The Dead Detective

by William Heffernan

  Now he had to go back to his father and listen to his shit for however long it took to smooth his feathers. But he better do it, and he better do a good job of it, or he was gonna lose this piece-of-cake job and find himself out looking for something in the real world, the very thing Daddy always threatened to make him do. Yeah, fat chance. Not with his record. Somebody got a look at that, they’d say so-long, goodbye, have a nice life, kid.

  When Bobby Joe entered the office his father was seated behind his desk stone-faced. His tone matched his look, dark and simmering with anger.

  “What happened with the detective?”

  “Nothin’ happened, Daddy. He talked to everybody and nobody knew nothin’ about that accident.”

  Reverend Waldo leaned back in his chair, his large belly rising up above the desktop like some sea creature coming up for a gasp of air. His eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at his son. “Nobody said nothin’ because the person who was driving that car was standing right next to that detective. Isn’t that so, Bobby Joe?”

  Bobby Joe shuffled his feet. He knew it was useless to lie to the old man. He wouldn’t believe anything he said no matter how good the story was. And he didn’t have a decent story anyway.

  “I was just following her, trying to get somethin’ on her. Something we could use to see that she finally went to jail,” he said.

  His father remained silent, the only sign he had even heard him an increased narrowing of his eyes.

  “I didn’t even know I had scratched that woman’s car. But I knew I couldn’t risk having anything that would show a church car was ever there. That’s why I paid that woman off so quick.”

  “You were sleeping with that filthy harlot, weren’t you?”

  Bobby Joe began to rapidly shake his head as though it might drive the accusation away. “No, Daddy. No, no, no.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare.”

  The old man’s voice thundered throughout the room and Bobby Joe could swear it made the photographs on the wall shake. His hands began to tremble. “Daddy … Daddy, I tried hard to resist her.”

  The older minister leaned forward, elbows on the desktop, hands pressed together in front of his face as if he were preparing to pray. His voice was little more than a whisper now.

  “You tell me how you sinned with her. You confess it to me, boy. You tell me all of it. Every … last … detail. Then you tell me if anybody else knows about it, or even suspects it happened. And you hear this, boy: I don’t want you to leave anything out. And when you tell me all that, then I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do next to make sure this here church doesn’t pay a price for your sin.”

  It was two o’clock when Harry returned to the squad room. Since he arrived at the church that morning he had run into one stone wall after another and he was not in a good mood. The fact that he was followed home the previous night and hadn’t even spotted his tail had dropped his mood another notch.

  He slid into his chair at the conference room table and opened his notebook to review his interviews at the church. They hadn’t proved useless, but they were running a close second. Every question he had asked had been answered, but the information given had been minimal or nonexistent. Justin Clearby had been the only plus, and that had been purely a gut feeling. But when he had run a criminal record check on him, he had drawn a blank there as well. All of it left Bobby Joe Waldo as his only suspect.

  As he considered his next move someone slid into the chair opposite him. When he looked up he found Vicky looking at him intently. Jim Morgan stood in the doorway behind her. Harry acknowledged him with a nod and Morgan raised one finger to his forehead in a salute.

  “How are things going with the church?” Vicky asked.

  “I think I’m learning why churches are made of stone,” Harry said.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “That bad. And the entire staff of ministers and assistant ministers— all except for my boy, Bobby Joe Waldo—is the biggest collection of Biblethumping religious zealots I’ve ever come across. But, what the hell, this is Florida. How are you and Jim doing?”

  Vicky jerked her head toward the squad room and when Harry looked past her he could see Nick Benevuto seated at his desk in a far corner. “It’s a little weird when the suspect you’re investigating is sitting across the room from you.” She paused, hesitating to say more.

  “You haven’t come up with anything that might clear him? Or at least raise some doubts?”

  Vicky gave him a steady look. “No, Harry. Not a thing. Are you still convinced the killer is someone involved with that church?”

  Harry nodded and watched Vicky shift her weight in her chair. When he looked past her he saw that Jim Morgan had lowered his eyes. Harry smiled for the first time that day.

  “Hey, guys, this is what homicide is all about. You follow every lead, every gut feeling. And when it’s all over, with a bit of luck, you end up with the right guy.”

  Vicky stood and stared at him. “So it’s not just the dead detective’s well-known instinct for getting inside a killer’s head. Or all that mysticism about victims talking to him.” She returned his smile, but hers was cold and hard, her voice dripping sarcasm. “I think the captain actually believes in all that. I think he’s even counting on that bit of homicide voodoo to get Benevuto off the hook.”

  Harry stared at her, allowing the bitterness in her voice to hang between them. He continued to hold her gaze as he leaned back in his chair. “Let’s get back to work, partner.”

  Harry’s use of the word partner hit her like a slap, and Vicky realized they probably wouldn’t be using that word between them for a very long time.

  Harry gathered his things, including the old mug shot of Bobby Joe Waldo. He had decided to show it to Darlene Beckett’s neighbors and friends to see if anyone could place the young minister with her in the weeks preceding her death. As he left the conference room Nick Benevuto approached him.

  “Harry, I gotta talk to you.”

  Harry nodded and stepped back inside the conference room. “What can I do for you, Nick?”

  Benevuto’s eyes kept darting toward the main door of the squad room. “It’s your partner and her new sidekick. Especially Stanopolis. She’s really out for my ass, Harry, and she’s really bought into everything this kid Morgan claims he found.” He shook his head. “Okay, maybe I was off base tryin’ to dick that Beckett broad. And maybe I was stupid using one of our unmarked cars when I stopped by her place. But sweet Jesus, Harry, I never snuffed her, and I sure as hell never tried to alter department records to hide the fact that I was in an unmarked car when I went to her place. Shit, I wouldn’t know how to alter a computer record.”

  Harry looked steadily into Benevuto’s eyes. “Did you ever see Darlene Beckett’s body?” he asked.

  “No, Harry, I never did.”

  “She looked scared, Nick. But the fear came later, when she realized she was going to die. First she looked surprised, and that sense of surprise never completely left her face. I think it was a surprise that came from something she saw. Like maybe she knew her killer, or she was surprised that someone like that would be a killer, because maybe he was a minister, or a cop, or a kid, and it surprised her that someone like that could have just cut her throat. So it’s like I told you before, Nick, the squad has no choice; they’ve got to check you out.”

  Nick shook his head vehemently. “Those two, your partner and this Morgan kid, aren’t just checking me out, Harry. They’re out for by sweet dago ass—every pound of it. And they’re not gonna stop until they see it hanging from the nearest goddamn palm tree. Every time they look at me I can see it in their eyes. They’re gonna make their bones on my goddamn back. And all of it’s based on some computer bullshit that this kid dreamed up. But your partner, Stanopolis, she acts like this Morgan kid is some kind of genius detective, not some wet-behind-the-ears punk right out of a patrol car.”

  “I still don’t get what you want me to do, Nick.�
�� Harry, too, was now glancing toward the squad room door and this time he saw two suits enter. They had to be the people Nick had been anticipating. Harry could almost smell them from across the room. “I think we’ve got company,” he said.

  Nick followed his gaze. “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Look, I’ll do what I can. But it’s not gonna be much. I can’t tell them to back off.”

  “I know you can’t. But Jesus, Harry, reign in this Morgan kid and his computer bullshit. Explain that it’s another cop’s blood he’s after.”

  Harry nodded but made no promises. Benevuto was scared and, as a cop, he wanted to believe him, at least as far as Darlene’s murder was concerned. But he wasn’t about to impede another cop’s investigation. He started across the squad room and found himself braced by the two suits coming toward him.

  “You’re Harry Doyle, aren’t you?” the larger of the two said.

  “That’s right.”

  “My name’s Dwight Jimmo.” He nodded toward his partner. “This is Barry Brooks. We’re from Internal Affairs and we need a few minutes of your time.” As Jimmo was talking, Brooks looked past Harry and called out to Benevuto who had started back across the room. “Don’t go anyplace, Benevuto. We need to talk to you too.”

  Harry stared at each man in turn, the contempt clear on his face. “You’ll have to catch me later.”

  Harry started to move past them when Brooks stepped in front of him. “We need to talk to you now.”

  Brooks was a big man, most of it fat built up from sitting behind a desk. A small, cold smile gathered on Harry’s lips. His voice was just one level above a whisper. “You step in front of me like that again, and I’ll dump you on your fat ass—”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear us,” Jimmo interrupted. “We’re from Internal Affairs and we want to talk to you.”

  “And like I said, you’ll have to catch me later. Right now I’m working an active homicide, so you can set up an appointment with my captain, and when he tells me to drop what I’m doing and talk to you, I will. In the meantime, you can take your Internal Affairs creds and shove ’em up your ass sideways.” This time Harry stepped past them without any interference.

  “You’ll be hearing from us,” Brooks called after him.

  “Be still my heart,” Harry called back.

  Bobby Joe insisted that he hadn’t told his daddy everything, and the man he was now talking to believed him.

  “Your daddy seems to scare the hell out of you. Why is that?” The man asked the question casually, almost as though he didn’t care about Bobby Joe’s answer.

  “I’m not afraid of him,” Bobby Joe said. There was a slight quiver in his voice as he spoke. “I just know what I can tell him and what I can’t.”

  “You think he won’t stand by you if you tell him you did something that offends him, something that goes against his beliefs?”

  Bobby Joe snorted.

  “Maybe he won’t,” the man said. “Maybe his beliefs are too important to him, or maybe he’s just all used up with all the stuff you’ve pulled over the years.”

  “Yeah, well maybe I’m used up with him.” Bobby Joe paused. He didn’t want this man going to his father and telling him what he had said. “No, I don’t mean that. I’m not used up with him. It’s just that sometimes he’s a hard man to get along with.”

  “He’s a wonderful man.”

  Bobby Joe shook his head. “Yeah, maybe he is to you. But I know one thing you don’t. He’s a hard man to have as a father.”

  The man gave him a cold, distant smile. “I wouldn’t know about fathers … never had one; not a real one anyway. I just had a string of creeps my mother hooked up with from time to time, before the state sent me off to foster care.” He let out a barking laugh that sounded hollow even to him. He shook his head and continued. “The creeps, they only wanted one thing; they just wanted me out of the way so they could …” He let the sentence die. Then he smiled again. “Well, you know why they wanted me out of the way.” The smile widened, turning colder as it did. “If Darlene had a kid, you probably would have wanted him out of the way for the same reason.”

  They were seated in the man’s car in the parking lot of Frank Howard Park, and beyond the low wall in front of them they could look straight out into the calm waters of the gulf. It was seven o’clock; sunset was still more than an hour away, and only a handful of people dotted the beach.

  “I love the Gulf of Mexico,” the man said. “It always has a calming effect on me.” He turned slowly to look at Bobby Joe again. “Did you know that Darlene was killed on a beach? In fact, it was very close to where we are now. She was with a man she’d just picked up. He was killed too. I suppose it could just as easily have been you, Bobby Joe.” He looked back toward the water and his voice became distant and dreamy. “But that’s not really relevant. That’s just the luck of the draw.” He cocked his head to the side as if considering what he’d just said. “Anyway … whoever gave Darlene what she deserved moved her body after she was dead; took it to Brooker Creek. But the man’s body was left behind. A park maintenance crew found it a day later.” A glimmer of a smile began to form then faded away. “Pretty ripe by then, what with lying out in the sun all that time. Crabs too. They can find a body faster than anything.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” Bobby Joe said.

  The man nodded slowly. “Well, I would, wouldn’t I?” He continued to nod his head. “I mean I was doing what your daddy asked us all to do. I was watching her … just like you were.”

  “I wasn’t watching her that night.” Bobby Joe twisted nervously on the seat.

  “You weren’t?”

  “No, dammit. I was nowhere near her that night.”

  “Can you prove that, Bobby Joe?”

  He was silent for a moment. “No, I can’t.”

  “Too bad … be better if you could. The detective you’ve got hanging around your neck seems to be looking at you pretty hard. Man’s like a dog with a bone. And I don’t think he’s about to give it up. If I were you I’d get myself an alibi.”

  Bobby Joe stared out the window. “You could say I was with you … like we were doing something for the church.”

  The man shook his head as though Bobby Joe’s suggestion was the dumbest thing he’d heard in a long while. “Now given my situation, why would I shine that kind of light on myself? Why would I put myself in the middle of your problem? Don’t you think I’ve got enough of my own?”

  “But you were watching her too. Don’t you forget that. We even ran into each other at that club that one night.” Bobby Joe’s voice had become sharp and petulant.

  The man turned to face him. As he did his arm slid along the top of the bench seat until his hand was behind Bobby Joe’s head. “But I didn’t keep going back inside that club. And I wasn’t sleeping with her behind everybody’s back. Only you were doing that. Only you had that kind of personal relationship with that slut.”

  “Still …”

  “You’re not threatening me, are you, Bobby Joe?”

  The man’s eyes had turned so cold and so hard it sent a shiver through the young minister.

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Good. Because it would be a terrible mistake if you ever decided you could threaten me.” The man moved in close, his face only inches from Bobby Joe’s.

  Bobby Joe leaned away until his back was against the passenger window. “You know better than that.” There was a noticeable tremor in his voice.

  “Yes, I know better. The question is, do you?”

  “You don’t ever have to worry about it. Look, I don’t want any trouble with you. I need your help, that’s all.”

  The man placed his hand on the back of Bobby Joe’s neck and he could feel a trembling that radiated up from his shoulders. “You’re on your own in this, Bobby Joe. Just make sure you never drag me into it. You understand what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I understand.” The trembling intensified. “Lis
ten, you don’t have to worry about it. Really, you don’t.”

  The man watched Bobby Joe’s eyes and he knew there was no way he could trust him. He was weak and foolish and when it came down to it, he’d only think about saving his own skinny backside. But you don’t know everything, Bobby Joe. And there’s one thing you sure don’t know. You don’t know you’re already a dead man.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By the time he finished the canvass of Darlene’s neighbors, Harry had three positive IDs on Bobby Joe Waldo’s photo. All were reasonably sure they had seen him entering or leaving Darlene’s apartment. Joshua Brown, the elderly neighbor who had provided Harry with the list of license plate numbers, was the most certain. Brown claimed that Bobby Joe had nearly knocked him down as he hurried out of Darlene’s apartment one evening.

  “I ’member him ’cause he was in such a rush to get away,” Brown said. “Even tol’ me to watch where I was goin’ with my damn dog. That’s what he said: ‘your damn dog.’ Little pissant. And I ’member thinkin’ at the time that he musta parked his car on another street so nobody would see it here. I even thought maybe I’d follow him and get his plate number, but he was movin’ too fast for me to keep up.”

  Harry drove the short distance to the Peek-a-Boo Lounge. He already had a positive ID from Anita Molari, but now he wanted to see if any of the other dancers could place Bobby Joe in the club.

  The interior was just as it had been on his earlier visit, the air still permeated with the same unpleasant mix of stale liquor and human sweat. He spoke individually to each of the twelve dancers working that night and three were sure they had seen the young minister at the bar. Of the three, two were even certain they’d seen him sitting next to Darlene Beckett, with one insisting that Darlene had been “giving the kid her best moves,” and that the next time she’d looked they were gone.