by Randy Alcorn
I stared at the intruder, seeing nothing but eyes. My hand rested uneasily on my revolver.
Suddenly the cloud of disorientation lifted. I recognized the sympathetic eyes of Mike Hammer, my bullmastiff, who spends his nights getting in and out of my bed, licking my toes to reassure me he’s back.
I slowly drew my hand back from the gun, not wanting to send the wrong message to my bullie.
What was wrong with me? How could I forget Mike Hammer, my roommate? I shuddered, remembering the time five years ago that I drew the gun on Sharon when she came back to bed.
The problem with morning is that it comes before my first cup of coffee. I stumbled toward the kitchen, stubbing my toe on the exercise bike Sharon gave me. I’ve used it twice in four years. I keep it around to maintain the illusion that it’s making me healthy. This helps me justify the next cheeseburger, which means it’s worth every penny she paid.
As firemen keep their boots at bedside, I keep water in my top-of-the-line Mr. Coffee, poured to the seven-cup mark, with Starbucks French roast always waiting. I load the filter almost to the top, in a quest for maximum blackness. Whether it’s 7:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m., I can throw the switch and console myself that even if the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, coffee’s brewing…so there’s hope.
I did what I always do: lean against the fridge and pull the pot off the burner every few ounces to get whatever’s there—like a nomad gathering drinking water from leaves in the desert. I’d mainline it if I could. I was trying to remember whether I’d had three hours of sleep or two.
I put Mike Hammer—I call him Mulch for short—out the back door to do his business. Every morning he acts like it’s his first time, and me letting him out is the privilege he’s been waiting for all his life.
After two minutes outside, and six more ounces of coffee for me, Mulch blew open the door to get his biscuit. I walked from Mr. Coffee to the bathroom and put my face two inches from the shower head. I let it pummel me into a paradigm shift: that instead of dreaming I was awake, maybe I really was awake. Maybe this was the real world and I had a job to do.
Presumably I dressed, then poured the last of the coffee into my thirty-ounce mug. After taking a few more gulps, I said good-bye to two of my favorite people—Mulch and Mr. Coffee. Mulch licked my face. I wiped off Mulch slobber with a paper towel and tossed it at the sink, coming up short. I slowly shut the front door, watching Mulch tear apart the paper towel—his reward whenever I miss. I told him, “You’re in charge while I’m gone, okay?” He loves it when I say that.
Legs heavy as sandbags, I negotiated the slick walkway like a polar bear on ice. I made it to my white Ford Taurus and dropped into the driver’s seat.
I kicked aside a Big Gulp cup and a Burger King bag. The smell of fries tempted me, but knowing my habits (a good detective does), I realized the bag had to be empty. I must have been on a stakeout the night before. Or maybe a couple of nights before. Eventually, I’d remember.
You should not assume I was actually conscious while all this was going on. A detective establishes his routine so he can do it in his sleep. You wake up on the way, a little more each stoplight. By the time you really need consciousness, it’s usually there. You just hope it doesn’t arrive at the scene very long after you do.
It was dripping cold, so I drew the window half down to double-team with the coffee, fast-tracking my wake-up. Every few blocks I stuck my face out—I learned this from Mulch—gulping a quick fix of wet oxygen. Then I pulled in my frozen face and warmed it with the coffee. It’s sort of a ritual, like those Scandahoovian men who go back and forth from ice baths to saunas.
The December Portland morning, almost uninhabited, smelled of frosty rain on asphalt. It reminded me of the five years I worked night shift on the beat. One year I never saw daylight between November and February. From what I heard, I didn’t miss much.
When you’re homicide, on the “up team”—on call for the next murder—getting yanked from the netherworld in the middle of the night comes with the territory. (It’s the only thing easier now than it was when Sharon was alive; at least now I don’t have to worry about her worrying about me.)
Occasionally other people don’t understand that what I’m doing is more important than what they’re doing. That morning, headed to the Jimmy Ross murder scene, I was driving on Burnside next to the light-rail tracks, where there’s only one lane. The guy in front of me—in only the fourth car I’d seen—just sat there in his low-riding Acura Integra, figuring that since it was 3:23 a.m., he could roll down his window and talk to some moron standing on the curb, even after the light turned green.
I honked the horn. Nothing. My Taurus is a slick-top, unmarked, which is usually handy, but in this case not.
I honked again. Then I reached to my right and typed in the license number on my Mobile Data Computer. I honked the horn a third time.
The guy charged out of his car, yelling and swearing. When he got two feet from my window, I pulled out my Glock 19 and pointed it at his face.
“Get back in your car and move it out of my way. Now.”
For a moment he froze, with the fixated expression of a man wetting his pants. He scuttled back to his car sideways, like a crab, and hopped in, banging his head on the door frame. He turned his key with a garbage-disposal grind, forgetting he’d left the car running. He screeched through the light that by now had turned red.
I flipped on my flashing red and blue grill-mounted strobe lights, giving myself a free pass through the intersection. He pulled over to the right. A name popped up on my computer screen. As I passed the guy, I lowered my passenger window and shouted, “Have a nice day, Nathan Roberts!”
Okay, maybe when he first approached my car I should have identified myself as a cop. But many people assume that if you are a cop, you won’t shoot them. I did not want Nathan to labor under this assumption.
Having been a cop for thirty years, I find that you can get most of what you want with a kind word. But sometimes you can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun.
“Foley?” I spoke into the car phone. “Chandler. Homicide. On my way. 2229 Burnside, right? Apartment complex?”
“Right. Greenbridge Arms. We’re on third floor, four doors left off elevator. Room 34’s sealed. My partner’s notifying neighbors that we’re here. A lot of them heard the shots. We’ve got one possible witness.”
“Be there in five.”
When I was a street cop, I always told people on my beat that I’d give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ll look the other way if you jaywalk or tear the tag off your mattress. But if you mess with me, you’ll regret it. I’d always say, “Messin’ with me is like wearin’ cheese underwear down rat alley.”
When I’m on the up team, anybody who kills somebody does it on my watch. That means they’re messin’ with me. And wearing cheese underwear.
I pulled up to the Greenbridge Arms, studying the shadowy outline of the four-story brick building. I pulled up next to one of three patrol cars, in a no parking zone.
A van labeled KAGN was parked illegally—meaning it was doing one of the few things cops can do, but media aren’t supposed to.
Four people approached me like autograph hounds. One was armed with notepad and pen, with a partner alongside carrying a professional still camera. The other team brandished video camera and microphone.
“Detective Chandler?”
They know me by name. With a few exceptions, I make it a point not to know theirs.
“What can you tell us, Detective?” The Oregon Tribune reporter had her notepad out, all ready to scribble.
“Nothing. If you check your notes, you’ll see I just arrived.”
“They’re denying us entrance to the apartments.”
“Good for them.” This was standard procedure, but they can never get over how outrageous it is that they aren’t allowed to trample over a crime scene.
“We’ve been told the victim’s name is Jimmy Ross,
in apartment 34. Is that correct?”
“There’s a victim? Really? Is he hurt?” I knew they’d been eavesdropping on police radio. Apparently someone had slipped up and said the victim’s name.
“Just confirm the identity. Is his name Jimmy Ross?”
“No comment.”
“We called two of his neighbors and they said that it was Jimmy Ross. Could you confirm that it’s Jimmy Ross?”
“If I knew his name, why would I tell you?”
“What’s the harm? We heard it on the radio. We just want you to confirm it.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“We’re just doing our job.”
“You’re getting in the way of me doing my job. Monitor your own calls.”
“The police don’t own the air waves. Your job is to serve the public interest. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“The public deserves to know what’s going on.”
I turned away just as her cameraman took a photo. He grabbed the sleeve of my trench coat. I yanked it back from him.
I turned toward him, and his camera flash did that dagger thing in my eyes.
“Out of my face, bozo!”
That moment I saw the red light of a television news camera right behind him. In my mind’s eye I saw the images of my anger management class from two years ago, which I swore I would never subject myself to again. Like a dog zapped by a shock collar, I restrained my bark.
I smiled and waved to the camera and said, “I want to thank you newspaper and TV folks for showing your support by coming to our little crime scene. God bless you, every one. I only wish I had time for tea and cookies. But we have a crime to solve, and people’s lives to protect, so if it’s not inconvenient for you, I’ll be going up to the crime scene now. Enjoy.”
The Tribune and TV reporters and their cameramen followed me to the front door of the apartments, where Officer Brandon Gentry opened the door for me. Gently, but firmly, he positioned himself in front of them, backed in and closed the door. He and I nodded at each other, two professionals trying to beat off the vultures. I wondered if he too had been to anger management class. I signed his log sheet and wrote down the time.
The TV photographer opened the front door and did a sweep with his video. As I stepped in the elevator, I said, “Officer Gentry, there’s a van illegally parked out there. I think it has the letters KAGN on it. Would you be so kind as to write a parking violation?”
The door closed and I tried not to ponder how the media, especially the Tribune, had been my judge, jury, and nearly my executioner fifteen years before. I needed to switch gears to the job at hand. At least I was awake now.
The elevator was old, with a bad case of asthma. As I got out on the third floor, I popped a stick of Blackjack gum in my mouth.
I headed up the hall to the left and saw a cop, maybe twenty-five, poised like a jackal guarding the tomb of a pharaoh.
“Foley?”
He nodded, too eagerly. Academy written all over him, Officer Foley exuded a Secret Service alertness. I thought, If he lives long enough, eventually it’ll give way to the fear of dying on duty and leaving behind young kids and the wife he’ll promise to never forsake. Eagerness to jump into the middle of a dangerous situation is inversely proportionate to your age. Twenty years ago I was chasing armed fugitives down back alleys, by myself. Now my first thought is to call for SWAT teams, armored cars, helicopters, guided missiles, or stealth bombers, whatever’s available.
As a Vietnam vet, to me having a guy watch my back means everything. Officer Foley was also protecting my crime scene from intruders. So he was my new best friend. We might never have a drink together, but we were closer already than I am to most of my neighbors and half my family.
Entering apartment 34, I stepped from hallway to crime scene. There he was, sprawled out in a classic death pose—Jimmy Ross, two shots to the head. Physical evidence all over the place, with a bonus: a sealed Ziploc bag of ecstasy, and a half-spilled bag of meth.
While I was taking a mental photograph of my first view of the scene, Foley’s partner poked his head in. He introduced me to the apartment manager, who assured me Ross lived alone. No wife, live-in girlfriend, brother, cousin, friend, or boarder. Foley confirmed that the neighbors agreed, but said there was a lot of coming and going. The manager appeared shocked, as if he never suspected one of his renters was a drug dealer.
Since most murders are done by family, that’s where you look first. Domestic arguments normally begin in the living room, where there are few available weapons. Then they migrate to the kitchen, where there are many available weapons, or the bedroom, where there’s often a gun, which has a way of ending arguments. This argument, if there was one, had stayed right in the living room. There was no sign the killer had been anywhere else in the house—only between the door and the body. It didn’t fit the domestic-murder profile. It had been an outsider.
Foley told me the paramedic who’d come twenty minutes ago had pronounced Jimmy Ross dead. I looked at what used to be him. Yeah. He was definitely dead.
The medical examiner, Carlton Bowers—who I’d seen at a dozen other homicides—showed up ten minutes after I did. Most MEs ask you to call them when you want the body removed, after the crime scene’s been cleaned and detailed, and photographs have been taken. So unless time of death is a big unknown, the ME may not arrive until three or four hours later. But not Carlton Bowers. Every time I’d worked with him, he’d come immediately.
Bowers was a number two pencil, head as pink and bald as an eraser. He had a nicely fitted suit, but a poorly fitted face. His pointy chin wasn’t a good match for his pale bloated cheeks. He looked like there’d been too much chlorine in his gene pool.
I gazed down at my Wal-Mart jacket, over my flannel shirt spotted with yesterday’s Tabasco sauce. I considered my rumpled slacks, pockets likely containing Tuesday’s Taco Bell receipt, and possibly a packet of hot sauce. Then I looked again at the ME’s tailored suit.
“Tuxedo at the dry cleaner’s?” I asked him.
His smile came quick and left quicker. I’d have preferred no smile at all. This guy wanted to be home watching Quincy reruns. I wanted to be home sleeping it off, or if not, seeing Jack Bauer interrogate an uncooperative terrorist.
“Blood spattered here,” he pointed to the wall. “Isn’t that interesting?”
I nodded, though it really wasn’t. Furthermore, he was the ME, not one of the CSI techs, who report to me and quietly do their jobs collecting evidence, not interpreting it. The ME’s specialty is the state of the body itself, cause of death and time of death.
“Probable cause of death was gunshots to the head,” he said slowly, as if he had drawn on years of training to come up with this. Never mind that any kindergartner on Ritalin could have told me the same.
“Another splatter here. Don’t you find that interesting?”
“Isn’t that what you would expect with two head shots at close range?” I asked.
“Perhaps. Still, it’s interesting, don’t you think?”
“About as interesting as last month’s cricket scores.”
It was a full five minutes before he used the word interesting again.
Two CSI guys, one dressed in his forensic bunny suit, arrived. One vacuumed, while the other followed carefully behind him taking pictures. They collected blood samples, carpet fibers, and anything that might contain DNA fragments. I was making a sketch of the scene with my pencil on yellow pad, thinking that Picasso might have liked my sketches better than I like his. I supplemented my sketch with photos on my digital camera.
“Chandler?” The loud voice startled the ME. My partner, Manny Rodriquez, wiry and short and snippy, barged in the door.
“You look terrible,” he said. “I mean, worse than usual.”
Manny is grumpy at 10:00 a.m. At 3:40 a.m. the difference isn’t noticeable.
“What have we got?” he asked.
&nb
sp; “It’s interesting,” I said, eying the ME.
Manny and I spent ten minutes discussing the one thing that really was interesting—the small bloodstains by the door that weren’t splattered from the victim. By then the ME declared Ross had probably died one to two hours ago. Good estimate, since the gunshot ninety minutes ago had woken up most of the apartment complex.
After CSI went over Ross’s cell phone, I looked through all the names in its directory. I jotted down the numbers of the last five incoming and outgoing calls. I checked his messages, then had Manny listen to all four of them. He contacted two of the callers, on a middle-of-the-night fishing expedition. Meanwhile, I talked with the sort-of witness in apartment 36.
She’d been taking a walk at 2:30 a.m., up and down the hallway.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I had rats in my legs.” She gave a detailed description of a tall guy with lots of hair and red sweatpants who’d been in the hallway five minutes before she heard the shot. He’d scared her. She pretended not to look at him and walked back to her room.
Within twenty minutes, Manny and I determined it was a case of drug dealer blown away by a competitor, probably over a turf dispute. We found one of the bullets embedded in the floor, probably the second shot. Apparently the other bullet hadn’t exited. Fingerprints with blood traces were on the doorknob and the table. I called headquarters to see if we could get the lab to do a rush on the three good fingerprints collected.
About the only things missing were the killer’s name, Social Security number, Blockbuster card, and a confession written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror.
Murder is never convenient. But solving a murder is sometimes routine. This one had routine written all over it.
While Manny canvassed the apartments, knocking on doors, waking up the select few who hadn’t heard the gunshot or had fallen back asleep, I went to the end of the hallway and stepped outside on an old fire escape. I opened my mouth wide, gulping air, tasting life, trying to wrest myself from the death grip squeezing the room of Jimmy Ross.
It seemed so easy. Fingerprints and DNA and a good description?