The Violence Beat

by JoAnna Carl

  “Just what is the background of this interview, Officer Svenson?”

  Mike started the motor. “Well, Shelly and I dated for six months or so when we were in high school. We broke up just after Christmas our junior year. By our senior year she was dating this guy she married, Rowdy Smith.”

  “Rowdy?”

  “I think his name is actually Rowell, or something like that. I knew him fairly well, because he was a right guard. We played football together all through junior high and high school. We weren’t really friends. Rowdy went on to college ball, played at Grantham State.”

  “You didn’t play college ball?”

  “No. I was sick of it by then. I wasn’t good enough for the really top programs—OU, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Texas. I didn’t see any point in playing for a smaller school.” He grinned at me. “I’d already had surgery on my knee once. I wasn’t willing to be a cripple for anything less than the Orange Bowl. And as a spoiled only child whose mom is a big-time real estate operator, I didn’t need the scholarship.”

  “But Rowdy played?”

  “A couple of years. I don’t think he ever finished college. Anyway, he’s an electrician now. Works with his dad. He and Shelly got married young. I think they’ve got good-sized kids.”

  Shelly and Rowdy and their good-sized kids lived in a brick home in a newish neighborhood. The trees in the yard were still scrawny, but some chrysanthemums flowered in a tub on the porch, and the flower bed had been planted with kale for the winter. A stub-nosed kid answered the door. When he saw us, he turned around and yelled, “They’re here!”

  He shoved the door open and motioned us inside ungraciously. “You’re supposed to go in the living room.”

  We followed him through a tiny entrance hall and into a living room furnished with a deep sectional in medium blue and two tub chairs covered in a mauve-and-blue floral. A plant stand was loaded with African violets of different colors, and a print of a dreamy garden scene was centered over the couch. I could hear the television set, but it was in a room behind the kitchen. Thank God. It’s really hard to interview someone with the television on.

  Mike and I sat on the sectional, and the kid sat on a hassock facing us. He had light brown hair and a pudgy, little-boy body, but he was nearly as tall as I was.

  He looked at Mike suspiciously. “You a cop?”

  “Right,” Mike answered. “You a student?”

  The kid ignored Mike’s question. “Are cops crookeder than crooks, or crooks crookeder than cops?”

  I could feel my eyes widen, but Mike didn’t seem to get upset. “What does your mom say?” he asked. “She’s worked with a lot of cops.”

  The kid shrugged. Mom’s opinion apparently didn’t count for much. “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

  “Let me think about that.” Mike’s jaw twitched, and I could see that the kid amused him. “I guess the worst thing I ever did was tell a lie.”

  He had obviously disappointed our young host. A lie was nothing in pug nose’s world. Then his eyes grew more hopeful. “What was the lie about?”

  “Well, back when I was a stupid teenager, I told the rest of the football players a story that wasn’t true about a girl I really liked. I’ve always been sorry.”

  A rumbling voice filled the room. “You didn’t think anybody believed you, did you?”

  “Rowdy!” Mike stood up, and he and a larger version of the stub-nosed kid performed some male bonding rituals. Shaking hands. Whacking each other on the shoulder. “You son-of-a-gun!” “You old buzzard!” I was a bit surprised at their enthusiasm. I’d had the idea Mike wasn’t looking forward to seeing Rowdy.

  By the time Rowdy had proudly admitted he had quite a paunch on him these days, Shelly came in. She ignored the guys and greeted me. I knew her immediately.

  “You work up in records,” I said.

  She nodded. “Yes, when Chief Jameson came in, I transferred up there. And you’re Nell Matthews. Mike said he was bringing his girlfriend, but he didn’t say who she was.”

  “We haven’t been dating long.” I knew I sounded awkward.

  Shelly was an attractive woman with dark hair and dark, expressive eyes. She was dressed in rose-colored pants and a loose, flowered shirt that almost matched the floral print of the chair she sat down in. She had a full-figured look, and Rowdy definitely looked like a lineman gone to seed.

  It took us ten minutes to get through the amenities. We met the other two kids—two plump little girls came in from the den—admired the African violets, and accepted refreshments. Beer for Mike and Rowdy. Iced tea for Shelly and me. We caught up on where I was from and how long Mike had been in Chicago and corresponding information on Shelly and Rowdy.

  Mike didn’t gossip too long. He turned to Shelly. “I’m sorry to bother you and Rowdy, but I’m trying to find out a couple of things about my dad’s affairs. And I’m sure nobody knows more about the last months of his life than you do.”

  Shelly picked at the hem of her shirt uneasily. “Just what do you want to know?”

  “Was he working on any special project?”

  “Not that he told me about. We’d gotten moved into the new Central Station about a year before, so he kept checking up on problems with that. You know, the kind of stuff that always comes up with a new building. Leaking around the skylights. Tile curled up in the men’s room.”

  Mike nodded. “I was thinking more about problems with the department. Or maybe even personal problems.”

  “Not that I can say.” Shelly stared into space. “Of course, the chief was under a lot of pressure.”

  “Pressure?”

  “From the city council. That jerk Harley Duke—” She shook her head.

  “Harley’s always a problem.”

  “But he was worse then. He was bringing up something about the PD at every city council meeting. But he refused to meet with your dad to discuss his complaints. It was just one nitpicking thing after another. It got to Irish. Or I guess that’s what was bothering him.”

  Mike didn’t reply. He simply looked at her expectantly. I’ve used that technique myself. Hardly anyone can face silence. They’ll start talking.

  Shelly was no exception. She picked at a fingernail, but she talked. “I don’t really know what was going on with your dad, Mike. He had always been the kindest, most cheerful, most polite man I’ve ever been around. But that last six or seven months, he was sort of hard to work for. One week—every night one week he stayed late and went through my personnel files. Messed them all up.”

  “Aren’t the files computerized?” I inserted that question.

  Shelly nodded. “Sure, the official records are—the forms. But there are always things that don’t fit the forms. Maybe somebody writes to complain about some officer. Believe me, that letter is floating around someplace, even if no official complaint ever goes on this record. I kept those files, Irish’s private personnel files.”

  “And he messed them up?”

  “They weren’t out of order. Just the papers in them were messed up. So I offered to help him. Kind of kidded him.” She leaned forward. “That’s the only time in the five years we worked together than Irish almost bit my head off.

  “But it wasn’t just me! He had a terrible fight with Chief Jameson the week before he died. Jameson was doing the preliminary budget, and he put in a ten-percent cut for training. Irish didn’t like that. He even had a battle with that old friend of his.”

  “Old friend?”

  Shelly nodded impatiently. “Yes. That security firm guy.”

  “Mickey O’Sullivan?” I could tell this was news to Mike.

  “Uh-huh. He and Irish used to get together for lunch every couple of weeks. Mr. O’Sullivan came by the office to set something up, and they had a battle over his scheduling of off-duty policemen.”

  Mike shook
his head. “Of course, he and Mickey went back so far that they weren’t always real tactful with each other. They got over it.”

  “Well, that day Mr. O’Sullivan walked out looking like fury! But you’re right, because Irish called him up that very afternoon and apologized.”

  She picked at her hem nervously one more time. “You know how those offices are set up. I could hear anything that went on in Irish’s office unless he actually closed his door.”

  Mike nodded, but he didn’t follow up on the question. So I did. “Did he do that a lot? Make an effort to speak privately?”

  Shelly turned her attention to me, but her eyes flickered back toward Mike. “Just when he held a meeting in there. Or when he talked to Mrs. Svenson. I always walked to his door to tell him she was on the line, then I closed it behind me.”

  Mike was still looking mystified.

  Then Shelly took a deep breath, planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped pleadingly.

  “Mike, you were in Chicago then. Did you know about the trouble between your parents? That they had separated?”

  Chapter 14

  There was a stunned silence, then Mike laughed.

  “That’s ridiculous, Shelly,” he said. “Where’d you get that idea?”

  Shelly looked angry. “I guess when your dad told me he’d moved out, I kind of got the drift.”

  “He told you that?”

  Shelly nodded. “Two days before he died, Chief Svenson went out to the Northside Station to discuss a personnel problem. He’d been gone about an hour when he had a call from the city manager about a meeting that night. I paged your dad. But he didn’t answer. So I figured he had his pager turned off while he and the division chief were talking. I kept trying. When he still wasn’t answering at five-thirty, I called him at home. Your mom”—she looked at Mike earnestly—“your mom has always been wonderful to me, Mike. But she was a little testy that time, kind of sharp. She said he wasn’t there, and I should page. So I did page again, in about twenty minutes, and that time he called in.

  “Before I went home the next day, I said something about being sorry I’d had to disturb Mrs. Svenson. I guess I was mad over the way she’d snapped at me. And your dad said he’d better tell me that they’d had a few problems, and he had moved out—temporarily.”

  “Moved out?” Mike sounded unbelieving.

  “I was—well, dismayed. Because your folks always seemed so happy. But Chief Svenson told me not to worry. He said he felt sure they would work things out.”

  Shelly blinked, hard, and swallowed. “Then that evening he called me at home and said he had to go out of town on personal business the next day, and he wasn’t taking his pager.” She produced a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. “That was the last time I talked to him.”

  Mike was sitting like a stone. So I spoke. “The chief didn’t tell you where he was going?”

  “No! He just said ‘personal business.’ He sounded kind of excited. A little happier than he’d been the day before.” Shelly looked at me and blinked again. “To tell the truth, I hoped he and Mrs. Svenson had made up. I hoped they were going to go someplace, have some fun.

  “When I heard about the wreck, Mike, my first thought was that you might have lost both your parents.”

  “No.” Mike smiled an icy smile. “I still have my mother.” He stood up. “Thanks for your time, Shelly.”

  He was barely civil as we said good-bye. He opened the door of the pickup and handed me in with a stiff politeness, but he had retreated behind a curtain of ice. The cab of the pickup was like a refrigerator, with the cold air provided by Mike’s new mood. He drove five miles without saying a word. I couldn’t think of anything to say either.

  We were crossing Grantham on one of its major east-west arteries, Liberty Boulevard. Mike was driving at exactly the speed required to make the lights, so we didn’t stop at all. The farther west we went, the snazzier the neighborhoods became. It was a dark night, and I wasn’t familiar with the area—not much to interest a crime reporter out that way. But when Mike swung off Liberty at an intersection marked by an artistic streetlight and a pair of imposing stone pillars marked TALL TREES, I knew where I was.

  “Mike! Where are you going?”

  “To my mom’s house.”

  “No!”

  He was still icy cold. “I’ve got to talk to her.”

  “Okay, you’ve got to talk to her. But I don’t. Your mom’s not going to discuss her marital problems in front of me. Or did you think I’d wait in the truck while the two of you had it out?” If I sounded mad, it’s because I was. “Think what you’re doing.”

  Mike said nothing, but he turned off the street into a parking area. The truck’s headlights showed a small pond and some benches, interspersed with pines and oaks. In Tall Trees, this was probably known as “the commons area.” Any place else it would be a small neighborhood park.

  Mike doused the truck’s lights and turned off the motor. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ve got to think what I’m doing.” He got out of the truck and walked away. As soon as my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, I followed.

  Mike was standing near the edge of the pond. He stooped and picked up something. Since he was under a pine tree, I assumed it was a pine cone. He hurled it into the pond, using a strong swing and a lot of follow-through. I could hear a faint splash as it hit the water. Then he picked up another pine cone and threw it.

  The wooden bench was more ornamental than comfortable, but I sat on it, watching Mike throw pine cones and anger into the pond. It was a clear and balmy evening, luckily, because I wasn’t wearing an outdoor jacket. The moon was almost full.

  After ten minutes or so, Mike seemed to run out of pine cones. He kicked the pine needles a couple of times, then sat beside me on the bench. I was afraid to touch him, and I still didn’t know what to say.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. It’s stupid, but I feel like the props have been knocked out from under the first thirty-two years of my life.”

  “When you’re calmer you’ll see that’s not true. Just because your parents were having trouble settling some problem—”

  “My parents always settled things.”

  “Always? Mike, every human relationship has problems. No two people agree all the time.”

  “Oh, sure, they disagreed. They’d yell sometimes, but they settled it. My dad was a big believer in the ‘never let the sun set on your anger’ bit.” He laughed bitterly. “When I was sixteen, I took my mom’s car without permission and bashed in the radiator. They couldn’t agree on what my punishment was to be. I heard them discussing my fate way after midnight—a lot of rumbles, and a roar or two—but they settled it before they went to bed. At the breakfast table I faced scrambled eggs and a united front.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah. So if this problem was so bad they couldn’t stay in the same house—”

  “But, Mike, your dad told Shelly it was temporary!”

  “Maybe. But, Nell, if my dad was killed—if his death wasn’t an accident—Mom might know something about why it happened. She may not even realized she knows something. I’ve got to find out what was going on in my dad’s life.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “But if your mother didn’t tell you voluntarily about the separation, she may not want to tell you at all.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t. I’ve known something was bothering her. It’s going to be tricky.” He stared at the moonlit scene. “Maybe I can use Mickey,” he said. “And it might help if you’re there.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about? I’m not going to your mother’s house.”

  “If Mickey had been on the scene before my dad died—” Mike stopped talking. He seemed to be thinking deeply.

  If
Mickey was on the scene? Mickey had been a friend of Mike’s parents for more than thirty years. What did Mike mean?

  I gasped as I realized he was referring to the romance, affair, relationship, whatever they called it, between his mother and Mickey O’Sullivan. Mike was already having trouble accepting his mother’s sexual attraction to a man other than his father, even now that she was a widow. If she’d been having an affair with Mickey before his dad died—well, Mike wasn’t going to like it. But I hadn’t heard any evidence that that was true.

  I gasped again. “Mike! You have no basis in the world for such speculation!”

  “They’re sure seeing a lot of each other now.”

  “Your dad’s been gone two years! Don’t jump—”

  But right at that moment, we both jumped. Because the beam of a spotlight hit us.

  We whirled toward the street in unison, like a sit-down drill team. The light was blinding.

  “Damn,” Mike said, “it’s the security patrol. Mickey’s got the contract for this subdivision.”

  “Maybe it’s someone you know.”

  “Not likely. Mickey staffs this area with full-timers,” he said.

  A bulky figure loomed against the light. “Sorry, folks! This is a private area, and I’m afraid you two are trespassing.”

  The guard asked for ID, and Mike surprised me by producing his driver’s license, rather than his badge. He explained that his mother lived in the neighborhood and that we’d been on our way to her house. He laughed easily. “We just stopped to discuss a couple of things before we talked to her,” he said.

  The guard—I never did get a good look at him—subtly changed his attitude when he saw Mike’s name. “Svenson, huh? Your dad was Grantham chief.”

  “Right.” Mike’s voice was noncommittal. “And Mr. O’Sullivan’s an old family friend.”

  Wilda probably had no secrets from the security guards, I realized. If these guys saw their boss’s car in her drive on a regular basis, they were passing the word around about how often he came over and how long he stayed. For that matter, maybe Mickey lived with her. I didn’t know.