Mystery: The Best of 2001

by Jon L. Breen

“I’m coming by to check them out now.”

  “Whatever.”

  Kincaid was now unquestionably poaching on Seymour’s turf. His job was procedures and personnel—Tillis. She could also investigate Tillis for criminal purposes, but Lewis, the victim, was exclusively hers.

  The morgue was down by the river, cut into the slopes so that much of the building was underground. This reduced the energy required to keep the building and its occupants cool. Hot, muggy summer days would send half a dozen citizens over with lead passports and no luggage.

  Outside, Kincaid slipped on his new pair of sunglasses. He’d had to buy sunblock also as he adjusted to being out during the day. Thirty cursing minutes later, he walked into the cool, dark entrance hall to the morgue. The visitors’ entrance was a ramp with railings. There were benches at both ends. Too many grief-stricken family members had fallen on the stairs at the old morgue. He pushed through the double doors and was refreshed by the chill air. Property was at the end of the hall. He signed in and had the clerk get Ronnie Lewis’s belongings. Kincaid felt the clothing to see if anything was sewn into a seam or pocket. Nothing. He felt the length of the belt for bulges, pried off the heel of a shoe. More nothing. All the victim had had in his pockets was fifty-three cents in coins, a wallet, and a ring of keys: one to a Ford; one, probably, to his house; the third to a deadbolt, perhaps, or a storage unit or any of a dozen other possibilities. Kincaid opened the wallet. It contained thirty-six dollars in cash, a driver’s license, a social security card, a receipt for a money order, and a picture of a young woman with verandah-sized breasts and an inviting smile. He turned it over. There was no name or phone number. A subway pass. A video-store card, an ATM card, and some business cards stuck behind the cash. Kincaid wrote down the names and numbers, returned the cards to their place, and left.

  Back at the office, he called the impound lot to see what was in Lewis’s car. Nothing of any use—an ice scraper, a couple of flares, jumper cables, tire-pressure gauge, some change in the ashtray, the owner’s manual and some local maps in the glove compartment. Kincaid asked if the maps had any locations circled or routes highlighted. The clerk said yes but none of them were to the crime scene or Tillis’s residence and he’d already told that to Detective Seymour, don’t you people ever talk to each other?

  Kincaid dialed the numbers on each of the cards he’d taken from Lewis’s wallet. The first was to an out-call exotic dancer agency. They weren’t sending anybody to visit Mr. Lewis until he paid up for the last visit. Kincaid told them to close the account and kiss the hundred bucks goodbye. They had no account for Officer Tillis. The second card was for a bail bondsman who hadn’t heard from Lewis since his last arrest. That bond had been paid for by his mother, who’d invoked her own three-strikes-you’re-out rule and told Ronnie he was on his own.

  Next up was a disconnected line for Novelties Unlimited. The last card was for a lawyer, Malcolm Prevost. Kincaid asked the secretary to get Mr. Prevost and tell him it was a police matter.

  “This is Malcom Prevost, what can I do for you?”

  “It’s about Ronnie Lewis. Is he a client of yours?”

  “I doubt it. I don’t do criminal defense work. I’m a personal-injury lawyer and the name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Could you check, please. We found your card in his wallet.”

  “Hold on a second.”

  Prevost returned and said, “He called this office last week, Friday. I was in court—it’s motions day. Anyway, my secretary set up an appointment for him for this Thursday.”

  “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “I’m sorry. That’s confidential, Sergeant.”

  “Let me help you with that. Ronnie Lewis won’t be able to complain. Other than meeting his maker, he’s not available for anything. We’re investigating a conspiracy here. Right now I like you for co-conspirator, or accessory before the fact, at the least. Tell me why he called and I’ll downgrade you to helpful citizen.”

  “Fine, fine. All he said was that he wanted me to represent him. He said that he’d been shot by a police officer.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No, that’s all.”

  “Well, here’s a hot tip, Counselor. Don’t take any calls from his next-of-kin.”

  Kincaid was walking past the receptionist’s desk when her phone rang. He thought about letting it ring but decided that if it was Seymour he’d just as soon get it over with.

  “What the hell were you doing over at the M.E.’s office?”

  “Stepping on your toes, Detective.” Mea culpa as judo, an old bad habit.

  “You don’t think I can do my job?”

  “Not at all. Homicide’s a busy unit these days. I’ve got time to make this case a priority, so I pushed on it.”

  “Thanks for nothing, Kincaid. I’m Homicide, you aren’t, and this shit won’t help you get back here. This is why no one missed you when you got sent across the river.”

  “I’d say I’m sorry but it wouldn’t be true. I can’t remember if I’m impulsive or compulsive. Either way, I’d rather piss you off than stop myself. It’s nothing personal, ask my wife.” Change was a hard turn of the wheel on a lifetime of momentum, his therapist had said. He’d blown straight through another intersection again.

  “Maybe not to you, but it is to me. I’ve shared my last piece of information with you, Kincaid, and it is personal.”

  “Let me make it up to you. I’m going to interview Tillis again tomorrow. He knew Lewis and I can prove it. Why don’t you watch it behind the glass. Run with whatever I get.”

  “Oh, I will. After I nail your feet to the floor. What time?”

  “Nine o’clock.”

  Seymour hung up and Kincaid called Tillis and set up the appointment. He went to the range and shot five hundred rounds’ worth of tranquilizers and then went home. At home, he watched a first-round game of the women’s World Cup. It used to be that the women’s play was mercifully free of the ludicrous dives, cynical fouls, and feigned injuries of the men. When a woman went down, she was fouled. If she stayed down she was hurt, period. But big money had changed all that. Maybe Vicki’d like to watch a game with him, was the thought he drifted off to sleep on.

  Tillis sat down in the interview room. Kincaid was not obliged to tell him that he was being observed but he had to tell him that the session was being taped. Angela Seymour pulled her chair closer to the glass, turned the volume up slightly, and flipped open her notebook. If she got anything out of this interview she wouldn’t have to wait for a transcript.

  “Officer Tillis, who was the man you shot?”

  “Don’t know. His ID said he was Ronnie Lewis.”

  “You ever met him before?”

  “No. He was a stranger to me.”

  “That so? This interview is conducted just like any internal-affairs investigation. If you lie to me, you can be dismissed. Did you ever meet Ronnie Lewis before?”

  “No. I never met the guy, that’s the truth.” Delbert’s voice rose with righteous conviction.

  “No, Delbert. That’s not the truth. Let me tell you what the truth is. You knew Ronnie Lewis. You met him at least twice. You were on transport the last two times he was arrested. Transporters don’t have to sign anything as long as there’s no injury to the prisoner. Reasonable that you’d think there was no way to connect you two, but I matched up the arrest times on the paperwork with the dispatch calls on the runs. They keep the tapes of those calls for three years, Delbert. I heard your voice on them. You knew Ronnie Lewis. You knew Ronnie Lewis was down at the end of the road when you went there.”

  “I did not.” Tillis voice quivered as the impossible became the inevitable.

  “Delbert, you couldn’t see the car from the road. You had no reason to go down there unless you knew someone was there.” Kincaid stopped. “This is important, Del. This is premeditation. This isn’t positive policing, this isn’t street initiative. You went down there to meet a man you alre
ady knew. We’re waving goodbye to negligence, hello murder two.”

  “Murder two? Are you nuts, man? I told you I shot the guy. It was an accident. I didn’t mean it.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Delbert. I believe you, I really do. Have from the beginning. It was an accident, and it was murder.”

  “You’re crazy, man. I don’t have to listen to this bullshit. I want my union rep here. If you’re so damn certain of all this, why hasn’t Homicide picked me up? That dyke bitch would love nothing better than to bust my ass. I was with her at the academy. She was a ball-cutter then, she’s a ball-cutter now.”

  “That was the hard part, Delbert: motive. Motive and intent, that’s what I needed. You can stop the interview now if you want. We can wait for your union rep to get here. I don’t care if you don’t say another word. You might want to hear what I have to tell you alone, though—without him here. See, I don’t think they’re going to be too eager to rush to your defense. Are they?”

  Tillis stared back, impassive, defiant, but wondering if Kincaid could back up his words.

  “I wanted you to be a simple schmuck, Delbert. A poorly trained, unqualified guy who had no business being a cop, sent to do an impossible job without the tools. I could have pounded on your failures like a drum while I preached my personal brand of truth. You were almost as big a victim as Lewis. That’s what I wanted to see, but you wouldn’t let me. No, you’re anything but simple, Delbert. You’ve failed to qualify twice. Once more and you’re out of a job. I’ll bet you’re not independently wealthy. Your friend Ronnie Lewis is not a captain of industry either. How do a small-time hood and a marginal cop turn that around? Work with what you’ve got. Here’s the best part, Delbert. I’ll even spot you being careful about your plans, but you should have used a better quality target than Ronnie. He called an attorney to represent him in a shooting. Last week. So Ronnie’s either clairvoyant or incredibly stupid. I’ll go for number two.” Kincaid watched Tillis try to stifle his disbelief at Lewis’s stupidity and greed.

  “You like that, huh? What a fool. Couldn’t wait to get shot first, then line up the lawyer. Who knows, maybe all the good ones would be taken. Here’s where your accident becomes murder. I see an insurance fraud here. You shoot Lewis. He sues the city for what? A million dollars? Isn’t that typical these days? You two split the proceeds. Your ineptitude and lack of training provides the necessary element of negligence. Hell, my report would have been your best piece of evidence. This shooting was definitely unjustified. In fact, let me tweak this one a little bit. You get a lawyer and sue the department for negligence in your training—you shouldn’t have been allowed out on the streets with a weapon. Hell, I’ll stipulate to that. You double-dip your ineptitude and walk away a millionaire. Now that’s a golden parachute. Every other cop on the force pays your severance pay. I don’t think so.”

  “You haven’t said a word about murder, Sergeant. It’s what it always was—an accident.” Tillis even smiled a bit, confident that Kincaid was blowing smoke and couldn’t prove the points he was making.

  “Murder it is. A person killed in the commission of a felony is murder two. Fraud’s a felony. You knew him; you went to a secluded place to meet; your partner had lined up an attorney to represent him in a gunshot case. That’s a conspiracy. You were to provide the bullet. And you did. That makes it murder. And an accident. You meant to shoot him, not kill him. I said I believed you.”

  The door to the interview room opened and Detective Seymour walked in. She had her right hand extended toward Tillis. She moved her index and forefinger together like scissors and went, “Snip, snip.

  “Delbert Tillis. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. . . .” The Miranda warning went on as Tillis shook his head.

  “What tipped you off? Why even bother to look into this? I mean, what could have been more open and shut?”

  Kincaid knew that all violent deaths were best approached as open and shut: with an open mind and a shut mouth. “It was something you said, Delbert. From the very first, you said it was a mistake. You didn’t mean to kill him. That’s right. It was a mistake. You didn’t mean to kill him. That’s right. It was a mistake. You didn’t mean to kill him. But you never said you didn’t mean to shoot him. That’s what bothered me.”

  This one is for Adam, who when he saw the light, his spirits rose and he was young again.

  Dan A. Sproul

  “Oh, Mona”

  Horseracing has been the favorite sport of mystery writers as well as kings. Some, like Dick Francis, feature the owners, trainers, and jockeys; others, like William Murray, view the sport from the bettor’s perspective. In the latter category are Dan A. Sproul’s short stories about Miami private eye Joe Standard. The following is one of the best racing mysteries in short-story form.

  Miami is a seasonal city. Things tend to diminish in the summer. Traffic jams are smaller; so also is the price of a hotel room. Calder racetrack produces scrawny race cards and puny mutuel handles. The private detective business suffers, too. Like everything else, the P.I. business goes into a wait-and-hold mode until the first snowflake plummets earthward in Canada, New York, and New Jersey. Then things pick up.

  The pivotal date is October fifteenth. Along about then begins a direct corollary between the influx of visitors and the increasing day rate at the Miami Beach hotels. Horses begin to ship into Calder for the Tropical meet. Life gets a little less laid back.

  At Standard Investigations we gear up for the season by making sure the phone bill is paid. I use the plural pronoun we strictly in an editorial sense. There is only I, Joe Standard, sole proprietor, except on those rare occasions when my good friend Frankie Swinehart, or Swine as he prefers to be called, comes in to assist me. Normally Swine toils as a security guard at Calder Race Course. It works out for him, since he can get paid and lose it back without leaving the premises, thus embracing the economy of saving time and mileage. Swine is incapable of winning any kind of substantial bet on a horse. And worse, he’s been unable to absorb this awful truth even though it has been demonstrated relentlessly by more than twenty years of betting with both hands.

  Along with the lack of mental acuity necessary to master the fine art of handicapping, the fates dealt him a vicious blow in the looks department as well. Swine confronts the world with hyperthyroid, cue-ball-like eyes and teeth with a crooked and pronounced buck. He never had much luck with the girls. What he did have was honesty, loyalty, and a tender-hearted simplicity that belied his looks. I guess that’s why it was so difficult for me to believe Ordway Crook when he called to tell me that Swine had been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Mona Phillips.

  Ordway Crook, as you might guess from his name, was a lawyer, a divorce lawyer to be precise. We had a sort of business relationship. Certain of my cases produced a disgruntled spouse from time to time. I referred these unfortunates to Crook. He in turn paid me a small referral fee.

  “They got in a fight,” said Crook over the phone. “He beat her up pretty good. The cops at the scene say it looks like she might have cracked the back of her head on the corner of a small refrigerator in his room when he knocked her down.”

  “What does Swine say?” I asked.

  “Says he didn’t do it. What else? That’s what they all say.” There was a slight pause. I half anticipated what was coming next. “You know I don’t do pro bono work,” he continued. “The court will appoint him a public defender. But I promised him I’d call you. He said you were tight with Donk Nolan, the bondsman. He wants you to arrange bail.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred thousand.”

  At the onset there were several things that went contrary to all reason, the first being that Swine had a girl-friend; the second, that he was able to get any female inside the gopher hole he lived in.

  I’d done skip trace work for Donk Nolan. Tight wasn’t the way I’d have described our relationship.
We weren’t tight. We were loose. I didn’t particularly like Donk. He demonstrated with enduring passion that he liked me even less, but rarely to my face. Bitterness, mistrust, an unrestrained caustic disposition—it was in his genes. Possibly these attributes are a requirement for any successful bail bondsman.

  Donk would require ten percent up front to post the bond: ten thousand. I had the money. Business had been good. My interest in Down and Out Stables was paying off. Best of all, I’d quit betting the gimmicks at the track. Win bets only—good money management. I was pulling it in steadily. In The Bag Boyd had set me up a stock portfolio. Last I looked, it was near thirty grand. But the thing was, I’d been tapped out most of my adult life. Whatever the odds are that the Second Coming will happen next Tuesday, double them. That’s about the chance of my handing ten thousand of my own money over to Donk Nolan. There was another way. I picked up the phone.

  “Standard? It must be Halloween. What the hell do you want?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “That’s rich,” he said, and hung up the phone.

  I called him back.

  “Nolan Bail Bonds,” he answered.

  “Kyle Breen,” I said. “What’s it worth to you if I bring him in?”

  “Standard, my old buddy. You said you wasn’t interested in Breen. I got Golby on it.”

  “Golby puts his shirt on backwards,” I said. “Breen’s too mean for him. He’ll hurt him bad and enjoy the hell out of it. Golby knows it. He won’t go anywhere near Breen. You know it, too. Why do you think I didn’t want to fool with him? But things change. How much are you on the hook for with Breen?”

  “What you want to know for?”

  “I want to make a deal.”

  “A deal? You want a deal? Okay, I got his mother’s house, but it’s only worth about a hundred and sixty G’s. Kyle’s bond is a hundred and seventy-five thousand, and I’m gonna lose my fee. There ain’t much time. What kind of deal you talkin?”