by Randy Alcorn
“Oh, yeah, the Budweiser bottles at Palatine’s. If they ever run the DNA tests, guess whose saliva’s on the bottles?”
“Whose?”
“Yours. Took them right from your garage. Got ’em when I got the rope.”
“But it’s your saliva on the wineglasses.”
“Jack’s. Not mine. While Jack looked the place over, I said I’d wash the glasses. I washed mine with soap and water, and I wiped off Jack’s prints, but didn’t touch the rim of his glass and left wine residue in it. I’m sure his saliva traces are there. It’ll look like Jack celebrated with wine and you with Budweiser. True to form. Surprised they haven’t found your prints on the bottles yet. They will.”
He looked at the food in front of him, doing inventory. “Beef, mustard, onion, bread, butter, soda.”
“For the record, people from the Pacific Northwest don’t say soda. We say pop.”
“Thanks for pointing that out. It could trip me up.”
“It already did.”
“Yeah, and here we are, me with the gun and you looking up its barrel.” He pointed it at my face. “Who was it that tripped up?”
Donald’s cell rang. He listened, then said, “Good. See you then.”
He moved quickly now.
It’s a strange thing to be in a situation where your adrenaline is flowing like water through a fire hose but you have to appear relaxed.
Why hadn’t he killed me yet? Did he still think there was reasonable doubt on the other murders? I had to admit that the circumstantial evidence against him wasn’t absolute. He hadn’t confessed to the detectives. Sure, he bolted from the precinct, but innocent people have run when they believed they were being framed. His attorney could argue that in court. The planted fingerprints and 911 call made to sound like him could lead to reasonable doubt. Not to mention that I’d held out evidence against myself, which contaminated all evidence I’d presented against him. He hadn’t harmed me or Cimmatoni, though he could have. He didn’t even take our weapons. Girlfriends dying? It happens. Taking the identity of Noel Barrows would get him a hand slap, but it wasn’t that serious given his subsequent service to society.
Think like he’s thinking, I told myself. He wants it to be like the other murders. No proof that he did it. He just needs me to disappear. To get me to where he’ll dispose of my body. Then, in his worst-case scenario, if they find him someday, there’d be no proof he’d killed me or anyone else. He ran because he was framed. Yeah, that’s what he must be thinking. Which meant once we got in the car again, away from civilization, every mile would mean less hope of survival.
I turned slightly so he couldn’t see my left hand. I reached to my belt, where my pocketknife hung on the inside from its thin metal wire.
My cooperation had relaxed Donald’s guard. If I talked, maybe he wouldn’t realize I was doing something else.
“I remember when I first met Jack. He taught me how to …”
While I talked, I took the knife in my right hand and cut my left palm, deep. I cupped my hand to contain the pool of blood so it wasn’t dripping on the carpet yet. I walked toward the couch. A few drops landed on the carpet, but he didn’t notice. I sat on the couch, talking about Jack, my left hand still blocked from his view. I let the blood flow behind the cushion. I hung my hand over the side of the couch and wiped it into the fabric, then let it spill freely onto the carpet. Blood flowed to the end of my index finger and thumb, and I flicked it onto wall and curtain. All this time I droned on and on, keeping my body between him and my left hand.
While that hundred-watt bulb was blinding, it left the corners of the room shadowed, allowing me to make DNA deposits all over without being noticed.
While Noel finished packing food into plastic bags, I continued to talk about Jack. I walked toward the window.
“The blinds are down, Chandler. Nobody’s seeing you.”
I talked about a particular stakeout on a case that involved an orangutan. By now my blood had marked a chair, a bookcase, and several CD covers.
“They’re going to find your brother,” I said.
“He stuck around too long. When you said you saw me at Starbucks, I realized he had to get out of town, or we’d get tripped up. Fortunately you’re too stupid to figure out that it wasn’t me you saw.”
He stared, and I stood still. “You still don’t know why there’s no cop here, do you, Chandler? I called Rodney back to town when you searched my apartment. Ten minutes before we got here, he posed as the assistant manager and visited the officer right at my door.” Noel smiled. “He took the officer for a ride. He’s checking in with his sergeant regularly and saying everything’s okay.”
“And if he stops cooperating?”
“He’ll die.”
“Your brother’s a killer too?”
Noel laughed. “I’m the nice brother.”
Left hand behind me, smearing the wall by the stereo, I said, “Ask yourself what Jack would want you to do. Don’t you think you should turn yourself in?”
Picking up the two duffel bags, he froze. “What are you doing?”
He turned on a second light, then a third. He looked around the room at the bloodstains.
“Show me your hand. Your left hand!”
I squeezed it tight, then held it up, letting a nice bloody dribble fall on his cream-colored carpet. He grabbed a kitchen towel and threw it at me. “Wrap it up.”
“You can kill me, but they still have the case I built against you. And now my blood’s all over. You’ll never get it clean. It’s a killer’s worst nightmare—physical evidence everywhere, in your own home.”
He stared at the carpet, not seeing my right hand, which I raised at that moment and swiped across his left arm with my knife. It was a clean cut, good and bloody, though I missed the inside of his wrist, which I was going for. His blood hit the floor within seconds.
As he stepped back and grabbed his arm, clutching the gun awkwardly, I threw the knife at his face. It hit his cheek, the blade piercing his skin before it fell. I reached in my pocket then threw his golf ball at him. It bounced off his forehead with a loud thud. These things all happened with a couple of seconds, and now I charged him. But he backed up, his gun’s muzzle pointed at me, then suddenly stepped forward and I knew he would shoot. The gun was now six inches from the bridge of my nose.
“That’s two blood sources in the carpet, yours and mine,” I said. “Your house is going to scream, ‘Killer.’ And your face is going to have a nice scar. And a big bruise on your forehead.”
Granted, if he made it to the woods, it might just be squirrels and deer taking a second look at him. But it was a long way to the woods.
He pushed the gun to my forehead, pressing muzzle against thin flesh. As I stepped back, he kept coming, pushing it harder.
“I’ll kill you right here, right now.”
My cell phone, in his pocket, rang. He pulled it out, dropped it on the ground, and stomped on it.
“You make a good point, Chandler. Now that I know I’d have to face murder charges if I’m ever discovered—which I don’t plan to be—why should I risk taking you somewhere else to kill you? Who cares where your body ends up? Why not leave it right here? You just took away my only reason for not killing you here and now.”
It was a good point.
One I maybe should have thought of sooner.
66
“Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men …”
SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
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 p
lace 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 ca
n’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.