Never to Dead to Talk (Detective Inspector Burgess Series)

by Middleton, Deborah

  “Doesn’t somehow seem right, does it?” agreed Burgess, straightening his tie in preparation for his entry into the room. “How ya doon?” he greeted the guard sitting quietly on a chair outside the door. De Souza also nodded and smiled to him.

  They both entered with a sense of purpose and filled the room with their presence. The suspect lay on the hospital bed with his shoulder and right arm bandaged. According to the doctor on duty, a pin and bolts had been inserted into the fractured arm and it had then been strapped to his waist so as to remain immobile. Burgess imagined it had to be painful for the young man. No time for sympathy. Here was someone who could shed some light on what had happened in the Russian’s Point Shares home.

  They made the introductions to the lawyer, set up the tape recorder and began. De Souza conducted the interview. Burgess sat off to one side where he remained in the patient’s peripheral view. They had taken pains to make it clear to him that Burgess was the senior detective. He hoped the suspect would wonder why the junior of the two was conducting the interview and what role Burgess would play in the proceedings. Burgess hoped the suspect was intelligent enough to pick up on this and for it to worry him. He knew the injured man would not be able to look directly at him without moving his head and body, which would be painful. Burgess sat back and prepared to observe.

  De Souza allowed the suspect to relax by citing the usual formalities in a non-threatening voice. He then began the interview in earnest.

  “Okay, Mr. Winston Astwood.” He paused for effect. “Let’s not beat about the bush. Why did you have to torture Fernando Bambase? Wasn’t it enough just to kill him?”

  “I didn’t do that.”

  “Did you kill him or his wife first?”

  “You’re not hearing me. I didn’t do that.” It came out more like a wail.

  De Souza lowered his voice and in a menacing tone said, “Look, we know you were in that house. We have the imprint of your sports shoe in the flowerbed. We have a sample of matching soil in the grooves of that shoe and… we also have glass fragments consistent with the broken light bulb found at the scene embedded in the sole of that very same shoe. There’s a helluva lot going on with that shoe, so don’t tell me you weren’t there!”

  Beads of perspiration had appeared on the young man’s forehead. “Um tahlin you, man. I didna kill no one.”

  “But you admit you were there?”

  “Yes,” The boy whimpered. All the bravado displayed during the bike chase now nowhere evident.

  “You had better start talking because you’re in big trouble. You are looking good for a premeditated double homicide. It doesn’t get much worse than that. I’ll give you five minutes to get your story straight.”

  “Okay. Um, um. My friend, Dixon and I were sittin’ on de wall over in Ewing Street when this dude comes up and starts talking. He came by about three (he pronounced it ‘shree’) evenings in a row. He bought a little hash… you’re not gonna get me for that are you?”

  “No, we’re not Narcotics. Read my lips, we’re Homicide. Now, tell me how you murdered the Bambases.” De Souza’s voice was menacing.

  “Um tahlin’ you. I didna kill no one!” His voice was now shrill.

  “Okay, okay, settle down.” De Souza now sounded more like a headmaster calming a wayward schoolboy.

  Astwood took a deep breath and continued, “This foreign dude kept coming by and just, you know, shootin’ the breeze and stuff. He was kinda scary. Had a lot of tattoos on his hands and arms. Said he came from somewhere like Etonia.”

  “Estonia?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. Dunno where it’s at. Anyway, he said he had a job for us and that he’d pay real good. He promised us a thousand each. Five hundred upfront and five hundred afterwards. All we had to do was scout out this house in Point Shares, knock out and tie up anybody living there and look for some movies. Ya know, dirty ones. He said to make a mess of de place too because he wanted to teach de guy a lesson. Said he was a creepy dude, into dirty movies with kids. We didn’t mind halpin’ out.”

  Burgess shifted quietly in his chair. He was fascinated by the story, which had a ring of truth to it. Try as he could, he did not believe he was in the presence of a cold-blooded killer.

  “Go on, son,” prompted De Souza, changing tack yet again - this time to sympathetic and fatherly.

  “We scoped out de house a couple of times. Only de Chinese people were livin’ thar, so on de, um um, Tuesday night we went over there and waited in de bushes. I unscrewed de light bulb on de back porch to try and get de guy to come outside. It worked. (He pronounced it ‘verked’); and when we got him inside, Dixon held on to him as de lady came in. I gave her a slap upside de head with a statue I found there. She went down like a sack o’ potatoes… but she was still breathing. Den we knocked him out too and tied him to de chair with some rope we had brought with us. We tied her up too, in case she woke up and tried to halp him. Den we took some movies, made a mess and like. Both were still alive when we left. You gotta believe me.”

  “No, ‘I don’t gotta believe you. You could easily be making this up.”

  “You ask Dixon. He’ll tahl you de same thing.” Astwood, clearly agitated, squirmed in his hospital bed.

  “We’ll be sure and check it all out with your friend, Dixon. Now, listen carefully, what time did you leave?”

  “We weren’t thar long. We didna wanna stay in case we got caught, so we musta left about eleven o’clock.”

  “Did anyone see you leave?”

  “No. De road was clear.”

  “Where did you go next?”

  “We went back to our wall on Ewing Street but the dude never showed with the rest of de money.”

  “Sounds like this guy screwed you in more ways than one. If I get an artist down here, can you describe him?”

  “Sure can.” The eagerness in the boy’s voice attested to his relief that the detectives were taking his story seriously.

  De Souza looked over at Burgess, who nodded imperceptibly.

  “Interview over at 2:34 pm,” stated De Souza for the tape.

  “Hey, what’s in it for me?” queried the boy, some of the old swagger back in his voice.

  Burgess turned around and addressed him for the first time, “The way it looks right now, about twenty to life.” He allowed him to reflect on that as he left the room with De Souza in tow. Nodding to the guard, they both made their way to the hospital cafeteria, where they could compare notes.

  CHAPTER 44

  Khitarov had sent Pamela Zuill an e-mail with the latest information on Alexeev’s yacht and the survival of the bodyguard. Burgess had immediately briefed the superintendent. The superintendent had talked to the commissioner who had then consulted the governor. Long story short, they wanted Burgess and one of his sergeants to travel to Russia to get to the bottom of the entire affair. They felt it was time to be seen to be proactive on the case and this way they could call a press conference indicating they had a star witness in Russia to assist with their enquiries. Burgess, who knew the superintendent’s love affair with press conferences, suppressed a chuckle and raced back to the office to break the news to Archie. If he needed someone by his side, Archie would be his first choice. Who knew what they might run into if the Russian Mafia were involved? He disliked the sound of the tattooed Vory v Zakone with each passing day, especially if they had placed explosive devices on board the yacht, as Khitarov had claimed. It looked to Burgess as if somebody with access to sophisticated weaponry wanted the director dead. For his part, even if the director were dead, at least the bodyguard might shed some light on the Bermuda murders.

  Back at his desk, Burgess opened his side drawer and sneaked a Snickers bar. He found it helped to keep his energy and spirits up in the afternoons and had become a secret vice. As long as he kept exercising, he could eat as many as he liked. He was reading through his notes on the murder scene of the Bambases and the state of the house. The crime scene had always nagged at him and he wo
ndered now if it was because, in effect, there had been two crimes: the first was the breaking and entering, the knocking out of the Bambases and subsequent ransacking of the living areas and the second, the murder and torture of the Bambases, carried out by a professional. The two boys’ stories made sense and they had not had the opportunity to talk to each other after their apprehension. He did not believe they were smart enough to invent an alibi. He was inclined to surmise the murders had come fairly shortly afterwards and he wondered if the Eastern European had been watching the boys and entered the house after their departure. He would ask Jan to go over the garden’s forensic evidence again to see if she could establish the presence of a third person in the grounds. He knew it would be a long shot… Bermuda grass did not leave traces; it was too sturdy. They had sent in a digger to move the compost heap; police had been all over the gardens. No. Not much hope but his meticulous attention to detail would not let him leave any stone unturned.

  He was deep in thought when his desk phone rang. Mrs. Ming announced that Dr. French was on the line. Had he missed an appointment? He asked her to put him through.

  “Detective, Dr. French here. I’m calling you with regards to that information you requested, regarding deviant sexual behavior and what can cause it. I spoke to a couple of colleagues of mine who know a great deal more about it than me. Could you give me half an hour of your time tomorrow? We can discuss some of your queries.”

  “Thank you, Dr. French. That would be a great help.” Burgess agreed to meet him the next afternoon.

  “You’ll find it an interesting topic. In fact, it’s really quite disturbing and, of course, sad. I hope it might help in your investigation. Goodbye.” With that, the good doctor hung up. This was proving to be an eventful day. Burgess could not wait to talk to him.

  His phone rang again. It was Jan Du Bois.

  “Detective, I have some good news and some bad news for you. Which would you like first?”

  “Give me the good news first.” Burgess leaned forward in his chair and gave her his full attention.

  “We have finally examined the apparent suicide note. The good news is that the sample of blue paper from the pad that you sent over to us from your search of his law office matches with the note. The blotting pad also shows writing in black ink that reads, ‘Sorry, darling, I need to stay’… and then we can’t read anymore. In any event, it’s not conclusive but it does not read like a suicide note. More like a note to the wife.”

  “Or the girlfriend?” interjected Burgess on impulse.

  “Or the girlfriend,” agreed Jan, “but perhaps about something completely different. Also, the fact he did not write a suicide note on his grey home office stationery is puzzling. If you’re going to kill yourself, wouldn’t you write the note at home, the place where you’re going to kill yourself? I don’t know. This note seems more like a plant to me, especially since there’s only a part of it.”

  “And the bad news?” prompted Burgess.

  “I think a good lawyer could dismantle that theory, since our evidence is not conclusive. Unfortunately for us, gut feeling is not allowed in court.”

  Burgess sighed. “Thanks, Jan. We’ll have to get more evidence to build our case. Keep up the good work!”

  CHAPTER 45

  Just a few hundred yards away at the Cabinet Office, the Premier, Minister of Tourism and the Minister for Information were in a heated argument. The Premier sat behind his large desk, while the ministers sat at opposite ends of a dark blue leather couch. The atmosphere crackled with tension. The Minister for Information was not normally a man to be trifled with. However, both the Premier and the Minister of Tourism had him on the back foot as he tried to justify his behavior and involvement in what could become a huge scandal.

  “You have laid us wide open to our detractors. If the Opposition get wind of this, your career will be over and the government’s credibility in shreds. How could you have been so stupid as to allow yourself to get involved in such nonsense?” The Premier himself was a loyal, churchgoing, family man who feared that such reprehensible behavior would inevitably damage his standing as leader of the government.

  The Minister of Tourism jumped in, trying to disguise his enjoyment of his colleague’s disgrace. “We’re going to have to get out our overseas public relations company to advise us on this. We don’t want the Government Communications Department to know about it, if possible. It’s too close to home and that would mean a lot of locals are going to have knowledge of what you have been doing. It’s bad enough the police know all about it. There’s bound to be a leak. Apparently, according to the commissioner, they have DVDs of you. They’ve also got DVDs of several other prominent businessmen. One of them was Robert Flood… and we all know what happened to him.”

  The Minister for Information remained silent. He knew there was nothing he could say and would have to take his medicine like a man. He also realized that, on this island, it would inevitably come out in the news. Nobody could ever keep a secret for long and, if the police already knew, somebody on the force would probably tell their wife or cousin or best friend. He would have to resign himself to some troubled times ahead. Hell, he would have to resign. End of story. He looked across at the Premier’s worried face.

  “Sir, I hereby tender my resignation. You will have it in written form on your desk tomorrow morning.”

  The Premier nodded slowly. “I think that’s wise. Perhaps on grounds of ill health?”

  “Yes, sir. I think that could be arranged. I may have to leave the island for treatment.”

  “Might not be such a bad idea,” agreed the Minister of Tourism.

  The Premier stood up. “Let’s talk to the public relations experts and see how we can spin this. We might be able to mitigate some of the damage. At least it’s not in the press yet.”

  The Premier, a seasoned politician who had lived on the island all his life, should have known better. The whole affair was on the front page of the Bermuda Gazette the very next morning.

  CHAPTER 46

  Nana had been relieved to learn from Burgess that they had found the boys involved in breaking into the Russian director’s house. This had meant the police had not paid a visit to her friends from church to find out what their nephew might know. It was true, his friend did have a fancy bike with a lot of chrome and some flames on it but, fortunately, it was not the bike involved in the crime. Hallelujah, Nana had breathed a long sigh of relief. At times, her grandson’s job could impact on his family life. Had she not been shot defending him from a paid assassin only nine months before? She found herself unconsciously massaging her shoulder where the bullet had passed through. It still ached and she wondered whether the dull pain would ever leave her. She would never let Leon or Jacintha know how much that event had affected her, both mentally and physically. They already worried too much and were so good to her. She loved having them downstairs and was delighted her grandson had found himself such a wonderful girlfriend. What is it they call it nowadays? Life partner? It had such a formal ring to it. Nana hoped she would live long enough to see Burgess marry the girl. She liked the idea of a wedding and loved to dress for the occasion. There was nothing like a good Bermuda wedding except, perhaps, a good Bermuda funeral. She had been to some terrific funerals – in fact, if she thought about it, rather a lot in the past few years. Yes, a wedding would be just the thing. How could she bring her grandson around to the idea? She would have to be very clever.

  Digby pushed in the screen door and joined her in the living room. He circled on the rug in front of the fireplace and then lay down with a grunt. Nana sat in her beloved recliner with her legs raised and decided to close her eyes for a few minutes. This was a favorite time of the day. Later, she would make a cup of tea and listen to the People’s Corner. Nana was a lady who enjoyed her routine. Perhaps this evening she might make some banana bread. She had several branches of bananas hanging in her garage that were beginning to ripen nicely. Nana’s banana bread was w
ell known at church. She did not like to admit that she left the bananas until they were almost black. “They’re ready when the flies are buzzing around them,” she had once told Burgess’s mother. That was her secret to the extraordinary sweetness and moisture of her banana bread… not to mention the special flavour of the Bermuda bananas themselves. There was nothing quite like them in the world. Yes, she thought, banana bread it will be, as she closed her eyes.

  While Nana sat at home dozing, Burgess found himself seated in front of Dr. French. Dr. French was obviously enjoying this departure from his usual patient meetings and had warmed to Burgess’ questions concerning deviant sexual behavior… or paraphilia, as he insisted on calling it.

  He sat behind his desk with his hands steepled. Burgess had the impression he was sitting opposite a modern-day version of Yoda from Star Wars. Dr. French’s large ears and bald head only accentuated that impression. “You know, detective,” he began in a serious voice, with much blinking of the eyes. “A paraphilia is a condition in which a person's sexual arousal and gratification depend on fantasizing about and engaging in, sexual behavior that is extreme and unusual. The focus of a paraphilia is usually pretty specific. For example, it can center on a particular object, like underwear - or worse, on children or animals. Sometimes it may revolve around a particular act like masochism or exposing oneself.

  You mentioned to me that one of the businessmen in the DVDs wanted a prostitute to humiliate him. That would probably fall into a special category called Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified, which covers behaviors that do not fall into existing categories. This covers sexual acts involving dead people, urine and feces. They are far less common than, say pedophilia, which I am sorry to tell you, is the most common form of deviant sexual behavior but you can get a strange cocktail of other weird behaviors. I told you, it’s pretty horrible stuff.”