Soft Case (Book 1 of the John Keegan Mystery Series)

by John Misak

knew it, I was half done. My nerves were that shot. I pushed the drink forward, as if it not being close to me would stop me from drinking. Before I had the chance to consider another sip, I saw the door to the bar open, and Steve walked in. He was wearing his usual, a white oxford shirt, and a pair of khaki pants. He was also wearing sunglasses. He walked over to the bar without looking in my direction. I seized the opportunity to grab my pack of cigarettes, pull out the transmitter, and flip the switch.

  “Here we go,” I said, hoping Jacob heard me.

  I saw Steve go over to John, who pointed in my direction. I was actually surprised that John knew my name, but then again, there wasn’t anyone else in the place who was a cop. Steve strode, and I mean strode, over to me. He was smiling.

  “Detective Keegan,” he said, standing over me, “how nice to see you again.” I really couldn’t tell if he was being a wiseass, or if this was just his way.

  “Hello Steve, have a seat.”

  He looked at me, then sat down slowly.

  “Need a drink?”

  “I’ll take a vodka and seven,” he said.

  I flagged the waitress, who was staring at the television with John, and she walked over.

  “Get my friend here a vodka and seven, and I’ll take another as well.” I know I said I was going to watch the drinking, but I didn’t want Steve to think this was some sort of formal interrogation. I wanted him to relax. Things come out easier that way.

  The waitress walked away and got the drinks.

  “Thanks for coming down,” I said. “I’m sure this is the last place you want to be right now.”

  “I could think of others.” Steve seemed relaxed, and didn’t at all seem concerned about talking to me. “I’m not sure what it is you want to talk to me about.”

  “There’s a few things. It’s no big deal.”

  “How’s the case going?”

  There was a good question. “It’s going. We’ve got a few things we are working on, and I was hoping you could shed some light on a few things.”

  “No problem. You still don’t think he committed suicide?”

  “I can’t say. Why? You really think he did?”

  His expression changed. It was subtle, but I noticed it. It was hard to put a finger on what I saw from him, but the best I could do is say that he seemed to get deeper into thought.

  “Everything looks that way from my standpoint. I mean, I’m no detective, but all the signs point to that.”

  “Like what, that he had a fortune, was going into the career he really wanted, and he had a great wife?”

  “Well, no, not that. Just everything else. You know, the car, the way he was acting right before he died.”

  “Can you get into that a little further? That was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  The waitress came by, picked up my half-empty drink, and placed the other two down. Steve took his, drank a good bit of it, then put it down. I had a sip as well. He looked at me. I couldn’t tell for sure, but he seemed to be either hiding something, or trying to make me think some particular thing. What? I had no idea.

  “Let me put it to you like this. I knew the man pretty well. I wasn’t on a social level with him, of course, but I could tell when he was in a good mood or a bad mood. He had been in a bad mood for like two weeks before he died. He just didn’t seem like himself. He almost seemed depressed.”

  I tried to remember what story he had told me the first time we spoke, and I was pretty sure he had said something similar.

  “You think he was depressed enough to kill himself?”

  He acted like he thought about that for a second. I could tell it was only an act.

  “Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “Okay. So he was depressed, and depressed enough to kill himself. Then why would he drive his car all the way into the city, and then ram himself into an embankment? Why not take a bottle of pills, or, if he wanted to be really violent about it, take a gun to his head and blow his brains out? That would make a lot more sense that vehicular suicide, where the odds of survival are high.”

  “Hey, I’m just saying that I saw indications that make me think he might have actually killed himself. Why he did it the way he did, I have no idea.”

  “Right. You see, the way I look at it, suicide seems unlikely. I’m sure there is something more to this.”

  “There might be.”

  “What do you know of the business, Techdata?”

  “Honestly, not much. I took him there a few times, and I heard him on the phone, but I can’t say I know much about the whole thing.”

  “You know anything about his partner, Harold Chapman?”

  “A little. I met him a few times when he came to the house.”

  “In your opinion, how did they get along?”

  “You think Harold Chapman murdered him?” The question came as though he couldn’t believe I was thinking that. Like it was the most outlandish thing he had ever heard.

  “Anyone could have done it. Of course, the first step is to investigate the people closest to the victim.”

  “That guy doesn’t seem to have it in him,” Steve said. I didn’t know how well he knew the guy. He sounded like he knew him well. What that meant, I had no idea.

  “You’re saying, in your opinion, it’s impossible?”

  “I guess so. Like I said before, I’m no detective.”

  “Of course.” The mood had changed at the table. Steve had come in confident, almost completely comfortable talking to me. Now he had shifted a bit. I had him on the defensive, but to be honest, I had no idea what I said that did it.

  Steve had finished his drink, and I signaled to the waitress for another round. I was relaxed after the three drinks, and I didn’t have that nervous feeling I had earlier.

  “Okay, so you think Chapman is incapable?” I asked.

  “I do.”

  “What makes you think so? I mean, how well did you know him? How much contact did you have?”

  Steve shook his head. “It’s not like that. I can judge a guy by meeting him once. I never saw much of Chapman, but from what I did, he didn’t strike me as the type to have the innards to murder someone.”

  “Innards?” I asked.

  Steve pointed to his chest. “The heart,” he said.

  I decided to shift gears.“What do you know about marital problems between Mullins and his wife?”

  “Sondra?”

  “Yeah, unless he had another wife.”

  He didn’t laugh, but I was certain it wasn’t my problem with timing this time.

  “From what I knew, they got along fine.”

  That was a change. I seriously doubted that Steve didn’t notice they were having trouble, the way Sondra and Mullins’ mother had told me.

  “I understand there were major troubles between them over the years. Some of it even made the papers. Rumors of another man in Sondra’s wife, I think.”

  He didn’t say anything at first. He shifted in his seat.

  “I didn’t notice that they were having any trouble,” he said, ignoring the ‘other man’ comment. Interesting.

  It was time to get to the meat of this questioning. It was time to take a risk. The worst thing that could happen would be him getting up and walking away.

  “Listen, Steve, you’re lying to me. I’m not sure why, but I don’t appreciate it. I need the truth here.”

  He started to object, then he looked down.

  “I just don’t want to drag my former boss’ reputation through the mud, you know?”

  Sure he didn’t. “I understand, but please tell me what you know. You’re holding back. Please don’t do that.”

  “You’re not considering Sondra a suspect, are you? I mean, she was in the Bahamas and all.”

  So, there it was. He wanted to protect Sondra the whole time. Well, I couldn’t be certain, but it looked more and more that way. The only way I would find out would be to question him further about her.

  “I kn
ow that. I didn’t say I was considering her a suspect.”

  “Oh,” Steve said. “Sounded like you were.”

  “Not at all. Consider it my detective way of speaking. But it does help to know what sort of trouble they were having.”

  “You gonna keep this between us? I don’t want to see this all over the tabloids,” Steve said. “She’s been through enough.”

  “I understand. Of course that won’t happen. It’s between you and me,” I said.

  He took another swig from his drink. I wanted to light up a cigarette from the pack that was sitting in front of me, but I was afraid to do so. As long as the pack stayed there on the table, I wasn’t risking Steve seeing the device, or the switch accidentally going off. Not that Steve had told me anything I could use yet.

  “Okay, they were fighting constantly. As a matter of fact, that’s another reason why I think he committed suicide. He treated her bad. Well, I don’t mean that he was a bad husband, but he was always doubting her, always thinking she was cheating on him. They would fight about that all the time. I would try not to listen, you know, it was their business, but they screamed in front of us sometimes. It was mostly about that.”

  “How often did they fight?”

  “A lot, especially over the two weeks before he died. He was certain she was cheating on him.”

  “Did he say who?”

  “No, of course not. He was always making blind accusations. This was probably just another one.”

  I looked at my watch casually. I couldn’t be sure that the battery would last exactly an hour, and I had been talking to Steve for almost forty minutes. I needed to make my way to the bathroom, or hope he would do that.

  “Well, to be honest,” I said, “she is a piece of ass. I’d probably wonder about her like that