Deception

by Randy Alcorn

  “My way is to do my job. I expect you to do yours.”

  Guerino started to talk. Dorsey tugged him out the door.

  “You were hard on them,” Clarence said.

  I’d forgotten he was in the room. “Now you’re defending cops? Make up your mind.”

  “They were trying to protect someone.”

  “Someone wearing a ski mask.” I felt my fist hit the table. “Compromised crime scenes drive me crazy. Gawkers come through, neighbors, passersby. Footprints and fingerprints and dirt falling off pant legs and fibers from uniforms … you know what that does?”

  “It irritates you.”

  “You still don’t get it. Why would two men in a fight, right in front of police officers, both be wearing ski masks? Nobody pulls a knife when cops are standing across the street. The ski mask guys were putting on an act.”

  He pondered it a moment before the light turned on. “To distract the cops and pull them from the crime scene?”

  “Exactly. And then what happened?”

  “The cops chased one guy.”

  “And what did the so-called victim do?”

  Clarence whistled softly. “Walk across the street and enter Palatine’s house?” He opened his notebook computer and started typing.

  “So,” I said, “do we have two killers or one? Was the second guy his accomplice for the murder, too? Had the killer left something at the crime scene? Or did he go back to plant something? Either way the scene was contaminated. He had to evacuate when patrol arrived, but he got back in long enough to do what he wanted. Whatever that was.”

  I threw down my pen and stretched back in the chair, moaning when a sharp pain went through my shoulder. While Clarence eyed me, I checked the bandage. The blood stain wasn’t too bad, and I didn’t feel like changing it again.

  “I need more manpower. Too much to check out.”

  “You could set another fire in an apartment,” Clarence said.

  “Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me.”

  “What would you think about using Ray Eagle?”

  “Ray’s great,” I said. “Best private detective I’ve worked with. But the department’s not going to pay him.”

  “He’ll do it for free.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I called this morning. He said business has been light. I told him if he volunteered, his name would make it into my articles, several times. It’s an opportunity to make a name for himself.”

  “Free advertising?”

  “Not exactly free. Like you said, he won’t get paid for his work. But it’ll buy him advertising.”

  I found Ray’s number in my Rolodex.

  “Ray? Ollie Chandler. How soon can you start?”

  He said he was ready to go.

  “How will the chief feel,” Clarence asked, “when he hears you’ve brought in a private investigator to do police work?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it.”

  24

  “Elementary. It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction.”

  SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE CROOKED MAN

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10

  BEFORE OUR MORNING WALK, Mulch emptied his half-gallon water bowl. Fully loaded, he was ready to reclaim the city. Mulch’s life consists of eating, playing, and sleeping. And while sleeping, he dreams of eating and playing.

  Not a bad life. I’ve considered trading straight across. Right now, with my aching shoulder, it seemed particularly appealing, though I’d never do that to Mike Hammer.

  Ever walked into a room and forgot what you came for? This is how dogs operate, except they aren’t frustrated by it. They just find something interesting in the room they’ve entered for reasons now forgotten. Considering all that’s happened in my life, a case could be made for a dog’s memory.

  Speaking of dogs, I spent most of the day like a dog chasing a parked car. I had nothing to show for it but a flat nose.

  “I wish we had the DNA results,” I told Abernathy as we sat in the Paradise Bakery in Pioneer Place, at Fifth and Morrison. “Palatine’s blood could be mixed with the murderer’s for all we know. The killer’s saliva could be on the beer bottles. We might have collected all the proof that first night.”

  “What’s the holdup on those tests?” Clarence asked. “It’s been three weeks.”

  “Three weeks? That would be a record for DNA evidence. We could only wish.”

  “I’ve got another article due tomorrow. You won’t let me say much more about the case—talk to me about DNA evidence.”

  “If we get a DNA match, it’s definitive,” I said, sounding brilliant. “There’s a one in ten billion chance of one person’s DNA matching another’s. Chances of winning a fifty-million-dollar lottery are way better. Takes a lot more than chemicals and plastic impressions to fake DNA.”

  “So the rate of solved cases has gone way up, right?”

  “That should be happening, but we didn’t even start our DNA database until 1992. There’s a bunch of criminals we have no DNA for. They can’t get flagged because they’re not in the database. Then there’s this ridiculous wait for results.”

  “How long?”

  “Guess.”

  “More than three weeks, obviously. A month?”

  “Try three to four months.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “While waiting, we’re supposed to keep building our case. Fine, unless we’re building it against the wrong guy! I spent three months building my case against a woman. Then the DNA samples we’d collected two hours after the murder ended up proving it was a guy who wasn’t even on our radar screen. The temptation is to wait and see so you’re not wasting your time. But if there’s no match, it’s a cold case. Lieutenant says 20 percent of the findings absolve the primary suspects, whether it’s homicides or burglaries or gas station holdups. You wait three months to discover you’ve focused on the wrong people.”

  “And if not for the DNA you might have put them away?”

  “If a jury thought the evidence was persuasive.”

  “So you’re telling me those blood samples from Palatine’s house are just sitting at the crime lab?”

  “Blood, saliva, you name it, sitting there waiting. And that’s not the only backlog. Since 2001 they’ve required DNA samples of all convicted felons to be entered into the database. Over seventy thousand have been entered, but last I heard we had more than twenty thousand DNA sample cards waiting to be processed.”

  “What’s stopping it?”

  “Funny you should ask. The Oregon Tribune.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Remember how the Trib advocated police budget cuts? Back in 2003 we cut the state’s forensic staff from 135 to 50 people. Far more samples, far more work to do, and fewer and fewer workers to do it.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s your job to know. Why haven’t you investigated it? Every time cops do something wrong, you tell everybody the juicy details, including false ones.”

  “The concern is citizen safety. The police department has had its problems.”

  “Wouldn’t citizens be safer if we didn’t have to wait three months to get violent criminals off the streets?”

  “Can I quote you on that?”

  “You can quote me as saying that, by defending police budget cuts, the Tribune is responsible for deaths, rapes, and robberies that wouldn’t have happened if we’d had data entered sooner.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  “You don’t have to agree. Just quote me.”

  “It’s … unnecessarily accusatory.”

  “In other words, the Trib can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”

  “Look, I’m just trying to inform people. People love this investigation stuff. We can capitalize on the popularity of CSI
.”

  “CSI is television magic,” I said, downing my milk, which I’d rationed perfectly to cover my last bite of an apple fritter. (If you don’t gauge it right, you have to get more milk or another fritter.) “They take in a sample and ten minutes later, or an hour, or a day, they have results. In the real world, we wait a hundred days. With enough people, everything could be processed in two days. Go over to Clackamas crime lab headquarters and check out the high-tech gear. They can turn molecular evidence into digital data, then put it into a database. But staff’s so limited, it takes forever.”

  “You’re saying it could get done in two days instead of a hundred?”

  “And you know what burns me? If the killer’s a detective, he knows how long this takes. He probably didn’t leave DNA evidence at the scene, but even if he did, it drives me bonkers that he knows he’s safe for another two months!”

  At three thirty Clarence and I needed to surface for air, so we met Jake in Terry Schrunk Plaza, a block from the Justice Center and three from the Tribune. It was sunny but chilly, so we talked as we walked.

  A man had been beaten up yesterday and was in critical condition. I pointed to chalk marks on the pavement and blood residue. “I still say there’s no way a good God allows this kind of evil and suffering.” I wasn’t going to let them worm out of it.

  “What are your favorite movies?” Jake said.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Braveheart. Gladiator. Saving Private Ryan. Schindler’s List. Amistad. Air Force One. Stallone and Norris movies in Vietnam. Twelve O’Clock High. The Shootist and everything else with John Wayne. Star Wars. Lord of the Rings.”

  “Okay, good. Now think about the qualities of the characters you admire in each of those movies. What are they?”

  Cold wind made me catch my breath. “Courage. Heroism. Sacrifice. Justice.”

  “And compassion, mercy, love?”

  “Those are good too.”

  “These are the same things you admire in people in real life, right?”

  “So?”

  “So think about it. Would you ever have been able to see courage without danger? Or heroism without desperate situations? Compassion without suffering? Justice without injustice? Sacrifice without a need?”

  I shrugged.

  “The virtues of good people inspire us. And in the movies you named, just like in real life, we wouldn’t see those virtues if not for evil or suffering.”

  “I guess that’s one way to look at it, but it’s a terrible price to pay, isn’t it?” I pointed back to the crime scene.

  “So, if you could snap your fingers and remove all evil and suffering that’s ever existed, would you?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, if we did, there’d be no Helen Keller, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, or William Wilberforce.”

  “Who’s Sojourner Truth? Or Harriet Tubman?”

  Clarence turned and gave me a look. Suddenly I had a good idea.

  “And think about Jesus,” Jake said. “How would we know the extent of His love and grace if there’d never been evil and suffering?” He put his hand on my shoulder as we walked. “Don’t you think it’s inconsistent to say on the one hand that all these virtues that surface in the face of evil and suffering are good, then claim there’s no way a good God could allow evil and suffering?”

  I shook my head. “When people maim and kill each other, it throws a switch inside me. I do what I can to bring justice now. God seems to wait around a lot.”

  “He says He waits and withholds judgment to give us time to repent and get our lives right with Him,” Jake said. “Justice has been restrained. What you’re mad at God about—that He’s been withholding judgment—is what’s kept us all alive, giving us opportunity to repent and accept His grace.”

  “Isaiah says,” Clarence added, “that God will bring justice ‘like a pent-up flood.’ He’s not going to wait forever.”

  “That time should have come by now,” I said.

  Jake stopped in the middle of the plaza, so I stopped too. He looked at me and said, “And if it would have, where would you be?”

  I sat at my desk, reading the Tribune again. It was getting to be a habit. Pretty soon I’d need a support group.

  I have to give Clarence credit for his article. Not only did he write about the backup at the crime lab; he called on citizens to raise funds to help us catch up. He proposed fund-raising dinners and car washes. He even suggested a bumper sticker: “Support your police crime lab,” and he said he’d put one on his own car. I called a novelty shop to get one made for him.

  My neck tensed when I saw Karl Baylor coming my way.

  “Hi, Ollie. How are you?” His thick fingers looked like pork sausages, pressed together. When I shook his protruding hand it was a pliable lump.

  “I need to talk to you about the moider.”

  Detective Baylor grew up in New York before moving to Oregon when he was in high school. I don’t know the difference between Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. All I know is that Baylor never says “murder”; he says “moider.” This wouldn’t be annoying if he were an accountant. But when you’re a homicide detective, you use the word, what, three times a minute? Hearing “moider” 180 times an hour can drive you bonkers. Which I believe is also near Brooklyn.

  “I’ve heard you think it’s one of us,” he said.

  “That committed the moider?”

  He nodded. Baylor has a reddish face that’s big and broad, with insufficient features to fill it. I keep thinking something’s missing, but when I count eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, they’re all there.

  He smiled broadly. It irritated me. Baylor lives under the curse of self-imposed merriment. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to put up with it.

  “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” he said in an auctioneer’s voice, pointing out through the windows to the blue sky overlooking Portland. “Doesn’t it just make you want to thank God for His goodness?”

  “No.”

  Someone needs to tell Baylor it’s not smart to talk like this to people who are strung tight at three hours of sleep, drink eight cups of coffee a day, and carry loaded weapons.

  “You don’t like me, do you?” Baylor asked.

  The truth is, I disliked him from the first time I saw him, with that toothy televangelist smile and Christian paraphernalia in his cubicle. I feel guilty enough. I don’t need large-print Bible verses screaming at me every time I walk by his workstation.

  “Look, Detective, I’m all for jolliness. I manage a respectable amount myself. But when someone acts jolly because they think they’re supposed to, it bugs me. I know you want to spread your happiness. But it would make some of us happier if you’d keep it to yourself.”

  He stepped toward me, leaning forward. Baylor’s a personal space invader and has the kind of breath no mint can cure. He carries a tin of jiggling Altoids; thousands have perished in vain.

  “I’m sorry I bother you,” Baylor said.

  “Look, nobody from New York is supposed to be happy. LA, okay. It may be drug-induced happy. It may be fake happy, but at least it’s … conceivable. But New Yorkers are supposed to be rude and sullen.” I paused. “Is Cimmatoni from New York?”

  “Pittsburgh. You want me to act like Cimmatoni?”

  “It’s a start.”

  He smiled ear to ear. I wanted to deck him.

  “What are you after, Detective?” I asked.

  “I just wanted to let you know that people are getting concerned. They’re … wondering if it’s true you think one of us was involved in the Palatine moider.”

  “Tell them to come talk to me, would you?”

  “Good idea,” Baylor said. “God bless you.”

  “And you too, Tiny Tim. God bless us, every one.”

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 9:00 A.M.

  Ho
micide was decorated for Christmas, tree and all. An elf had been busy last night. But thanks to the killer and me, the prevalent spirit wasn’t the spirit of Christmas.

  I arrived ten minutes early for the detective meeting and sat at a far corner of the conference room thinking of Kendra’s visit the night before. I was sure I’d done everything right. I’d hidden the meat at the back of the freezer behind extra-large Costco-size bags of carrots, peas, and string beans, enough to feed a vegetarian army.

  For an hour straight we’d been getting along without noticing it. But the moment I did notice, it all fell apart. In my relationship with my daughter, I am Wile E. Coyote, who can blissfully run ten feet beyond the cliff’s edge … but only until he notices.

  It was 10:15 when, out of the blue, Kendra declared that condoms should be distributed in schools to prevent diseases and pregnancies. So I said yeah, and how about we use the same strategy to solve the problem of battered women by handing out boxing gloves to abusive men.

  At 10:23 Kendra marched out the door, slamming it. Mulch hid under Sharon’s old hutch. My Wile E. Coyote face, succumbing to gravity, was plastered at the bottom of Father-Daughter Canyon. Somewhere in the distance I heard Road Runner’s beep-beep mocking me. Every fatherly device I’ve ever tried was made by Acme.

  “Settle in,” Sergeant Seymour said. I looked up to see a full room. The closest person was six feet from me.

  “First, we’re glad Ollie’s still with us.” Light applause followed—very light. Tommi and Karl. “We’re hoping it was a freak incident and it won’t happen again, but we’re encouraging him to be cautious. Meanwhile, everybody’s overworked and we’ve got to prioritize. I’ve asked Jack and Noel to help Karl and Tommi on the Frederick case. We’ve got more to work on there than with Dr. Hedstrom, which seems to have quickly dead-ended. I’ve got to keep Ollie and Manny on Palatine, so they’re out of the rotation for now. This is triage. It’s not ideal, but we’ve got to pull together and make it work.”

  “So why were we told to block off ninety minutes for a meeting?” Cimmatoni asked.