While Murphy was taking questions, Radhauser’s phone rang. It was Daria Azami. He hurried past the reporters and into his office to answer.
“In one hour, I am ready for coming home,” she said. “Ahmed and the baby must stay for longer time.”
It wasn’t the best timing, but Radhauser needed to get a copy of Baker’s Little League roster from Cooper. He’d probably be working in the barn. Radhauser could pick up Kareem at the same time and drop him and Daria at their apartment before interviewing the parents of the kids on Baker’s team.
He checked his watch. It would take him about forty-five minutes to make the drive, including a quick stop at his ranch. “Kareem and I will be there.”
“Don’t hurry. Nurse say we can wait in lobby. Thank you very much. Kareem, he is okay?”
He didn’t tell her he hadn’t seen her son since he’d tucked him into bed the night before. “My wife, Gracie, is turning him into a cowboy.”
Daria laughed.
Radhauser was now familiar with their customs and didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. “Do I need to bring a female officer with me?”
“I have spoken to Ahmed. He is very grateful for your help and says it is not necessary to trouble other officer if she is busy with another matter. Our son will be with me. And Ahmed say we are Americans now and must learn more American ways.”
By the time Radhauser hung up, Murphy had returned from his press conference and stood in Radhauser’s office doorway.
Murphy’s shoulders slumped and his head hung low. “I’ve already spoken with the DA. He’s working on expediting Sherman Parsons’ release. I’m sorry. I did what I thought was right. I know you wanted to wait. Turns out you were right again.”
Radhauser’s breath came out in a rush, then dead silence fell over the room. He’d been reporting to Felix Murphy for about five years and they’d worked together another six before that as fellow detectives. This was the first time Murphy had ever apologized for anything and he’d done it three times. Twice to Radhauser and once to the press. Maybe it was the influence of the new girlfriend. “We all make mistakes. But I’d like to be the one who picks him up,” Radhauser said.
Parsons was a bully and a drunk. But law without compassion wasn’t the kind Radhauser wanted to enforce.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the ten minutes it took Radhauser to drive to his ranch, he reviewed what he'd learned at the academy about serial killers, homicidal personalities and how they often suffered abuse in their childhoods. John Gacy and Ted Bundy were raised by violent men and suffered sexual abuse as youngsters. But lots of people were traumatized during childhood and didn’t turn into murderers.
According to the textbooks, most murderers knew right from wrong but lacked the capacity for empathy. Handsome and charismatic Bundy was admitted to law school and from all reports would have made a fine attorney. Gacy entertained children by dressing as a clown for their birthday parties. He was popular in his community. Why did he kill all those young boys and bury them in his basement?
Whoever killed Marsha Parsons and Brad Baker had the usual cooling-off period between his first two kills. And he'd been organized and smart—too smart to leave any prints or DNA behind. Both Bundy and Gacy had been extremely intelligent.
Ted Kaczynski was a child genius in mathematics. He skipped grades and graduated high school at fifteen, then entered Harvard on a scholarship at age sixteen. Ted was a rising star with a very bright future. For a while, Kaczynski taught math at UC Berkeley. What turned him into a mass murderer?
Some serial killers were able to act as if they felt compassion and other ordinary feelings so convincingly it made them hard to detect. Was there a common denominator among them? If they indeed had a serial killer in their midst, would Radhauser be able to find that commonality before he or she struck again?
He pulled into his driveway and parked beside the barn.
Though it was still drizzling, the gray sky had given way to some sun and the afternoon was rapidly warming. The air smelled like moist earth and freshly cut alfalfa.
In the covered arena attached to their barn, Kareem rode their bay mare, Pride. The boy wore a pair of Lizzie’s outgrown boots, jeans, and a red T-shirt with a horse’s head on the front. Radhauser recognized the shirt and the black cowboy hat as clothing Lizzie had outgrown as well. He smiled to himself.
Lizzie sat beside Cooper on the rail fence that formed the sides of the arena. She held the baby monitor in her lap which meant Jonathan was down for his late morning nap.
Gracie walked alongside the mare, encouraging Kareem to use his legs and the reins to guide the horse. Pride was a fifteen-year-old mare, a one-time champion show horse, and the gentlest horse they'd ever owned. Both Lizzie and Jonathan rode Pride as soon as they were able to balance themselves in the saddle. In addition to her skill with children, Pride threw beautiful foals and was their favorite broodmare.
Kareem sat with his back straight, taking Gracie’s instructions seriously.
“Your mom is waiting at the hospital. We’ll pick her up then I’ll drive both of you home,” Radhauser said to Kareem, then joined Lizzie and Cooper on the fence.
The boy’s golden cheeks were flushed and a smile lighted his eyes. He kept his gaze forward as if pretending Radhauser hadn’t spoken. “Please, Miss Gracie. May I ride one more time around?”
Radhauser nodded at his wife, then turned to Cooper. “Do you have access to the Little League roster for Bradford Baker’s team? It’s the green team. The Eagles.”
“No problem. I can get that for you. Okay if I use the copy machine in the barn?”
“Of course.”
Cooper slid off the fence and returned a few moments later with the roster. He handed it to Radhauser. “You planning on doing some scouting and recruitment for the Cardinals?”
“It’s part of a case I’m working on.” He glanced at the roster and gasped. Kareem Azami was the first name on the list, along with his parents. Brad Baker had been Kareem’s baseball coach. Radhauser should have known from what Ahmed had said the first night they’d met, but he hadn’t made the correlation. The air left Radhauser’s lungs and a shiver raced through him. The Azamis had a connection to both victims. He remembered what Heron had said. “In some Sharia-controlled countries, cutting off the offending hand at the wrist is an accepted form of punishment for theft.”
Radhauser’s hand shook as he folded the roster and stuck it in his blazer pocket. Could he be wrong about Ahmed? Radhauser knew Ahmed was with his wife and son last evening before the gunshot wound that sent him to the hospital. Could he have killed Baker earlier in the day? Radhauser would have to wait for Heron to establish time of death before he could eliminate Ahmed.
While Gracie and Kareem circled the arena again, he turned to Cooper. “Have you had many dealings with Brad Baker?”
“Not really,” Cooper said. “We haven’t played his team yet. But I know who he is.”
“What do you think of him?”
Cooper climbed back onto the fence but kept his gaze straight ahead. "Not much, if you want the truth."
“Could you be a little more specific?”
Cooper turned to face Radhauser. "I think he's too hard on his players. I often stay at the park and watch some of the other games. Baker is a bully and a perfectionist." His voice was soft and low. "They're just kids and at this age, it should be about learning the game and having fun. Not so much pressure to perform. Seems to me he wants the win and he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process.”
“Do you know if any of the parents of his team members have made an official complaint?”
“Gossip trickles down. But you’d have to talk to the president of the league board. His name is Walt Keiser. He’s a nice guy and I’m sure he’d be willing to answer your questions.”
Radhauser jotted the name in his notebook.
Gracie brought the horse to a stop and helped Kareem dismount.
He sat on
the ground to take off the boots.
“You may keep them, and the cowboy hat,” Gracie said. “Lizzie has a new pair that fit her better.”
Kareem’s smile was a big one.
She handed Radhauser a shopping bag with Kareem’s shoes, clothes, jacket, the coloring books and crayons he’d used in the hospital, and the new toothbrush she’d given him. “I was doing laundry anyway,” she whispered. “So, I washed his clothes. I used the ice cube trick and most of the blood came out.”
Gracie turned her attention back to Kareem. “It was fun having you here. Maybe you can come back for another lesson.”
Kareem bounced up and down on his heels, testing the cowboy boots. “I would like that very much, Miss Gracie.”
She handed him a photo she’d taken of him on Pride and printed with their photo printer. He gave her another Christmas-sized smile, then tucked the photo into his pocket. After waving goodbye to Lizzie, he took Radhauser’s hand. As they walked toward the barn overhang, Kareem’s eager excitement transmitted itself through their palms like a current of electricity.
When Radhauser opened the car door, Kareem climbed into the back seat and buckled his seatbelt. He turned for one last look at the barn before he settled in for the trip to Three Rivers Hospital.
During the thirty-minute ride, the boy talked non-stop. He now planned to be a cowboy when he grew up. He wanted to own a horse ranch with a barn even bigger than Radhauser's. Kareem was going to buy a black horse with a white star between his eyes and white on his front and hind legs, too. "Baba jan read me a book about a black stallion. He was an Arabian and very beautiful. A little boy named Alec saw him get on a boat and he had a white handkerchief tied over his eyes…They got shipwrecked. The black stallion saved Alec's life. And they lived on an island until they got found…"
“Yes. I read that book when I was a boy,” Radhauser said. “I liked it a lot, too. But I was wondering if you could tell me anything about your Little League coach. You’re on the green team. The Eagles, right?”
“Mr. Baker is my coach, but he doesn’t like me very much.”
“Why wouldn’t he like you? You’re a fine young man.”
"I'm not so good at baseball. I swing at bad pitches. And most of the time, I strikeout. But Baba wants me to play so I can be like American boys. Coach Baker…he yells at me a lot and sometimes he calls me names. Baba jan gets very angry."
“Your father was angry with Mr. Baker?”
“Yes. After the game, Coach Baker called me Osama bin Laden. He is a very bad man. This name makes Baba’s face get red and he screamed at Coach Baker.”
“When did this happen, Kareem?”
“At my baseball game yesterday. Landon Baker is mean to me at school, too.” He told Radhauser about his nosebleed and what happened on the playground.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Radhauser hoped his presentation to the first-grade class at Mountain View Elementary School had done some good. “I’m sorry you had to go through that and I’m hoping nothing like that will ever happen to you again, Kareem.”
As he turned onto Union Avenue, Radhauser thought about what he might do if someone bullied or harassed Lizzie or Jonathan.
But now wasn’t the time to speculate. No matter what kind of man Bradford Baker was, he didn’t deserve to be murdered. Radhauser would know more after he talked to Heron, but it appeared from rigor that Baker was killed sometime last night. Ahmed was shot around nine-fifteen. Radhauser arrived on the scene at nine-forty-five and Ahmed spent the rest of the evening in the hospital. You couldn’t get a better alibi than that one. Relief flooded through him as he pulled his Crown Vic up to the hospital’s main entrance. But it was short-lived. What if Baker was killed earlier in the evening, like seven or eight? Ahmed would have had plenty of time to murder Brad Baker and be home in time to drive his family into Grants Pass.
A few moments later, a nurse pushed Daria’s wheelchair out to the curb and opened the car door. Daria slipped into the front seat, carrying a bulging plastic bag with the hospital logo on the front. She wore the bloodstained clothes she’d worn when Ahmed was shot. After buckling her seatbelt, she turned to check on her son and smiled when she saw the cowboy hat.
“My friend, Lizzie, gave it to me,” he said. “She already outgrowed it.” His smile lit his entire face. He leaned back in the seat and lifted his feet so his mother could see the boots. “She gave me boots, too. Now I can be a real cowboy.” He showed his mother the photograph.
“You are lucky boy,” Daria said. “Now we go home.”
Radhauser pulled the car out of the hospital lot and headed toward the Azamis’ apartment.
“Where is Baba jan? Is he okay?”
“Baba and your baby sister must stay in hospital for more days. But they will come home soon. You must help me get ready for them.”
When Kareem was happily coloring in the back seat, Radhauser turned to Daria. "What were you and Ahmed doing before you went to Grants Pass yesterday?"
She picked at the dried blood on her skirt. "We go to Kareem's baseball game in morning, then Ahmed goes to lake in Klamath Falls. He say he need time to think about our life in America. When he comes home, he is calm again. We go to Grants Bass for ice cream and walk by river. And that boliceman, he shoot Ahmed. My husband, he do nothing wrong."
“What was Ahmed so upset about that he drove to the lake alone?”
“He is very angry with Kareem’s coach. Ahmed, he needs to calm down. He doesn’t like Kareem to see him upset. Sometimes driving car help him do this.”
“Why was he upset?”
She glanced over at Kareem, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Coach Baker make fun of Kareem. Say he lose game. Call him bad name. It make Kareem cry. Ahmed get very angry.”
"Did he fight with Coach Baker at the ballpark?" Could Ahmed have returned to the Little League field, stuffed Baker into the portable toilet while it was still daylight? Not likely. There were multiple games on Saturday afternoon. Surely someone would have seen him. But the games were always over by five. Could Ahmed have knocked Baker out with chloroform in his apartment? Dragged him back to Thomas Flannigan Sports Park under the cover of darkness? But Daria said Ahmed was home by eight. It didn't get dark until after about eight-thirty this time of year. Could he have murdered Baker, then calmly driven into Grants Pass for ice cream and a walk along the river?
Daria studied her hands, worry furrowing her forehead. “They not fight with hands. Only with words.”
Radhauser sighed and tried to keep his expression benign. This was not good news. “When did this argument occur?”
"After Kareem make strikeout at game on Saturday. And game over. About noontime."
“Did anyone witness their argument?”
"They were very loud. Other families hear. Coach Baker, he push Ahmed and he fall into dirt." She glanced at Radhauser then for the first time, her eyes dark and very flat—the light was gone from them.
“What exactly did Ahmed say to Coach Baker?”
Daria squeezed her hands together so hard her knuckles turned white. “Ahmed, he is good man. He only want better life for Kareem, me and our baby.”
“I believe you, but I still need to know what he said.”
“Why you need this?”
Daria Azami had enough to worry about and Radhauser didn’t want to tell her that Baker was dead. Maybe Heron would establish a TOD after Ahmed was shot and hospitalized. With any luck, Ahmed would have a solid alibi.
“Ahmed, he is in trouble?”
“No,” Radhauser lied. “No trouble.”
Once again breaking one of the rules of her faith, she stared at him for an instant, as if assessing whether or not she should trust him. To his relief, she must have decided in his favor. “He very angry at Coach Baker. Ahmed say, ‘I will kill you for your ridicule of my son.’ But Ahmed, he doesn’t mean it. He is a doctor. He heals people. He is only angry for Kareem to be hurt again.”
Ra
dhauser shifted in his seat. He didn’t like the direction this conversation had headed. Ahmed had good reasons to be angry. If the graffiti on their apartment door wasn’t enough, there was the ridicule Ahmed experienced at work, the menial job he had to accept when he’d studied and practiced medicine in Kabul. Not to mention the bullying his son had to put up with from his classmates and his coach.
Once Heron established a TOD, Radhauser would go back to the hospital and interrogate Ahmed.
When they arrived at the Azamis’ apartment, newspaper and television reporters carrying colorful umbrellas hovered around the car like a swarm of angry bees. Vans from the local television stations were parked in the lot, along with the Azamis’ Camry.
Daria shot a frightened glance toward her son, then hung her head. She shrank back from the cameras pointed at her through the windshield.
Protestors from the Islamic Center, some of whom Radhauser had seen on the night the prayer house was burned, paced back and forth on the sidewalk. They held hand-printed signs, No more police brutality of Muslims. We are Americans. Several of the same people who’d gathered outside the police station earlier chanted. “Justice for Ahmed. Justice for Ahmed.”
Radhauser parked, got out and opened Kareem’s door, then walked around behind the car to open the passenger door. He put his hand under Daria’s elbow and helped her out.
As soon as she exited the car, two reporters stuck microphones up to the veil that covered her face. “Is your husband all right? Has he remained hospitalized? What is the prognosis? Is the baby healthy? Do you think the encounter with Officer Jenkins was responsible for your early labor and delivery?”
Radhauser used his arms to keep the members of the press away from Daria. "Step back, please. Mrs. Azami has just been released from the hospital and is not answering any questions at this time."
Another reporter seized Radhauser’s arm. “Was there a bomb in the car?”
He jerked away without answering. Radhauser, Daria and Kareem pushed their way through the crowd. An aggressive male reporter grabbed Daria’s arm.
Red Hatchet Falls Page 20
