The Assailant
Page 8
Mickey said, “No, Tiki’s serious. I saw him on Letterman the other night, he said he was hurting too much. He’s retiring . . . yeah, fucking pussy . . . shit, someone’s at the door. Let me call you back.”
Mickey Crawford opened the door, the cell phone still in his hand. He saw two men in sport coats and ties, civilian outfits, but right away he knew they were cops.
The smaller one held up his identification. “Mr. Crawford?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m Detective Murphy. This is Detective Rhodes. We’d like to speak to you.”
“What about?”
“It’s nothing too serious,” Murph said. “Can we come in?”
When he said this, he made his body language and his expression unthreatening. Detective Rhodes stood back a step. They could have been two men working for a local church.
“Sure,” Mickey said. He stood back and let them come in.
Mickey was aware of the mess in his living room. He wished he had gotten dressed earlier. He wished he had taken a shower. He wished he knew what these guys wanted. Without meaning to, he heard himself apologizing for the clutter.
Murph said, “Hey, you should see my house. You married, Mr. Crawford?”
“Uh, yeah. My wife’s in Kansas City. With the baby.”
“How many children you have?”
“Just the one. She’s two and a half.” Mickey Crawford smiled and looked at Detective Rhodes. Rhodes didn’t say anything.
Murph said, “So how do you like living in Creve Coeur?”
“It’s okay. I guess. We bought the house about a year after we got married.”
“And your wife’s out of town.”
“Yes.” Mickey felt alarm then.
“So,” Murph said, “what were you doing at the Thunderbird Motel last night?”
“What?”
“The Thunderbird Motel,” Rhodes said, speaking for the first time. “What were you doing there?”
“I—I was here last night.”
Murph sighed, like he was disappointed. He looked at Rhodes, as if to say, This one’s going to be difficult. He said, “Mickey. We know you were there. Your car was there. We know.”
Rhodes said, “Why don’t we sit down. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this.”
Mickey gathered himself. Squaring his shoulders, he said, “There is. I wasn’t there.”
Murph sighed again and gave Rhodes another look. He said, “I guess we’ll have to take him downtown.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“And if we do that, it’s going to become, well, a public matter.”
Rhodes said, “Son, we’re not your daddies. Or your priest. Just tell us what you were doing there.”
“Oh, God,” Mickey said. “Oh, no. I—I wasn’t, I didn’t . . . I was there to meet a friend.”
Murph took a seat on the couch. He made a gesture to Mickey, who sat down on the chair nearby.
Murph said, “Who?”
Rhodes remained on his feet. He drifted about the room, looking and observing.
Mickey said, “A woman.”
“Who?”
“Her name is—well, do you have to know her name?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Her name is Estelle. She’s just a friend.”
“What’s her last name?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know her last name?”
“No. I know it seems weird, but, oh, God.” His chin was quivering now.
Murph glanced over his shoulder at Rhodes, who was walking out of the living room, toward the back of the house.
Before Mickey could say anything, Murph said, “Was she an escort?”
“Yes.” Mickey’s voice was on the verge of a sob.
“Tell me what happened.”
And now Mickey did sob. He said, “We met, we met, I don’t know, a few months ago. I called a number in the Yellow Pages and she met with me. And we, you know, met. That’s all.”
“You had a relationship with her.”
“Yes.”
Murph shrugged. No big deal. “A friendship.”
“Yes.”
“ ’Cause you get lonely?”
“Yeah. My wife . . . we don’t.” He paused. “We don’t, not since the baby.”
“I understand. Man, you’re not the first. So you made friends with Estelle.”
“Yes.”
“And you would meet with her?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know. Once every three weeks or so.”
“At the Thunderbird?”
“Yeah, usually.”
“And you met her last night?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I mean, I was supposed to. What happened was, I was supposed to meet her. I called and made an appointment to—oh God, an appointment. If my wife—”
“Your wife’s not here,” Murph said. “Tell me what happened before she gets back.”
“I got there at around eleven. We were supposed to meet at midnight. But I got there before she did. I wanted to watch a game on ESPN. A college football game. And I thought I’d watch it at the motel while I waited for her.”
“Why not just watch it here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.”
“I—wait, I do know. I wanted to watch it at the motel because I was afraid if I watched it here, I’d fall asleep. And that’s what happened at the motel. I was lying on the bed, watching the game, and I fell asleep. I don’t usually stay up past ten.”
“What game were you watching?”
“Northwestern–Wisconsin.”
“When did you fall asleep?”
“I don’t know. It must have been before twelve.”
“Did she come?”
“If she did, I didn’t hear her. I was asleep.”
“You fell asleep. Then what happened?”
“I woke up. Around three o’clock or so. I was still in my clothes. And I didn’t want to stay there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s depressing being in a motel alone. You miss your family.”
Detective Murphy nodded. He saw no irony in this. “You left then?”
“Yes.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“What if the motel manager says that you checked out at seven A.M.?”
“Then he’s lying. Or he’s mistaken. I left at three. And I didn’t check out. I just left.” Mickey straightened up, intuiting something now. “What’s this about, anyway?”
“We’ll get to that,” Murph said. “You left at three and then what?”
“I came home.”
“Can anyone back you up on that?”
“No. My wife’s out of town.” Mickey looked over his shoulder. The other detective was no longer there. Mickey said, “What happened?”
“Mr. Crawford, Estelle is dead.”
“Oh, God. Oh my God. What—”
“She was strangled to death. In the motel parking lot. Didn’t you know?”
“No. God, no. You don’t think I—”
“I don’t know yet. Would you be willing to take a polygraph?”
“A lie detector test? Yeah, I’d take one. I swear to you, I didn’t, I didn’t even know. Oh God. My wife . . .” He was crying now. Slumping in his chair.
Detective Rhodes returned from the back of the house. He looked at Murph and shook his head.
______
Later, Mickey Crawford was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and a ball cap. He sat in the front seat of the Impala with Rhodes. Talking with Rhodes, who he had decided was less threatening than the other cop.
Murph stood at a distance from the car, holding his cell phone. He said, “Yeah, we’ve set up a polygraph downtown. He’s agreed to do it. He’s agreed to give us fingerprints too. He’s cooperating.”
Hastings said, “What do
you think?”
“Well,” Murph said, “I guess it’s possible, but I don’t think it’s him. We’ll know more later.”
Hastings said, “How could he leave the motel and not see her?”
“He says he didn’t see her. Says his car was parked right in front of his room. Said he didn’t see her car. Where was it, by the way?”
“It was on the other side of the parking lot,” Hastings said. “It’s possible he didn’t see her.”
“DNA tests will show if he was with her that night.”
“Right. But even if he didn’t have sex with her that night, it doesn’t necessarily clear him. He says he never even saw her that night?”
“That’s what he says. The physical evidence will confirm that. And he is cooperating with us on that score.”
Hastings said, “Maybe he thinks he can outsmart us. Outsmart the tests.”
“Ah, he doesn’t strike me as that type, George. Again, we’ll see what the tests show, the polygraph and things. He doesn’t strike me as a turd. Or a lying psychopath.”
“What, then?”
“I think he’s a guy who’s probably all right. Marriage is a little dull, his wife won’t fuck him, and he got lonely for a woman. He pretended that this girl cared about him. He didn’t ask much from her.”
“Can he account for his whereabouts the night before?”
“Friday night?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, you mean the other girl. Yeah, I asked him about that. He said he was home with his wife, and they had another couple over for dinner.”
“And you’re going to check that out?”
“Yeah. We got their names and number.”
“Okay, Murph. Well, keep me posted. Oh, listen, Wulf is worried about this shit getting in the press. Serial-killer scare and all that. So be careful about reporters, will you?”
“I will, George. But,” Murph said, “it’s probably what we’re dealing with, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, probably. I’ll see you.”
SIXTEEN
Hastings clicked off the cell phone and walked over to the county detective. Escobar, Hastings thought. He had heard someone call the man “Eff.” Right. Short for Efrain.
Efrain Escobar leaned up against a Ford Crown Victoria, sipping a cup of coffee. Watching all the technicians at work, the brass gathering around and asking questions.
Hastings said, “Have you guys sent someone to question her pimp yet?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t we do it?”
“Now?”
“Yeah. You know where to find him, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
Hastings shrugged. “It’s your county. I’d just be riding along.”
“Right,” Escobar said, smiling.
•
They went in Escobar’s Ford. A white slickback, no lights on top, but all the police-car goodies inside. This included a keyboard computer extending from the dashboard, standard on most county-police vehicles. Escobar would pull things up on the screen and make calls from his cell phone, and still drive all the while. Hastings sat in the passenger seat. Within a few minutes of communicating with the screen and dispatch on the radio, Detective Escobar decided that Roland Gent was likely to be at a certain address in North County.
Hastings said, “You think we’ll need backup?”
“You don’t know Roland, do you?”
“No.”
“He’s a shitbird. I remember when I used to do code enforcement, we ran into him then. That was a couple of years ago.”
“Code enforcement?”
“Yeah. Metro do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, to shut down crackhouses. You go into a crackhouse, it’s hard to prove a criminal case of intent to distribute. Nobody knows anything. Lot of these guys, they’re living in grandma’s house. She comes from a different generation. A better one. Now, grandpa’s dead and buried, and grandma has all these grandkids and great-grandkids, teenagers without jobs or education, and they’re all living in the house. Not just them, but their friends.” Escobar shrugged. It was a common dilemma. He said, “Violent, fucked up, trouble. Grandma, there’s not much she can do about it. She can’t control them. The neighbors, they want these places shut down. So, code enforcement teams up with county police and we’d go in and say, Ma’am, you’ve got about a dozen beds or mattresses in your basement. That’s too many people. A violation of county ordinance. We threaten to shut down the house.”
“Condemn it,” Hastings said.
“Yeah, but it never goes that far. Once grandma gets notice of the violation, she moves the turds out. In fact, she’s relieved we’re doing it.”
“Right,” Hastings said.
“ ’Cause now she can blame the police for pushing them out. She can tell ’em, Look, it’s not my fault. It’s the police. And then they move out and she’s relieved and the neighbors are relieved. It’s a very effective program.”
“And the guys go set up a crackhouse somewhere else.”
Escobar shrugged again. “Yeah. Probably. But not in that neighborhood. You ever work narcotics?”
“No.”
“It’s a people-moving business. You’re not going to end the war on drugs, you just need to move it. And people want it moved, George. They want it away from them. And it’s not just the white communities that feel that way.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Anyway,” Escobar said, “I remember we went to one house, and we were just talking to the owner and there’s really not any conflict about it. She lets us in to examine the home and everything’s going fine, and then we come out and there were about a dozen people on the front lawn. Oh, shit. What the fuck is this about? And there’s Roland Gent at the front of the pack. He’s in front of his boys now, and he wants to show off. Jack off. He was pointing to us, saying, ‘What’s your name? What’s your badge number?’ That sort of shit. And we told him he needed to step away.”
“Did he?”
“Oh yeah. He was just a big mouth.”
“Anything bad happen?”
“No. We faced him and the rest of them backed off.”
“Did you call for backup?”
“No,” Escobar said. “We probably should have, though.”
•
Escobar called for a backup this time, and it got there at about the same time they did. Two uniformed county deputies in a radio car. Escobar introduced them to the homicide detective from St. Louis metro. They agreed that the uniformed patrol officers would do a perimeter search of the front and back of the premises but remain outside for the time being.
The house was a one-story ranch style with a two-car garage. One of the patrol officers came from the backyard and gave the detectives a signal, and Escobar knocked on the front door.
A girl of an uncertain age opened it. Maybe fourteen, but no more than seventeen.
“Yeah?”
Escobar said, “County police, miss. We’re here to see Roland.”
“He ain’t here.”
“No?” Escobar said. He stepped forward. “Can I see?” He made it sound like a question.
The girl stepped back and opened the door. And then they were in.
A black man of about thirty was sitting on a couch in the next room. He was in the glare of a big-screen television. There was another girl sitting next to him. When she saw the policemen, she got off the couch and moved to the kitchen.
Roland Gent sighed. “Man,” he said. “Ain’t you got no respect for privacy?”
“Sorry, Roland,” Escobar said. “We’ve got some bad news for you.”
He gave them his penitentiary stare. “What?”
“One of your girls was killed last night.”
“Who?”
“Adele Sayers.”
After a moment, he said, “Estelle?”
“Yeah.”
“You shitting me?”
“No
. She’s dead, Roland.” Escobar’s expression hardened then. “Why don’t you stand up.”
Roland Gent did so. And Hastings thought it was funny, the policeman’s reaction. Escobar didn’t think much of Roland Gent, but he wanted the man to show respect for a lady.
Roland said, “What happened?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Man, I didn’t—you know I didn’t.”
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t kill her. I don’t—I didn’t . . . What happened? Where is she?”
Escobar said, “Where were you last night? Where have you been?”
“I was out. I mean out.”
“Where?”
“At a club. North Side. Man, you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, I haven’t even seen Estelle in, like, two months. I swear.”
“Yeah?”
“She wanted to go her own way. And that was fine with me.”
“Fine with you? You let your ladies quit on you?”
“Man, they want to go, they go.”
Escobar said, “We think she was killed by someone she knew.”
“That may be so. But it ain’t me. I hear she joined some Internet service. I mean, she’s working on her own, for all I know.”
“What is it?”
“Huh?”
“The Internet service,” Escobar said. “What’s the name?”
“I don’t know.”
Escobar sighed. “Roland, I think you’re lying.”
Roland Gent frowned, shifted his body, and said, “You arresting me, or what? I’m thinking you’re not. Not because I didn’t do nothing, which I didn’t, but because you know you don’t have enough to hang it on me.”
Escobar said, “What if I told you we found your prints inside her car?”
Roland Gent smiled. “I’d say you’re blowing smoke up my ass. And now I know it.” He seemed to feel better now, like a card-player who’s just seen his opponent’s tell. Roland said, “She drive a Camaro or TransAm, right? Right? I know because I remember when she got it. And I know I’ve never been in it. What’s the game here, huh? Dead white girl and you want to hang it on a black man, right? Put it on the television so people feel better? Times change, huh. Can’t beat a nigger into confessing a crime he didn’t commit, so you try to con him instead.”