Deception (58 page)

66

“Yes, the setting is a worthy one
.
If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men …”

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES
,
T
HE
H
OUND OF THE
B
ASKERVILLES

HE
PUSHED
THE
MUZZLE
into my right temple. “Say your prayers.”

I started to, wishing I had more time.

Five seconds later he pulled the gun back, pushed me to the bathroom, and ordered me to clean up. Waving his Beretta at the medicine cabinet, he told me to wrap a bandage and athletic tape around my hand.

“I’ve decided I’m not done with you,” he said in a voice like his mother’s. “I’ve got a place all picked out for you. Others are waiting for you to join them, and I don’t want to disappoint them.”

He stood in the bathroom doorway and never took his eye off me. After ordering me out, he gave one last sweeping gaze of the apartment. I stood six feet from the front door, and he was two feet behind me. He gestured for me to move to the door.

I walked wide to the right, pretending not to notice a stereo wire, and tripped on it, landing on my face in front of the door. It was hard not to take an athletic roll, but it had to look like an accident.

“Get up, idiot.”

I positioned myself with my bandaged left hand pushing up on the floor. I pulled up my left pant leg with my right hand and grabbed the Baby Glock, then shot Donald Meyer in the right shoulder. He screamed. His Beretta dropped to the floor.

I punched his wounded shoulder twice with my bandaged left hand and backed him against the wall. I took the knife out of his pocket and searched him for other weapons while he moaned and groaned like a sissy.

“I took that gun from your ankle holster,” he said, like I’d treated him unfairly.

“I have
two
ankles, dunderhead. You only saw one of my white shins, remember? Speaking of which, in prison they don’t tan much. And the golfing’s seriously limited.”

“You were carrying
four
guns? Nobody carries four guns.” He was writhing, but he wouldn’t let it go. “Who could possibly need four guns?”

“Me. Today.”

He grasped his shoulder moaning, tears coming to his eyes.

“Baby Glock’s not much of a gun, huh? Enough to make you into a crybaby, you little sissy. Messin’ with me’s like wearin’ cheese underwear down rat alley.”

I punched his right shoulder. “Don’t forget it, numskull.” I punched it again. “That one’s for pistol-whipping my dog.”

I cuffed Donald extra tight, and we headed down the hallway. “Get ready to walk the Green Mile, scumbag.” One of the neighbors came out her door, and I nodded and smiled.

“Help me,” Donald said to her. “This man assaulted me.”

I flipped open my badge. “I’m a police officer, ma’am. He’s under arrest.”

“I’m the police officer,” Donald said. “You know me.”

“He is a police officer,” she said to me, pointing at Donald. “I know he is.” She pulled out her cell phone.

“Yes, ma’am, but he’s the police officer in handcuffs, and I’m the police officer with the big gun.” I pulled Donald’s Beretta from my pocket.

She nodded and started to put away her cell phone.

“May I use that, ma’am?” I’d confiscated Donald’s phone and his earpiece, but didn’t want to contaminate evidence by using it.

I reached out my bloody left hand and took it, then called Jake and asked him to go immediately to my house. I told him to call Megan Wood, the vet who’d come to Mulch’s rescue earlier.

I called 911, then Sergeant Seymour. Before I could say anything he said, “You been napping? They’re still tracing Noel’s car up I-84. Set up two roadblocks, but somehow he got away.”

“Actually, Sarge, Donald’s right here with me. Want to talk to the little whiner?”

Sarge insisted I not leave the building until backup arrived. While I was waiting by the front door, I was deliberately a little lax, hoping Donald would try something. He decided to kick me where it hurts in the hopes that he could make a run for it. After he took his best shot, a little high, I pocketed the Beretta, stepped toward him, grabbed his jacket with both hands, and yanked his head toward mine. My head met him halfway. It sounded like two coconuts fired from cannons, colliding with each other. My coconut is harder, so he was unconscious before hitting the floor.

When Sarge showed up with backup, he hugged me This was uncomfortable enough, but then I had to explain Donald’s condition. Sarge said Donald’s attorney would accuse me of brutality, but I didn’t care. It was worth it.

The EMTs focused on Donald, who finally regained consciousness. Despite everyone’s urging, I insisted I didn’t need another hospital visit. I told the paramedics I was on a first name basis with a nurse named Angela at Adventist Medical Center, and she would vouch for me. They settled for bandaging my hand and treating my forehead, which had been a skin donor to Donald’s forehead. The rest was bumps and bruises, the worst from falling on my face as part of my act of clumsiness. At least it was the opposite side of my face from when I’d fallen from the knockout spray. I like to spread out the damage.

I insisted on going home to see Mulch. If I wouldn’t go to the hospital, Sarge insisted I go to precinct. I called home and Jake answered.

“I’ve got somebody here who wants to talk to you,” he said.

I heard a grunt, a nuzzle, a sneeze, and a familiar little growl.

“Hi, Clarence,” I said.

“It’s Mulch,” Jake said. “He’s got a headache. Megan says it’s a concussion, and she’s taking him in to the clinic. But she’s optimistic. She knows him pretty well by now.”

“To the right of the microwave, the upper cupboard has five pounds of the best beef jerky money can buy. The sky’s the limit for Mulch. Have some yourself. Take a handful home for Champ. Tell Megan to fill her pockets.”

“She’ll be thrilled.”

I entered the Justice Center, carrying a box from my car. Clarence was waiting in detective division when I arrived. He came straight to me, put his arm around me, and asked if I was okay. Every detective was there, seven of us now, without Brandon Phillips, Jack Glissan, and Noel Barrows, aka Donald Meyer. Sergeant Seymour joined us minutes later.

They wanted to hear my story and led me into the conference room. We’d all been in this same room just six hours ago. They kept interrupting with questions, which was okay because Karl brought in three boxes of Krispy Kremes and Tommi two gallons of milk. I felt like royalty.

As I told the story there were lots of smart comments, but I felt part of the team for the first time in two months.

“Okay, I believe you about Noel,” Chris Doyle said. “But where’s evidence that’s beyond reasonable doubt?”

“In fact,” Kim Suda said to me, “for Palatine’s murder, and Brandon’s too, there’s more physical evidence against you than against him, right?”

I nodded.

“What’s to keep Noel from saying he ran from us because you framed him?” Sarge said. “He wanted to escape to prove he was innocent. He’s still got the alibi in the tavern, unless you can produce his brother.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“So it sounds like a wild guess,” Suda said. “But that’s not all. Noel’s attorney calls a criminalist to the stand, maybe Phil Oref, and he has to testify that you tampered with evidence, right? Chris and I have to testify that bloody fabric appeared at the scene after you showed up. Put that with Noel’s fake fingerprints and the Black Jack gum and if your DNA’s really on the beer bottle … that’s plenty of reasonable doubt.”

“But look at what just happened,” Clarence said. “This guy assaulted Ollie at his house, knocked out Mulch, handcuffed Ollie and abducted him to his place, where Ollie’s blood’s everywhere.”

“But he could reverse everything,” Cimmatoni said, looking at me. “He could claim you caught him, took him to your place, and brained your dog yourself.”

“That wouldn’t hold up with a jury of dog owners,” Tommi said.

“It was your car that went to his place,” Sarge said. “It looks like you drove him there.”

“And cutting your palm, your blood all over his apartment?” Doyle said. “They could see that as you trying to corroborate your made-up story. You admit you cut your own hand. What actual harm did he inflict on you, some bruises? You’re the one who shot him. You tried to frame him with fake prints, he’ll say. You tried to frame him again by cutting your hand with your own knife.”

“It’s not like you’d be convicted of anything,” Baylor said. “We all know now he’s guilty. But sometimes you can’t prove what you know. This is way more than enough reasonable doubt to get him acquitted.”

“We’ve got plenty of dead people,” Sarge said, sighing. “I say he walks unless we find irrefutable evidence, something that couldn’t have been falsified, that’s not just our gut feelings or your word against his.”

After another big gulp of milk, washing down the last bite of a glazed raspberry-filled Krispy Kreme, I said, “Would a recording of Noel’s confession help?”

They all stared at me. If he’d been there, the chief would have said you could hear a pin drop.

“But … you don’t have that,” Suda said. “You told us he found the wire and pulled it.”

“When people suspect you’re wired, what do they do?” I asked.

“Search for it,” Suda said.

“When do they stop searching?”

“After they look and don’t find it.”

“Or?”

“After they do find it,” Tommi said.

“Right. When they find a wire, they stop looking for a wire. Just like when they find the gun on your right ankle, they don’t look for a gun on your left ankle.”

“What are you saying, Chandler?” Cimmatoni asked.

“You’re all making the same assumption Donald did. That there was only one wire.”

I stood, asked the ladies to excuse me, reached back under my boxer shorts, and pulled out the tiny device taped there, with a thin wire that came out by my belt buckle, where the miniature microphone was. I held the device, retrieved from my boxers, in my palm.

“Gross,” Suda said.

“I turned on this little gadget with my index finger since my hands were conveniently cuffed right there. It sent a signal to a device in the trunk of my car, with a six-hour recording capacity. Since Donald commandeered my car, it was in signal range at his apartment.” I picked up the box I’d carried in and showed them the recorder from my car.

They insisted we play it right then. I’d tell them when to fast-forward, to find the relevant parts. They ordered pizza delivery, and somebody brought in pop (not soda). It was like the Waltons settling into the living room to listen to FDR on the radio. They listened intently for a couple of hours, until Sarge’s voice came on the recording, and Donald was in custody.

“Well, it’s good enough for me, but it won’t hold up in court,” Cimmatoni said.

“Might depend on the judge,” I said. “I did inform Donald he was being taped, remember? He destroyed the other device, but I was referring to this one. And I used the present tense—I said ‘I’m recording you.’ Present tense, not past. It’s all right there. I can’t help it if he didn’t understand plain English. If I were a judge, I’d equate that with informing Donald he was being recorded.”

“If you were a judge,” Sarge said, “you’d equate saying, ‘Talk or I’ll shoot you,’ with reading someone their Miranda rights.”

F
RIDAY
, J
ANUARY
24, 9:4O
P.M
.

After hearing the recording, Manny, Sarge, and Lieutenant Nicks interrogated Donald Meyer. Captain Swiridoff was already in touch with the DA about reopening the Melissa Glissan case as a possible murder by her boyfriend, Donald Meyer.

Precinct electronics experts would be working all night on duplicating and gleaning highlights from the recordings of my adventures with Donald.

The captain told me to go home and get a good night’s sleep because there’d be a 10:00 a.m. press conference, and we’d have to be coached by Chief Lennox’s press secretary about what to say and what not to say. Swiridoff instructed me to find something to wear that looked respectable, “even if you have to borrow it.”

Clarence was having a ball, in a Clarence sort of way, which shows itself in a look of sober intensity as he scratches down notes.

I took off to join Mulch at home. He was back from the vet and being babysat by Jake and Janet. She was caressing Mulch’s ears and feeding him snacks. Mike Hammer was milking it. When he saw me, he jumped and nearly knocked me over. We wrestled carefully since he had tape and bandages between his ear and jaw.

Before Jake and Janet left, Jake said to me, “Okay if I tell God thanks for protecting you like He did?”

I nodded.