by George Wier
He took the cash register receipt and the sheaf of papers for the dog and made his way quickly toward the glass doorway.
“Black Knight,” the old man whispered to the next person in line, and Shelby heard him. Everyone heard him. “That’s him.”
Shelby sprinted across the parking lot. Where had he parked? He didn’t know. Somewhere back there. At least he had found the right row.
The puppy trotted along behind as best she could and Shelby had to slow for her. Once inside his fifteen year-old Dodge, he threw the dog’s papers on the passenger seat and placed the puppy there. She immediately peed on the papers.
If it were possible, and if there had been an onlooker to the scene—someone hovering close outside the car, perhaps—they may have reported that one corner of Shelby Knight’s lips pulled upward to make half a smile.
“Squire,” he said. “I, the Black Knight, shall name you Squire.”
He’d had Squire for a week, had spent endless hours watching her play with all kinds of odd things he had about the house. She would scamper in random directions and then scamper back. He had to help her up onto his lap, but she couldn’t take more than a minute or two of petting before she grew nervous and had to be let down again to gallivant. He took to calling it ‘galumphing.’ Squire was growing fat. Shelby decided to keep feeding her to see how fat she would get.
The old Dodge coughed blue smoke as he pulled into the parking lot at the police station. People looked. Some cursed him, he was certain.
He’d gotten the call from Quinn that morning asking him to come down to the station for a visit. Shelby had surprised Quinn by agreeing to do so.
“Sure,” he’d told Quinn. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Is it a prostitute?” Quinn had asked.
“No. Better.”
At the moment, Squire was hiding under the passenger seat of the car. He didn’t see how she could fit herself under there. He’d have to try to coax her out, once he got parked.
Shelby took a turn up the ramp of the police parking garage and Quinn and another officer were waiting for him. He’d expected to have to talk his way past the front reception desk, but possibly this was better. Maybe he wouldn’t have to even go inside the building.
Shelby rolled his window down and pulled to a stop beside Quinn, who stood there for a moment shaking his head.
“Hey Quinn,” Shelby said.
“You need a ring job on the old Dodge. You could get a ticket for belching smoke in Austin. But you know that.”
“I’ll get it done soon.”
“Thought you had someone for me to meet?”
“She’s under the seat,” Shelby replied.
Quinn frowned. “Go ahead and park, Shel.”
“Who’s your friend?” Shelby asked, and nodded to the uniformed officer.
“You’ll find out in a minute.”
Shelby turned into the parking space, killed the motor and stepped out.
“Something tells me that there’s been a bit of bad news,” he said.
“You might say that,” Quinn replied. “This is Officer Gonzalez. He’s here as an escort, just in case you give me any problems.”
“Now why would I give you a problem?”
“Maybe you already did. I hope not. Why don’t you come inside the station and let’s talk.”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Sure you do, Shel. You can get back in your car and drive home with your imaginary girlfriend under the seat. But you need to know that there’s an officer at the courthouse with a warrant. If he receives a call from me, he’ll take the warrant into the Judge’s chambers and have it signed. Then we’ll scoot by your house, search it, find what we’re looking for—since it was there the last time I saw it—and likely place you under arrest.”
“For what? That’s what I haven’t heard yet.”
“I’d rather not say at the moment. Like I said, let’s talk first. That way, maybe no warrant, maybe no arrest.”
“You’ve convinced me,” Shelby said. “Lead the way.”
They were inside Quinn’s office. The uniformed officer had been dismissed to carry out his duties elsewhere and it was just the two of them. There was a thick manila folder on Quinn’s desk, closed. Shelby was itching to know what was inside it. His name was on a yellow sticky on the front flap, written in Quinn’s cursive in blue ink. Shelby was the chief suspect in whatever the hell it was about.
Quinn sat down at his desk across from him.
“I want to talk about the last time your gun was discharged. And about the last time it was cleaned.”
“Huh. Discharged? I think you know the answer to that one.”
“No. I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me.”
Shelby sat back and regarded Quinn Thompson. The man was completely serious. Gone was the affable Quinn. The joking Quinn. The making-light-of-serious-shit Quinn. In its place was Chief Detective Quinn, a man with the weight and police powers of the state behind him.
“All right. The last time my nine millimeter semi-automatic was discharged was ten years ago, August 14, a Friday. At the time of that discharge, a young man named Aiden Holloway’s life was snuffed out. Does that answer your question?”
“Yeah. I knew you were going to say that. When was the last time you held your nine mil in your hands?”
“The day I placed it in the china cabinet. And locked it. About nine years, eight months ago.”
“I saw that there was a hole for a key. I didn’t know if it was locked, though.”
“It’s locked,” Quinn stated.
“And where is the key?”
“On my key ring. Where do you keep your keys, Chief Detective Thompson?”
“That’s enough. The reason we’re talking across my desk instead of an interview room in the county jail is because you are a former police officer.”
“As opposed to a friend. Got it.”
“I’m still your friend. The only friend you have.”
“Speaks volumes about me, doesn’t it.”
Quinn nodded. It was an admission, of sorts.
“Quinn, please will you freaking tell me what this is about?”
“Remember the other day? I stopped by?”
“Who could forget.”
“I told you about a case where someone emptied their gun into a guy.”
“You said the ballistics looked familiar. I remember.”
“Yeah. It took me since then to figure it out. I figured it out about four o’clock this morning. Woke up in a cold sweat and knew. I came down to the office and had Nellie down in the catacombs run a computer check on the Holloway shooting with this one, the Moore shooting. They match exactly. Quinn, your gun killed a man two weeks ago. I’m hoping you weren’t holding it at the time.”
For a moment the room felt as though it were mounted on some carnival device that made it slowly turn about. Shelby’s stomach began talking to him.
“You okay?” Quinn asked. “You look a little...green.”
“Oh, I’m fine. My best friend suspects me of murder, tells me I’m about to be arrested and charged for it. I’ve got no alibi. Two weeks ago, I was at home, of course. Alone. All night and all day. The only possible good side is that I don’t know anybody named Moore.”
“Yes, you did.”
“What do you mean?”
“You arrested him, a long time ago.”
Then Shelby remembered.
Of all things, it began with a stupid insurance scam. Richard Moore ran an auto body repair shop off of South 1st Street in Austin, about fifteen blocks south of the Colorado River—that section of the Colorado known locally as Town Lake. Any time an investigation began to get close to Moore and his illicit dealings, he would go on the straight-and-narrow for awhile, and there was no getting to him. He became like teflon—nothing would stick. He had never been arrested, but his file at the Austin PD was thicker than some ex-cons.
Moore would take
a car brought in for repairs from some minor fender-bender, casually ask if it had yet been seen by an insurance adjuster, get a little information on how the accident occurred. Then, if the client measured up and looked as though he was needy, Moore would work the car over and make it look like it had been hit at fifty miles per hour by a bus. Disqualified immediately were those wrecks that had already been investigated by the police, or where there was even a chance the other driver had taken pictures. A few hundred bucks worth of damage would total up to thousands, and often the car had to be totaled after Moore was through working it over. Moore got his cut off the top, the driver got his cut, and there was sometimes even a referral fee to be had from a chiropractor for the injuries received in the collision. It was seamless and perfect and not a single bit of it was legal.
The first inquiry was originally brought up by an insurance adjuster from San Antonio who noticed the high number of totaled vehicles going through Moore’s body shop.
The investigation began in earnest. Detective Quinn Thompson was the lead investigator from the Austin Police Department.
Somewhere along the line Quinn was contacted by the Drug Enforcement Agency, who had gotten wind of the investigation. The DEA was engaged in their own probe of Moore and his dealings, particularly his penchant for moving large quantities of Mexican heroin and marijuana from a cousin who lived in Alpine, Texas—just another link in the chain to the fractured and chaotic drug empire of Pablo Acosta, who was killed in 1989.
Shelby heard all of this directly from Quinn over beers at the Hideaway, a local hangout for off-duty cops. Shelby had known Moore through his wife, Rachel. Moore had been one of her former lovers, but they had broken up two years prior to Shelby and Rachel’s marriage. Shelby had no use for the guy. In Shelby’s eyes he was a small-time hood with delusions of grandeur. Quinn was willing to work with the DEA. A conviction on drug charges would mean a life-sentence for Moore, permanently removing him from the Austin scene.
Shelby spilled the beans to his wife. Rachel requested Moore be spared from a sting operation in which he could get himself killed outright or land in prison for the remainder of his life. She asked Shelby to arrest Moore himself on the insurance fraud. Shelby caved and did it.
Shelby copied Quinn’s file on Moore late one night at the police station, filled out an indictment form himself and took it to an unaware Assistant District Attorney for endorsement.
With a warrant in hand, Shelby showed up at Moore’s shop, handcuffed him and booked him in to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.
Despite Quinn’s insistence he would have done the same had his own wife requested it—if he’d had a wife—Shelby could tell that his friendship with Quinn had suffered.
And now Richard Moore was dead, apparently killed by Shelby’s own handgun—the one under glass at his home.
“I didn’t kill Rick Moore,” Shelby said. “I haven’t seen him in over eleven years.”
“Well, somebody killed him, Shel. They killed him with your gun. So right now I’m under orders from the Chief of Police and from the District Attorney to question you. If there are any holes in your story—and right now there are holes, by your own admission, big enough to drive a fleet of aircraft carriers through—then I’m to get a warrant and stow you in the County Jail pending a full investigation.”
“I’ve got no motive to kill Moore,” Shelby said.
“He once screwed your wife. That’s motive enough in my book.”
“That was before we were married. Nobody cares. I sure as hell don’t care. So, if I cooperate...”
“Yes, if you cooperate, then it may be easier, at least for me.”
“This translates to me as, ‘if I confess.’”
“I didn’t say anything about any confession. I haven’t given you a pen and a piece of paper yet.”
“Yet. A confession can also be oral,” Shelby said, and then it dawned on him. He continued, cautiously, “The way this has gone so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were being taped right now.”
Quinn Thompson didn’t move a muscle. There was neither admission nor denial written on his face, which amounted to an admission.
“All right,” Shelby said. “Before you bring out the pad and pen, and since I’m not yet under arrest, I’d like to use the bathroom. The facilities at the county jail are not the best, if I recall.”
Quinn visibly relaxed. “Sure,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
“But I’ll have to accompany you,” Quinn stated.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do. But it’s not about trust. It’s about your safety.”
Shelby didn’t comment on that. It was bullshit. “Fine,” he said. “You lead the way.”
Quinn got up and Shelby followed him through the common walkway overlooking three floors of atrium space. Down there was the records sales area for regular folks coming in to get copies of their collision reports and other records the department sold. The men’s restroom was at the end of the hall.
Shelby expected Quinn to wait outside for him, but instead he opened the door and went inside. Shelby stopped outside.
“I think this is something I can handle on my own,” he said.
“I know. And whatever it is, I’m certain I’ve seen, heard and smelled it before. Unless, of course, you’re planning on doing something... different.”
“Nope. It’s the same old combination of things. Fine. The more the merrier.”
Shelby went into the first stall and closed the door behind him and tried to make it sound as if everything was normal—as if he were going about his business in the accepted and standard fashion.
“You never should have left the force, Shel,” Quinn stated from outside the stall. He was several feet away, probably running his fingers through his hair, admiring himself in the mirror.
“No. It was the right thing to do. For the force. For Austin. For me.”
“You were good, once,” Quinn stated, and let the words reverberate around the room.
“But I’m not anymore.”
“No. I’d say you’ve become pretty much useless.”
“That a friend talking out there? Or a detractor? I’m sorry, but it’s hard to tell.”
“A friend, Shel. The only friend you’ve got. Remember?”
“How could I forget when you keep reminding me?”
“That’s what friends are for.”
Shelby made a production of rolling up wads of toilet paper. He noted Quinn had moved closer to the stall. He needed him in exactly the right spot for what he was about to do.
“Something else is on your mind,” Shelby said. “Why not tell me your real thoughts?”
“Hmm. My real thoughts. Well, since you asked. Even before the Holloway shooting, there was something off about you. You never fully trusted your fellow cops. You were never really a team player.”
“How so?”
“The Moore arrest. I asked you to can that one. But you didn’t. Instead, you did an end-run around me and brought it straight to the D.A. I mean, it was no real skin off my teeth. But I was going to use Moore to get to the real assholes that stood behind him. I could have shaved five years off of what it took me to make Lieutenant. But no, you had to do it your way.”
“Oh. That,” Shelby said.
Quinn had stepped closer to the stall, seemingly to punch home to him how wrong he had been. It was his undoing.
“Yeah. That,” Quinn stated.
“About that, I have only one thing to say,” Shelby said.
“I’m waiting.”
“This!”
Shelby flung the door open and put all of his weight behind it. Quinn sailed four feet back and struck the wall behind him so hard a couple of tiles came loose and fell to the floor, shattering. Quinn let forth a singular loud grunt.
Shelby was on top of him before he could recover. He got Quinn in a chokehold and tightened his grip.
“Two to... ten,” Quinn spat the
words as he grasped for Shelby’s arms.
“I know,” Shelby said. “Assaulting a police officer. That’s two to ten in the penitentiary. But if I had done that, why didn’t I take your gun, huh? My word against yours.”
“Never...make it...out.”
“Oh, I’ll make it all right. Say ‘good night,’ sweet prince.”
Quinn’s eyes fluttered. His body went rigid for a moment in a last desperate attempt to break free, then went limp.
Shelby slowly lowered him to the floor.
Shelby peered out the restroom door. The restroom was at the end of a deserted hallway. To his immediate left was a fire escape door to the third floor landing and a lot of open space beyond. The door was marked with a placard that read: “Alarm will sound if door is opened.” From memory, the alarm had either not been installed properly fifteen or more years back, or if it had, had never worked. It was a chance, but the only chance he had. Shelby stepped quickly to the door, pushed on the bar and opened it.
No alarm. His luck was holding thus far.
He closed the door behind him and stepped out into the brilliant sunlight.
Squire was still inside his car, and Shelby had left his keys and wallet on Quinn’s desk. He had to rescue the dog. There was no going back to Quinn’s office. He had perhaps two minutes until either Quinn regained consciousness or someone found his inert form. He had to move. Fast.
The third floor landing was little more than an architectural nod to an outdoor patio, and was used as a smoker’s haven and infrequently for department parties.
Shelby moved around the patio tables and made his way toward the rear of the building. Near the patio and slightly below was the roof of the parking garage, a leap of perhaps eight feet out and five down.
He grabbed one of the plastic chairs and a table and positioned them in stair-step fashion in front of the ledge overlooking the garage and the three story drop to the concrete below. If he didn’t make it, he might not survive the fall. If he did make it, somehow, it was possible he’d still break one of his legs.
