The Cleanest Kill

by Rick Reed

  Jack didn’t even have to ask how she knew at this point. “Thanks.”

  Jack and Liddell hurried outside, got in the car, and Liddell drove. “Where to now?” he asked.

  “Now we go see retired Detective Sergeant Dan Olson,” Jack said. “We can’t find Dennis James. People that are part of our investigation seem to be getting killed. We know where Reina is and she’s safe. I would love to take Double Dick into custody, but I don’t think that would fly. And he is quickly becoming a suspect.”

  Chapter 26

  Retired Detective Sergeant Dan Olson lived on North Fulton Avenue across from Cedar Hall Elementary School in a badly weathered shotgun house. Most of the neighboring houses had been torn down to make way for the much-needed road project and sewer drainage construction. But Olson’s house, with its green clapboard siding and sixty-plus-year-old shingle roof must have sat farther back from the road and was untouched.

  This neighborhood had been part of the original area known as Boxtown, where the government had thrown up houses for the returning World War II veterans. The houses were called shotgun-style because you could fire a shotgun through the front door and out the back without touching a wall. The rooms generally consisted of a front room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and back door. The design was simple, cheap, and good enough for mortgages that were affordable to the returning troops so they couldn’t say Uncle Sam never gave them anything.

  The only out-of-the-ordinary aspect of Olson’s property was the six-foot tall newer chain link fencing with two padlocks on the front gate. All that were missing were coils of razor wire, angry dogs, and a guard tower.

  “This guy’s around seventy-five years old. Right?” Liddell asked. The curtains were drawn in every window. The property didn’t give off the vibes of an occupied structure. A ramshackle shed sat in the backyard inside the fence and it too had a heavy padlock on the door. Jack imagined there was a brick paved alley on the other side of that fence. A lot of the old vets had gotten work laying brick streets and alleys when they came home from the war. A lot of the bricks got misplaced and found their way to the alleyways behind the workers’ houses.

  Liddell parked on the street’s narrow shoulder in front of the house. Jack took out the list of names, addresses, and phone numbers Angelina had supplied them with this morning and found the phone number for Dan Olson. He called and saw the front window curtain shift. There was no answer.

  The front door opened. The man who stepped outside in jeans, house slippers, and striped bathrobe was all of five-foot-two inches tall and wide in the hips. He was in his seventies, but had dark hair that was parted on the side and held in place by some kind of product—maybe Brylcreem that was advertised back in the day as “a little dab’ll do ya.” He’d used the entire tube. To continue the description, Olson was wearing a face that didn’t welcome visitors. The face went with the fence.

  Jack held his credentials out of the window. Olson pointed a remote control at them. Jack heard the lock on the gate click and the gate opened a few inches.

  “Let’s go.”

  They got out, Liddell locking the doors on the Crown Vic, and they went through the gate, pulling it shut behind them. The paranoia was catching. The yard was gravel with blades of grass poking through here and there.

  “I guess he doesn’t have to cut grass,” Liddell said.

  They walked across the gravel and stood at the bottom of two concrete steps leading to the door. Without taking his focus from them, Olson pointed the remote at the lock again and Jack heard it lock. He stepped back, allowing them to enter. To Jack’s surprise, Olson left the door wide open.

  “Anyone that would break in on three cops has a death wish.” Olson didn’t grin. He was holding a gun down to his side.

  “Thanks for the armed reception,” Jack said and Olson gave a snort.

  “I heard you was a smart-ass, Murphy,” Olson said. “Yeah, I know who you two are. Your mugs are plastered on the news enough you could start your own PI business and make a killing.” He motioned outside and said, “You try living around here. It’s like Night of the Thieving Dead. Drugs, prostitutes, gangbangers, burglars. The little kids are the worst. I was in Nam, you know. If I had me a Huey I still couldn’t keep these sewer rats from overrunning my position.”

  He said this last and chuckled, leaving Jack to wonder if that was a joke or if the thought of gunning down the community was a favorite fantasy.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said.

  Boxtown was a depressed community. He didn’t blame Olson for being cautious. Most cops were trained to live in code yellow. But Olson was a little over-the-top.

  “I was wondering when you’d get to me.” Olson said. “Have a seat.”

  The living room consisted of a sofa and an overstuffed La-Z-Boy recliner. The recliner had a cup and remote holder built into one arm. A holster for a semiautomatic had been screwed and glued to the inside of the other arm. All that was missing was the beer and snacks and some targets. He was equally ready for game time or bloodshed.

  Jack and Liddell sat side by side on the sofa and Olson plopped down in his overstuffed, weaponized throne and slid the Smith & Wesson .45 semiautomatic into the holster beside him.

  Olson was no beginner at dealing with police. He waited for Jack or Liddell to start speaking first so he could establish the pecking order and decide what to tell them.

  “How long have you been retired, Sergeant Olson?” Jack asked.

  “Nearing twenty years,” Olson answered.

  “Before either of us came on the department,” Jack said. “Is retirement what it’s cracked up to be?”

  “Hmpff.” Olson adjusted his ass in the chair and his hand laid across the butt of the gun.

  “Did you turn the .50 caliber shell casing from Max Day’s murder scene into evidence?” Jack asked.

  This had the desired effect. Olson sat forward in the recliner. Jack could see the man was shrewd as a fox, but he had gone from paranoid to intelligent, maybe dangerous. Jack found himself watching for Olson’s hand to pull the handgun.

  Olson relaxed, smiled tightly, sat back, and said, “What evidence? Who you talking about?”

  Shrewd. But Jack wasn’t out of ammunition, no pun intended. Not yet.

  “You were lead investigator on two murders: Max Day in 1980 and Harry Day in 1984,” Jack said.

  Olson’s eyes were guarded, never breaking with Jack’s. He said, “Yeah. I remember.”

  Jack switched gears again. “You were a detective sergeant for quite a long time, Sergeant Olson. I remember my dad talking about you. He was always telling stories about you and some of the runs you were on together.” Jack said this with a deliberate—and he hoped sincere—smile.

  Olson’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Jack continued. “My dad was Jake Murphy. He and Jake Brady went into business together when they retired.”

  Olson said, “I remember them. Opened that floating restaurant, didn’t they? We all thought they was crazy, but it turned out to be a smart move, didn’t it? Most of the guys that worked during those days are dead or gone to nursing homes…or worse, and with nothing to show for it. Take me, for example. I didn’t end up with anything except this house.”

  Jack had gotten him started talking, so he’d let him talk.

  Olson said, “I’ve been to your place a few times. Two Jakes, right? Nice. Real nice. Your dad did right by you. I bet it’s a moneymaker.”

  “It does okay,” Jack said.

  “I hear you got a cabin cruiser and a dock at that old river cabin he owned. I used to fish down there sometimes. Your dad didn’t care. He let a lot of us fish on the bank, but he wouldn’t let us stay in that cabin. Said he was keeping the rats out. Hey, what kind of boat you got?”

  Jack said, “It’s a Chris-Craft. I call her The Misfit.”

  Olson laughed and pushed back agains
t the seat. “That sounds like a cop’s boat. You’re a riot.”

  “He’s a funny man,” Liddell said, speaking for the first time.

  Olson focused on Liddell. “You’re the one they call the Cajun. How tall are you?”

  Liddell stood and easily touched the ceiling without reaching.

  “I bet you don’t have anyone screw with you,” Olson said.

  “Only once,” Liddell answered. It was the correct response and Olson laughed again.

  “Okay. I think we like each other enough for me to talk to you now. That’s what you were doing. Am I right?”

  “Right,” Jack said.

  “Damn right. What now? You want me to just talk and you ask questions when I’m done, or are you going to ask all the questions? I’m not a detective anymore and everything’s gone to shit these days. I heard all you guys take sensitivity classes. Hmpff.”

  “My dad taught me to let a witness talk or not talk. Suspects were allowed to talk or else,” Jack said and now Olson laughed wholeheartedly.

  “Yeah. Old Jake would have put it just that way. What a cop. He would have been a good detective too, but he was too smart, your dad. He stayed a street cop and let the rest of us dummies get stuck in the quicksand of rank and politics. I hated every minute of it. I can’t tell you the number of times I wished I’d stayed in uniform.”

  “My dad always said you were a good sergeant. A good detective,” Jack lied. His dad never talked about Olson. Maybe because he didn’t make it a habit of airing other people’s screwups.

  “Oh yeah? I never knew he was a fan,” Olson said.

  Jack had to remember not to lay it on too thick with this one. Whoops!

  “Okay. Sorry about giving you a hard time. I’ve seen the news and let me tell you something, there’s not much that bimbo said that was true. If you’re here to lay the blame on me for not clearing those murders, you can leave and don’t let the door hit you in the ass.”

  “We’re not pointing fingers,” Jack said. Yet. “We just want to know what you remember about the investigations.”

  “Okay, I’ll start with the oldest murder. Max Day. Thirty-five or so years it’s been.” Olson leaned back in the chair and put his hands behind his head.

  “I was a pretty new detective. I made sergeant after that one. Anyway, I got the call. They sent me to Locust Hill Cemetery. I was on third shift because I didn’t have any seniority and I wasn’t connected. Back then, those were the criteria for making rank and getting assigned to good shifts, you know. Hell, I barely made detective, but that’s another story.”

  His eyes returned to the spot on the ceiling where images of the past were playing.

  “I got there and Mattingly and two older cops got there ahead of me. Mattingly said it was a shooting death. I told the other two guys to take off.” He explained, “Back then it wasn’t unusual for cops to take souvenirs away from big crime scenes. You know. Nothing big. Nothing important. Just little things. I don’t know what they took. Maybe Mattingly found a shell casing. He never gave it to me. I don’t know nothing about that. Okay?”

  Jack said, “Got it.” Olson wasn’t wrong about souvenirs being taken by police, but he’d contradicted the story Mattingly told.

  “So, I kept Mattingly there to keep watch while I checked the scene. I called crime scene. I knew a suicide when I saw one. This kid’s head was nearly destroyed and I didn’t see any evidence of a fight or struggle or anything. There wasn’t any evidence, like I already said. It happened in a damn cemetery, at night, so no witnesses.”

  “Did you ever find a weapon?” Jack asked.

  Olson’s eyes became slits. “It’s been so long I don’t remember. But if it was a suicide, the gun would be there or someone had already taken it. There were three uniforms there when I got there.”

  “Okay,” Jack said, but not understanding a bit of Olson’s reasoning and wondering if he was getting senile or deliberately not remembering clearly. Olson hadn’t mentioned the broken bottles and tire iron Mattingly found. He already said there was no sign of a fight or struggle—or anything. Why would he put it that way?

  “I remember it was colder than a witch’s titty,” Olson was saying and he shivered, supposedly remembering everything. “It had rained cats and dogs earlier, but it wasn’t raining when I got there. If someone said there was a fight, the tracks or footprints or any such must have washed away in the downpour.”

  Jack wasn’t buying it. Olson was lying.

  “I took a couple of Polaroids. I don’t recall what crime scene took, but I know they didn’t collect any evidence. The car got towed and went over really good by our guys later. They didn’t find anything but pieces of the kid’s brains scattered around inside. If you want to know the truth, I think he was out there buying drugs and it went sideways on him. He was sitting in the driver’s seat and someone blew his head off from outside the car. All the brain matter was on the ceiling and passenger window. No one in the neighborhood heard or saw anything. And…there was no shell casing. If Mattingly told you that, he’s making it up.”

  Mattingly had actually put in his report that the blood was on the windshield and the driver’s window. The shot couldn’t have come from outside the car.

  “Why would Mattingly do that?” Jack asked.

  Olson didn’t miss a beat. “He wanted to be important. That was the way to make rank or get into the detectives’ office. You did a good job, solved a murder, found a big piece of evidence when no one else could. Stuff like that. That’s what got you promoted. You understand? And now, I guess Mattingly heard you got hold of this old case and he wants in on it.”

  Jack had had the same thought. He didn’t believe it; his gut told him that wasn’t the case, but he couldn’t discount it, either. Of course, Olson had contradicted himself so many times he was obviously making it up as he went.

  Olson crossed his arms, which was textbook body language for “I’m going to lie my ass off. When are you getting out of here?”

  “Was my dad involved in Max Day’s investigation?” Jack asked, throwing another nonthreatening question into the conversation.

  Olson said, “No. No. Not Max Day’s. Jake was there during the other one. Max’s dad. Harry. Right? I’d say, ask your old man, but he’s gone. Sorry to hear that. He was a good street cop.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said. “Let’s continue with Max’s murder.”

  “Sure. Like I said, there wasn’t no evidence of a fight, or evidence of a weapon that was used to kill the poor kid. I heard later this kid was a certified prick. Always starting fights, skipping class. Tough guy. He got kicked out of Central High School and his parents sent him to Rex Mundi. Everyone knew both those schools were full of druggies, even if Rex Mundi was supposed to be so religious. I mean, what the hell has happened to our kids? Shooting each other to get some attention because they don’t feel loved. I don’t even want to get into that. For all I know it was one of them Romeo and Juliet–type suicide pacts. Maybe Max wanted some cutie-pie and if he couldn’t have her, no one would. She shot him and lost her nerve. That would account for no gun being found.”

  “Are you saying a girl killed Max?” Jack asked.

  “I’m just throwing out ideas. That’s what detecting is. Am I right? Anyway, in my day, if a girl jilted you, you just went to the next one. And if I had a problem with another kid I’d punch him in the nose and that was that. We’d be best buddies next day. Now some little pansy gets his Capri pants in a twist and they bring a gun to school. I mean, what the hell? But I don’t want to go there.”

  Then he went there again. “We didn’t have all this getting-a-lawyer hassle because some numbnuts was wearing fag clothes. He’d get his lickings and shut up after that. Someone was messing with you, it was settled right there in the classroom. The only reason I can see that Max was shot was because he was dealing drugs. Forget what I
said about a girl. It was over drugs. Drug dealers was the only ones carrying guns around.”

  Olson was exhibiting a classic pattern Jack had noticed in liars. Make the victim the bad one. Blame them for creating the incident. Getting off the topic and keeping it there. Stall for time and confuse the investigator.

  “Nothing ever came to light?” Jack asked. “No one came forward with evidence or saw something or heard talk?”

  “There’s always people coming in claiming to know things. You know that. There was this one psychic nut that read it in the cards that Max was killed by a cop and that was why we didn’t find any evidence. Can you believe it? Horseshit! Am I right? You know it. And Sergeant Mattingly was going around asking leading questions. People who weren’t even witnesses. Stirring up the crazies. A lot of people would say anything they thought would get them some attention. You know?”

  “I heard there were rumors going around after Max’s murder that the police didn’t do enough to find the killer,” Jack said. “I’m not saying you didn’t do your best. But that’s what I’ve heard.”

  Olson’s jaws clamped shut. He forced them to relax before saying, “You listen to me, Murphy. You know those crazies I was just talking about? That’s the Day family. All of ’em. Loony tunes, the whole inbred bunch. I worked my ass off on that boy’s case and the old man’s too. There was nothing there. I was a good detective. Anyone says there was some sort of cover up because of Captain Dick is a liar. And an asshole with a grudge. Back in my day we took care of each other. The thin blue line. But we didn’t cover up a murder.”

  Jack hadn’t mentioned a cover-up. Of course, Olson said he’d watched the news and Claudine had stressed the cover-up angle.

  “Captain Dick was Chief of Detectives at the time, wasn’t he?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah. What’s that got to do with the price of potatoes? Someone is making a shit sandwich. Am I right?”

  “Did Captain Dick direct your investigations?” Jack asked.

  “Of course, he did. He was my commander. Listen up, Murphy, there was a lot of guys on the department that were related. Father and son, brothers, uncles, spouses. I think I’m done here. I ain’t answering no more of your questions if you’re on a witch hunt. I know you and Richard don’t get along. And I know he’s a royal pain in everyone’s ass. But he’s still a cop and I don’t spread rumors about cops.”