Bullet Beth

by James Patrick Hunt

  Twenty minutes later she parked his car by the Mississippi River, south of downtown, near the Carondelet section. She found that when she lifted half of the body out of the car and then toppled the rest of it out onto the ground. It made a sort of soft thud when it hit the grass.

  The next part was difficult. She had to drag him to the shore of the river, holding onto his legs. The closer she got to the river, the more her feet began slipping. The lights and traffic of the Poplar Street Bridge were visible to her north, the industrial filth of East St. Louis on the other side. She pulled Aaron into the river and shoved him out into the current.

  When he began to drift away, she put her took her gloves off and put her hands into her pockets.

  Aaron’s car keys were still in her pocket.

  Damn.

  She put her gloves back on and wiped the car keys off on her jogging pants. She thought about putting the keys back in the ignition of his car but that made her uneasy. She took a few steps to the river and threw them out as far as she could.

  She walked past the car and began her journey home.

  She knew ahead of time that she would have to walk through a rough part of town before she could catch a bus. That was why she had brought the gun. It had not occurred to her to use it on Johnny or Aaron. It had seemed…unnecessary.

  The darkness both comforted her and frightened her. The worst thing would be to be seen. There’s Beth Tanner. What’s she doing here? In this part of town? It would be very difficult to explain. No identification on her, a gun in her pocket.…Yes, very difficult. But soon Aaron’s car was a hundred yards behind her and then a couple of hundred and then she could no longer see it. She kept walking and she did not look back.

  It got darker. A darkness that was enveloping, a part of the city that was alien to her. She was a stranger here. An attractive woman in a jog suit, far from home. She remembered that she had left her cell phone at her house, thinking it would be a bad idea to bring it. She wanted to leave all forms of identification behind. The murder and disposal of Aaron Peterson did not trouble her emotionally. It was, to her, an act that was outside of her, a necessity and when it was done she felt little more than relief.

  But walking through a rundown neighborhood did trouble her. She was afraid and her fear was rational. She was an experienced reporter and she knew full well the excessive murder rate in metropolitan St. Louis.

  She estimated it was about a mile and a half to the bus stop on South Grand. Walking quickly, she would close the distance in less than twenty minutes. Board the bus, pay the fare, keep her head down and begin her trip back to Clayton.

  She passed eight blocks without any problems. Then she reached an intersection and a wino approached her.

  He was old and black and he stunk. He mumbled and staggered in front of her, but she sidestepped him and quickened her pace. He said something like, “uuuhhh” and she ran across the street and for the next block. Then she turned around and saw that he had not come after her.

  See? She thought. Nothing to worry about.

  She slowed down to a walk.

  She had never much liked running.

  When she had started in broadcast, she had run in a couple of city marathons. They were for the community and they helped the station with ratings. The station liked her to maintain a high profile and support the local charities. They did “public service” commercials with her and Carter Avery wearing shorts and T-shirts, doing stretches and talking about the importance of fitness. Carter looking prettier than her, the twist. It was all very silly. And Beth never took running very seriously. It was hard on the joints. Swimming was a much better way to keep trim.

  She heard the sound of a bus engine accelerating and she looked ahead. Three blocks up the bus passed. She was close.

  She walked a little quicker and then she heard the voices up ahead.

  The forms came into view. Two young black men. Couldn’t have been over twenty. Dark and young and skinny. She looked over at them and hoped they wouldn’t notice her. Maybe they wouldn’t if she walked by quickly and quietly.

  But that was stupid. How could they not notice her? A white woman in an aqua blue jog suit. She heard them stop talking and then she knew they were looking at her.

  They started across the street, walking at first, then running diagonally to cut her off.

  God.

  Her heart hammered. What a way to die after all this. Killed and raped by two young homeboys.

  She wished she had put Aaron someplace else, someplace safer. She had thought about other places. She had thought about Creve Coeur Lake, which was about as close to her house as the river. But Creve Couer Lake did not have thick muddy water like the river and would not carry a corpse out of the city. Creve Couer Lake was too well lit and supervised. It would not have worked, but she wished she had gone there now.

  Now they were in front of her. Smiling in the dark.

  The taller one said, “Hey, what you doing?”

  Beth tried to step around him. But he moved with her. She tried to get past him again and he put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Where you going?” he said. And he was pure menace.

  Beth said, “Let me go. I’ll give you money.”

  “How much you got?” the second one said. He was shorter than the one who was touching her, but he was thicker and more muscular. They were kids. Maybe even still in high school.

  Beth put her hands in her pockets.

  While the taller one pushed her, almost gently, against the wall. He put his hand on her face and took her ball cap off.

  He made a sort of mmmm sound then. “You a fine looking woman,” he said. “Why don’t you stay with us for a while.”

  The other one laughed. He said, “Colby, let’s take her over there, man. Not in the goddamn street.”

  The tall one laughed and cupped Beth’s chin in his hand. They were anticipating it now, enjoying the woman’s fear. He said, “Relax. We’re going to have some fun.”

  Beth Tanner’s eyes became very still and she looked the tall kid right in the eye and said, “You’re not taking me anywhere.”

  She said it in a calm voice and for just a moment the tall kid wondered about this lady. His eyes registered a brief confusion as Beth took the revolver out of her pocket and shot him in the belly.

  He grunted and stumbled back and Beth shot him again in the chest.

  The other kid saw it happening. He looked at the lady, as Colby slumped to the ground and then he saw the lady turn to look at him as if he was just a…thing. The woman’s eyes were the coldest he’d ever seen.

  He turned and ran. He got about fifteen feet when Beth shot him in the back. He fell down and hit his face on the sidewalk. Then he heard footsteps approaching him. He wondered why the woman had come to their hood in the first place. What had she been doing here? He was conscious of the punch in his back, the bullet having the effect of a sledgehammer. He was aware that he had been shot. Aware of the blood on his face where his nose had smashed against the concrete. He turned over to see the white woman standing over him, the revolver still in her hand. Her cap gone and now he could see she was a very pretty lady, maybe even familiar…

  He tried to speak to her. He raised his hands in a sort of begging gesture. Begging for his life from this woman who seconds earlier had been an intended victim. Begging her for his life.

  Beth stepped around his body and crouched down and shot him in the head.

  She put her cap back on and ran down the street and turned the corner. Soon she was at the bus stop. When the bus came and she got on, she could hear the approaching sirens of police cars. She felt a certain thrill when a police car passed the bus going the other way.

  Bullet Beth was back.

  Like any good lawyer, Henry Brummell believed in delivering bad news as soon as possible. He called Hastings about fifteen minutes after he got the order faxed to his office.

  Hastings was in his office when he got the call.

>   Brummell said, “I’m sorry, but our motion to dismiss was denied.”

  Hastings said, “Does that mean the case will have to go to trial?”

  “Not necessarily,” Brummell said. “I can still file a motion for summary judgment after discovery is finished. If it’s granted, the case is finished.”

  “But for now, I still have to go through this deposition.”

  “Right.” Brummell said, “Good thing we prepared for it.”

  “Yeah,” said Hastings, unenthused. “Good thing. What happened?”

  “Well,” Brummell said, “I knew our chance of getting it dismissed this early was not good, but I thought it was worth a try. See, the judge ruled that Bradbury can possibly argue a case if there is evidence to support his theory of the case. As of now, he has not had an opportunity to get that evidence through discovery. But I think it was still worth doing.”

  “Why is that?”

  There was a pause. Then Brummell said, “Did you read my motion? I sent a copy to your office.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t.”

  “I wish you had,” Brummell said. “What I did was, I laid out the entire story from your perspective. Or, I should say, from the perspective of the victim. The girl who was murdered. If the judge read it, he’s now got our side of the story.”

  “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t the judge read a motion that he ruled on?”

  “It’s possible his clerk read it and briefed him on it.”

  “The judge ruled on something a law student recommended?”

  “George, listen to me. A law clerk for a federal judge is not typically a law student. He or she is a lawyer too. Usually a top ten graduate of their class. They’re not monkeys throwing darts at the wall. Sorry to mix metaphors.”

  “You know this clerk?”

  “A little. I had a case before him last year. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “But he advised this judge to rule against us.”

  “Maybe he did. But we’re going to need him on our side. You want as much of the judge and his clerk’s sympathy as possible. You don’t save all the battle for the courtroom.”

  “Okay. What about this motion for summary judgment?”

  “That’ll come later. George, don’t get caught up in things way ahead of us. We’ve got this deposition tomorrow and I need you to concentrate on that.”

  “I thought you told me I need to be relaxed for that.”

  “It’s the same thing,” the lawyer said. “Look, George, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier and I know you’re busy with things, but when I send you a copy of a pleading I’m submitting, I need you to take the time to read it. If I write something that’s not consistent with your understanding of the facts of the case, we could get in trouble. Now for me, it’ll just be embarrassing. But for you, it can really hurt your case.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, but I’ve been working on—”

  “I know you’ve been working. And I know, in part, you’ve been working to take your mind off this. But don’t forget you’re being sued by someone who wants to destroy you. Who wants to ruin your career and take away everything you have. If you’re not able to defend your position in this, if your mind’s not in the game, it’s going to hurt you. You’re a smart guy. Don’t let yourself be outsmarted by people like Bradbury or his lawyer.”

  “Do you want me to take a leave of absence from work?”

  Henry Brummell paused. “I don’t know if that’s necessary. If you do, Bradbury’s lawyer will find out about it and argue that you’re on suspension for fucking up this case. And I don’t want you to drive yourself crazy sitting at home worrying about nothing but this lawsuit. You know your limits better than I do. But please don’t ignore pleadings that I’m filing on your behalf. Besides, this may go on for a year or more. So you can’t really take a leave of absence for that long.”

  “No, I really can’t.”

  “Right. Okay, George. I’m sorry if I got a little brusque.”

  “It’s all right. I guess I had it coming. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

  “Call me if you have any questions.”

  Klosterman came into his office holding a note. Hastings hung up the phone and looked at him and said, “My lawyer’s mad at me.”

  “What for?”

  “For fucking up his case.”

  Klosterman was confused by the statement. But Hastings looked at him and said, “What’s up?” Shoving the lawsuit aside.

  “The guy you talked to last night, Jeff Lacroix. He called for you. I guess he was pretty upset.”

  “At me?”

  “I don’t know. He wants you to call him.”

  Hastings said, “I checked his alibis this morning. He and Aaron were both accounted for.”

  “So they’re no longer suspects?”

  “If they ever were,” Hastings said.

  “You still think Rodgers was murdered?”

  “I don’t know.” Hastings looked at the eight by eleven envelope from his lawyer’s office, the motion to dismiss inside. It was still sitting on his desk unopened. He wondered if he should bother reading it now.…Probably he should.

  Hastings picked up the phone and dialed the number.

  Jeff answered it. He said, “I’m at home now. I called in sick. I don’t know where Aaron is.”

  Hastings asked, “Isn’t he at work?”

  “No, I checked. Lieutenant, he left last night and I haven’t seen him since. He’s not answering his cell phone. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Did you have an argument?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Jeff, you can tell me.”

  “No, we did not have an argument. He’s gone, lieutenant.”

  “All right, don’t get upset. Have you checked with his friends?”

  “Yes. No one has seen him.”

  “Has he done this before? Has he stayed out all night before?”

  “Never all night. He always comes home. I’m worried.”

  “Okay. Come down to the station and we’ll help you fill out a missing persons report.”

  “You don’t think he’s been — hurt or something?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Hastings said, though he wasn’t sure at all. “Come on down, we’ll talk about it.”

  Hastings got off the phone. He said to Klosterman, “Murph used to work in the Missing Persons Unit, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ask him to call whoever’s running it now and get them to take Jeff Lacroix’s missing person report on Aaron Peterson. He’ll be there in about an hour. They’re going to ask if Peterson’s been missing for twenty-four hours and he hasn’t. But ask Murph to ask them to go ahead and process it anyway so we can get it in the system.”

  Klosterman said he’d take care of it.

  They got it in the system and after that was done, Jeff Lacroix was led to Hastings’s office where he tried to give more details about where Aaron had gone. Hastings wanted to tell Jeff that everything would be all right, that Aaron was a grown man and he would probably turn up within twenty four hours. But Hastings had a feeling that wasn’t true and he feared Jeff Lacroix could read it in his eyes. He sent Jeff home around lunch time.

  About an hour later, Hastings got a call from a detective in the South Division of homicide saying they had fished a body out of the river that matched the description in the missing persons report.

  The officer from the Missouri State Water Patrol told him that a crewman on a barge had seen the body around eleven o’clock that morning and had called it in.

  The officer said, “We think he got caught in some backwash that pushed him up against a sandbar.” The officer gestured to a point south. “If that hadn’t happened, he’d have been down to Jefferson Barracks by this afternoon. We pulled him up, figuring it was a suicide. Then we got word from a city patrol officer that his car was found here.”

  They were standing near Aaron Peterson’s Toyota. There
were about a dozen emergency vehicles in the area, homicide detectives and patrol officers milling around the crime scene van and a station wagon that had brought someone from the medical examiner’s office.

  Hastings conferred with the M.E. and the technicians from the crime lab. Then he talked with the lead homicide detective who had gotten the call. A black guy in his early thirties whose name was Dan Downie.

  He told Downie about Aaron Peterson’s connection to Johnny Rodgers.

  Downie said, “Yeah, but are they related?”

  “I think they are,” Hastings said. “We don’t have much yet, but I talked with this guy yesterday and he didn’t seem suicidal.”

  Downie said, “What about his boyfriend?”

  “We can check him out, but I think he’s innocent. Who’s your lieutenant?”

  “Sharon Elks. You know her?”

  “Yeah. She used to work sex crimes. She’s a good detective. Would you mind if I called her?”

  “Why? You going to take the case away from me?”

  “Well that would be up to her,” Hastings said, his voice a little firmer now. “If I do, it’s no reflection on your ability, detective.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “No, certainly not. This ain’t exactly high profile. You going to work with me or not?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll work with you. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  Shit, Hastings thought. The last thing he wanted was to get into a turf battle with a young, ambitious detective. He remembered what it was like being young in homicide. The senior detectives stealing the glory on the good cases. Detective work requires having a good network and it did him no good to make enemies.

  “I know you didn’t,” Hastings said. “Sorry if I came on a little strong. But I’ve been working this for a while. All right?”

  “Yeah, it’s all right. Do you still want me to call Lieutenant Elks?”

  “No. I’ll call her.”

  When he got Sharon Elks on the phone, she was glad to hear from him. They had worked patrol together years earlier and he had been a guest at her second wedding. She was also African American.