The Gone Dead Train (15 page)

The bat had been a weapon of opportunity. Whatever else happened here, the murder had not been planned.

He forced himself to visualize the assault—Augie standing in front of the refrigerator, about to reach inside for a cold one. The first blow landed on the side of his head as he turned. The second shattered the back of his skull. Already going down, he'd raised his right arm to ward off the attack, evidenced by the compound fracture of the radius bone poking through the skin of his forearm. Out of a blind survival reflex, Augie had struggled to get up and slipped in his own blood. More blows. The attack had been overkill, fed by anger or passion.

He squatted by the body for a closer look, the lump from hitting the lamppost still visible. Augie's ghost floated in the kitchen, chiding him, his dead eye watching.

Billy moved to stand over Freeman, making him strain to look up.

“Did he suffer?” Freeman asked. A whiff of stale alcohol lifted off his sweating head.

“Yeah, Augie suffered. Turn around.” He unbuckled the belt.

Freeman slumped to the floor with his back against the cabinet, the color returning to his face. “Augie came home last night around ten. We talked in the hallway.”

“What were you doing in the hall?”

Freeman blinked. “I live here. I own the damned building.” He gave Billy a superior look, letting the information sink in.

“What did you talk about?”

“The fight the two of you had in front of the ballpark. Augie's face looked bad, like he'd been rammed into a concrete wall.”

“He ran into a lamppost.”

“I think
you
ran him into a lamppost.”

“We had a disagreement.”

“Your fat lip makes it a fight. He said you got angry, called him names. Why were you so pissed off?”

Good question
. Why had he been angry with a man who'd been clearly out of his head? Why hadn't he just dealt with it?

Sirens echoed off downtown buildings. Patrol cops and EMTs would come through the door any minute.

“What's your relationship with Augie?” Billy asked.

Freeman began struggling to his feet. “That's enough bullshit.”

Billy pushed down hard on his shoulder. Freeman's ass thudded on the floor. “Answer the question.”

Freeman cocked his head to look up. “We're neighbors, okay? Not buddies like the two of you. We didn't drink a six-pack and go out back for a fistfight.” He thrust his chin toward the ransacked room. “Augie said you'd threatened him. I think you came here, killed him, then tore up the place to cover your tracks. Or were you looking for something?”

He sized up Freeman. If he took off the cuffs and Freeman tried to run, he'd have an excuse to beat the crap out of him. He'd get a lot of satisfaction out of that. The problem was, Freeman was close to being right. Billy had come here looking for something—the photograph. But he couldn't tell Freeman that. Not yet.

“Tell me about the front door,” he said.

“I found it opened. Something is caught underneath. Or didn't you notice?”

Billy went to inspect the door. The lock had not been forced. He'd missed seeing the computer cord snaking across the white marble tiles, its USB connector wedging the door open. He'd seen Augie use a laptop to click through players' stats while he watched a game. Whoever took the laptop had jammed the door as he'd tried to close it.

The DeVoy's security cameras covered the entrance, the lobby, the public elevators, and the service elevators. None was posted in the residential hallways. Access to Augie's floor by elevator required a code. You could exit each floor onto the stairwell and walk down, but you couldn't enter a floor from the stairwell without setting off an alarm. It was as tight as an apartment building could be without compromising the privacy of the residents.

Then there was Freeman to consider. If he owned the building, he had access to Augie's apartment using the building's master key. He could have killed Augie last night and locked the door behind him. This morning he jammed the door open with the cord, creating an excuse to discover the body.

Besides the chaos of the room being tossed, Billy noticed that more than just the laptop and watches were missing. Eight picture hangers hung empty on the wall among a group of twenty photos, and the two brass stands in the bookcase that had held World Series game balls stood empty.

Who did this?

After a few beers at Bardog, Augie had a habit of bragging about buying and selling valuable memorabilia. Billy had noticed barflies listening in. The murder could have started as a simple heist by one of them or even by a casual acquaintance who used a bump key to unlock the door. If Augie had come home early, the guy would have felt trapped in the apartment and whacked Augie from behind. Then he tore up the place looking for loot, grabbed a few things, and ran.

This wasn't about escaping. Too much emotion had fueled the attack. This had been personal.

He walked back in the kitchen. Freeman sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the cabinet, his head down.

“Did Augie have clients come here to buy?” Billy asked.

Freeman's head snapped up, hostile. “How the hell would I know?”

“Have you touched anything, moved anything?”

“If you're asking about prints, mine are everywhere. I came last Thursday to watch a Redbirds game. We looked through his latest buys.”

The elevator bell dinged. Billy heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. He pulled his SIG and laid it on the floor.

“Lie facedown. Do whatever they say,” he told Freeman.

“Police!” yelled a male voice in the entry.

“In here,” Billy called.

Two patrol cops with concrete shoulders and shaved heads tromped through the living area, weapons drawn. Billy didn't know either of them.

He stretched out on the floor beside Freeman, hands over his head. A responding cop's job is to neutralize a scene and apologize later. Billy was in for some short-term humiliation.

He turned his head and found himself staring into Freeman's smirking face.

T
he first cop's name tag read
JAKES
. He cuffed Billy where he lay, frisked him, and secured the SIG. The second cop, Ketty, frisked Freeman then knelt to check Augie for vital signs. He rose slowly, white faced, and shook his head at Jakes. They were young and gung ho. It was likely that neither of them had seen that level of violence taken out on a human being.

Ketty left to move through the apartment, securing the scene. Jakes paced the kitchen, his steel-toed boots clicking on the tiles. Protocol required their next step to be communication with their supervisor.

“I'm Sergeant Detective Billy Able. My MPD identification is in my back pocket,” he said to Jakes. “I met with Deputy Chief Middlebrook yesterday. I suggest you make your first call to him.”

Jakes pulled the ID. Billy gave him Middlebrook's office number from memory. Jakes called and explained the situation to Middlebrook. He listened, then uncuffed Billy and handed the phone to him.

“What the hell happened?” Middlebrook asked.

“Augie Poston was murdered in his apartment last night. His neighbor claims to have found him about fifteen minutes ago. He called 911. I came in after him.”

“Poston? The ballplayer?” Middlebrook went silent. “Why are you there?”

“We're friends. I stopped by to check on him.”

“I assume you weren't involved in his death.”

“That's correct, sir.”

More silence. “Let me speak with Officer Jakes. I'll follow up with their supervisor and explain the situation.”

Jakes took the phone, listened, and hung up. He took the cuffs off Freeman. “Sergeant Able, we need the two of you to sit at opposite ends of that dining table. Don't talk. Don't even look at each other until the investigative team gets here.”

The EMTs checked Augie and left. No one to save on this run.

To Billy's dismay, the next person to shuffle in was Dunsford, grumbling and pissed off about catching another goddamn case. He had two flunky detectives from burglary with him. Dunsford saw Billy and came over.

“I heard you were here. I'll do my walk-through with Jakes and Ketty, then we'll talk.” He turned to Freeman. “You called in the body. Did you or Able touch or move anything in this apartment?”

“I didn't, but I don't know about Able. He had me cuffed and on the kitchen floor. I couldn't see what he was doing.”

“Son of a bitch, Able. You can't stay outta my business.” Dunsford squinted at Billy's puffy lip but said nothing.

The CSU techs filed in the door with their kits. An Asian guy clicked off a couple of hundred digital photos. A young woman with a ponytail began dusting the frame on Augie's portrait in the entry. A third said he was going downstairs to process the elevators. During the walk-through, Dunsford shuttled between the back rooms of the apartment and Freeman to ask questions.

“My place is around the corner and down the hall on the left,” Freeman told Dunsford. “You'll find two women there, probably still asleep. Thought I should mention it.”

Dunsford's eyes rounded. “The hell you say. Two women?”

“It was a late night,” Freeman said.

“Jakes, go wake up those broads,” Dunsford said. “And keep them apart until we question them.”

Dunsford made the right call. Freeman had discovered the body. That made him the number-one suspect. Having Jakes bang on the women's door would rattle them, and they wouldn't have time to match their stories. Their statements could implicate Freeman or themselves, or they might provide Freeman with a solid alibi.

Billy needed that information. As soon as he left the building, he would call a buddy in the squad who could gain access to Dunsford's interview notes and let him know what the women had to say.

He watched Freeman who was sitting at the other end of the table, his gaze scanning the living area, Augie's desk, the bookcases.

“What's missing?” he asked.

Freeman's gaze stayed with Augie's desk. “Augie had a draft of a manuscript written by some journalist. He kept it in a big envelope on his desk. Last night he said he planned to read through the manuscript this morning.” Freeman glanced around. “I don't see that envelope, and those papers scattered on the floor aren't formatted like a book.”

“Do you know the journalist's name?” Billy asked.

“Augie never would tell me.”

“Did he say what the book's about?”

“Civil rights in the sixties. I assume you know Augie was wrapped up in his mother's death. He thought this journalist could help him. His laptop is gone, and look over there . . . his phone is off the charger. There's other stuff missing, valuable stuff. When I went to the back, I noticed his collection of watches is gone.”

He wanted to bring up the photograph Augie had lifted at Bardog. Freeman might know where it was stashed, but Billy didn't want to take the risk of Dunsford walking in on the conversation.

The medical examiner arrived with an assistant and began recording the body's condition, the wounds, his clothes, and the bloodstain patterns. The ME mentioned that media was setting up outside the building. The story would go nationwide. There's nothing better for ratings than the flameout of a fallen star.

Supervisor Lieutenant John Carter arrived and took Dunsford aside, their gazes tracking from Freeman to Billy as they talked. He'd thought through his lack of an alibi. No one had seen him after he walked home from the stadium. At least the DeVoy's security cameras would prove he hadn't come here until this morning.

He began to make notes of his actions since he'd arrived. As he wrote, he found himself floating in the detached state exhibited by family members of victims—emotionally blank faces, calm questions asked with a need for precise details. The detached ones would later fall apart far worse than the loved ones who'd lost it at the scene.

The ME's assistants wrapped Augie in a white sheet, lifted him into a bag, and zipped it closed. Billy checked his watch. Time was 10:22
A.M.

Dunsford came over and spoke to Freeman. “You're going to the CJC with the lieutenant to look through mug shots. Your women friends will come with me. When we're finished here, all three of you will give your statements.” Dunsford cleared his throat and spoke to Billy. “Middlebrook let us know you were friends with Poston. Sorry for your loss, but you know the drill. We'll need your statement. I'll be backed up with these interviews the rest of the day. Come in tomorrow at ten. We'll get it out of the way.”

Dunsford stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “And you should go . . . now. Leave. And take the stairs.” His mouth twitched, getting a kick out of throwing Billy off the scene.

Billy stood. He was itching to work through the evidence, but saying even a word to Dunsford would be a mistake. He nodded to Freeman, then walked to the entry and stopped at Augie's portrait. Fingerprint powder coated the frame. The man in the painting stared at him through the catcher's mask, the warrior, the hero, Billy's friend. That was the Augie Poston he would remember.

“Don't worry, partner,” he said quietly. “I'm going to make this right.”

T
he woman who answered the phone at Robert House spoke with a heavy Jamaican accent. She said Sid Garrett was attending a meeting at the Calvin Carter Museum on Beale Street and would be out the rest of the day. She could leave a message on his mobile. Billy declined and hung up. He wanted to tell Garrett about Augie in person. Death wasn't the kind of news you leave on voice mail. And with the Davis and Lacy funeral at eleven tomorrow, Garrett would have to pick up the slack for Augie.

He decided to leave his car and walk to Beale Street from the DeVoy. A breath of air might lift the heaviness that was beginning to settle in his chest.