Heads Up

by Shaun Tennant



  Heads Up

  By Shaun Tennant

  Copyright 2012 Shaun Tennant

  1

  “Coins on the dead guy’s eyes, Sarge” Detective Weingart blurted on his way into my office, waving a fan of photos in his right hand.

  Ever since I took the Sergeant Major job I had tried to leave my office door open, but I expected my officers to knock on their way in. That way, if I’m on the phone or sending an email I can at least finish before I give the detective the nod to go ahead. This time, Charlie Weingart didn’t bother to knock or to wait. He knew I’d want to see this as soon as possible.

  “It’s the same. The exact-effing-same,’ he said, laying the photos on top of the paperwork on my desk and jabbing at them with his finger.

  Crime scene photos: a heavyset man in his twenties was dead, shot three times in the forehead. He was lying behind the counter in a store of some sort, arms folded across his chest, legs straight and together. The killer had held the eyelids open and placed pennies directly on the irises, giving the appearance of copper-coloured eyes.

  “Three shots?” I asked, since the blood and the mangled state of the man’s forehead made it hard to tell.

  “Seems like it. No exit wounds. Small calibre, maybe hollow points.” Charlie was a good cop, and a better friend. He knew that I’d want to have input on how he proceeded with the case, even though I never really talked about what had happened five years earlier. So he asked, “What do we do?”

  I picked up the photo showing the close-up on the face, leaning in and squinting so I could see the detail on the pennies.

  “Heads side up. Both pennies,” Charlie said, reading my mind. “It’s him isn’t it? He’s back?”

  I put the papers down and wiped at my temples. I was sweating. I had to bottle my emotions here. I had to act the part of Sergeant Major. I had to treat this case no differently than any other. I nodded, which was both an old habit and an involuntary agreement that it’s him, although the words I spoke were more careful.

  “Wait for forensics. Take it to the Inspector. And learn everything we can about the dead guy.”

  Charlie nodded, swept up the photos, and headed back out into the bullpen. At my door, he turned back and asked “You gonna tell Dani?”

  I shrugged to Charlie, but internally I had already been fighting the question. In fact, I’d wondered about it for years. If he ever comes back, what the hell do I tell Dani?

  And now I had to decide.

  2

  I got home earlier than usual. I still had my typical mountain of paperwork, but I guess I wanted to just get to her faster than usual. And I knew I had to tell her the truth, before the TV news got the details about the murder in that dry cleaner’s. That’s where the murder had been, not in a store like I had thought. The poor guy had been behind the counter at his dry cleaning business when he was shot. The first shot, point-blank with a 9mm hollow point killed him. The bullet shattered on its way through his skull and the shards cut though his brain. The next two shots had been fired after he was posed on the floor, but before the pennies were placed on the eyes.

  The pennies were the last stage of the ritual.

  Savala was back. The details lined up, details we’d never told the press. Things that never went public because there was never a trial. Things no copycat could know. The type of ammunition. The pennies. Heads up. It was him. It was Savala.

  Dani was home before me. She was usually home first, but then I was usually working late. She was at the table, opening the mail, her long black hair in a loose ponytail down her back. When I came into the kitchen, I went to her right away, bending down to wrap my arms around her, pressing my cheek to hers. She smelled like she always did. Like Dani.

  She leaned her head against mine for a moment. “You’re home early,” she said with perky approval.

  “I know.” I stood up, drifting away.

  “What’s up? Did something go wrong,” she turned, forehead scrunching, to face me, “you know, with the new job? Did you screw up or something?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I said. I had been nervous about the promotion, but the job was what I had expected. “You want wine? I’m having wine.”

  I pulled the fridge open and grabbed the bottle of good, cheap red that we bought so often it we called it our ‘house red.’

  “No, I’m…” she stopped when she saw that I was already pouring two glasses. I hadn’t thought about it, I guess I just knew she’d need it.

  “What’s up,” she asked again.

  I came back with two glasses and sat down at the table, placing the glasses between us.

  “There was a murder today.”

  I’m a homicide detective. Have been since we were dating. She’s lived with me through my entire tenure in the homicide department, and she knew I had dealt with hundreds of cases, and I never brought the work home with me. I didn’t discuss it at home. Ever. So as soon as I spoke those words, my wife’s face turned pale and she reached for the wine, although she didn’t drink it right away.

  “Was it…” she wasn’t sure what to ask. Wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask. I understood.

  “It followed a pattern…” I stammered a bit, “I think it’s Savala.”

  Her eyes were wet now, just about to overflow into tears, but she kept her face still and drank a sip of wine. When she tipped her head down to the glass, the tears flowed down her cheeks. She had a short sip of the wine, and brought her eyes back to mine.

  “But we… you… he’s not going to…” She couldn’t handle this. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. It broke my heart to see her so distraught. She looked was like she had five years earlier, when things were at their worst. Hell, she’d been having little breakdowns as recently as two years ago, and right now she looked like I might have just triggered a new one. But then she said something that told me that maybe telling her the truth had been the right call. Words that sent a chill up my back, but were somehow reassuring all the same.

  “You’re going to catch the bastard, right?”

  I nodded, and unlike the nod to Charlie earlier, this one was deliberate. Her question had sent chills up my spine because I think my mind was already made up, and she had read my mind before I had truly even formed the thought. I most-definitely-effing-was going to catch the bastard.

  We slept apart that night. We started out in the same bed, but at around midnight, she got up silently and slipped away. We had been through this before, hundreds of nights, and I knew to just let her go. She slept on the couch, curled up in a ball.

  3

  The next day around one in the afternoon, Charlie Weingart came into my office. This time he knocked quietly on the wall, a look of quiet concern on his face.

  “What is it, Charlie?” I asked.

  “Sorry Andy,” he said, “I don’t know who told him, but Mike Hudkins is downstairs stinkin’ drunk and wanting to see you.”

  Jesus, Mike Hudkins. I didn’t know who had told him, either. But I knew immediately that I should have been the one to call him. In my concern for Dani, I hadn’t even thought about Mike. I sighed and stood up.

  “I guess I’m taking my lunch break.”

  4

  Downstairs, Mike Hudkins was indeed stinkin’ drunk. A former detective, my superior in fact, Mike now spent most of his time as drunk as possible. He was always a big, tall man, but now he stooped, hunched his shoulders in. His gut was twice the size it had been when he was a cop, and his clothes didn’t quite fit him anymore. He had been watching the door, knowing which hallway I’d come from, and he stormed straight at me the moment he laid eyes on me.

  “You fuckin’ prick,” he spat, his words assaulting my nostrils with the sweet and sour aroma of apricot brandy. “You don’t fuckin’ call
to tell me he’s back and now I can’t even come up to your office to talk about this?”

  Once I was fully through the door and into the lobby of the station, he grabbed me by the jacket. I shook my head to the nearest uniformed officer, who was about to step in.

  “Come on, Mike,” I said. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

  He berated me with insults as he stumbled down the block, following me. We were going to Dugan’s, a sports bar that was also a cop bar because of its proximity to the precinct. They knew Mike there, knew what he’d been through. As wasted as he was, Dugan’s was probably the only bar in town that would serve him.

  We sat in the corner, and before we even made it to the table I waved to Coop behind the bar and ordered two brews. I continued to ignore Mike’s curse-laden questions until the drinks were served and we were alone again.

  “Sorry, Mike. I should have called ya last night.”

  “You should have called me from the crime scene.”

  “I’m in an office now. I wasn’t even at the crime scene.”

  “Shoulda called.” He drank his beer.

  “And I’m sorry. I guess I forgot.”

  “Forgot. Some fucking partner.” He barely lifted his lips from the glass, so when he spoke little bits of foam floated at me. “I didn’t forget. Fuckin’ wish I could. I wish I could forget it all. How the hell can he come back and you don’t tell me? I gotta hear it from Dr. Bridges?”

  Bridges was the coroner, and he’d known Mike for several years longer than I had.

  “Sorry. I guess I was just thinking about Dani.”

  Mike nodded, accepting the answer. But his poison bitterness still spilled out. “Dani. The wife who that maniac didn’t kill.”

  5

  Seven years earlier, the local mafia made the mistake of promoting a brash young thug. They protected him, they let him think he was untouchable, and they sent him to kill for them. And Alex Savala liked killing. He took to blood like a fish took to water: dove in and breathed the stuff.

  We had ten murders from the same guy that first year. Ten we knew of. We’re pretty sure he only adopted the practice of posing the bodies like they were in a funeral after the first few kills were behind him. Same with the signature triple-tap. Most mob executions were the same: one in the chest, one in the head. But this guy was more specific. He’d do whatever he needed to get you on the floor, but once he had you, he always put three shots, close range, into the forehead.

  And finally, he adopted the thing with the eyes. In ancient times, you put two coins on a dead man’s eyes to keep them closed. The coins were to pay the boatman to get you across the River Styx. But our killer, Savala, he probably didn’t even know that. He was an eighth grade dropout who probably heard about coins on eyes in a movie somewhere and decided to try it. So he used pennies on wide-open eyes, replacing the victims’ natural eye colour with the copper of the pennies. And starting from the very first time, he always made sure to put the coins heads up.

  The second year, we found another nineteen bodies posed like that. You’d think the mob would want to hide the bodies, but from interrogations over the years we learned that they liked the fact that anyone who screwed with them could end up in a terrifying effed-up funeral pose. Also, and this is my own hunch, I think the bosses were scared to tell Savala to stop.

  Mike and I had drawn the case. I was new to the homicide division; he had been around for a while. We got along well enough, but it’s not like we were best friends. He had become my partner only a couple months before my wedding, but I arranged spots for him and his wife Mary Beth even though the guest list had been filled months before. You were supposed to invite you partner to things like that, right? Even a new partner you barely knew who was fifteen years your senior. Because that’s what partners do.

  It wasn’t too hard to narrow our sights to Savala. Most of the victims were known to have problems with the Italian Families, and Savala was their most shameless, most aggressive and by-far-youngest made man. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any evidence.

  He always wore gloves. The hollow-point bullets shattered, so even if we found Savala’s gun we probably wouldn’t get a forensic match. And he always found a way to attack his targets when no one was around, so there were no witnesses.

  He was a contradiction. We could stake the guy out all night, listening and observing as he got loud and drunk, shouting and challenging anyone around him. He had a big, loud personality. But the kills were carried out by someone patient, someone quiet. This killer could sneak into a house or a business and wait for hours for the perfect opportunity to strike. He always got them when they were alone, and he always had enough time to pose the bodies before anyone came along. He must have used a suppresser on the gun, since the shots never drew attention.

  It seemed for a while like maybe it wasn’t Savala after all, maybe we were too busy looking at the obvious suspect and it was blinding us from the real killer. And then Mike and the forensics guys came up with an idea.

  One of the victims had half of an intact bullet in his brain. And piecing together shards, if we could figure out which shard went with which bullet, might allow us to actually try for a forensic match. But we needed a gun to compare it to.

  The warrant gave us leave to search Savala’s house. It was a big place in the suburbs, well away from where he did his killing. We knew he had a girlfriend, but we were surprised that she was home. Savala was out of town when we executed the search, and our surveillance said there hadn’t been movement in the house for days.

  She was on meth, and we hadn’t noticed her because she’d been so busy smoking her entire stash. She’d been smoking for days without sleep and was so paranoid that she was sitting by the window with a rifle before we even showed up. The sight of all the cops coming at her house, in that state of mind, was a nightmare come true. She opened fire before we got the door.

  6

  I ordered a water for myself and another beer for Mike. I didn’t bother with food.

  “How’s Dani doing? Coping with it?” He asked, still holding the empty glass while he waited for the fresh one.

  “Better than you,” I said, and immediately regretted it. I had wanted to break the tension a bit, lighten the mood. But in the circumstances, that was just inappropriate. “She had some real trouble, you know that. But the therapy worked really well and for the last little while things have been good. I guess this news will stir it all up.”

  We paused as Coop brought us drinks.

  “She’ll be better once I get him. We’ll be better.”

  “Catch him? You can’t go after him.” Mike sounded offended.

  “What do you—“

  “You stay the hell away from this one. You saw what he did to her, to us, the first time. You go after Savala and you’ll lose. Everything. I came to tell you to stay the fuck away.”

  “Mike…”

  “Look at me. I’m a depressed old drunk. I know it. I even look down the barrel of my gun sometimes.” My eyes widened, but he waved a hand as if to say it’s not like I was serious. He kept talking, “…and it’s because of Savala. It’s because of that maniac and what he did to Mary Beth. You got lucky. Daniela got lucky. Stay the fuck away for this or you won’t be lucky next time.”

  7

  The girlfriend was shot three times, but survived. Two of the shots hit her in the right arm, but the one that counted went into her head. It went into her brain, in the lower brain, the really vital stuff. They got the bullets out, and the one in her head had come from one of the uniformed officers who was with us, a kid named Clayton Lout. But all six of us: myself, Mike, and all four uniforms, had discharged our weapons at the front window when she opened fire on us. It was blind luck that Lout’s bullet was the one that hit her brain.

  It made the news, and in the paper the next day only Mike and myself were named, I suppose since we were the detectives in charge. Alex Savala read that paper.

  8

  My pho
ne rang. It was Charlie.

  “Bad news, Andy,” he said as soon as I picked up. “There’s another one. He got Clayton Lout.”

  I told Mike I had to go, and left a twenty on the table. It was enough to cover and drinks and then some, and I knew that Mike would stay there until it was all spent. Before I got to the door, he shouted at me.

  “Don’t get into this. Stay away from it!”

  I left my old partner to drink away another afternoon, and went to look at a dead former cop.

  Lout hadn’t lasted long as a cop. The shooting happened early in his career, and putting a stoned, hundred-pound nineteen-year-old girl into a coma had spooked him. Pretty soon he was missing shifts or taking easier duties. Nobody was hard on him, we understood. So when he quit to work for his dad’s contracting company, we avoided the subject and wished him well. That was almost five years ago.

  Now he was dead in an unfinished apartment with pennies on his eyes. He had been waiting to let a plumber in. Waiting alone in a place with no witnesses. Savala was good at this.

  Lout’d been off the force for so long. Nobody had thought to warn him.

  After I saw Lout with my own eyes, saw the exact recreation of a Savala crime scene, I pulled out my phone to call Dani.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “I’m at work,” she said, already sounding upset. It was a combination of frustrated and flustered, like she was in a barely-contained panic. It knew the tone well. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  “Stay at work until I come get you, OK. Don’t go home alone.”

  Home alone. Where it had happened.

  9

  That night Dani screamed at me. It was the same as it had been before. The same as the bouts of anger that sometimes came up in the years after Savala’s rampage. Sometimes she retreated into herself, curling under a blanket in silence, other times she cried, blaming herself. And sometimes she took it out on me.

  The marriage had been hard for a time, but the last two years had been better. We were together for a long time before the wedding, and had a nice newlywed stage before Savala came along. We were one of those cute couples, always holding hands. Even our names were cute together. Dani and Andy; Andy and Dani; Anny N’ Dandy. But after Savala, that ended. There was the turmoil, the therapy, the work. But we stuck it out, both of us, and now that it was all coming apart again I wondered if we could ever really last, if we would ever be Daniandandy again.

  I could pass the penny-murder case off on Charlie and his partner Gord. I could stay out of it