Crossing the Line

by Hugh Macnab

  4

  I check the time and reckon that if Tyrone and Xavier are regular gym-bunnies, they’ll probably be there more often than not. A random visit might just be successful. Fortunately this time, when I ask about a pool car, there’s one available, so I sign it out after promising to bring it back in the same good condition. I have a bad history with pool cars.

  Ten minutes later, I pull up in the car park in front of ‘Addicted-to-fitness’. The building itself is hardly inspirational. Single-storey white with a green shallow sloping roof and matching green shades over multiple sets of floor-to-ceiling tinted glass windows. The logo over the door has a stick figure acting as if he has hornets up his ass, but I guess they mean him to be exercising. I badge the receptionist and ask to see whoever’s in charge. It turns out that he’s stepped out for thirty minutes, but I can talk with the security guard if I like.

  Well, that’s a conversation doomed to disaster from the get go.

  When I meet the guy, there’s instant mutual recognition. This is a guy I had reported for sleeping on the job up at the Seminole Brothel the previous year. He lost his job because of me.

  Needless to say, he is less than helpful. I’ll have to come back another time.

  Just as I push my way out the front door, I recognize the guy coming towards me from the car park as Tyrone, the African-American boxer. As he steps up onto the sidewalk, I show him my badge and ask if I can ask him a few questions.

  When you’ve done this a few thousand times, you begin to recognize the various responses you get. Some are bewildered as this has never happened to them before. Others are matter-of-fact, just as if a random person has asked to talk with them and the badge makes no difference. Then are those who assume they have done something wrong - the group I always feel sorry for. And finally, the group that Tyrone’s in - thinking fast about how best to avoid me.

  He has no chance. Once I get on a roll, no-one can avoid me. Besides, I’m standing directly between him and the entrance to Addicted-to-fitness. He has nowhere to go.

  I reckon there’s no way the security guard will allow me to go back inside and sit in reception, so I ask Tyrone if he would mind sitting in the car while we talk. He hesitates, still thinking, but not fast enough. I start heading for the car. Defeated, he follows.

  I reach the car first, climb in and watch him walk towards me. I say walk, but he’s an ambler. He has that casual sway that African-Americans sometimes have. He isn’t the build I’m expecting for a middle-weight boxer. He’s taller and skinnier, with not much fat. I suppose the height is an advantage, I don’t know, I’m not a boxer. But I wouldn’t like to fight a guy this height, so I suppose his opponents would think the same. He opens the door, ducks his head and climbs in to join me, leaving the door open.

  I follow questioning 101 and don’t give away anything until I find out what he already knows. So, I start by asking him to confirm he knows Mark Jason. He does, so I ask him how long he has known him.

  ‘Bout ten years. We met here at the gym. He’s more of a fitness freak than I am. Has been since day one.’

  ‘And do you also know Xavier Rivera?’

  ‘Sure. Mark, Xav and myself are all members here. We hang out together. Sink a few beers. Watch a game. That sort of thing.’

  ‘When did you last see Mark Jason?’

  ‘Day before yesterday. He was here after work, round six-thirty.’

  ‘You talked with him?’

  ‘A little. He was focused, man. When he gets like that, he’s too intense. I just let him be.’

  ‘Did he leave on his own, or were you with him?’

  ‘He left round eight. Said he was tired. Wanted to catch some Zees.’

  ‘Did you see anything unusual about his behavior? You say he was intense. Was that normal?’

  ‘Yeah. He could get like that sometimes. I thought it was the job. He was working through stuff.’

  ‘You mean being a detective?’

  ‘Yeah. You must know what it’s like. He told us about all kinds of shit he had to deal with. I don’t envy you guys.’

  ‘So, are you expecting to see him tonight?’

  ‘Yeah. He rarely misses a night.’

  ‘Well, I have some bad news for you, Tyrone.’

  When you have to tell someone this kind of news, there’s no easy way. What I can do, is spare him the details. So I tell him Jason is dead, and we’re looking at it as a homicide. He looks genuinely shocked and close to tears, which surprises me. I have all these preconceptions in my head about people. But they’re more often wrong than right. My mind’s thinking male, boxer, tough. What I get is male, boxer, willing to cry for a lost friend.

  I do my best to console him, before restarting with the questions.

  ‘Are you aware of anyone who might have held a grudge against your friend?’

  Tyrone gives me a negative shake of the head, not trusting himself to speak.

  ‘Did he have problems with anyone here at the club?’

  Another negative shake.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about what may have happened to him?’

  ‘No.’

  The guy is seriously upset, and I realize I’ll get nothing else out of him right then. So, I rustle up my standard condolence phrase, hand him my card, and ask him to have Xavier Rivera call me as soon as possible. Then, tell him that I would probably talk with him again in a few days’ time.

  He climbs out of the car and ambles back towards the gym with a heavier footfall and lowered shoulders. I reckon I can strike him from my suspect list.

  I sit quietly for a few moments, thinking about what to do next. I’ll leave talking with the two exes until I can arrange appointments with them. I guess my preconceptions are at play again. An ex would be female, emotional and may still have feelings for Mark, so I shouldn’t spring the news on them. Boy, am I wrong.

  Instead, I decide that as it’s nearly knocking-off time, I would swing by Mark Jason’s on the way home and have a second look around. During the first visit the place was swarming with forensics, and I didn’t realize it was going to be my case. This time it is my crime scene and I want to study it at leisure with no-one else around.

  When I arrive, I check in with the patrol car that’s sitting out front. The officer’s glad to have someone to talk to. I get that. Been there. Didn’t mind spending a little time with him. Needless to say, nothing has happened since the body had been removed and forensics finished up. I explain I just want a second look around and he asks if I want some company. I thank him, but say I’d rather do it on my own. He opens the front door and returns to the patrol car.

  Only six-thirty but it’s already getting pretty dark outside, so I flick on the lights and stand back to get an overall impression of the place. It’s a man’s home for sure. Something I hadn’t noticed earlier in the day. There are no women’s touches anywhere. Curtains, cushions, photographs in a variety of frames. The only pictures on the walls are sport related. Apparently Jason is a Hockey fan with a poster for the Blades at Hertz Arena from the previous year, taking pride of place above the faux-fireplace. The Blades rock. I’m a huge fan.

  The furnishings are functional rather than comfortable. He has a pair of two-seater sofas, a coffee table which has seen better days, a sixty-five inch screen mounted on the wall and a training-bike set up so he could undoubtedly watch sport while he exercised. This agrees with what Arnie Collins said about not noticing weights or other training gear in the apartment. There are some books lying around, mostly fiction. I flick through a few, but nothing grabs my attention. Most of the magazines I see are sports related. No surprise there. Seems following sport was almost as important as keeping fit for him. The magazines cover rifle shooting, angling, para-gliding and surfing. And that’s just the first few I look at.

  I move into the kitchen area. Tidy and clean, which I guess surprises my inner sense of preconceptions again. I’m expecting classic single guy, messy, piles of unwashed dishes, dirty sink
. I get none of that.

  The fridge contents are even more surprising. Jason liked his food and ate pretty healthily. There are a few beers which make me feel normal. But there are stacks of vegetables and yoghurts, cheeses and a steak which presumably he was intending to cook that evening. The freezer compartment is also well stocked - not with the ready-made meals I’m expecting, but mainly with meat, veg and fruit.

  What a shame all this stuff going to waste, when my fridge and freezer are close to empty, which is their natural state. I half-think of confiscating everything for evidence, but stealing from the dead doesn’t sit right with me.

  Moving through to the bedroom, I notice a scent as soon as I enter. I say scent, but it’s more of a smell with some scent mixed in. If I’d been blind-folded, I would still have known this was a man’s bedroom. But there’s also a definite lingering scent, and that’s undoubtedly female.

  No surprise. The guy was single. Worked out. Reasonably attractive, why not have a woman or two visit?

  What I’m wondering is how long a woman’s scent would linger? I’ve already been in the room too long by now, and already can no longer detect it.

  Would she have been here the previous night? If so, was she involved in Jason’s death? Or maybe she visited a few nights before? Something I might discuss with Arnie Collins, the medical examiner. He would have an opinion at least.

  I start opening drawers, look in the wardrobe, but come up with nothing to show a woman’s presence.

  One thing I do find is his cell phone in the bedside unit drawer. I slip that into a plastic bag and write the time and location before putting it in my pocket.

  One last look around and I’m confident I have everything I can get from the place.

  I stop for another few minutes to talk with the officer outside, and when I finally draw away from the curb, he’s re-locking the front door. The late shift would take over at eight, so he doesn’t have much longer to wait. I head straight home, feeling I’ve achieved virtually nothing.

  I get this in every case. We all do. The highs and lows. Sometimes you’re following leads left right and centre, other times you feel stuck and have no idea what to do next. When you’re stuck - that’s when working a homicide is the toughest. You feel you’re letting the victim down, and that’s how I feel at the end of day one. I’m letting down Mark Jason.

  5

  Alexa kicks in at six, playing my choice for the day. Nickelback and ‘This afternoon.’ When Chad Kroeger kicks into the lines ‘Beer bottles layin’ on the kitchen floor, if we take ‘em back, we can buy some more,’ it reminds me I’m out of Corona. Whatever else I do this day, I have to get some more Corona.

  Thanks to having the pool-car with me, no morning run for me. So I shower, shake my hair and hand-dry it. Choose my outfit for the day - like I have a vast choice. I pull a bright-yellow V-neck T over my head. Pull up yesterday’s jeans. Clip on the badge and Glock, then raid the fridge, feeling jealous when I recall Jason’s from the previous evening. Mine is empty. I head out the door, hungry. First stop, EJ’s.

  Forty-five minutes later, topped up with over-easy eggs, bacon and a side of sausage, I arrive at my cubicle. Now, with me only being back twenty-four hours, the empty desk is still an unfamiliar sight. Normally, case files would be everywhere, mixed with research summaries and messages left for me overnight. Today, nada. I think this should please me, but somehow it has the opposite effect. It reminds me I’ve been out for nine months, and that reminds me why. Suddenly, my mood takes a nose-dive. I feel no-one needs me.

  Shrugging my shoulders and accepting this erroneous conclusion, I head for the coffee area and prepare a new pot of Folgers.

  While I’m there, Dan arrives and checks in with me. When I say checks in, I mean he places his coffee order before heading for his own cubicle.

  Ten minutes later, after leaving Dan’s mug with him and giving him the lowdown on Jason’s gym buddies, I sit down and log on. I guess I’m hoping for something interesting in my inbox, but other than a brief summary of events during the night-shift, there’s nothing.

  Then I remember I have Jason’s cell in my pocket and walk it down to forensics. They’ll dust for prints and produce a cell phone record of all incoming and outgoing calls for me, then pass it over into the evidence locker for safekeeping.

  Back in my cubicle, after I update the case book, it’s still too early to call Jason’s exes, so I do the only thing I can think of. I open Mister Google and started looking at knives with long thin blades and eventually tune into the stiletto. Apparently, it was first invented back in the fifteenth century when they intended it to stab between the gaps in chain-mail armor. The blades vary in cross-section - triangular, square, diamond shaped or round, and became popular with assassins. Italian immigrants brought the stiletto to New Orleans originally. Pasta and stilettos - quite a contribution.

  The modern switchblade version originated in the fifties. Easy to conceal. Spring loaded so quick to open, and potentially lethal.

  I look where I might buy such a knife in Naples, but quickly find that eBay is the most likely place. I decide I might as well requisition transaction information from them. You never know, I might get lucky. I’ve been down this route before and found eBay more than willing to help. That instance had related to a fraud I was investigating. Homicide would trump that, so I’m hopeful.

  I spend the next hour thinking exactly what I want to know as I’ll only get one chance at this, then, convinced an open question may be the best way to go, I end up asking for all the information they have on anyone purchasing a stiletto with a Collier County address. Then add, either buying, or winning a bid for a stiletto. When the form I’m completing asks for a timeframe, my first thought is to say the past few months as I figure Jason’s death was personal. Someone perhaps seeking revenge, and more than likely that was for something relatively recent. Then I realize that by making that assumption I might rule out possibilities, so I request all history.

  Next up, I call Jason’s most recent ex - Emily Jason. She answers almost immediately and agrees to meet with me in an hour's time. She’s obviously curious, but I avoid talking about her ex, knowing I need to break the news in person. I’m not completely insensitive.

  The following call is almost identical. Lynda Goldway answers after just a few rings and when I ask to meet, she agrees, but it will need to be before her shift at Walgreens starts at two o’clock. We agree I would be at her place around noon. My morning is set. I’m raring to go. Something needs to break in this case, and I’m hoping the exes can point me in the right direction.

  Emily lives out at Rattlesnake in the Huntington Woods suburb. Her house could have been her late husbands. It’s almost identical. Single-storey, two-in-one with two driveways beside one another. Only in this case, she lives to the right of the building, not the left as had Jason.

  A small red Honda Civic is in the drive. I park across the back of it, and as I do, I notice someone peering through the blinds next-door. In a generous moment I consider this might be some kind of community watch, but I doubt it. More likely a nosy neighbor.

  Emily is already waiting for me by the time I reach the front door. She’s clearly apprehensive, but welcomes me in and offers me a drink. Never known to refuse, I ask for a coffee and look around the lounge as I wait. No pictures of her ex. No sports posters on the wall. No weights or training-bike. Curtains on every window and lots of cushions. This woman is everything that her ex was not.

  When she returns, I thank her for my coffee, and we sit down at opposite ends of a three seater. I dive straight in.

  ‘Emily, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but they found your ex-husband dead yesterday morning. We are treating his death as suspicious.’

  Now, here go my faulty preconceptions again. What am I expecting? Shock? Tears? Hysterics? I don’t know. But I can tell you, I’m not expecting acceptance and relief.

  Seeing the reaction, I have to ask.

  ‘You don�
��t seem upset, Emily?’

  ‘Me! Upset because that bastard has finally got what he deserves. I’m only surprised it’s taken so long.’

  ‘So, your split with your ex wasn’t too amicable then?’

  ‘Fuck no. Excuse the French. Everything started fine. He was sweet and caring before we married. But after that, he became physical. Sex was a nightmare. The bastard hurt me repeatedly. I only escaped because I bought a nanny-cam and recorded him, then threatened to go to the police. Being that he was already a detective, I wasn’t sure that would worry him, but it did. Probably didn’t want his reputation harmed, or he was protecting his pension. I don’t know. But after that, when I thought things would get nasty, the opposite was the case. He was decent with the separation agreement. We shared everything fairly evenly. He even helped me find this place.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Not since I moved in here just over a year ago.’

  ‘Have you stayed in touch at all?’

  ‘No. No calls, texts. Nothing. And being honest, that’s fine for me. I’m trying to put it all behind me and just get on with life.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’

  Before answering, she bites her lower lip and hesitates. She’s trying to decide whether to tell me something. I need to help her.

  ‘Look, Emily. There is someone out there capable of murder. This is not just about who killed Mark. If they can kill once, they can kill again. Whatever you know, or think you know. Please tell me.’