by Rick Reed
The war room was supposed to be a secret. Liddell, the Captain, Sergeant Walker, Angelina Garcia, and a select few knew they had used the back room at Two Jakes to run off-the-record investigations.
“I told him, Jack,” Captain Franklin admitted. “It’s the perfect place for you and Liddell to work in private.”
There was a knock at the door. Judy Mangold stuck her head in again and said, “Penny’s back.” Judy sat the Bankers Box inside the door and handed Jack the material she’d copied. She showed Penny in.
Penny handed Jack several sheets, still warm from the printer.
“I found some reports that were misfiled. I made you copies. Do you want me to file the originals where they belong?”
“Let me have them for now.” He skimmed over the papers. “This is an evidence report from Harry’s death made out by Sergeant Mattingly,” Jack said and handed it to Liddell.
Liddell handed the paper to Captain Franklin. The Captain took Harry’s offense report from the box and compared it with the evidence report. “The time on the evidence report is a couple of hours after the murder was discovered. Mattingly must have gone back to the scene. Odd.”
“Odd that Mattingly went back to the scene?” Liddell asked.
Captain Franklin said, “No. Odd that crime scene wouldn’t have found this evidence.”
Pope said to Penny, “Good work, Penny. Does anyone else know about these reports or what you’re working on?”
She said proudly, “I know how to keep a secret.”
Jack had to choke back a laugh. Penny’s idea of a secret was sharing it with a dozen people.
Jack said, “There was another shooting this morning, Penny. Crime scene may still be working on it, but any paperwork that comes in on a Reina Day—from anyone—I want you to make a copy for me and one for Captain Franklin. Don’t put them in my mailbox. Give them to Captain Franklin directly.”
“I’ll check all the cabinets again to see if anything else has fallen through the cracks.”
After Penny was out of earshot, Jack said, “The handwritten evidence report Mrs. Day gave us from Max’s case was also signed by Mattingly. It showed things you’d expect to find if there was a fight or scuffle at Max’s scene, but there was no evidence number. Now we have an evidence number from Harry’s scene, courtesy of Sergeant Mattingly, and the report was conveniently misfiled.”
“Without a witness who saw another fight at the cemetery, that doesn’t mean much, Jack. And we still don’t have Harry’s case file to see if Mattingly’s evidence was collected by him or crime scene, or even put in evidence,” Captain Franklin said.
“But Sergeant Mattingly’s evidence report clearly shows he collected shards and pieces of broken beer bottles around where Max’s car was that night. He also found a tire iron near the car with blood on it. It should have been sent to the state lab for testing,” Jack said. “We didn’t have DNA tests in 1980, but if we still have the tire iron we can run it through the process.”
Chief Pope said, “Captain Franklin, please call Sergeant Mattingly to your office. Jack and Liddell should be there. Anything else, gentlemen?”
Jack said, “Yeah, Chief. Two things. We’ll need a list of police and civilian personnel from 1980, and I don’t want to ask Deputy Chief Dick for it.” Deputy Chief Dick was currently in charge of the personnel unit, where all those type records would be stored.
“What’s the second thing?” Chief Pope asked.
“We’ll need unlimited access to the property room and any records that pertain to evidence in Max or Harry’s cases,” Jack said.
The Chief said, “I don’t think we have to worry about keeping this investigation quiet anymore. Claudine Setera will see to that. But I still want you to work from your war room. I can’t take a chance that anything else goes missing. Do you want me to call the property room sergeant?”
“No,” Jack said. “But I need Angelina Garcia.”
“That’s three things, Jack. But I’ll approve it,” Chief Pope said. “Can she get the personnel records for you?”
“I still want them from personnel. Maybe it will be good that the Deputy Chief sees we’re pursuing this. He’ll be less likely to interfere if he sees we’re asking for the records, Chief.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call Sergeant Mattingly in,” Captain Franklin said. “I’ll let you know when he’s here.”
Jack and Liddell left. When they were in the lobby, Liddell asked, “Property room?”
“Yeah. Then we talk to Sergeant Mattingly,” Jack said. “I’m going to call Angelina.”
“She’ll be thrilled to be working for us again. Especially the part where she’s getting paid.”
“She always gets paid, Bigfoot,” Jack said defensively.
“Not for the hundred little things you asked her for on our other cases.”
“Oh, and I guess you never ask her for favors.”
“Point taken,” Liddell said.
* * * *
Deputy Chief Richard Dick was angrier than he’d ever been. So much so that he left work early, telling Lieutenant Brandsasse he wouldn’t be back and that Brandsasse could just lock the office up. Then he countermanded that order. Brandsasse was to stay until 8:00 this evening and monitor his calls, take notes, and pass on only the emergency calls or those from Chief Pope. Dick knew Brandsasse worked an off-duty job that he was required to be at right after he got off work at three. This would make him at least five hours late to his other job. Too bad.
Deputy Chief Dick left the building still smoldering. His personal driver, Captain Dewey Duncan, was on vacation and Dick had been lowered to driving the Cadillac Escalade he’d commandeered from the narcotics unit seizure pool. He missed the convenience of having a driver and someone to bear his anger. With everything going on he didn’t need the headache of finding a temporary replacement for Captain Duncan.
He backed out of his reserved parking spot and headed to Highway 62 and took the ramp going east at twice the speed limit. Red Brush shooting range was in Warrick County, north of the Alcoa aluminum plant. He’d been a member of Red Brush for a very long time and spent several days a month sharpening his shooting skills with handguns, shotguns, and rifles. He’d once shot a Thompson .50 caliber machine gun similar to the one reputedly carried by the infamous killer Machine Gun Kelly who had, ironically, never shot his machine gun at anything other than tin cans. Rumors and reputations and lies. It was disgusting that his appointment as Chief was being held up by the spreading of rumors and lies. He knew the lower ranks of the police department called him Double Dick behind his back. He knew who had started that too. When this witch hunt was over they would show him respect or they would suffer the consequences.
His thoughts were a red blur and had occupied his mind until he arrived at Red Brush. The range itself was a couple of benches, a canopy, and a small Quonset hut where the targets were locked away. The shooting distances were set for seven, fifteen, twenty-five, and fifty yards for the handguns and shotguns. The rifle range was separate.
He unlocked the hut and took two silhouette targets and a staple gun to the seven-yard target posts, stapled them up, and walked back to the canopy shelter. The targets he’d chosen were designed for law enforcement, depicting a man with a gun in his hand. He imagined the target as Tilly Coyne and felt his anger boil up like acid in his throat.
He was angry at the mayor. He was angry at Tilly Coyne. He was angry at the Chief of Police, who didn’t have the sense to step aside and let a better man take over. But he was mostly angry with Maximillian Day. Mad Max indeed. This was all his fault. And Murphy. He couldn’t forget Murphy.
He went back to his car and lifted the hand-carved wooden box from under the front seat. He opened the box and took the Desert Eagle .50 caliber semiautomatic from the velvet-lined box and worked the slide a few times. The Dese
rt Eagle was a true work of art.
“Do ya feel lucky, Tilly?” he said in a menacing voice. “Well, I do. You’re going to make my day.”
Chapter 13
The police property room was located in the basement of the Civic Center in a steel room with fifteen-foot ceilings with a heavy chain-link barrier covering the entrance. Inside there was evidence from criminal cases, found property, and weapons seized from an assortment of crimes and from suicidal people. The gun safe was a spacious 1940s Keystone brand simply called Fat Boy because it held forty-eight long guns, plus twenty-five to thirty handguns. The door to the safe stood open, the inside bulging with long guns, pistols, and more propped against the outside of the safe. More were stacked on two long folding tables. Several large boxes and another folding table barely held the remainder of the handguns seized over the years. When Marlin Pope had become Chief of Police, the long-held practice of auctioning weapons ceased. Now, if weapons couldn’t be returned to their owners they were destroyed.
Row upon row of heavy metal shelves filled the room from floor to ceiling, bursting with box upon box of evidence. Two seventeen-foot stepladders leaned against the shelves. It was a hoarder’s dream.
Recently promoted Sergeant Alistair Simms stood blocking the doorway of the property room and made a sweeping motion with her arm. “What can I do for you, detectives?”
Simms had made sergeant exactly five years after joining the force, which was the minimum number required to become a sergeant. At twenty-six, she was the youngest sergeant on the Evansville Police Department. She was dressed snappily in her police uniform, her gold badge, gold name tag, and gold collar dogs were highly polished, as were her Corfam dress shoes. She was cute, in a Terminator sort of way. Even her welcome was serious and exuded competence and leadership. Jack couldn’t help but think she was destined to become a female version of Double Dick.
He handed her a scrap of paper with the report numbers for Max and Harry’s cases and the evidence number for Harry’s case written on it. He didn’t want to give her the reports themselves. He had the only copies now and wanted to keep it that way.
Sergeant Simms read Jack’s note and asked, “Where’s the report?”
“You don’t need that,” Jack said. This wasn’t his first time in the property room.”
“I make copies of the offense reports and evidence supps when I’m requested to retrieve property, Detective Murphy. I have a separate file cabinet with the paper copies cross-referenced to evidence. I also enter all of this in the computer recording the time, date, and who makes the request.”
“Is that a new policy?” Jack asked.
“It’s my policy. This place was a mess when I took over.”
She was right about it being a mess. The last time he was down here you could barely walk between the shelves. If you found what you needed it was customary to yell “Eureka!” You never wanted to hear “Timberrrr!”
“I’m not allowed to give you the reports, Sergeant Simms. You need to call Captain Franklin. I can give you his number,” Jack said.
“He’s not my direct supervisor, Detective Murphy. I work for Deputy Chief Dick.”
Jack had forgotten that fact. Well, hell!
“The Chief of Police, then.” Jack brought the Chief’s number up on his cell phone and handed the phone to Sergeant Simms, the property room Nazi.
She took the phone, spoke to Chief Pope briefly, said “Yes, sir,” handed the phone back to Jack, and motioned them to come inside.
“These are old case numbers,” Simms said.
“Thirty-seven years and thirty-four years, to be exact,” Liddell said.
“The oldest is the Max Day murder, right? I don’t know what the other number is for,” Simms said. Seeing the expressions on the detectives’ faces, she said, “Hey, I work in a dark corner of the basement, but I’m not a mushroom. I heard you were investigating Deputy Chief Dick concerning the murder of Max Day. He was a teenager, I hear. You must have really pissed someone off to get this case. Your asses are hanging out in the wind—excuse the language.”
Jack said, “We don’t know that he did anything yet, Sergeant. Rumors are dangerous.”
Simms blushed at the recrimination. “I never said he did anything. Did I say that? I said that’s what I heard.”
“And I wasn’t directing that remark to you, Sergeant,” Jack came back. She’d evidently grown a big head with her promotion. If she made lieutenant he might have to ask for a lawyer before talking to her.
“Right,” Simms said before sitting down at her Army surplus desk. She opened one of the index file drawers and her fingers crawled through the cards. She stopped and pulled out another drawer and then another. Finally, she found the catalogue card.
“That’s the right offense number,” she said, showing the card to Jack and Liddell. Typed on the card was the set of numbers Jack had written down for Max Day’s case. The items of evidence recorded on the card were blackened out and indecipherable. At the bottom of the card someone had scribbled in property destroyed.
“Try the other case number,” Jack said and added, “Please, Sergeant.”
Simms dug through the cabinet again in several places before giving up. “Are you sure there was evidence? I’m not finding a card.”
“Can you search by evidence number?” Jack asked.
“I haven’t had time to cross-reference all the old files yet. Let me see.” Simms went to a similar file cabinet with a Dymo label reading evidence numbers stuck to the front top. She searched several drawers where the number should have been and found nothing. “It’s not here. Hang on.”
She closed the file drawers with a bang. “These are both murders, aren’t they?”
“Right.”
“Well, the damn cards should be in the drawers no matter how old the cases are. Now you can see why I’m working my ass off down here. What a damn mess. I’ll go through all of this to see if it was misfiled, but it may take some time. This really pisses me off.”
Jack asked, “Is there a system to the shelves? Are the boxes arranged by the offense date? Maybe there’s a bag or box with a date from those years. We can help you.”
She said, “You’ve got to be kidding. This type of sloppy work drives me batshit crazy. It’s police department policy that no one but the property room commander is allowed to retrieve evidence. I’ll give it my best shot. That’s all I can promise.”
Jack and Liddell left the property room and could hear Simms swearing loudly behind them.
“Now she’s not just a regular sergeant, she’s a commander,” Liddell said.
“I’ve got news for her,” Jack said. “She’s not in command as far as I can tell. I hope she’s had her tetanus booster.”
* * * *
Jack and Liddell swung by their office to check their messages when Detective Sergeant Wolf cornered them. Sergeant Wolf was shorter than Jack, heavily built, but solid like a tree trunk. He’d put in a lot of years assigned to motor patrol and made a decent detective sergeant.
“I’ve reassigned your other cases,” Wolf said. “The Chief said you would be on a special assignment. That sucks for you and the rest of us.”
“I told you we were special, pod’na,” Liddell said to Jack.
“Not my idea, Sarge,” Jack said.
“Jesus, you two. If you’re not working for the feds you’re off on some flight of fancy case. This thing is old as Methuselah. Dick will get even for whatever slight he imagines you’re responsible for. What makes anyone think you can solve it now?”
“Because we’re the A-team,” Liddell said with a straight face. “My code name is Condor. Jack is Sparrow.”
Wolf gave them a grudging grin. “Your code names are mud one and mud two. Get this done and get back here. The guys are bitching about picking up your slack and I gotta listen to it. I don’t like lis
tening to bitching. You hearing me?” Wolf said.
“Jawohl mein kommandant!” Liddell said, clicking his heels together and giving a Nazi salute.
Wolf walked away, shaking his head.
“Don’t piss him off, Bigfoot,” Jack said. “We might need him for a reference when we get fired.”
“There’s the negative Jack we all know and love,” Liddell said.
“We need to call the ladies,” Jack said, and they crept into their office, shutting the door behind them. They could still hear a couple of detectives call out “USUCK!”
Liddell called Marcie and told her he would be very late getting home and blamed it on Jack. Jack called Katie and told her to stay out of the garage. As soon as he said it he knew it was a mistake. That would be her first stop when they hung up and she’d find his surprise. Damn it!
Jack hung up and called Two Jakes. “Jake, I’m going to need the meeting room,” he said when Jake Brady answered.
“I heard,” Jake said. “I’ve got it ready for you. You’ll need computers and that other stuff, but I put extra chairs, a coffee maker, cups, and a couple of folding tables in there. Sounds to me like you’ve got a tiger by the tail, son.”
Jack didn’t ask how Jake knew what they were doing. The grapevine was mighty. “I don’t know when I’ll be there. You might want to warn Vinnie that we’ll be coming and going. Angelina too.”
Vinnie had living quarters in what was once the pantry—a big pantry—in the back of Two Jakes. Vinnie kept the stock current, cleaned, served, and bartended during the day. And Jack suspected he smoked weed most of the night.
Two Jakes was, at the very least, a two-man operation. When Jack’s father died, Brady couldn’t cook and tend bar by himself. Jake Brady hired Vinnie, a small, wiry man with a tan so deep his skin was like leather. His face was creased sharply with lines that belied his true age, whatever that was. Thick blond hair was pulled back in a nub of a greasy ponytail. Year-round he dressed in short-sleeved tie-dyed shirts; blue jean cutoffs, and deck shoes. For all Jack knew, Vinnie could very well be one of the original flower children of the 1960s. But, unlike any of the flower children, Vinnie was extremely clean and polite and didn’t smoke dope in front of him. The drink-slinger had a questionable background, but a rare talent for mixing drinks and keeping customers happy.
