The Slowest Death

by Rick Reed

  The dog whined again. He turned back to the car and put a finger to his lips. The dog settled back in the seat. Smart boy. Good boy.

  A cold wind smacked his face as he approached the alleyway. It was pitch black. At the end of the alleyway he saw a dull glow about waist level. A cigarette.

  He stopped halfway and said, “It’s me. I want my money, or you can tell your boss he don’t get the truck. Pay me and I’ll tell you where you can find the keys.”

  The cigarette didn’t move. Coyote didn’t speak.

  His legs trembled but he forced himself to move forward a few more steps. He had to be firm on this. After this he would be out of the business, but that didn’t matter.

  He took another few steps and stopped dead still. The glow was from a cigarette, but it was sitting on top of a crate with no one holding it. Too late, he stepped back when an arm went around his neck pulling him backward and down. Coyote’s breath was in his ear and smelled like coffee and cigarettes. There was a pressure and sharp pain in the side of his chest. The pain found its way deeper until his legs turned to rubber. There were several sharp stings to his chest and the arm relaxed, released him. He fell to the ground. It was cold on his cheek. Something stung his neck.

  “You’ll get what the boss wants you to have, asshole,” a gruff voice said. A long slender blade entered the side of his throat. He could feel it push through, but it felt like pressure and not pain.

  The Coyote stood up and said, “You’ve been paid.”

  His last thoughts weren’t of dying. They were of the dog. He’d never had a dog.

  Chapter 2

  Detective Jack Murphy, third generation Irish-American cop, ducked under the yellow crime scene tape blocking the mouth of the alleyway. About once a month he and his partner worked weekends in the detectives’ office. This weekend was their turn. He covered his mouth and nose with a gloved hand to keep the freezing cold out and bemoaned the fact that if the run had come in thirty minutes earlier, this shit would have been third shift’s responsibility. Such was the luck of the Irish.

  Jack and his partner, Liddell Blanchard, were assigned to Homicide, but investigated almost every type of violent crime. Their specialty was serial violent crime; serial rapes, multiple robberies with injury, home invasions with injury, or deaths where homicide was suspected. Liddell joked that he and Jack were actually personal injury lawyers with badges and guns. From what dispatch told Jack, this death was more than suspected.

  Jack was almost six feet tall, sturdily built, with dark hair, short on the sides and spiked in the front, and gray eyes that could turn stormy. He liked redheads, Scotch, Guinness, and long walks on the beach, minus the long walks.

  His partner, Liddell Blanchard, aka Bigfoot, was talking to the first officer on the scene. Liddell stood over six and a half feet and weighed in at a full-grown Yeti. Breaths issued forth like cartoon dialogue balloons from the law enforcement officers working the scene.

  An ambulance was pulling away. Its emergency equipment was silenced. There was no need.

  Sergeant Tony Walker approached, bundled against the cold and wearing an oversize Tyvek suit with the hood pulled over a ski mask. It made him look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the Ghostbusters movie, or a fat, white commando.

  “It’s a mess back there, Jack,” Walker said.

  “What have we got?” Jack asked.

  Walker was his previous partner in the investigations unit. Then Walker got himself promoted to Sergeant and was transferred from Detectives to the Crime Scene Unit. Walker was an excellent detective and an even better Crime Scene analyst.

  Walker tilted his head toward the end of the alley where a body lay crumpled like a bloody paper towel.

  “White male in his late forties,” Walker said. “Several puncture marks in his jacket. He was stabbed in the side, chest and neck. The weapon was a thin bladed knife. He’s been down at least overnight because some of the blood is frozen. We’re just now patting his clothes down for a wallet.”

  Walker signaled one of his techs to continue while he talked to Jack. “The owner of the coffee shop next door found him this morning. She didn’t touch him. She called it in as a drunk, possible mugging. She said there’ve been other muggings back there once or twice. An officer and an ambulance arrived about three minutes after she called, about seven a.m., and found him like that, felt for a pulse but otherwise didn’t touch anything. There’s a lot of blood. His throat was punctured in three places that I can see. The killer wanted to make sure he was dead.”

  The tech held a key out. “This was in his shoe. I don’t think there’s anything else. Can we turn him over, Sarge?”

  “Let’s do it,” Walker answered. He handed Jack a medical mask. “Coroner’s on the way,”

  Jack was grateful for the mask. The tip of his nose was freezing. “What’s the temperature?”

  The tech, a Corporal named Morris, said, “A balmy five degrees. It was three below overnight.”

  The deceased’s waist-length quilted jacket, once tan, was now painted deep red. He had on tan desert-style military boots, no gloves, no hat, and a Black Watch plaid scarf tucked down in the jacket. No jewelry. His hair was blond, going on gray, going on bald. His cheeks were sunken. False teeth? Missing? He didn’t have a mustache but there was a two or three day growth of grayish facial hair. His upper lip carried the deep lines of a heavy smoker. The middle and index finger were yellowed. He was a smoker and he was left-handed. Jack put his age nearer sixty. Ice crystals had formed on the ridges of the jacket, around the cuffs and around the bottoms of the jeans. Tony was right. He’d been down a while.

  “Anyone find a weapon, Tony?” Jack asked Walker.

  “Not yet.”

  Crime scene had turned the body on its back. Jack counted three punctures in the outer jacket. He had worked some stabbing deaths less than a month ago. The cold temperatures were about the same as today. Those bodies displayed frozen blood, too. He remembered from the autopsy report that blood contained chemicals that slowed the freezing process. This guy had obviously been killed here and left here. Maybe the Coroner could give an accurate time of death.

  The face was flattened like a coin on the side that had lain against the ground. Grit was frozen into the skin. Morris said, “We’ll have to wait until the Coroner gets him to the morgue to search him better, but he doesn’t have anything on him. Wallet, change, nothing except the key.”

  “I guess we can’t rule out robbery as a motive,” Jack said. “Maybe it started out as a mugging and he fought back. Any marks on his hands?”

  Walker answered that one. “It doesn’t look like he fought his attacker. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy. I’ll call you when I know more.”

  Jack asked, “What do you think the key goes to?”

  Morris showed it to Jack. Imprinted in the metal were the capital letters ABUS.

  “ABUS,” Jack said. “Is that a padlock? A toolbox?”

  “I’ll look it up,” Morris said. “I don’t really know.”

  “Stay in touch,” Jack said to Walker and headed back to the street.

  Liddell came from the direction of the University bookstore and Jack met him on the sidewalk. “No luck, pod’na. The bookstore’s closed up tight on Saturday. The sign in the door says it closed at seven yesterday evening. Opens Monday morning at eight. Officers are going door to door.”

  “Did you talk to the first officer on scene?”

  “Yeah. Officer Steinmetz,” Liddell said. “Gladys Rademacher owns The Coffee Shop. She called 911 at seven saying someone was passed out in the alley beside the shop. Steinmetz arrived five minutes later. Ambulance arrived when he did. He saw someone laying face down in the back of the alleyway and walked down to check. It looked to him like a drunk passed out wearing a red coat. He said he’s found a few college students passed out from partying too hard and
thought it was one of them until he got close. One of the ambulance crew checked the guy and determined he was dead. Steinmetz called crime scene, dispatch and the Coroner.”

  “Mrs. Rademacher?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah. I talked to her for a minute. She’s inside. Said she closed up at midnight. She had one customer from about ten until closing. The guy just sat there and had one cup of coffee and pie that he barely touched. She said he left when she locked up, so that would have been about five after midnight. When she went out the customer was nowhere in sight. She saw a car down the street with its engine running. She doesn’t know what kind of car and couldn’t see if anyone was in it. She described the customer as a white man but couldn’t give a description, guess his age or remember what he was wearing. She said he wasn’t talkative. But neither is she. I had to drag that much information out of her. Maybe you’ll have better luck. The ladies like you, pod’na.”

  Jack looked up and down the streets. Dozens of cars were parked at the curbs. None with the engine running. It was still early. The university across the street wasn’t awake yet. College students slept in on weekends. Jack called out to the officer holding the crime scene log. “Can you ask someone doing the neighborhood canvass to write down license plate numbers and car descriptions? We need to know what’s parked and how long it’s been there.”

  The officer got on his portable. Jack and Liddell went to interview the owner of The Coffee Shop. The door was unlocked and warm air blasted them. A bell over the door rang when Jack and Liddell came in but the woman paid no attention. She was behind a small wood-topped counter, pouring water into a Mr. Coffee on a small table next to an iron stove possibly as old as the woman herself. She finished the coffee and bent over the oven, taking out several freshly baked pies. The mouthwatering aroma filled the room.

  Liddell said, “Mrs. Rademacher, this is Detective Murphy. He’d like to ask you a few questions if you have time.”

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Mrs. Rademacher…”

  The woman’s shoulders dropped. “Oh, go ahead. I guess you won’t leave me alone. I don’t know who killed that guy out there but it wasn’t me.”

  “Why would you think you’re a suspect, Mrs. Rademacher?” Jack asked.

  She grinned. Most of her top teeth were missing. “I watch Cold Case Files and CSI New York. The last to see ‘em alive is always the prime suspect.”

  Jack had experienced CSI’s effect on the public. He’d learned to interview these crime show addicts a little differently from other people.

  “We don’t think you killed the murder victim. You’re not our prime suspect,” Jack said.

  “Unh huh,” she said as if she didn’t believe him.

  “But you are our best witness. You might be able to break this case wide open for us. What time do you open your business, Mrs. Rademacher?” Jack asked. He hoped to enlist her. Civic duty to help the police was a thing of the past.

  “Depends,” she said and offered nothing else.

  Time to change tactics.

  “What time did you open this morning?” Jack asked again, this time in a less friendly manner.

  “Why?” she asked. “I told you I didn’t kill him. Are you going to arrest me?”

  Jack said, “It’s warm in here. This building is maybe eighty years old. You don’t have central air or heat. Even in one with good insulation it would take that stove of yours about two hours to get to this temperature. I’m guessing you’ve been here since about five this morning.”

  “Five thirty,” she said. “Stove’s a good ‘un. They don’t make ‘em like this no more. Don’t need central heat.”

  “You got in at five thirty. You called the police at seven,” Jack pointed out. “Why didn’t you call police immediately, Mrs. Rademacher?”

  “It’s none of my business who’s drunk or where they pass out.”

  “But, in fact, you did call the police,” Jack said.

  “Wouldn’t you?” she asked.

  Jack pretended to be impatient, “We can do this here, or we can do it downtown. You’ll have to start talking or lock up and come with us.”

  She looked at him and snorted.

  “That’s a good ‘un. Cops have to read you Miranda rights first.”

  “Are you gonna talk or do I have to get rough?” Jack asked and winked at her.

  She grinned and crossed her arms. She was wearing a ratty pair of cloth house shoes. Her ankles were bare. A plaid nightgown stuck out of the bottom of a long house coat. She didn’t care. She was having fun. How she could be enjoying this encounter considering there was a dead man outside was beyond Jack.

  She said, “You boys might as well have coffee and a piece of pie. I don’t have any donuts.” She nodded toward one of the booths.

  Jack remained standing and Liddell squeezed into a seat.

  “Mrs. Rademacher,” Jack said and she held a hand up.

  “Name’s Freyda. I never did like being called by my married name. Mr. Rademacher, curse his hide, is dead. Dying was the only good thing he ever did for me.”

  Jack found a couple of chairs by the counter and pulled them over to the booth. He motioned for the woman to sit. She ignored him and went behind the counter, brought back two mugs of coffee and handed them to Jack and Liddell.

  “Want some cherry pie?” Without waiting for an answer, she brought a pie, plates, and silverware to the table.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Liddell said and scooped half a pie onto a plate.

  She slid into the booth beside Liddell and said, “Ask your questions.”

  “Okay. Freyda. If you were the detective, what questions would you ask such a fine, observant woman as yourself?”

  Freyda snickered. “Fine woman. That’s a hoot. You must be blind as a bat, but let me think. I guess I’d ask about that car down the street. And I guess I’d ask who the customer was that left here.”

  “That’s good thinking,” Jack said. “And what do you think you would say to the detectives?”

  “You haven’t tasted your coffee,” she said to Jack, getting off topic once again.

  “You aren’t drinking the coffee,” Jack pointed out.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “This is too strong for a ‘fine woman’ such as myself.”

  Jack took a sip. She was right. He could strip paint with this stuff. “So, what did the witness tell you about the car and your customer, Freyda?”

  “The witness wasn’t talking to the cops. She, or he, was afraid of getting whacked. Killers always return to the scene of the crime. That’s what that hunk on CSI New York says. Gary Sinise knows his killers.”

  Chapter 3

  Liddell asked for seconds on the pie and a second cup of coffee. Freyda said, “You like my pie.”

  Liddell grunted with a mouthful.

  “That guy last night didn’t eat his pie or drink his coffee. Sat there writing in his notebook and looking out the window,” Freyda said.

  “You said there was a car down the street with the engine running,” Jack prompted her. “Did he come up in that car?”

  “I was in here when he came in. Can’t see down the street from here.”

  “Tell us about your customer. Anything you can remember,” Jack said. He got up and warmed up his coffee. It grew on you.

  “I remember better now,” she said. “Like I said he was a white guy. Maybe fifty or less. I can’t tell much about these young people anymore. Younger than sixty looks like babies to me. He came in around ten last night. I didn’t see him park so I don’t know anything about what he was driving. I don’t think it was the car down the street that I saw with the engine running, but I couldn’t tell you why. Just a feeling. You know. Like cops get that gut feeling.”

  “Okay,” Jack said.

  “Well, I left a few minutes after he did, b
ut I didn’t see him on the street and the only car I saw was the one I told you about.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Tell us more about the customer.”

  Liddell pushed his plate away and took out a notebook and pen. “Can you tell us what your gut told you about the customer?”

  “He was a white man, like I already said. He was about four inches shorter than me and I’m five foot ten. He was wearing a dark colored spy coat. You know? A heavy trench-looking coat, like they wear in those old spy movies.”

  “A Burberry,” Liddell suggested.

  “It wasn’t a berry anything,” Freyda said.

  Liddell took out his phone and pulled up pictures of Burberry coats. He held it where she could see and he flipped through the pictures. She stopped him at one.

  “That’s it. That’s the same coat. Only his was charcoal colored and shiny. Some kind of leather.”

  Liddell showed the picture to Jack. The coat cost a thousand dollars. The customer had expensive taste. So what was he doing in this hole at that time of night? Or any time of night for that matter.

  “Go on,” Jack said.

  “He looked a little undernourished. Should’a ate the pie. Didn’t look like he ate much of anything. Except he looked hard. Like he’d seen some things. Done some things, if you know what I mean.”

  “Have you had other customers like him?” Jack asked.

  “Never. He just looked odd,” she said.

  “How so?” Jack asked.

  “He was wearing that coat, but he was wearing jeans and cowboy boots, and a rodeo kind of shirt—white with them pearl buttons—and a cowboy hat. These kids around here don’t give a shit what they look like but he really stood out. He wasn’t a college student, I can tell you that. And he wasn’t a professor or anything like that. I would have seen him before. His voice was froggy like one of them chain smokers. He gave me the creeps.”