by Jon L. Breen
A subsequent article focused on his career in the mines, spanning some fifty years from his days as a breaker boy, separating the valuable coal from the ore, to his promotion to foreman.
The next article focused on his presumed attacker: Martin Porchek. “It was known that animosity existed,” the article said, “between Martin Porchek and Chester Maliak.” The reporter had interviewed some miners who had talked of the animosity. Only at the end of the article did the reporter note that animosity existed between Maliak and most of the miners.
Then I came to some articles that dealt with the questioning of Martin Porchek. The police had focused on him because he admitted that it was his lunch bucket that had been found near the scene of the crime. According to the article, the lunchbox, one of the old black kind with the rounded tops to hold a thermos, had apparently been kicked, probably accidentally in the scuffle between Martin and Maliak, about ten feet away. In his haste to leave the scene of the crime, the reporter speculated, Martin had neglected to retrieve his bucket.
Martin, the article went on, never admitted to or denied killing Chester Maliak. No evidence to prove unequivocally his guilt or innocence had ever surfaced.
I put down the paper.
The articles had told me nothing. I rifled disconsolately through the remaining four papers, but only one had anything further on the incident.
The reporter had interviewed a few more miners, two of whom had placed Martin, Uncle Dick, and two other miners near the scene of the killing. The reporter reviewed the evidence concerning the head wound, inflicted by a coal shovel belonging to Martin and Uncle Dick, and described again the one item found not far from the body and claimed by Martin: the lunch bucket. The reporter dutifully listed the contents of the bucket, standard lunch fare for the miners except for one item.
I looked round the library, slipped the paper into my purse, gathered the rest together, delivered them to the librarian with only a tinge of guilt at my theft, and raced out to my car.
I wanted to go to the public square with my news, but I knew Father and Mother would have to know first.
Mother was repairing a tear in one of Father’s sweaters when I came racing in. She looked up at me with disapproval when I let the door slam.
“Helen,” she said, shaking her head, “you know that we do not slam . . .”
“Mother,” I said, “where’s Father?”
“What’s wrong?” Mother said, rising.
“Nothing’s wrong. Or everything’s wrong. I need to tell the both of you.”
Mother peered at me over her glasses, then went to the stairs to summon Father.
I sat them both down at the table and told them where I had spent the afternoon. They looked at each other.
They remained quiet while I told them what I had read. Finally, I came to my climactic discovery. “The reporter described what was in the lunchbox,” I said, triumph increasing the volume of my voice. “From his description, I know that Martin never killed that foreman. And I know who did.”
Mother and Father looked at each other again.
“One of the items in the lunch bucket,” I said, anger rising in me, “was a jar of horseradish. Uncle Martin and I hate horseradish,” I almost shouted.
Mother and Father sat quietly.
“But,” I said, almost accusingly, “Uncle Dick loves it.” I addressed Mother. “You and Aunt Catherine always made jars of it for Uncle Dick. It was his bucket. He killed the foreman.”
I was joyous. I had exonerated my beloved Uncle Martin.
Father nodded his head.
Only then did I realize what their silence meant. “You knew,” I said, standing up in my indignation. “You knew, and you let him take the blame, all these years. And you didn’t tell me the truth.”
“Helcia,” Mother said, “we did not know at first. And Father could not tell you. You are unfair to your father.”
Father put a hand on her arm. “Yes, I knew,” he said, turning his head to me. “Not immediately, but a few days after it happened. I guessed. And I told Martin I knew. He refused to let me tell anyone. He made me promise not to tell anyone. Except Mother. He knew that I would tell Mother. But he also knew that Mother would honor his wish. He took the blame, and Uncle Dick let him. But he never held it against Dick. And you mustn’t either.”
“Not hold it against him?” I sputtered. “How not? Why not?”
“Because you have come to love Martin for his kindness and his generosity. Just as he loved his sister Catherine and her children. He did not want them to suffer, to be without a father. He had no wife, no children. So he went away, letting Carl and Carol grow up without the shadow that he took on himself.”
I sat back down. I wanted to shout to the world that Uncle Martin was innocent, that he was a man who had sacrificed himself for others. But I knew Father was right. I would not tell Carl or Carol or anyone. There were more important values than justice. I would not make Martin’s sacrifice empty by revealing his secret, and I wouldn’t hurt Uncle Dick needlessly, though I couldn’t promise not to hold it against him.
“Uncle Martin will come with his family to be with us on Christmas this year,” Father said. “It would be best, Helcia, if you said nothing of this to him. It is past, as he said. He has moved on. To bring this up now would only hurt him.”
I sighed and took Father’s hand. “Of course. I will not disturb him. He is our honored guest.”
Benjamin M. Schutz
“Open and Shut”
Clinical and forensic psychologist Benjamin M. Schutz, author of six novels about Washington D.C. private eye Leo Haggerty, offers an unusual police story. The contemporary procedural addresses not only the ways criminals are brought to justice but the politics, bureaucracy, and (sometimes) internal scandals that afflict big-city departments.
Just how deep did they bury Kincaid?”
“Across the river. Permanent midnights. He’s a clerk at the jail infirmary.”
The chief shook his head. That was as far away from the action as you could get and still be a police officer. You sat alone at a desk with a silent phone waiting to push papers around three times a month. You slept in the day. That would have cut Kincaid off from contact with just about everyone in the department.
“How long has he been out there?”
“Two years, Chief.” Assistant Chief Morlock was reading from Max Kincaid’s personnel file.
“Did he ever apply for a transfer?”
“The first year. He was rejected. He didn’t try again.”
“Why didn’t he resign?”
“Too close to retirement would be my guess. Besides, who else would take him after the stunts he pulled?”
“That’s true. Well, wake him up and tell him to get down here. His exile is about to end.”
In the dark, Max Kincaid felt for the phone as if it were a hooker with time left on her meter. “Yeah?”
“Sergeant Kincaid. This is Chief Stalling’s office. The chief wants you in his office in an hour.”
“You’ve got the wrong number.” Kincaid unplugged his phone and went back to sleep.
Twenty minutes later, a battering ram was testing his front door. Kincaid rolled out of bed, walked across his efficiency apartment, and viewed the proceedings through his peephole. My, my, he thought. They’ve got my old lieutenant down here. Avery Bitterman was one of the few officers Kincaid would listen to, or at least he once was. Bitterman was leaning against the far wall, massaging his scalp. Two uniforms were banging on the front door in tandem.
Kincaid thought about reporting a disorderly-in-public to the station house and giving everyone a shitload of paperwork to do but decided against it. The pleasure would be pale and brief, and Bitterman was one of his last friends.
“Good morning, Officers,” he said, swinging the door wide open. “Anything I can do for you this fine summer day? Sorry if I was a little slow getting to the door. I’ve only been asleep for . . .” He checked his watch. “Fift
y minutes.”
“That’s enough. I’ll talk to Sergeant Kincaid.” Bitterman pushed off from the wall. The two officers turned and walked down the hall. Bitterman moved past Kincaid, into the apartment. He sat at the card table next to the kitchenette. “Sit down, Max. You might be interested in what I have to say.”
Kincaid pulled out a folding chair and stared at Bitterman. They had worked Homicide together for ten years, until everything came apart. He hadn’t seen him in over a year, but Bitterman still looked the same.
“Been awhile, Avery. How’ve you been?”
“Don’t ask. Chief Stalling asked me to come over and roust you as a personal favor. He’s pissed about the phone call but he’s willing to cut you a little slack. That’s because he thinks he needs you. That’s a real fragile thought, Max. Listen carefully. This is a onetime offer. You know there’s been a directive to retrain and requalify all officers in firearms procedures. To do that, they either have to hire new instructors at the academy or reassign officers. Reassignment is cheaper. He wants you to be one of the instructors. That’s the offer. Max, it’s day work, you can use your skills, and it’s a chance to practice what you preached.”
Kincaid walked around the proposal, looking for its tripwire.
“Why me? I’m the last person on earth they’d want over there.”
“I’ll let the chief explain it to you, Max. Just get dressed, I’m supposed to deliver you personally.”
Kincaid arrived at headquarters within the hour he’d been originally allotted. The chief’s secretary announced his arrival as soon as he walked in.
Chief Stalling looked up briefly and said, “Take a seat, Sergeant.” Kincaid did and stared at the top of the chief’s head while he read the file on Max Kincaid. When he looked up, Kincaid marveled at how much he looked like a fruit bat. Jug ears, pug nose, all those uneven teeth in that brown face. Kincaid realized he hadn’t been listening.
“Excuse me, Chief, could you repeat that?”
“Am I boring you, Kincaid?”
“No sir, it’s just that I’m still a little fuzzy. I’d just come off duty when Lieutenant Bitterman showed up.”
“What I asked you is whether you wanted a transfer to the academy. You’d be senior firearms examiner and sit on the weapons-use review team.”
“Sir, why am I being offered this position? I can’t imagine that you’d want me anywhere near the academy. You’ve got my file there, you know the history.”
“That’s exactly why I’m offering you the transfer. You made a lot of enemies when you were doing deadly-force investigations. Your memos pissed off a lot of people. Turns out you were right about a lot of things. You know the mayor has mandated complete retraining and requalification of all officers—I repeat, all officers—in proper firearms procedure. I read all your memos, Kincaid. I’d think that you’d jump at this opportunity. You’d be able to train officers so they wouldn’t be a danger to themselves, their partners, or the citizens. It’s what you said was needed.”
“So I’m the poster boy for the department’s new get-tough policy. If you read those memos, you know I was especially critical of management. You hired hundreds of officers without background checks just so the budget allocations wouldn’t get lost. Many of them were never properly trained on firearms. Hell, the shooting range wasn’t open for how long, a year? Most officers have never been requalified. You know that a number of women officers were qualifying on their backs. Yeah, we’ve got people out there with guns and the authority to use them but no skill or judgment, and I’m all for getting them off the streets, but I won’t whitewash the department. They were sent out into a combat zone without the tools to do the job. That’s management’s fault. Was then, is now.”
“Are you through? In case you hadn’t noticed, I was not part of that ‘you’ you so eloquently denounced. I was brought in to change the way things are done. I’m asking you if you want to be part of that change. You take care of your end of this and I’ll take care of mine. You look old enough to remember this line, Sergeant: ‘If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.’ So, what’ll it be?”
Kincaid was silent for a while. “When do I start?” He’d been saying yes inside ever since Bitterman told him of the offer, but he didn’t want anyone to know how hungry he was.
“Effective immediately. You have a weapons-use review scheduled for one o’clock. It’s a homicide. You can move into your office as soon as you like. Cherise will handle the paperwork. The case file on the shooting is on her desk. Take it on your way out. Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” Kincaid stood up and left the office. He picked up the file and began to read it in the elevator. Out on the street, he blinked at the sunlight, at all the people on the streets. He’d slept through all of this for two years. The solitude, the darkness, hadn’t been all bad.
He crossed the street, entered the support-services building, and took the elevator to the top floor. Weapons-Use Review was a secured section. He showed his badge, signed the book, and deposited his weapon in the safe. The receptionist told him that his office was 704 and the door buzzed open. He walked back, following the numbers on the doors. 704 had a window on the back wall that offered a view into another office across the alley. The furniture was strictly functional: gray steel desk, gray steel shelves, gray steel file, a chalkboard for crime-scene diagrams. There was a microphone sticking out of the desk, like an antenna on a bug’s head. The tape recorder would be in the upper right drawer. He’d move it over as he was left-handed. One chair for the officer, one for counsel or union rep. He sat behind the desk, moved the phone to the left side, and checked the drawers. His predecessor had cleared out everything but the dust. Fortunately, Max asked little of his surroundings and put little into them. He’d be functional by one o’clock. He called the academy.
“Director Hansen, please. This is Sergeant Kincaid.”
“Max. Bruce Hansen. I hear you’re coming over here. Is that so?”
“God’s truth, Bruce. I need to schedule a time on the range. Get myself requalified.”
“What for? Christ, you’ve forgotten more about procedure than most officers ever learn.”
“Maybe, but the word from on high is everybody re-trains. I need to show that I’m qualified, not just say so. And I need to be more than qualified. I need to be better than anyone else. When I tell some A.C. that he’s failed and he has to turn in his piece, I want to be able to show him there and then how you do it. I’ve been off the street for two years, Bruce. That’s a lot of rust.”
“Okay. How about four o’clock today? I’ll have Hapgood be your examiner.”
“Thanks, Bruce.” Max figured he’d wait a week or so before he suggested to his new boss that all examiners should be on the course at least once a week to work on their own shortcomings.
The next phone call would be much harder. He punched in Vicki’s number.
“Hello,” he heard.
“Hi, Vicki. It’s Dad. I’m glad I caught you. Are you in-between classes?”
“Yeah. Where are you calling from?” She hadn’t recognized the number on her screen, which increased the likelihood that she’d answer the call.
“My new job. I’m at the academy. It’s day work, like normal people. Monday through Friday. I wanted to let you know right away. Maybe we could do something this weekend. It’s been quite awhile, you know.”
“Yeah, it has, Dad. Quite awhile. Only thing is, I’ve got some plans for this weekend. I’m going to the beach with a bunch of friends. They’re counting on me and I’ve already paid for the room, so I’d be out the money if I didn’t go.”
Kincaid picked up right on cue. He wouldn’t want such a reasonable excuse to fall flat between them. “Of course, honey. I understand. It’s late notice. I just wanted you to know what my schedule is. We could go out to dinner some night when you don’t have a lot of homework, or a weekend—do something together. Are you still playing soccer?”
&nb
sp; “Yes, Dad. I still play soccer. Every weekend. Have since I was nine years old.”
“Well, I’d like to come see you play. When is your next game?”
“We’ve got a State Cup game next week. It’s down in Roanoke. Why don’t you wait until there’s one nearby. I’ll send you a schedule.”
“Thanks. That’s great. You have my address, don’t you?”
“I have your address, Dad. Look, I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late for my next class.”
“Sure, honey. Have fun at the beach.” He almost said “I love you,” but no one was listening.
Officer Delbert Tillis entered Kincaid’s office at one o’clock. He was tall and thin, with a flattop and a pencil-thin moustache. His features were soft and blunt, and his ears flared out at the bottom like Michael Jordan’s.
“Sit down, Officer Tillis. My name is Sergeant Max Kincaid. I’m interviewing you as part of the weapons-use review team. This team will collect evidence and make a finding as to whether the shooting was justified or not and whether you will be subject to any disciplinary action. Because a person died as the result of you discharging your weapon, Homicide is also investigating this and will present their evidence to a district attorney, who may indict you criminally. The information from our investigation may be turned over to the district attorney. You have the right to have an attorney present for this interview, or a member of the police-officers’ union. Do you waive that right?”
“Yeah. I’ve got nothing to hide.” Tillis stared straight at Kincaid.
“For the record, state your name, badge number, and present assignment.”
“Officer Delbert P. Tillis, Junior. Badge number four-one-oh-nine, assigned to the second district.” Crisp, confident.
“This interview is being tape-recorded. You or your attorney is entitled to a copy of the transcript of this interview. Why don’t you tell me everything that happened.”