by David Levien
“No relatives scheduled to see the body here, that’s why he’s uncovered. I can-” Behr cut her off with a head shake.
“Full autopsy planned?”
“Not unless someone requests it. Cause of death’s pretty clear. Pellets have been removed for evidence.” She picked up a tin dish and rattled it, lead shot rolling around inside. Behr took a look.
“Double-aught buck,” she said.
“Twelve-gauge?” Behr asked, pro forma.
“Nope, ten.”
“Damn, a goose gun.” This was a bit of a surprise. A 10-gauge was a lot less usual than a 12. “Handload or store bought?” Behr asked.
“Can’t really tell unless casings were recovered. Probably store bought. If you’re thinking about fingerprints on the buckshot, forget about it. Not after this kind of cavitation.”
Behr’s eyes skimmed over the body. There were old scars covering Aurelio. His knees looked like they’d been gone over with a belt sander, and other patches of skin sported abrasions-mat burns-that would’ve taken years to heal down completely. His right ear was mostly gone from the gunshot, the left one was a bit cauliflowered. Aurelio didn’t generally advocate the headfirst wrestling style that had caused it, but he hadn’t developed the finer points in his game until he’d already sustained some damage. Behr looked for major swelling or contusions, perhaps a broken bone that would tell a story. He wasn’t finding what he was looking for. It was growing increasingly difficult for him to keep his mind clear, so he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t missing it. The initial notes from the exam rested on a table beside the slab and Behr picked them up, but the words swam in front of his eyes.
“Closed casket for certain,” Jean mused. “Screw the damn thing shut. Or get him a George W. Bush mask.”
“Bodies don’t bruise postmortem, right?” Behr wondered aloud.
“Right, generally speaking.”
“So if there were any injuries like that, they’d have to have been sustained while he was alive.”
“That’s the way it works.” She cocked her head and looked at him. “First day at the carnival?”
“Sorry, I’m just trying to think straight.”
“What are you doing on this anyway, Frank? You didn’t say and I didn’t think to ask.”
“He’s my friend, Jean. Was.”
“Ah, fuck me Uncle Sal!” she said. “Jeez, that’s a real V8 move.” She smacked herself in the head. “I thought it was business.”
“Forget it. It is business now.” Behr looked around at the white tile and steel surfaces of the room, scrubbed clean and disinfected of germs and meaning. “What about… what about the back of the body? Did he get hit from behind? Was there any evidence of bludgeoning?”
Jean grabbed the exam notes from Behr and threw on a pair of cheaters. She snapped on a latex glove and began going over the body carefully as she referred to the notes.
“Okay,” she said, her tone suddenly businesslike, “posterior side was checked. It’s clean. No contusions or skull fracture caused by bludgeoning.”
“What about bruising on the scalp. The ones caused by rod-shaped-”
“Tramline bruises. You think he got hit with the gun barrel?”
Behr shrugged.
“That’s a special dissection if there’s any indication,” she said gravely.
“They’ll have to peel the scalp?” Behr asked.
She nodded and continued. “According to X-rays, we’ve got calcification in knuckles, wrists, and some toes. This guy was, what, a professional fighter? There are lots of fractures that healed up over the years.” She got near what was left of Aurelio’s lower jaw. “My colleague who caught this one, Dr. Rodale, he’s real thorough…” She leaned in close in a way Behr did not envy. “He found broken lower teeth and lacerations inside the mouth that bled up. That means before the gunshot.”
“He was hit.”
“Or the gun was jammed in his mouth. Shotgun barrel can do that real easy.”
“But the shot?”
“Not in the mouth.”
Behr nodded. Now he could see powder tattooing, and that the muzzle had been placed beneath Aurelio’s chin. After another minute or so of inspection with no talking between them, Jean stripped off the latex glove and put the notes down.
“Come on,” she said, “they’ll be getting back from dinner break soon.” She led Behr down the hall to her office, where she sat him on a stool and poured some of the Johnnie Walker into two lab beakers. She sat behind her desk and they touched glasses over it. Behr drank, but she didn’t. He told her the details of the events that had led him there.
“If you don’t mind my saying, Frank, maybe you’re not the best guy to be looking into this,” she offered when he was done.
“No?” he said, peering over the top of his glass. “Who’d be better?” She thought about that one for a while, but had no answer. Finally there was just quiet that went on as if it always would. Then he finished up his Scotch and stood. She came around her desk, and this time she did hug him.
“You take care, you got me?” she said.
He nodded. “Let me know about any tramlines.”
“You stay pro on this thing.”
“Thanks, Jean,” he said, wondering exactly what that meant anymore.
• • •
On his way home, Behr drove to Aurelio’s place. It had been a hell of a day, and he had the Scotch in him, and he knew he should probably shut it down for the night, but he really wanted to get a look inside the house. His feeling didn’t change even when he passed by and saw the unmarked police unit sitting on the address, an officer reclined low and just visible over the car door. Behr continued on, turning around the corner onto the next block, where he parked. He sat looking past a small brick cottage, through a line of scraggly trees, at the back of Aurelio’s place. In the black of the night, he thought, he could make it over the low chain-link fence, through the trees, and to the back door without being seen. He could get in and inspect the place, except for the front room, with his Mini Maglite. He could probably do it all without getting caught. He sat there thinking on it for five or ten minutes.
“Dumb,” he finally said aloud. He dropped his car into gear and drove home.
TWELVE
Southeastside Man Killed in Apparent Robbery Attempt,” read the Star’s headline. Behr was at the Caro Group, in a waiting room that smelled of fine woodwork, leather sofas, and freshly brewed dark-roast coffee. The place smelled like money. He had a cup of the strong, perfect stuff on the table at his knee as he read the account of Aurelio’s death. The details were few in the short, vague piece, perhaps because police had nothing, or because that’s all they wanted to release. After reading it twice, Behr tossed the paper on the coffee table with disgust and waited.
“Mr. Behr, they’re ready for you,” Ms. Swanton said. She wore heavy makeup, matronly business attire, and had her hair set in an old-fashioned helmet. She was as solid as a Sherman tank, and about as inviting. He sank into the carpet up to his ankles as he followed her down a hallway lined with certificates of civic recognition the company had received from the city. It sure didn’t feel like a Saturday in the office, as there were plenty of busy people around. He passed a room, door partially open, that had bakers’ racks full of the black, hard-sided cases that protected and transported high-end surveillance equipment. Infrared cameras, hardline wiretaps, relays, cell phone wiretaps, cell phone scramblers, night vision, voice stress analyzers-all the tools of the trade that he couldn’t afford. Some of them even worked some of the time.
They neared a corner office that could only belong to the firm’s old bull, and when Ms. Swanton swung open the door, his impression was confirmed. Rising from a large mahogany desk that cost more than Behr’s car was a silver-haired man in an expensive charcoal gray suit. A second man, tall and slim, with curly rust-colored hair, stood as well. Slim wore an equally expensive navy chalk-stripe suit and held an alligator-skin binder under his arm.<
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“Mr. Behr, meet Mr. Potempa,” Ms. Swanton intoned. “Can I get you gentlemen anything?”
“We’re fine,” Karl Potempa said in a smooth baritone. Ms. Swanton nodded and left and no one spoke until the door closed behind her. In the meantime Behr looked around the office at framed handshake photos of Potempa and other men, including the governor, at various banquets and flesh-presses. Potempa’s old FBI badge was in a display case on the desk, which was also full of commemorative clocks and ashtrays from golf outings and law enforcement conferences.
“I’m Curt Lundquist,” the unintroduced man in the navy suit began. “House counsel for Caro.”
Behr shook his hand and realized he was being hired. It was common practice in private investigation, especially at the higher end, with clients who had money to burn on lawyers as well as investigators. When the lawyer did the hiring, anything the investigator found fell under attorney-client privilege and couldn’t be subpoenaed.
“Have a seat,” Potempa hit him with the dulcet baritone again, “and thanks for coming.” Behr lowered himself into a slick, oxblood leather chair. “Do you know anything about our firm?”
“Security. Investigation. I know you charge plenty,” Behr said, evoking no smiles across the desk.
“Crisis and emergency management, executive protection, homeland security solutions, risk analysis, all that,” Potempa went on.
“Color me impressed,” Behr said. “What can I do for you?”
“We have two employees, investigators, named Ken Bigby and Derek Schmidt,” Lundquist said. “They’re from our Philly office, put up over at the Valu-Stay Suites while they’re in town.”
“It’s part of a new program we’ve got going where we move guys around for six months at a time, so they develop a national overview,” Potempa informed him.
“How’s that working?” Behr wondered.
“Fine,” Potempa answered, but it didn’t sound like the truth. Behr waited for him to continue, already assuming he’d hear of some scam the two employees were involved in that they wanted to investigate with external personnel. Bill padding or misappropriation of company resources or some other kind of fraud was usually the order of the day.
“Anyway,” Potempa went on, “Ken Bigby and Derek Schmidt… we can’t locate them.”
Lundquist said, “They’re missing.”
“Missing?”
Potempa and Lundquist nodded. Behr waited for them to go on, but they didn’t.
“Missing like they stopped showing up for work and went to a competitor with their files?” Behr asked, readjusting his assumptions. Potempa and Lundquist shrugged and shook their heads.
“So you want me to jump in on a case they were working?” Behr asked.
This time neither man moved or responded for a moment. “It’s not the case we need you to pursue at this time,” the lawyer said. A moment of silence spread in the room before Behr began to understand what they were looking for.
“You want me to track down your people?” he asked, truly surprised.
“That’s right,” Potempa said.
“Why don’t you all do it?” Behr asked, pointing a thumb toward the outer offices. He had just walked past a bullpen full of shirt and tie investigators who looked rough and ready, not to mention a handful of doors that had the title “Case Manager” stenciled on them. The place was practically an FBI field office.
“We don’t want to lose any more man-hours to it,” Potempa said evenly, the baritone hitching just slightly.
“Just to find they lit out for Vegas or St. Louis or someplace?” Behr suggested.
“That’s probably not it,” Potempa said, shifting in his seat. “Though we certainly hope it’s that basic…”
Behr had been wondering how they had come to choose him in a town with four pages worth of private investigators listed online and in the phone book. Now he was able to put it together- it was a janitor job. He didn’t bother filtering his thoughts. “So while your regular guys are out billing three hundred an hour on real cases, you’ll put me on this at seventy-five.”
“Something like that. I hope you don’t find it insulting. It’s a question of economics,” Potempa said. “And your reputation is investigative-strong and localized.”
“According to whom?”
“That person would prefer not to be named.”
Behr chewed over whom they’d checked with and what his reputation might be “weak” in before speaking again. “If it’s just a question of economics, pay me one-fifty an hour. You’ll still be making out that way.”
“A hundred,” Lundquist said.
“Fine,” Behr said, immediately wondering if he’d gone too cheap. Either way, this would be a score for him. A hundred an hour to run down an ATM trail or credit card pattern that would lead, despite what the bosses thought, to a lost weekend at a riverboat casino or Glitter Gulch hotel with some strippers or bar girls or hookers. And this time he wouldn’t be giving back any retainer. Unlike with Shipman, there was no personal connection here. Even though it wouldn’t take long, this time around he’d be “Frank the Milkman” all the way. It could finance him through his Aurelio investigation and beyond. “So, I’ll just need to look at their files and computers then.”
“Sorry, company materials aren’t available for view by outside individuals,” Lundquist said.
“Okay…,” Behr said. “Well, that ups the degree of difficulty.”
“We’re also going to need you to sign this,” Lundquist said, taking a piece of paper out of his binder and sliding it toward Behr, who picked it up and looked it over.
“A confidentiality agreement?” Behr said.
“We’d prefer word of us hiring outside didn’t get around,” Potempa explained.
“Right,” Behr said. “Of course. Can I speak to some of their coworkers then?”
“We can’t… would prefer not to… involve… other company personnel,” Potempa said, the baritone tightening up now. “That’s one of the reasons we’re hiring-”
“Then can you fill me in on what they were working?” Behr said, quickly becoming tired of the game. There was a long, silent pause in response. “If you don’t give me anything, where am I supposed to start?”
Potempa shifted uncomfortably again, tapped his fingers against a crystal paperweight of a size better suited to bludgeoning intruders than holding down documents, then exchanged a nod with Lundquist, who spoke. “They were checking the status of… properties… for a client.”
“A client?” Behr asked flatly, already knowing they weren’t going to tell him who that client was.
“Yes. A client.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell me-”
“No,” Lundquist answered.
“Can you at least tell me what type of property and where the hell they are?” Behr asked as patiently as he could. The meter’s already running, and includes this meeting, he thought.
The two men exchanged another look, and Potempa nodded before Lundquist went to his alligator binder once more for a sheet of non-letterhead paper, which he fed across the desk. “Derelict houses,” Potempa said. Behr looked over a list of a dozen addresses. Franklin Street, Thirty-third, Arrington, a few other streets Behr recognized. Mostly near Brightwood, on the northeast side, and some other shit areas. The parts of town where a real estate speculator of any stature-certainly the kind of businessman who would hire a Caro Group-would not be buying or selling.
Lundquist filled the silence. “So the gag agreement we mentioned-”
“Curt…,” Potempa intoned, giving the lawyer a “take it easy” gesture with his hand.
“Sorry, Karl,” Lundquist whispered.
Behr picked up the page and looked at it, and then the men. He had more questions but realized they were looking to him for answers, not the other way around.
It was the part of the meeting where he was supposed to say, “I’ll get on it then,” and sign the nondisclosure and start getting paid. But
Behr found himself unable to do or say anything like that. The problem, he quickly realized, in taking big dollars from a top shop was that it came with a caveat: you had to deliver. Failing to do so because he had both hands tied behind his back from the start was no way to build that reputation Potempa had mentioned earlier. And then there was the fact that his friend had recently been scraped off his own gym floor, and something needed to be done about it.
Christ, Behr thought a moment before he spoke, I’m physically unable to make money. It’s just not in my DNA.
“I’m gonna take a pass on this one, gentlemen,” he said, then slid their paperwork back across the desk and headed for the door.
THIRTEEN
It was weird, but her stomach looked flatter in the two-piece than it did in the single. Susan appraised herself in the mirror. She wasn’t that religious when it came to the aerobics and gym time in general, but maybe it was time to get some religion. No more “pour me into it” party dresses for her. She should at least start swimming again. She pictured herself churning up the lanes back in college-it seemed like a long, long time ago, much longer than ten years. She pulled her hair back into a pony and checked her sleepy eyes. She wondered if her mouth had recently started turning down at the corners more than usual, and whether she was on her way to starting to look old.
She thought about putting on some makeup, but smiled and just rubbed in some tinted sunscreen moisturizer. They were headed down past Bloomington to Lake Monroe, where her boss kept a boat. There would be swimming, tubing, maybe skiing. She checked her top. It seemed secure enough that her business wouldn’t go flying when she hit the water. Her phone rang, Frank on the line. A fist of tension knotted around her at the sound of his voice. They’d said their “sorries,” but that hadn’t gotten at the issue. Not really, and she knew it was her fault. She pulled up a striped mini and threw on a denim shirt up top. She put a couple of towels in a backpack, grabbed her sunglasses and some lip gloss, and headed for the door.
