Pattern of Wounds

by J. Bertrand

  “You said yourself she wasn’t that, either,” he says. “Now get out of here and show me some police work for a change.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I rise to go, but Hedges motions me back into my chair.

  “One more thing,” the captain says. “You might have handled that Sheriff’s Department detective a little better.”

  “I thought I handled him pretty good.”

  “You don’t read the paper at all, do you?” He takes a rolled section of the Chronicle off the credenza and hands it over. “Read the underlined part.”

  My eye goes to the headline: SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT HUNTS SERIAL KILLER. According to the article, the murder of a young woman in northwest Harris County in April was the work of a serial killer known to have struck at least once more in the area. I scan the piece for any mention of Simone Walker, but thankfully Lauterbach at least had the good grace not to link the cases publicly. But the implication is clear. A killer’s been operating with impunity in the Houston area with HPD none the wiser, and if he hadn’t made the mistake of striking on Sheriff’s Department turf, law enforcement wouldn’t be on his trail.

  “This takes the cake,” I say. “Not that they haven’t pulled this kind of thing before. Seriously, I saw the guy’s case. There’s no connection.”

  “That’s not what the ME is saying.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Since when does the ME saying so make something true? When they send back your accidentals as homicides, you don’t roll over and take it, so why would this be any different?”

  Hedges frowns deeply, shaking his head just enough to suggest pity. “Here’s what I want you to do, March. Listen carefully. I want you to go back to your desk and take a good, long look at this case. I want you to be absolutely sure you’re not missing something here—”

  “I am absolutely sure. Lauterbach’s either desperate to unload his case or he’s delusional. Maybe he thinks a cock-and-bull serial killer story will make his name.”

  “March, you’re not listening. That’s a problem with you. If it keeps up, I have ways of making myself heard.”

  “Fine.”

  I reach for the report and head out, sensing Bascombe on my heels. I’m tempted to shut the door on him, but petty little things like that get petty little guys like me in all kinds of trouble. Back in my cubicle, I ball the Chronicle section up and dunk it into the trash bin. Bascombe rests his hands on each side of the gap in the cubicle wall, effectively bottling me up.

  “Take it easy,” he says. “I don’t care what some peckerwood from out in the sticks thinks about your case. That’s all coming from the captain, and you’re missing the real issue.”

  “What’s the real issue?”

  He glances around, then lowers his voice. “The issue is, there are rumors going around about the new mayor promoting from within. And they are more than just rumors. There’s been some back-channel talk, and one of the possibilities floating out there is that if she wins, she might reach deeper than the assistant chiefs to find new leadership.”

  “But not . . . I mean, she’s not gonna reach that deep.”

  “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

  “You can’t be serious. Hedges chasing after rank? That’s not him.”

  “It’s more than rank,” he says. “But you’re right: it’s not him. At least it wasn’t until now. I don’t know who exactly, but somebody poured the poison in his ear. The campaign maybe, or somebody with connections to it. And now he’s going out of his way to make a fool of himself, which is what that charade yesterday was all about. He thinks he needs to give them a pretext, so they can justify his jump to the front of the line.”

  “Are you sure about this?” I say. “We’re talking about Hedges here.”

  “He’s making a mistake not keeping ambition like this to himself. People are noticing, March, and that’s gonna cost him. It’s gonna cost us. ’Cause I’ll tell you one thing right now. Homicide can’t do any better than Drew Hedges, but we could do a lot worse.”

  I don’t know what to say, so all I do is nod.

  “This conversation is between the two of us, understood? I wouldn’t be telling you this in the first place except that if I don’t, you’re gonna keep running afoul of him and I’m not running interference for you anymore.”

  He heads back to his office leaving me dazed, feeling the same way I did the first time I realized my mother wasn’t coming home anymore. One of life’s supposedly unshakable foundations breaking open just under my feet.

  A phone rings and after a while I realize it’s mine.

  “This is March.”

  “We need to talk.” The voice is vaguely familiar. “Something big is about to break, and if we don’t get out in front of it, you and me both are gonna get fried.”

  “Who is this?”

  “March, my feelings are hurt. It’s Charlie Bodeen. Make whatever excuses you have to and get over here. Now would be nice.”

  At the party Saturday night, all Bodeen could talk about was the impending doom of Charlotte’s firm. She resigned her partnership years ago, after Jessica was born, and took on contract work for a variety of legal types, but the majority of her hours are still billed to the old firm. According to Bodeen, they’ve lost some bread-and-butter clients during the recession and are now facing serious cutbacks.

  “But the cutbacks won’t be enough,” he confided. “That thing’s headed for implosion and you better make sure Charlotte’s aware of that fact.”

  Since my mention Sunday morning, when Charlotte dismissed the subject out of hand, it hasn’t come up. I’ve had my hands full, after all.

  I decide to humor the man with a visit. Not because I’m overly worried about Charlotte’s employment prospects, but the fact is, I could use the break. Bodeen’s office is in a glass mid-rise on San Felipe not far outside the 610 Loop, and all I can think about during the drive is the change in Hedges over the past few weeks, coming to a head during this case. The lieutenant’s edginess starts making sense. He’s known all along what the captain’s up to, and he’s been doing his best to screen it from everyone on the shift, picking up the slack.

  Inside, I consult the board between the elevator doors, finding Bodeen’s practice listed on the fourth. It turns out to be a small suite of offices, just a reception area, a conference room, and three private offices. The secretary tells me I’m expected and leads me straight to the door at the end of the hall.

  “Have a seat,” Bodeen says. And then to the secretary: “Close that door behind you.”

  One of the walls is glass and the other three are bare apart from some framed degrees and a shelf overflowing with matched legal volumes. The room still has the bare unfurnished feel of his bolt hole in the district attorney’s office.

  “I said something to Charlotte,” I tell him, “but she didn’t seem too concerned.”

  He stares at me, then blinks. “That’s not what I called you about. I just got wind of something big and what I need from you right now is some reassurance. Because frankly, I’m blindsided by this thing and what I’m hearing makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Are you going to fill me in or what?”

  “It’s about Donald Fauk. Remember him? The guy we put away for butchering his wife and running to Florida with his new girlfriend?”

  “I remember, Charlie.”

  “What do you know about Donald Fauk filing an appeal?”

  My mental gears make a grinding sound. Did I wake up this morning in an alternate universe? First my homicide is reclassified as the work of a serial killer by some boondock detective who can’t say well without putting a p at the end. And now Donald Fauk, who dictated a free and uncoerced confession of his crimes into my recorder, is filing an appeal?

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I ask.

  “Not in the slightest. It’ll be officially filed this afternoon. Now, tell me everything you know about the case. New developments, everything.”

  �
��What new developments? There’s nothing. What could there be? Over the weekend I had lunch with Brad Templeton and he had a few things to say about Fauk. They’ve kept in contact apparently, and he claims Fauk is trying to start some kind of fan club on the outside.” The pulse in my temple starts to throb. “Look, I’m no lawyer, but you’re gonna have to explain to me how a guy who confesses on tape to the crime in excruciating detail turns around and appeals. On what grounds?”

  He consults a legal pad on the desk in front of him, where a page of illegible notes has been scribbled down. “Number one, there’s some evidence that’s gone missing. They wanted to retest the DNA samples from the scene, saying your match came out of the same crime lab that self-destructed a couple of years later. They requested the samples, and according to HPD that evidence is no longer available.”

  “DNA testing can be destructive—”

  “No,” he says. “There were samples left, only now nobody can find them. Defense theory? You guys destroyed the evidence to make sure it couldn’t be retested.”

  “That’s not true, and it’s also not enough for an appeal—is it?”

  “Here’s the second thing. Apparently, Nicole Fauk’s murder is being looked at as part of a serial killer investigation.”

  Lauterbach. I showed him The Kingwood Killing to dissuade him from making an impossible leap, and all he did was insert another link into his serial killer theory. But the story in the Chronicle said nothing about the Walker case, let alone Nicole Fauk. Where would Donald Fauk’s attorneys have gotten hold of this?

  “Since when?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I found out ten minutes before I called you. All I know is, they had paper down at the courthouse and it’s about to be filed.”

  “There’s this detective, this Sheriff’s Department guy,” I say, and then I tell him about my visit from Lauterbach, which requires an explanation of the Walker case and how it supposedly links up with the killing back in April.

  “So you gave him the Fauk connection.”

  “I gave him nothing,” I say. “And besides, this guy may be an idiot and a snake, but I don’t see him getting on the phone to Fauk’s lawyers and letting them in on the good news. He’s still a cop at the end of the day.”

  “All I know is, they’re alleging Nicole Fauk’s murder is part of a larger series and that they have a list of open homicides with identical modus operandi. Since Fauk was in jail when some of these were committed—including the one you’re working on now—he couldn’t have committed them, which means—”

  “Which means absolutely nothing because the man confessed. Besides, my open homicide wasn’t committed by the same person who killed Nicole Fauk. The killer imitated the crime scene photo reprinted in Templeton’s book.”

  “It does mean something . . . because of Number Three.”

  “Go ahead,” I say. “Lay it on me.”

  “March, that confession you keep talking about?” He looks me square in the eye. “They’re saying they have solid evidence that the confession you obtained was coerced.”

  This night has opened my eyes

  and I will never sleep again.

  —the smiths

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11 — 10:01 A.M.

  The district attorney and an entourage of pinstriped ADAs anchor one end of the conference table with an extra rung of associates lined like gargoyles along the window ledge, obscuring the glass-and-steel view of downtown. On the other end of the table, the HPD contingent consisting of myself, Bascombe, Wilcox, and a newly appointed crime lab supervisor crowds one side, elbows touching, leaving plenty of room opposite for Roger Lauterbach and his boss from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department to spread out. Just inside the door, Charlie Bodeen, the last to arrive, sits in a chair he dragged in with him, a wheeled accordion case at his feet. There are no water glasses on the table, and the thermal pitchers of coffee down the middle remain untouched. Most of us are keeping our heads down, pretending to reread bits from the Fauk appeal, even though the details should all be familiar by now.

  The DA clears his throat. “Does anyone in this room have something to say?”

  Oh, I have something to say, but a preemptive glare from Bascombe shuts me down. You’re not here to talk, he told me. You’re here to listen. Open your mouth once and see if I don’t shove something down your throat.

  “Anybody?”

  “The conviction is solid,” Bodeen says, waving his copy of the appeal. “And they’re not going to get a hearing based on this.”

  “You don’t think so? I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Not having the DNA available for retesting looks bad, but it’s par for the course. If that’s all they had, you’d be right.”

  “That is all they have. The rest is speculation.”

  The DA turns to one of the lawyers blocking the window, a round-faced woman clutching a stack of papers to her chest, signaling her to commence with some prearranged briefing. She starts talking without looking up from her notes.

  “An attempted homicide case went to Orleans Parish Criminal Court twelve weeks ago with the defense arguing that the investigating officer, Detective Eugene Fontenot, had extracted a false confession from the accused. During testimony, several past complaints about Fontenot’s interrogation techniques were entered into evidence, and the jury came back with a not-guilty verdict. I’ve been in touch already with the Orleans DA and NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau, and there is definitely an ongoing investigation of Fontenot. They’re taking this very seriously.”

  Bodeen interrupts with a sarcastic laugh. “So what you’re saying is, if a detective who had nothing to do with my case is accused—not convicted, just accused—of applying the thumbscrews in the here and now, the fact that eight years ago he helped with prisoner transport calls my conviction into question?”

  “I’m not saying it,” the DA replies. “Fauk’s counsel is. And it’s no use arguing your case to me, Charlie. If it was my call, I’d obviously deny the appeal. When we argue this thing, though, my people need to be ready. Either we take this seriously or Donald Fauk will get his shot at overturning the verdict.”

  Across the table from me, Lauterbach strokes his mustache. His boss—older, fatter, and grayer than him, but cut from the same cloth—throws his hands up in theatrical exasperation.

  “Don’t y’all think maybe we’re jumping the gun here a little? Don’t you want to hear what my people have come up with before going on the warpath? ’Cause I’ll tell you one thing right now: this conviction ain’t worth defending, not from where I’m sittin’. I know y’all got your pride invested in this, but I’ve been through the whole case backwards and forwards and the one thing this isn’t is an isolated incident. This Fauk killing, it’s just one of a whole series of homicides, and if we don’t wake up to that fact, if we start going on TV saying otherwise, then the egg’ll be all over our faces.”

  His outburst is greeted by cold silence. Bascombe keeps flexing his hands, like he’s trying to prevent a fist from forming, while on the other side of me Wilcox fiddles nervously with his ballpoint pen.

  “With respect—” the DA begins.

  “Just hear my detective out, that’s all I’m asking for. Let him talk, and if you still wanna go down with the sinkin’ ship, it’s your call.”

  As much as I dislike the man, I have to admit I’m a little jealous of the way Lauterbach’s chief is backing his play. I can’t imagine Hedges or Bascombe doing the same for me, not in a roomful of prosecutors with the DA himself holding court. By the door, Bodeen raises his eyebrows at me, keeping up his smartest-man-in-the-vicinity act, but even he seems a little surprised at how committed the Sheriff’s Department supervisor comes off. In the lead up to this round-table, he’d led me to expect a dressing down for Lauterbach and company, not a fair hearing on equal footing.

  “I really have to object to this,” Bascombe says.

  The DA silences him with a raised finger. “Hold on a sec. With all that preamble, I think we
might as well hear what the man has to say. I mean, I’ve already read what the detective shared with the Chronicle, but if there’s anything else he’d like to add . . .”

  Lauterbach bristles at the criticism, even though he had to know it was coming. Past convictions are like precedents in law. In theory you can always go against them, they can always be overturned, but in practice they benefit from extreme deference. Even stronger than the presumption of innocence is the presumption that, if a jury sided with the prosecution, the verdict was sound. By suggesting otherwise, Lauterbach threatens not just me and my reputation but HPD and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, too. It feels nice for once to be sitting on this side of the table.

  “Mr. District Attorney,” he says with icy formality. “You’re mistaken if you think I’ve shared anything with the media. I don’t know where they got their information, but it didn’t come from me. If it had, they’d be having a field day with this story. You’ll see why in just a minute.”

  He opens a black laptop on the table and starts untangling wires, hitching the computer via a VGA cable to the projector on the table.

  “There’s a PowerPoint?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

  Wilcox crosses his arms and sinks back, the ballpoint clicking in my ear.

  Nobody lifts a finger to help Lauterbach. Eventually his boss goes to the light switches, fumbling through the row until the projection screen whirs down from the suspended ceiling. After a moment, Lauterbach’s computer display appears on-screen. The cursor glides over a series of desktop icons, double-clicking on the presentation file. But not before I notice the title on one of his folders: TEMPLETON.

  Bascombe scratches a note out and slides it in front of me: You need to have a talk with your writer friend. I nod in agreement, trying to work the timing out in my head. At the beginning of the week, Lauterbach seemed never to have heard of The Kingwood Killing, and now there’s a file on his desktop with Templeton’s name on it? Either the man works fast, or he knew more than he was letting on.