The Violence Beat

by JoAnna Carl

  The Salvation Army shelter was near Grantham’s downtown, in a down-and-out area where the people who need such a shelter would find it handy. It had a section for families, but the largest building was set aside for single men. Bear Bennington was pacing up and down on the sidewalk in front. He looked as cuddly as usual, plump and cheerful. His nickname refers to “Pooh Bear.” Or maybe Teddy.

  Inside, a shaky looking older man was sitting at a desk. I knew the Salvation Army, bless ’em, hires its own clients for simple jobs. This man was perfectly sober, but he had the look of a person who’s spent a long time drunk.

  “Hi,” I said. “Sure is a beautiful day. We’re from the Gazette. Is the director around? Mr. Cunningham?” I had made a note of the shelter director’s name while I was in the files.

  “Naw, he’s off this weekend.”

  “Hmmm. Are you in charge?”

  “Naw. Captain Eisner is. Want to speak to ’im?”

  I nodded, and he paged the officer.

  “Is Captain Eisner the one whose uniform disappeared?” I asked.

  The receptionist nodded and grinned. “He was pretty hot about it. Especially when they found the open window.”

  I widened my eyes. “They think somebody broke in?”

  “Naw. Out.”

  A door opened, and a young man poked his head around the edge. “Did you page me?”

  The old guy on the desk pointed at Bear and me. “Newspaper.”

  “Captain Eisner?” I walked over and stuck out a hand in a shaking position. “Nell Matthews, from the Gazette. We never ever heard of anybody stealing a Salvation Army uniform before! This may make the national wire. This is Bear Bennington, our photographer. Can we talk to you about it?”

  Eisner was a big man, maybe thirty. He had a block-shaped, German head and extremely blue eyes. He looked as if he could toss out an unruly shelter resident without breaking into a sweat. But his handshake was gentle, as if he’d learned to control his strength.

  He was wearing khaki slacks and a light blue shirt. He smiled ruefully. “I talked to the police. The whole thing is ridiculous. I feel like a complete fool. I hate the thought of publicity about it.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “I understand, but you all do such wonderful work here. Maybe this is an opportunity to let the public know a little more about it.” God, I can be sickeningly sweet when I try. And I’d just committed myself to writing something about the Salvation Army shelter. Which wasn’t even on my beat.

  Oh, well. Anything for a story.

  Eisner thawed a bit more and opened the door so that Bear and I could go inside.

  I grinned at him. “I take it you weren’t wearing the uniform when it was stolen.”

  He laughed. “No, but it’s nearly that embarrassing. It was hung across a chair by my bed. Somebody came by and took it.”

  “Was your door locked?”

  “There wasn’t any door. I was sleeping out in the dorm with the men.”

  “You mean that the commander is requiring that you officers take turns spending the night here, and you don’t even get a private room?”

  Eisner looked embarrassed. “That’s part of the deal. We’re supposed to be in with the people we serve. Of course, Elwood Cunningham, the shelter director, has a private apartment. He lives here. But the rest of us—well, we’re supposed to mix with the men. Eat dinner with them. Shoot a little pool or play Ping-Pong. Watch a movie or catch a TV show. Lights out at midnight.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I had no trouble sounding enthusiastic. The social worker who feels superior to the people he’s trying to help gives me a large pain.

  “Actually, what we do here is nothing special. That informal contact—well, lots of times the men respond to that when they won’t go near a worship service or a counseling session.” Eisner stared at the floor, looking almost ashamed, and shrugged. “That’s the reason we signed up with the Salvation Army.”

  “Can we see the dorm?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s empty now. Everybody has to get up at seven. The men can stay here free, but they have to help with the chores the next morning. They have to leave by ten.”

  “Then people don’t stay here during the day?”

  “No, we can’t allow that. They can’t just camp here. We’re open on a first-come, first-serve basis beginning at five P.M. every day.”

  Eisner led us through a large dining room, with maybe a dozen tables seating eight each, and down a hall. Large dorm rooms opened off each side. Each held fifteen or twenty narrow beds, lined up like an old-fashioned military barracks. He showed us the bed he had occupied, and Bear took his picture pointing to the empty spot where his uniform had been.

  “My wife had to bring me some clothes this morning,” he said. “My other uniform is at the cleaners, so I’ll have to wear civvies until tomorrow.”

  “I understand that a window was open this morning.”

  Eisner nodded. “Yes. A window off the dining room. The guy apparently got out that way.”

  “So you had a missing occupant this morning.”

  He nodded again.

  “So the police have a definite suspect?”

  Another nod. Eisner was looking at the floor again. “I shouldn’t have let him in in the first place. I’ll probably hear about it from Major.” He looked up. “Major Smith, our commander.”

  I nodded encouragingly, and he went on.

  “See, the shelter director was off last night. I was in charge. We usually don’t let anybody in after eight p.m. But this guy pounded on the door just before midnight. Said he’d just gotten in town, didn’t have money for a motel. He was hitchhiking. Needed a place where he could take a shower, because he’d been promised a job today, and he wanted to show up looking nice.”

  “A good story.”

  “I bought it. And we had the room. So I let him in. But he was the one missing this morning.”

  “Who was he? I’m sure he gave you a name.”

  Eisner stared at the floor again. “I didn’t pay much attention to it last night, you know. There were more than sixty men here.”

  “But the name would be a real lead. What was it?”

  “The police laughed,” he said. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to. The final name on the register is ‘Jesse James.’”

  Chapter 9

  I didn’t laugh. The “Jesse James” might have been funny if the interloper had been a college kid playing a prank. But someone who took a Salvation Army uniform to use as an entree to a secure mental health facility so he could commit murder—it didn’t strike me as too amusing.

  I asked a few more questions. “Jesse James” had been male, caucasian, maybe around forty or fifty, Captain Eisner said. A thin sort, fairly tall, his brown or black hair combed back slickly. Dirty shirt, wrinkled pants that drooped. Grimy nails. Smelled a little beery, but not drunk. Looked as if he’d hitchhiked clear across the country looking for a job, which was the story he’d told Eisner.

  Would Eisner recognize him again? The Salvation Army officer grimaced. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. If I saw the tattoo.”

  “Tattoo? Where? What did it look like.”

  “It was on his arm. Right arm. No, on the left. A dragon. And he had the initials ‘J.J.’ on the two middle fingers of his left hand.”

  That seemed to be the end of Captain Eisner’s knowledge of the affair of the missing uniform. The police hadn’t talked to him about the link with Bo Jenkins’s death, and I didn’t enlighten him. They hadn’t yet checked for fingerprints either, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t find any.

  Bear and I were driving off in our respective vehicles when Captain Hammond pulled in. I waved. He shook his fist at me. I stopped, and we each rolled down a window.

  Hammond glared. “Did that dumb PIO girl tell you to come here?”

  “
Absolutely not, Captain. And she didn’t strike me as dumb. Inexperienced, maybe.”

  “Then how did you—”

  “Hey! Give me a little credit for deductive ability! I knew Bo had been staying at the Salvation Army shelter. And I knew—because it was on the scanner—that a uniform had been stolen here. You were all so antsy I figured it was a possibility that somebody got into that closed unit. The only person I could imagine doing that was a family member—not a strong possibility with Bo—or a minister. And who’d suspect the Salvation Army? Don’t worry, I didn’t tell the guy here about Bo’s death.”

  Hammond rolled his eyes. “We’re gonna issue a statement at three P.M. at Central Station, and you’re not getting any information until then,” he said. He gestured with his thumb. “Hit the road.”

  I grinned at him. “Yes, sir, Captain Hammond. Sir.”

  He shook his head, but he grinned back. Hammond and I spar around, but we respect each other.

  I drove on, suddenly aware that a glass of orange juice, half a piece of toast, an interrupted necking session, and a dose of adrenaline don’t make a very big breakfast. I was starving. But there was plenty of time for lunch before the briefing. I wondered if Mike was getting any. Lunch.

  I pulled into a handy MacDonald’s, bought a quarter-pounder with cheese and organized my notes while I ate it. I wanted to be prepared for the press briefing. The session on Bo’s death obviously was going to cancel the meeting Mike and I were supposed to have with the national television. I decided to go back to the office and write up what I’d found out from Captain Eisner. Then I’d be set for the briefing at three.

  * * *

  The infrequent press briefings of the Grantham Police Department are held in a room designed for departmental meetings. It has an overhead projector, a videotape player, and a fairly sophisticated hookup for sound recording. Compared to the layouts in Washington, New York or L.A.—the stuff you see on national television—it’s pretty informal.

  Coy-the-Cop set up the room after Guy Unitas had left the job as public information officer and Coy stepped in. As one of Irish Svenson’s protegés, Coy had held a variety of jobs in his law enforcement career—patrolman, of course, and then detective. He’d been in traffic control for a while. At one time he had worked vice, and he was supposed to have been the best undercover cop the Grantham PD had ever had, according to Guy. He had been a captain and supposedly in line to become one of the three division commanders when Guy suddenly left and Irish Svenson plunked Coy into the PIO slot, with an office right next door to his own. After Wolf Jameson took over as chief, he reappointed Coy PIO, and the new chief relied on him even more than Irish had—or so I heard. This put Coy in a unique position to influence not only the news that came out of the GPD, but also the policies which made the news.

  Coy and I bumped heads on a regular basis, but I respected him. He had a very good grasp of just what a PIO’s function should be, at least from a reporter’s viewpoint. He answered phone calls promptly, he provided the facts, and he didn’t play favorites among the reporters and the news media. And he kept himself in the background.

  If there’s anybody a reporter hates, it’s a guy who’s not in authority, but who acts as if he is. Coy never fell into this trap. He rarely appeared on camera. Instead, he trotted out a department head or detective to speak. Of course, Coy coached the spokesman thoroughly. But at least we could speak to the real source, which pleased the press. This also kept Coy’s fellow police officers happy, since they’re human and like seeing their names in the paper as much as any society matron likes seeing her’s there.

  Chuck had come in to work, and he and I both went over the press briefing. Bear took a spot along the sidelines, where he could shoot some pictures. Ace Anderson, the Associated Press jerk, sat down beside me. There was going to be plenty of copy to go around on this one. We wouldn’t be fighting over who got to write it up. And this briefing was bound to be an odd deal.

  In journalism school they tell about the young reporter who was sent to cover a wedding, but came back and told his editor there was no story. “The groom didn’t show up,” he said.

  The people at the press briefing essentially were in that position. They’d come to cover one story, but wound up covering another. As I looked around the briefing I saw a bunch of strange faces among the familiar Grantham news crews. These faces belonged to out-of-town reporters, mostly television, who had come to attend the press conference Coy had called Mike about the previous evening. They had come prepared to get sound bites on the hostage situation of the day before. “Just how does it feel to have a loaded gun pointed at your right eye by a madman, Ms. Matthews?” “What emotions swept over you, Officer Svenson, when you realized Ms. Matthews had blundered onto the scene and become Mr. Jenkins’s second hostage?”

  But the death of Bo Jenkins had relegated that story to page 2D, to the bottom of the telecast. The new news was Bo’s death. Rumors of his death had already reached the press—not through me. TV guys know cops, too.

  Behind us, Chuck and I could hear fluffy-haired women and men wearing pancake makeup rapidly reformulating questions. To my delight, all the questions I could overhear were coming from the angle that Bo’s death was suicide.

  Chuck and I exchanged deadpan glances. Our scoop on “Jesse James” and the possibility of murder was intact, so far. Of course, it wouldn’t stay that way. I can pat my own back without dislocating my elbow, so I told myself that I had accomplished a slick piece of reporting by linking up the Salvation Army with Bo’s death. But Hammond was bound to reveal enough information at the briefing to allow the TV crews to understand the situation in time for their evening newscasts. My “scoop” wasn’t going to gain me a beat on the television. They’d be on the air at six P.M. that night, and we wouldn’t have a paper out until the state edition at ten P.M.

  Hammond came in then and went to the mike. Coy, Mike, and several others stood to one side of the platform. Mike looked the room over, scanning the twenty-five or so reporters and photographers who were there. His eyes stopped moving when he got to me, and he gave me a long look. Several of my internal organs went into spasms.

  “What are you grinning about?” Ace asked.

  I ducked my head and got my ballpoint out of my purse. “Quiet. Hammond’s going to start.”

  Hammond confirmed the rumor that Bo had been found dead in Grantham Mental Health Center, then gave a very general sketch of the death scene. Bo had been in a high-security cell, he had been under a suicide watch, and the cause of death was as yet unknown. Commander Coy Blakely, the Grantham Police Department’s public information officer, was handing out copies of the Grantham Mental Health Center’s guidelines on staff procedures for a suicide watch. The department would investigate the death thoroughly, as would the center, but right now they had no cause of death and refused to speculate on just what had happened. Then the questions began.

  “Was there any sign of injury?”

  No. No bleeding. No bruising. No broken bones.

  “Do you think Jenkins committed suicide?”

  Considering that he was publicly threatening suicide yesterday, it would seem to be a possibility.

  “How?”

  We don’t know.

  “Do you think it could have been natural causes? A heart attack, maybe?”

  That’s possible, of course. We don’t know.

  It went on and on. Chuck and I sat silently. I listened with half an ear, glancing over the suicide-watch guidelines. Finally, I held up my hand, and Hammond looked in my direction. “Nell.”

  I might not be able to get my story into print before the TV could get it on the air, but I couldn’t resist showing off. “Are you going to release an artist’s rendering of your suspect?”

  Hammond sighed deeply. “Yes, Nell, we’ll have it in about an hour. But suspect is too strong a word.”

  �
�Witness?”

  “Witness is better.”

  The assembled crowd murmured a little, and I admit Ace-the-Ass was the fastest on the uptake. He even jumped to his feet.

  “Witness? What witness? Captain Hammond, are you saying someone saw Bo die?”

  “No, we know that this person was not present at that time. Bo died after he left.”

  “After he left?” Ace thought ponderously. “Is this witness a member of the mental health center’s staff?”

  Hammond shook his head. By now the room was buzzing. “Nell jumped way ahead of me, Ace. Let’s back up.” He waited until the noise level dropped.

  “Around six A.M. this morning, a person—the witness we’re looking for—brought a toothbrush, underwear, and several other personal items to Bo Jenkins. The items were examined by the mental health center staff member on duty, and they appeared to be perfectly harmless. The person was allowed to speak to Bo—but only with the staff member present. One or two of the items were given to Bo.

  “We have no evidence that this person did anything which contributed to Jenkins’s death. But we don’t know who he was, and we’d like to talk to him.” He gestured toward Coy. “Commander Blakely will hand out a description, and I’d appreciate all of you helping to publicize it. As I said, the artist’s version will be ready in about an hour. The sketch artist is talking to the people who saw this witness now.”

  The room buzzed some more, and again Ace stood up. “Are you saying someone may have murdered Bo?”

  “I’m saying we haven’t ruled out any possibility,” Hammond said. “We don’t know a cause of death yet. We don’t know all the circumstances, so it could be homicide, suicide, or natural causes.”

  He gave a description of the missing “witness.” It was almost word-for-word what the Salvation Army captain had told me, so I figured he hadn’t gotten a very clear report from the mental health center staff member. It boiled down to a thin man, fiftyish, sort of tall, with dark hair. There are plenty around like that. Looking around the room I spotted a half dozen. Even Ace looked like that, though I’d never noticed that he had tattoos. Of course, every junior high kid knows about temporary tattoos. And writing initials on your fingers with ink.