bar’s edge.

  I slap a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and signal the bartender. He looks down at the bill, and nods. I mouth, “Keep the change,” and stagger to the front door with Ryan wrapped around me like a giant boa constrictor.

  We stumble down the steps to the ground, and he reaches out for the decrepit railing so he can catch his breath. “I need to stop a minute,” he says as something in his face changes, and he bends over and vomits along the broken cracks in the sidewalk.

  I stand over him, listening to him retching. Feeling foolish, I don’t have any supporting words to offer him. I stare around at dog walkers and joggers passing us and gawking, rubbernecking in curious stares.

  But nobody offers to stop and help.

  I don’t blame them. What can they do?

  I wait until Ryan finishes and pulls himself up, wiping his mouth, and grunting. “I drank too much,” he says, burping.

  His pale-sick expression is dodgy and it looks like he might vomit again as I loop an arm around his waist and encourage him to keep walking.

  After thirty steps we finally make it to the side parking lot and I tell him I’ll drive. “You’re not getting behind the wheel.”

  “What about my Jeep?” he says. “I’m not leaving it here.”

  “I’ll come back and get it,” I say. “You’re in no condition to drive.”

  “Nobody drives my Jeep but me.”

  “You’re not going to win this fight, Ryan.”

  I help him to my car and open the passenger side door for him. “Get in,” I say, “and watch your head.”

  “I don’t need help, Jim. I can do it myself.”

  “You can’t even get my name right, let alone help yourself.” I struggle lifting him into the car. One leg in, one leg out, and he shouts about pains in his stomach.

  “It’s like babysitting a small child,” I say, strapping the seat belt around him.

  He raises his hands to mine, struggling with the seat belt, until I say, “Would you rather walk home?”

  Shaking his head, saliva trickles out of the sides of his mouth.

  “That’s what I thought,” I say, buckling him into place. “Stay put, buddy. I’ll get you to your apartment quickly.”

  I slam the door and run around to the driver’s side. But before I get in, I notice Ryan’s dirt-splattered brown Jeep parked next to mine in the lot.

  Something in the size and model of the vehicle triggers a red flag warning in my mind.

  * * * *

  Ryan lives near the airport a mile outside of town in a condominium on Sonora Street.

  I park two doors down from his place because the space in front of his front door is occupied with another vehicle.

  As I get out to help him inside, he starts mumbling things I can’t understand, and when I open the passenger door, he looks up at me, squinting against the blinding hot sun high in the sky behind me. He asks, “Am I under arrest?”

  I slip one arm under him and am stabbed with a nauseating fermented smell rolling off him. “No, you’re not under arrest.”

  “What will the neighbors think?” he asks as I pull one of his heavy legs out and set it on the ground, and then the other, and warn him not to bump his head on the roof.

  “Like it’s just another day for Black Falls police.” I am struggling with the bulk of his dead weight in my arms, trying to keep him steady.

  “You’re one hell of a cop friend, Jim,” he says, and I’m too busy keeping him upright to care or correct him. “I love you, man.”

  I kick the passenger door to my cruiser shut with the back of my heel, and stumble through a narrow space between two parked cars to get to the front walkway leading to his apartment door.

  “I feel sick,” he tells me when we reach the curb, and I lose my grip on him.

  He falls against the hood of a white Porsche convertible and tumbles to the ground.

  His impact crushes a flowerbed of daffodils as he lands hard on his back, staring up at me, eyes glazed. He cries out in agony, a piercing groan, just as I am looking around for any movement from behind one of the curtained windows in the bank of condos.

  We eventually make it to his front door ten minutes later. Holding him with one hand, I dig around inside his mailbox for a house key.

  Inside, I lay Ryan out on his couch and pull off his boots, covering him in a light blanket. “I’ve got an errand to run,” I tell him. “But I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

  Before he falls asleep, he reaches out to me. “You’re a good guy, Jim.”

  “Get some sleep.”

  I use the bathroom before I leave, but when I get to my car, I pull out my cell phone to make some calls.

  Chapter 11

  At his request, I meet the police chief at his house an hour after I get off the phone with him.

  A blue Honda is driving away from the curb in front of his house when I arrive.

  I get out of my cruiser and walk across the street, up a pathway blooming with pansies and tulips, Stella’s signature green thumb, and climb the steps to the front stoop.

  Before I knock, an idea I’ve been thinking a lot about all afternoon seizes me and I turn, descending the stairs and walking around to the side of the house.

  I glimpse the inside of the three-car garage through one of the windows on the front door, cupping my hands around the glass to get a better look inside.

  Satisfied, I go around to the front door of the house and knock twice. Barton opens the door to greet me. He looks like he’s just showered, his hair damp and dripping with water. “I’m on my way to the station,” he tells me after he invites me inside, running around the room picking up clothes tossed across the floor and on the back of the L-shaped couch, which dominates half of the room.

  He gestures for me to come in. “I shouldn’t be long,” he says, disappearing around the corner and up a flight of stairs.

  The air smells like sweet perfume covering up a stale odor of tobacco smoke.

  I hear the chief rummaging upstairs, doors opening and closing.

  When he returns a few minutes later, he is half dressed, tufts of chest hair exposed through a white buttoned-up dress shirt and his hair is combed, parted to the side, like the way he looks when I see him in the morning at the station. I watch him limping in and out of the living room, as he mumbles to himself, searching for something. I wait in the foyer with the front door open behind me as sunlight spills through the screen, warming my back.

  “You said on the phone that you’ve learned something new in the investigation,” he says, coming back into the room, clasping his cuffs, and disappearing again as fast as he’d come.

  “It’s a major piece of the puzzle,” I yell loudly so he can hear me in the other room.

  His long shadow creeps across the far wall in the kitchen, and when he appears in the archway separating both rooms, he stops and stares at me, clutching his dark blue work tie. “A major piece of the puzzle?” he says.

  I nod.

  “So, what is it?”

  “Cora Findings.”

  His stare hardens, and the grooves in his forehead crumple. “Cora Findings?”

  Again, I nod. “Her death has been puzzling me since I’ve spoken with her neighbors. You remember Mrs. Jackson?�
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  He nods, his gaze never leaving mine. “You’re acting weird, Ballinger. Spit it out. What have you learned?”

  The late-afternoon heat on my back is welcoming, but when I open my mouth to speak, I feel a chill running up and down my spine. “Ms. Findings’ death wasn’t accidental.”

  He is twirling the tie between his meaty fingers. His expression is unchanged. “What are you going on about?” There is a nervous twitch in his left eye.

  “You told me Ms. Findings’ death was accidental.”

  He shrugs. “So?”

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” I say, shaking my head.

  An empty stillness settles over the room.

  Then Barton says, “What’s so strange about it?”

  “A few things.” I shift back and forth, trying to find my footing. “Mrs. Jackson, Cora’s neighbor, told me a different story this morning about her friend.”

  He stares at me, walking further into the room and fiddling with his tie, looping it slowly through one finger, then another. “What did she say?”

  “A lot, actually.”

  He gawks at me. “I’m waiting.”

  “She heard noises, loud voices between the victim and another person. A man, according to her statement.” I look at the police chief. He waits patiently for me to continue. “Raised voices, muffled, coming from behind the vic’s apartment door.”

  “Did she see who her friend was talking to?”

  “No. But she found it odd, as I did, that when she went to check on Ms. Findings a little while later, she discovered Ms. Finding’s apartment was empty, the door left unlocked with her dog scratching at it from inside.”

  His expression changes, shifting and darkening in the light. “I’m not following, Ballinger.”

  “According to Mrs. Jackson, the vic never left her door unlocked or her dog unattended.”

  “Maybe she heard a noise out in the hallway and went to investigate.”

  “There was nobody else in the hallway, sir.”

  He looked confused. “I don’t understand. How do you know that?”

  “Mrs. Jackson checked to see if the morning newspaper had been delivered. When she opened her apartment door, she didn’t see anybody else in the hallway. Only heard somebody arguing with Ms. Findings inside her apartment. Whoever that was had to have killed her and moved the body. He left Ms. Finding’s apartment door unlocked when he moved the victim’s body to the basement.”

  The chief stares at me, his face frozen. “He? How do you know the killer was a man?”

  “I’ll get to that.”

  “And what do you mean the body was moved to the basement?” He laughs. “This sounds far-fetched.”

  “I don’t think so. You see, I believe Ms. Findings was killed inside her apartment then relocated into the basement of the building to make it look like she had fallen and hit her head on the floor while doing her laundry. But she wasn’t doing laundry at that early hour. All of that had been strategically planned.”

  “Wow. I knew you were a good rookie cop, Ballinger. But right now you sound like a scripted actor on a bad cop show.”

  “I wish that’s all this was, sir. But we both know it isn’t.”

  He cocked his head. “We?”

  I pull out a piece of paper from my coat pocket and unfold it, holding it out to him. “I’ve got proof.”

  “Proof? What proof?”

  “Your negligence.”

  He smirks and the light in his eyes dim.

  I take a deep breath as I watch him tightening the grip on his tie and walking toward me in slow, deliberate steps.

  I do not move. “Murder, sir.”

  “Murder? Me?” His mouth curls into a grimacing smile. “I think you need to check yourself. Maybe even take a long break. Get your head together. The job changes people after a while.”

  “I went back to Ms. Findings’ apartment to comb over a few things,” I continue.

  “You’ve been busy.” A pause. “And what did you find?”

  “The original crime scene. Pills and prescription bottles and tubs of body cream and a hair brush strewn across the floor in haste, a result from a struggle. I also found a spot of blood on the carpet in the corner of the room. The vic’s blood. I called the local lab and had a sample of it analyzed. I had them rush the results.” I hold up the white piece of paper. “It’s all in the M.E. report: Information that you hid from the entire department. I’d like to know why.”

  Barton stands inches away from me, his face changing expression, a cold, mean stare lancing through me.

  “You’ve got a wild imagination, Ballinger.”

  “That’s not all. I suspect it was you I scared away out of the sliding glass doors when I entered Ms. Finding’s apartment a few hours ago.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “Why did you go back to the apartment? To clean up your mess?”

  “You’re out of line, Ballinger.” He shrugs. “It could’ve been anyone else. How about Officer Ryan? He was missing for most of the shift. I tried calling him and couldn’t track him down.”

  “Don’t throw Ryan under the bus, sir. He’s a good, honest man.”

  “It’s just a suggestion.”

  “Trying to shift the blame is more like it.”

  “I’d like you to leave my house.”

  “It’s funny, sir, that you’d mention Ryan. I left him at his apartment an hour ago before running my errand and coming here. He’s been in a bar getting drunk, and is neither lucid nor in any condition to walk. He could not have climbed down from Ms. Finding’s balcony, dropped one floor to the ground, and run off.”

  “And I could?”

  “You’re in better physical shape than he is. Except for your limp.” I point down at his right leg. “Someone with a limp, much like yours, was limping away from the scene today.”

  He laughs nervously as his fingers work the length of the tie into a tight ball. “You’re reaching for straws, Ballinger.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I wait for him to respond. When he doesn’t, I add, “Let’s discuss the first murder.”

  He freezes. “First murder?”

  “Kimberly Block.”

  The girl’s name ignites something in the chief’s expression to go rigid. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  A sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead. He clenches the tie in a pale-knuckled grip, glaring at me.

  “Your first mistake,” I say.

  “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “I don’t think so. The proof is all here.” I wave the paper at him.

  He loosens his grip on the tie and snatches the report from me, tearing it out of my hands and staring down at the paper.

  “I don’t know if you and Ms. Block were romantically involved, but after a few hours of seeing things more clearly, I finally can put two and two together. You definitely knew each other. We’re the two of you in a relationship?”

  He leans into me, which forces me to take a step back, the floorboards creaking beneath us. “Do you know who you’re talking to, Ballinger?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m the chief of police.”

  I nod.

  “You’re a rookie beat cop,” he says.

  I swallow down the hard lump in my throat.

  When he grins, I notice the top row of his crooked teeth.

  Crooked.

  “You don’t know how wrong I wanted to be,” I say.

  “You’re wrong, Ballinger. And for those glaring oversights, I’m going to strip you of your badge and terminate you from the police force. Your days as a cop are over.”

  I stand firm. “I don’t think so, sir.”

  Our noses are almost touching.

  “What did you just say?” he says.

  “Your breath, sir.”

  He pulls back, squints at me in question. “My breath?”

  “It smells like smoke.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t smoke.”

  “That’s what I thought when you told everybody at the department you quit last month.”

  “I did. For Stella.”

  I shake my head. “It’s the same smell I noticed in Ms. Block’s apartment early this morning.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m making perfect sense, sir. In Ms. Block’s apartment, I detected the odor of tobacco smoke. Not cigarettes, but smoke from a pipe. You used to smoke a pipe.”

  “Operative words: used to. A month ago.”

  “I can smell the same pipe smoke in here as I did at the first crime scene. The only reason I didn’t notice it on your breath at the time was because you were chewing gum, which I’ve never seen you do. None of the other officers have either.”

  Barton takes a deep breath, his fingers resuming an intricate knot in the folds of his tie, the skin around his knuckles turning white.

  “If only you’d have immersed your talent in real police work, Ballinger. Instead of mimicking one of your favorite TV cop shows.”

  “This is as real as it gets.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  I let him talk.

  “You’re mistaken,” he continues. “You’re wrong. You’re fired.” He stops, and then adds, “Do you know what the repercussions will be for falsifying a police investigation?”

  “You should be asking yourself that very same question, sir. It was you who falsified the report, not me. I was just doing my job.”

  “Get out. I don’t want to hear any more of your ridiculous accusations.”

  “I’m just getting started, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir. Get the hell out of my house. Mark my word, Ballinger, you’re terminated from the Black Falls police department.”

  “I don’t think that’s how this works, Chief.”

  “How what works? Coming here harassing me and making wild allegations?”

  “My accusations are based on fact.”

  “Stop talking. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  I nod. “Is that how you felt about Ms. Findings and Ms. Block before you killed them? Were they fools too?”

  His face turns the color of puce from rage, as his hands turn into fists.

  “That’s the same expression Ms. Findings had on her face when she saw you standing behind Ryan and me in the hall outside her apartment when we were interviewing her.”