A Bleak Prospect

by Wayne Zurl

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Okay, let’s get philosophical for a minute. Why do you want Prospect PD and not the county or the troopers or even the TBI? You’d qualify for any of those.”

  She dropped her eyes and paused for a moment. “Sir, I guess it’s because of you.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. “Explain that one for me.”

  “I live with my parents and their neighbor knows you. He said I could learn a lot from you—how to be a good cop—a good detective.”

  “First things first. We don’t have detectives in Prospect.”

  “I know that, sir. But I also know you do all your own investigations.”

  “That’s correct. Who’s your source of information?”

  “Detective Stallins.”

  I nodded. “Bo’s a good man. He’d be a good investigator anywhere.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, next question. How’d you break your nose?”

  Involuntarily, her hand went up to cover her face. “Oh, you noticed.”

  “I’m a police chief. I notice everything.”

  She smiled. “During my first tour over in the sandbox, I was working patrol, and we got a call to a maintenance company’s compound. Some GI was cranked on speed and tearing up their day room. We confronted him and out of nowhere, he swung a pool cue at me. I half-blocked it, but when it broke over my forearm, the heavy end caught me in the nose. Bruised my arm and broke my nose. It looks bad, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe to you. No one else would notice it.”

  “You did.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I’m exceptional…and modest.”

  Her smile came back.

  “What happened to the speed freak?”

  “My partner knocked him down, and I cuffed him.”

  “Hmmm. What did you want to do?”

  The memory generated a frown. “Sir, I wanted to shove that pool cue up his—”

  “Gotcha. I’m glad you didn’t—or maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “One last thing. Are you part Italian?”

  She stiffened up. “Is that relevant, sir?”

  I grinned. “No, not in the least, but who cares? Is your mother Italian.”

  She still looked as stiff as a starched shirt collar. “Sir, why do you ask?”

  “Terri, I told you to relax. I’m going to offer you a job. I’m not violating your Constitutional rights. The question has nothing to do with my decision. I’m just nosey.”

  She gave a sigh of relief. “Yes, sir, she is.”

  “I only planned on asking if you had any good family recipes. I like to cook, and Mediterranean food is my favorite.”

  She softened up. “Oh. Okay. Sure. My mom’s a great cook. She can fix you right up.”

  “Okay, we’re done here. I assume you still want a job?”

  She tried to hide a huge smile but didn’t do it well. “Yes, sir, you bet.”

  “Good. I’m afraid you won’t be able to give your current employer a full two weeks’ notice, but I’ll smooth them over if necessary. Our next pay period starts in eleven days, and we need you here then.”

  “Great. Thank you…Sir.”

  “Here’s your first assignment. Knock off the Sir, okay?”

  “Yes…uh, boss.”

  “Thanks. And congratulations. I think you’ll like working here.”

  “I know I will.”

  “Stop and talk with Bettye at the desk before you leave. She’s your new first sergeant and den mother and will give you a bunch of paperwork the city needs and make sure when you report for duty you have uniforms and are armed and dangerous.”

  I stood, and so did she. I walked around my desk and shook her hand. “Thanks for signing on.”

  “And thank you, again…boss.”

  Terri Donnellson wasn’t gone twenty minutes when Mo Rappaport called.

  “Sam, I’m sorry for the delay with the Bowman boy’s post, but I finally got a table for tomorrow morning. Will you be the one attending?”

  “Can’t think of anything I’d like more.”

  “Have I ever told you that sarcasm is one of your strongest attributes?”

  “Often.”

  “Ha. Shall we say nineish?”

  “I’ll be there with Vicks in my nose.”

  “Oh, one thing you may want to know beforehand. Earl helped me determine the angles of entry on the three shots in Bowman’s body. I hope I don’t complicate your life by saying I’m confident there were three shooters. All the entry wounds suggest three people of different height.”

  The first thing that came to mind was Iris Wakefield’s statement about Rosanna thinking they would kill her.

  “Odd, but probably realistic,” I said. “I can’t envision one shooter dancing around a body pumping shots into it from different angles and different heights.”

  “That would be unusual. We’ll only know if there was more than one gun after I extract the bullets and a firearms examiner puts them under the microscope.”

  “Okay, Doctor, I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’ll bring doughnuts.”

  “Thank you, boychek. I love those old-fashioned jelly doughnuts you get from that cholesterol factory in Maryville.”

  Chapter Ten

  At 1:45, John Gallagher walked back into the PD. I was working the desk while Bettye went home for lunch.

  I took an exaggerated look at my watch. “Where the hell have you been?”

  John’s eyes popped wide. He looked aghast. “Boss, you know where I was.”

  He set a small beaten-up laptop on his desk.

  “You were going to take the Bowman woman to the morgue at nine o’clock. It’s almost two.”

  “Yeah, I did. And I met Shuman and Sparks at Mrs. Bowman’s house, and we searched her son’s room.” He cracked a big smile. “And look what I got.”

  “I see. When is Lonnie Ray coming to look at it?”

  “Tomorrow morning, but we don’t need him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yup. There’s no password. Just turn it on, and get in. And—” He drew the word out, “This kid saved all the email responses he got from guys answering his gay ads on Charlie’s List.”

  “No kidding? You’ve got email addresses?”

  “Sure. Even one for Andy.”

  “For Andy? Just before Toby was killed?”

  “No. Six months ago, but maybe Andy called him directly for a date and then killed him.”

  “He used a phone number in his ads?”

  “He did. But who knows how many calls he got? And we got no cell phone and no bills. Probably bought prepaid minutes at who knows where—they sell them all over the place.” John shrugged. “He’s got lots of emails. Never deleted anything. They may be our best bet.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe. Can you back trace the email addresses to a location?”

  John pointed to himself and looked shocked. “Me?”

  “No, your second grandson.”

  “That’s why Lonnie Ray is coming in.”

  “You said we don’t need him.”

  “Well, we don’t need him to get the emails.”

  “That’s like saying you don’t need Enzo Ferrari to win a race if you have a red car.”

  “Enzo who?”

  I ignored him. “What else did you find in Toby’s room?”

  “A bunch of gay magazines, a couple o’ sex videos—also gay and a closet full o’ gay clothes.”

  I sighed. “What are gay clothes, John?”

  “You know, clothes. Gay clothes. Clothes you and I wouldn’t wear.”

  “I wouldn’t wear those pastel Palm Beach suits you own.”

  “Boss, you’re killin’ me here.”

  “That’s all you’ve done all day?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Before I could scream, the radio crackled, and Bobby John Crockett said he was issuing a traffic ticket to a female motorist.

  “
Ten-four, five-zero-seven. Time is 13:52. Advise when you go two-seven.” I turned away from the radio. “John, remind me why I should or shouldn’t go ape-shit and yell at you.”

  “I was gonna tell you something very important I learned today.”

  Before I threw a staple gun at Gallagher, Bettye walked in and pushed my chair away from the large drawer where she keeps her purse.

  “‘Cuse me, darlin’, I gotta get in there.”

  I gave the swivel chair an extra kick to allow her more room.

  “What are you two boys doin’?” she asked.

  “I was just about to choke Gallagher to death if he doesn’t tell me the important information he’s withholding.”

  John stood there grinning like a demented Irish gnome.

  “Wait till you hear this, Sarge. Who do you think I saw at the ME’s office?”

  Bettye beat me to the punch. “Who, John?”

  “Lew Schmecke and those two county dicks working on the task force, Artie Bonnet and Leo Turner.”

  I frowned. “What did they want?”

  “They brought the ME an order of exumption for one of the older victims.”

  Bettye smiled. “Exumption?”

  “That’s exhumation, you…John, do you know just how close to death you are?”

  He ignored me. “Now get this. Schmecke, that little toad, says he’s been checking over the victim’s photos and noticed ligature marks on one girl’s neck that looked like thick rope.”

  “So?”

  “So, he says that he used some half-assed—Sorry, Sarge—computer program to scan all the local police officer’s profiles, ‘cause Leary wants to further explore the possibility of somebody in law enforcement being the killer.”

  “So, what does rope burns have to do with local cops?”

  “Schmecke says it looks like hemp, and two cops work side jobs with a tree service. You know, like chopping them down and removing them? Schmecke says tree experts use hemp cause it doesn’t stretch. He wants the ME to check for fibers.”

  I shook my head. “The man’s an oaf. What did Morris say to that?”

  “Doctor Mo wasn’t too happy. He says he would have checked and, if he found any, reported it.”

  “But some judge signed an exhumation order, and Mo’s boss wants to comply?” I suggested.

  “Yup.”

  “Didn’t Schmecke, the simpleton, consider how many boaters are in this area and maybe some of them still use old-fashioned hemp dock or anchor lines? Not everybody uses nylon.”

  “Guess not, Boss.”

  “Schmecke is a clod.”

  “Is what he asks even remotely reasonable?” Bettye asked.

  I shrugged, reluctant to admit that Schmecke was anything but a halfwit, and I was having doubts about Leary if he had agreed to go along with this gag.

  “Anything is a possibility, but I really doubt Mo Rappaport would miss something as blatant as coarse fibers scattered around a strangled victim’s throat.”

  “Doctor Mo is pretty thorough,” she said.

  I nodded. “Mo is an excellent pathologist.”

  “You know, Boss, I never did trust those two guys from CID—Bonnet and Turner. Bo Stallins is a good guy and even Lieutenant Jensen and Sergeant Bledsoe are okay, but those other two turn me off.”

  “They’re Leary’s pet baboons. And they think they’re hot stuff. If they can’t knuckle a confession out of a suspect, they’re lost in space.”

  “Can this exhumation and new autopsy hurt anything?” Bettye asked.

  “It wastes time. It’ll freak out the victim’s family. It diverts attention from other more meaningful work, although at this point I’m not sure what that is, and if this ever goes to court, a defense attorney can create doubt about the pathologist’s ability if a judge considered it reasonable to give a second look at the body. And most importantly, it’s gotten me cheesed off. Now, I hope Morris doesn’t have to postpone Toby Bowman’s autopsy to work on this exhumed victim.”

  “I’ll call Earl and ask,” Bettye said.

  “Thanks, Betts. John, get together with Stanley and interview the remaining people from Rosanna’s list of clients tonight. After Lonnie Ray works up a new list from Toby’s computer, there’ll be more road work.”

  “Got it, Boss.”

  I spent a couple hours that afternoon reading Rosanna Wakefield’s spreadsheets, looking for an anomaly or outlandishly blatant clue, but nothing jumped off the pages.

  At 4:30, Chastity Puryear’s bouncer, Farley Gayton, called.

  “How many times did you check the parking lot that night?” I asked.

  “That’s a long time ago, Chief. I do the same thing six nights a week. I look for people hangin’ around who shouldn’t be there—you know, like maybe PIs lookin’ ta take pitchers o’ some customer, or a wife lookin’ ta confront a husband—like that. I also try ta match up the ve-hickles with the customers—see if somethin’ doesn’t belong.”

  “Yeah, Farley, I know. But we’re not going back six months here. It was a clear night. And, uh, it was the night the Smokies played a double header, if that helps.”

  “Hmmm. Wait a minute. Mebbe that does he’p. Lemme think some. Yeah. Mebbe I got somethin’. I thought I knew all the customers that night, but when I made my outside rounds, I saw one SUV that didn’t match up. But, I figgered mebbe somebody borrowed a ve-hickle or come with someone I didn’t see.”

  “Bottom-line it for me, Farley. What’s the vehicle in question?”

  “A big stretch GMC, probably black, but could o’ been dark blue or green.”

  “You get a plate number? Anything special about this GMC?”

  “No. And I don’t write down no tag numbers. That’s jest somethin’ I remembered.”

  “Okay, that’s good. This could be helpful. Thanks.”

  He hung up.

  The information was a little less than helpful, but nonetheless interesting. Using the theory that the Strangler may have a connection to law enforcement, big GMC Yukons or Chevy Suburbans—virtually the same vehicles—are used by about all the chief deputies, assistant chief deputies, half the police chiefs, and many of the Feds in the tri-county area. Information like this is helpful but tends to give me a frustration headache.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, I met Mo Rappaport in his office at the morgue, intending to observe the Toby Bowman autopsy, which in spite of threatened obstacles, I expected to go off on schedule.

  I’ve always hated autopsies. They smell. If I wanted to see dead people dissected, I would have taken a job as a butcher in a cannibal’s commune. But autopsies are part of a cop’s job—chain of evidence and all that foolishness.

  With long, thin rods, Morris and Earl demonstrated how they concluded that Toby had been shot three times by three different people. While their theory was by no means proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it was sound and logical.

  Fast-forwarding through all the cutting and dismantling of young Bowman’s body, Doctor Mo extracted three bullets from the decedent. The guess I made at the crime scene was correct. The clean, perfectly circular bullet holes had been punched into Toby Bowman’s flesh by .38 Special caliber 148 grain lead wadcutters—inexpensive flat-nosed target ammunition. One well-placed or perhaps lucky shot punctured Toby’s heart and killed him almost instantly. Two others were recovered from soft tissue or muscle. They did not encounter any major bone and therefore weren’t seriously distorted.

  “Let’s look at those bullets before we go further,” Morris suggested.

  Earl took the small tray containing the three lead slugs to a sink and rinsed off the bloody matter. That finished, he handed the triangular-shaped receptacle to me.

  In my best Boris Karloff, lisp ridden accent, I said, “May we use your microscope, Doctor Frankenstein?”

  “That was good, Samilah, very good. When questioned, most people would say Karloff was Frankenstein, when, as we know, he played the unnamed monster. It was Colin Clive
who portrayed Dr. F.”

  “Fascinating.”

  Morris smiled. “I know. I love old movies. No comparison to the drek and chazerai they make today.”

  “I’m so glad I have you here, Morris. Without you, I would never hear Yiddish again.”

  “I’m pleased to accommodate. And I say that with all sincerity. Now, let’s look at the bullets.”

  He picked the cylinder-shaped projectiles from the tray and laid them side by side under one of those dinner plate-sized illuminated magnifying glasses. I stood in the middle, directly over the glass. After a quick look, I glanced to my left at Morris and to the right at Earl.

  “We don’t need a firearms examiner, gentlemen. The myopic Mr. Magoo could see those striations match. These were all fired from the same gun. And I’ll amaze you even further by saying the left-hand twist suggests the gun was a Colt revolver.”

  “Now who’s fascinating?” Morris asked.

  “Nonetheless, we’ll get Bill Werner at TBI to provide macroscopic comparison photos of these should I ever get a killer or killers into court with their handgun.”

  “I’ll git ’em delivered,” Earl said. “Ya only want Werner ta handle ’em?”

  “Bill’s the best they’ve got.”

  “Gotcha covered, Chief.”

  Our curiosity satisfied, I followed my versions of Dr. Frankenstein and Igor back to the operating table while they finished Toby Bowman’s post mortem examination.

  Later, Morris snapped off his rubber gloves and tossed them into a nearby trashcan as Earl wheeled the sewn up Bowman toward a refrigerated locker.

  The doctor began rinsing down the stainless steel table surface before he spoke. “So, my friend, what do we know? One gun. Maybe three shooters. No evidence of strangulation. No tampering with the fingerprints. No stab wounds. No apparent signs of human sexual contact or sodomy with a foreign object, but he was a Charlie’s List prostitute. Are you thinking copycat?”

  I shrugged. “Or smoke screen. Maybe the Strangler is messing with our minds, making it so far from the pattern that we’ll think a different killer.” I shook my head, not quite agreeing with that possibility. “But serial killers are usually proud of their work and egotistical enough to think they can distract us in other ways. They’re usually blatant about leaving their calling cards as taunts. Basically, it beats the shit outta me.”