The Gone Dead Train

by Lisa Turner

  He dressed for the funeral in a suit and a pressed shirt he found buried in the back of the closet. His statement with Dunsford was set for ten. Getting to the funeral afterward would be tight, but he wanted to make an appearance out of respect if at all possible.

  He arrived at the CJC early, hoping to speak with the chief about moving up his reinstatement. If Middlebrook would let him sign on immediately, he’d be in a position to follow all three cases . . . after Dunsford cleared him, of course.

  He stopped by Middlebrook’s office. It was empty. His assistant, Roxanne, her bodacious curves muffled by a boxy tweed jacket, quit typing long enough to glance at his suit and buffed wingtips.

  “You got dressed up to give Dunsford your statement?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “When will the chief be back?”

  “Around one. He’ll be in the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Tell him I’d like to stop by. I’ll check back with you for a time.” He gestured at the exotic blooms packed into a crystal vase on her desk. “Nice flowers.”

  “From my new boyfriend. I’m in love.” She gave him a wink. “Welcome back to the force, Sergeant. The ladies will be pleased.”

  Looking back, he only wished it had been that easy.

  Dunsford sat in one of the interview rooms, leafing through files. In his rumpled jacket and polyester slacks, he looked more like an out-of-work bookkeeper than a cop. He even smelled of another generation—Pop-Tarts, Tang, and Aqua Velva aftershave.

  It was unwise to write Dunsford off as a hack. He’d been trained to be a competent detective whether he was one or not. This case would be the last hurrah of his career, and he’d be heavily invested in making an arrest.

  Dunsford got to his feet when he saw Billy in the doorway, but didn’t offer to shake hands. “You’re early.”

  Billy pulled the door closed. He knew better than to bring up the time pressure of the funeral. Dunsford would try to delay him out of spite. That was the thing that bothered him the most about Dunsford. He didn’t care about anybody but himself.

  Bright fluorescent tubes buzzed in the overhead fixture. The chairs, molded from thick vinyl, sported sturdy metal arms suitable for restraining agitated suspects with handcuffs. He was familiar with these chairs, almost like they were his first cousins. A sour odor perpetually wrapped itself around the room, the smell of guilt and sweat, an odor he typically ignored. Today the room smelled different. Maybe it was because he was the one who would sit on the other side of the table.

  “I brought notes from the scene,” Billy said, taking a seat and pulling his memo book from his jacket pocket.

  “So you can keep your story straight?” Dunsford cracked a nasty smile.

  “I’m not engaging in a pissing match, Don.”

  Irritation sparked across Dunsford’s face. In this room, a good detective never lets a suspect get the upper hand, even if they’re only joking around.

  For the camera, Dunsford stated the date, time, and Billy’s full name before shoving a legal pad and pen across the table. Billy wrote in chronological order every action he’d taken at the scene, every detail he could remember. He wrote four pages and read it over carefully. Once he signed the statement, he would be committed to facts that could be used against him in court. Everything in a statement has to be true, but not every truth has to be in that statement. Cops and lawyers know this. Regular citizens don’t.

  Cop 101: Everyone is a suspect until the lead investigator has good reason to rule them out. The burden would fall to Billy to provide Dunsford with a good reason to cut him loose. Before he left the barge, he’d decided to stuff his pride and work with Dunsford in every way to move the investigation forward. On the other hand, he’d be damned if he’d give up anything he didn’t have to. This was no friendly chat.

  He signed the statement and pushed the pad to the middle of the table. Dunsford sucked his teeth and read it through twice, jiggling his little finger in his ear and flicking away the earwax.

  When he was done, he looked up with mock sympathy. “You seen the news footage of Poston shoving that hawker at the ballpark?”

  “I was there when it happened.”

  “Rough way for a man to exit the public eye. A real nutso.”

  “Nutso” raised his hackles. Augie had been diagnosed with a mental illness, not a moral weakness. “He was a sick man.”

  “Touchy subject for you, I guess.” Dunsford was enjoying himself.

  The morning news had shown a clip of Augie’s wild-eyed brawl, with stadium security hauling him off. The camera then switched to the entrance to the DeVoy and his corpse being wheeled out on a gurney. The footage was the final teardown of a sports hero’s reputation. It made for great TV.

  “I see you’ve opened your statement with the altercation between you and Poston on Monday night,” Dunsford said.

  “We both got pretty banged up. I wanted the details in the record. The next morning I went to his apartment to patch things up.”

  Guilt swamped him with the memory of the goose egg on Augie’s forehead, but he didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in it. The fight was the most damning evidence Dunsford had against him.

  “You claim a taco vendor witnessed the fight,” Dunsford said.

  “He works the cart at the ballpark entrance, a Hispanic, in his forties.”

  Dunsford snorted. “That narrows it down. We’ll try to locate him, but those guys switch jobs every other week. You have any business dealings with Poston?”

  He knew where this was going. Soured business deals generated about 20 percent of the squad’s homicide caseload. “Augie and I were friends. That’s it.”

  “Fair enough.” Dunsford flipped open his memo book and rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger. “You say Poston’s door was open when you arrived. Was it cracked open, or did you turn the knob and find it unlocked?”

  “I didn’t touch the door. I made that clear on page one.”

  “You didn’t break the door’s seal, so we won’t have to throw burglary into the pot. What did you do after you entered the victim’s residence?”

  “That’s at the bottom of page two.”

  Dunsford laid down the statement and sighed as if he were dealing with a headstrong child. “You’re here to give a statement and answer my questions. All my questions. If you don’t cooperate, you know what will happen to your career.” He leaned in. “There won’t be one.”

  Jerk. Repeating questions already answered was within bounds, but Dunsford was going overboard. This was being recorded. If Dunsford was a big enough fool to risk reprimand, Billy would help him out.

  “Whatever you need, Sergeant.”

  Dunsford’s mouth twitched. “Cooperation. That’s what I want. You say you went to Poston’s apartment the morning after the fight to patch up your friendship. Tell me about that.”

  “Augie was out of control. He attacked me. It’s there in the statement. I attempted to take him to The MED, but he refused help and walked away. I went home and texted him twice. I was worried about concussion. Both times he responded ‘FU,’ so I was less concerned. I went to bed. The next morning he didn’t answer. I went to his apartment to check on him.”

  “We’ll verify your phone records and the stop at Denny’s,” Dunsford said, and raised his gaze to make eye contact.

  A smart detective’s next question would be: Did you have any other reason to go to Augie Poston’s apartment yesterday morning? To that question, Billy would be compelled to answer: Augie stole a photograph from me. I went there to get it back.

  Once that line of questioning began, he would have to explain the photo from Red’s jacket and give Dunsford the investigative work he and Frankie had done. That would tank both of their careers. On the other hand, if Dunsford asked the question and he flat-out lied, he could be charged criminally for giving false information to a law enforcement officer during an investigation.

  As a distraction, he rapped his fingers on the edg
e of the table. “Something’s bothering me. The last thing Augie said was that he had business to handle. His phone rang as he walked away.”

  Dunsford looked surprised, thrown off track. “Go on.”

  “You know about his eBay site. The call might have been a client wanting to meet at his apartment. You saw the expensive stuff at his place, the things people collect. The watches alone must have been worth twenty, maybe thirty grand. A collector would know the value of that inventory. It’s a reasonable place to start.”

  Dunsford flipped through pages for his missing list. “Watches,” he said under his breath. He had a reputation for letting files pile up on his desk. Cases had collapsed beneath his shoddy paperwork.

  “You’ve got the subpoenas in process, right?” Billy prodded. “Phone records? Augie’s e-mail server?”

  Dunsford sneered to cover his confusion. He picked up Billy’s statement and shook it. “We need to discuss what’s not in this document. Four years ago Augie Poston totaled your truck.”

  That caught him off guard. “Everybody on the squad knows that story, including you.”

  “I remember you were so mad you drop-kicked the squad’s coffeemaker.”

  “Yeah. What’s the relevance?”

  “You’ve been living in another state, answerable to nobody. You came back in town and beat this guy up. The next morning you’re at his place in time to discover the body.”

  Dunsford jerked a file from the bottom of his pile and pushed it across the table. “Explain this.”

  Chapter 32

  Clipped to the top of the file was the black-and-white of Dahlia Poston’s torched Pontiac, her burned body wedged behind the steering wheel. Dahlia’s back was arched against the seat in her attempt to escape the flames. Her right arm shielded her head, her face peeked out from underneath. The position was eerily similar to that of her son’s body on the floor in front of the refrigerator.

  How had Dunsford known about the file on Dahlia Poston?

  “According to the sign-out sheet, you pulled this file the day before Poston was murdered.” Dunsford settled back in his chair, contemptuous. “You may not see the relevance there either, but I do. It’s damned relevant.”

  Billy slipped the photo inside the file. This was no flyby statement, this was turning into an interrogation. He’d underestimated Dunsford.

  “I ran into Augie at the park my first day back. He talked about his mother’s death. He believed she was murdered—”

  “By whom?”

  “He wasn’t sure. He was paying a journalist to look into it. I figured the guy was hustling him, so I decided to take a look at the file myself.”

  “So you did have business with Poston.”

  “A favor for a friend. I take it you’ve looked through the file?”

  “I did. There’s no conclusive proof of homicide. It was correctly ruled as accidental.”

  “That’s what I told Augie.”

  “And he believed you?”

  “No.”

  “What I’m hearing is you looked into Augie’s mother’s death. He didn’t like what you had to say, so he didn’t want to pay you for your time. You showed up at his place with cuffs and a gun to get your money.”

  This wasn’t good. Dunsford was working up a scenario. “I told you the reason I was there. I always carry cuffs, and I’m usually packing.”

  “What’s this journalist’s name?”

  “I don’t have a name.”

  Dunsford raised an eyebrow. “So we’ve got us a mystery man. Freeman didn’t have a name, either.”

  Ah. There it was. Freeman must have mentioned Dahlia Poston’s death and Augie’s interest in the file when he told Dunsford about the manuscript. Dunsford pulled the file and saw Billy’s name on the sign-out register.

  “Freeman told you about the missing manuscript,” he said. “That’s how you made the connection to Dahlia Poston’s death.”

  Dunsford flushed. “You’ve seen this manuscript?”

  “No. But Augie talked about it.”

  “Let me get this straight. A delusional psychotic feeds you and Freeman a story about a phantom journalist and a manuscript. Neither of you knows the journalist’s name. Freeman believes there was a manuscript. He’s seen a stack of papers, but he didn’t actually get a look at it. Now it’s gone. How’s that not a wild-goose chase?”

  Billy was tired of the runaround. He wanted to get down to the case. “Look, Don. The way I see it, you’ve got two ways to go.”

  Dunsford’s hand went up. “Stop right there. You’ve been in town four days. I’ve seen you at two crime scenes. You’re the primary suspect in the murder of a man you beat the hell out of in front of witnesses. For all I know—”

  Billy pushed back from the table without a word, stood, and went into the hall, his chest tight and ears ringing. Primary suspect, my foot. Dunsford had no evidence against him. He was free to walk any time he wanted. If he did that, he could make the end of the funeral. He went down the hall for a drink of water from the fountain to think about it.

  Of course, leaving would be colossally stupid. Middlebrook would review the tapes. So far, they were both coming off like idiots.

  He went back to find Dunsford standing beside the table, his cheeks flushed and thinning hair ruffled out of place from running his hands through it. The man had the confused and angry look of a pinned bull.

  Billy did a shoulder roll. “I needed to move around. Got a crick in my neck.”

  Dunsford spoke quietly. “If you’re uncomfortable, we can go to my desk when we’re finished, but right now I need you to sit down and look at me while we talk. Understand what I’m saying?” He cocked his head toward the camera.

  Billy grabbed the back of the chair, swung it around, and straddled it with enough defiance to satisfy his ego.

  “Let’s get to it,” he said.

  Dunsford sat and pulled up to the table. “You’re on the record as having walked home after the fight.”

  “That’s correct. The next morning I picked up coffee and biscuits at Denny’s. The DeVoy’s security cameras will verify that I arrived at the building at approximately seven forty-five A.M.”

  “How did you gain access to the ninth floor?”

  “I was at Augie’s place last fall. I remembered the code for his floor.”

  “Can you verify that?”

  A far-off alarm rang in his head, but he recited the code anyway: “44123.”

  Dunsford puffed air through his lips as he wrote. He was working up to something. “The DeVoy’s security setup is the closest thing you have to an alibi. Is that correct?”

  “I’d say it’s pretty damned persuasive.”

  “Then you have a problem.”

  “How so?” Billy asked.

  “Cameras cover the lobby and public elevators. The service elevator cameras are shells with blinking LED lights. They’re dummies.”

  “I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t get to the service elevators without walking through the lobby.”

  “Unless you use the back entrance,” Dunsford said.

  “I’m sure the service entrance stays locked twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Of course it’s locked. But the code you just gave also unlocks the back entrance. The building manager has it, and his assistant. James Freeman has it. Augie Poston had it. No one else in the building has the code. But you have it. You could have gone to the ninth floor undetected on Monday night. There are no working cameras to say otherwise.”

  Dunsford put down his pen and fixed his gaze on Billy. His attempt to suppress a grin failed. His enthusiasm could have animated a corpse. He must have been envisioning reading Billy his rights, which would be the high point in his mediocre career.

  For Billy, the turn was unexpected. It was bad. He needed to get the hell out. He looked at his watch. “I’m due upstairs for a meeting.”

  Dunsford ignored him and continued. “According to James Freeman, Poston c
laimed that after the fight you said to him, ‘This isn’t over.’ Want to explain that?”

  He’d thought about the phrase, knowing it would come up. Nothing to do but finesse it. “Augie and I were buddies. I wasn’t going to let the friendship end because of a stupid fight. That’s all I have to say for now.”

  Dunsford forced control into his voice. “All right. Go whine to Middlebrook. But remember. Your former position with this squad means squat. I’m the one who’ll decide your status in this case.” He spun a yellow pad across the table. “Give me your current address and contact information plus your address in Atlanta and the number for that girlfriend of yours. What’s her name?”

  “That’s none of your business.” He’d made it this far without blowing up, but his control was slipping.

  Dunsford’s lips thinned with spite. “That’s all right. I’ll have a conversation with Ms. Snow when the time is right.”

  He stood, wanting to put Dunsford on the ground. If he did that, the whole thing would fly in a direction he couldn’t control. “We’re done,” he said.

  Dunsford stood, too. “We’re done. But keep in mind . . . the lack of evidence isn’t the same thing as evidence. You might want to rethink your statement.”

  Billy hit the hallway and almost knocked over the guy pushing the mail cart. He was headed straight for central records. Edgar Kellogg owed him an explanation.

  Edgar must have known he’d be coming, because he had a piece of paper folded and ready to push across the counter when Billy walked in.

  The note read:

  Seventh-floor break room. Five minutes.

  Billy went to the break room and poured a cup of scorched coffee. He had to calm down so he could get what he needed from Edgar before the clerical staff straggled in with their boxed salads and microwavable meals.