by Parnell Hall
What a frightening thought. Sergeant Clark was a homicide officer I’d met a while back during the course of another investigation. He was a methodical, straight-laced, by-the-book son of a bitch, who’d stick me in an interrogation room as a matter of course.
Holy shit. That was probably it. My worst nightmare. To be hauled in and interrogated by Sergeant Clark.
Wrong again.
Sergeant Clark would have been a cakewalk, a godsend, a breath of fresh air.
Because at that moment the door opened and in walked Sergeant Thurman.
11.
IF YOU READ DETECTIVE FICTION, you know the police are usually depicted as inept bumbling plodders, who couldn’t solve a thing if it weren’t for the genius of the private detective working on the case. In real life, I’d found the reverse to be true. Sergeant MacAullif was sharp as a tack. Sergeant Clark, though not to my taste, was none the less brilliant. In point of fact, almost all the cops I’d run into in the course of my investigations had been intelligent, resourceful, and good at their jobs.
Sergeant Thurman was the exception that proved the rule.
Thurman was a bad cop. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mean he was corrupt. He was on the side of the angels, and he believed in what he did. He just wasn’t particularly good at it. In short, Sergeant Thurman was exactly what you’ve been reading about in detective fiction all those years—a cop too stupid to solve a case without help, and too dumb to know he needed it.
Sergeant Thurman looked at me and scowled. He was a big man, with a crewcut and a broken nose that made him look like an army drill sergeant. His speech, crude and guttural, made him sound like one too. He was, in short, so stereotypically dumb one might think this rough exterior must hide a mind of some intelligence.
One would be wrong.
I could think of no reason why Sergeant Thurman wished to see me. And I could think of no reason why I would ever wish to see him. All I knew was, the moment I saw his face I felt nausea, revulsion and despair, coupled with a strong desire to return to the men’s room.
Thurman scowled again and shook his head. “Dumb schmuck,” he said. “Don’t you ever answer your beeper?”
That startled me. I reached instinctively for my belt.
Son of a bitch. My beeper was on silent switch. I’d put it on silent when I’d gone into Metropolitan Hospital because a beeper is a no-no there. And I’d been in such a bad mood I’d forgotten to switch it back on when I’d come out. I did so now, and it began beeping like crazy, meaning the office had tried to reach me. I pushed the button, switched it off.
Well, that answered a lot of questions. About how the cops had found me, I mean. They’d called Rosenberg and Stone and asked them to beep me, which Wendy/Janet had done. When I hadn’t answered the beeper, they’d found out where I was working and sent cops to that address. Yeah, that answered that question.
But it still didn’t answer the big question, why I was there.
Sergeant Thurman was looking at me with a mocking grin. “Great,” he said. “The ace detective. Switch it on now.”
“What’s this all about?” I said.
He smirked. “As if you didn’t know.”
I hate that. That has to be one of the most annoying statements in the English language. If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, schmuck. So much for my participation in this conversation. Anything else you want, you can ask for yourself.
I sat and waited. So did Thurman. It became boring. I wondered if he’d forgotten why he’d brought me there. From what I knew of the guy, it was entirely possible. Then the door opened and a stenographer came in, and I suddenly realized that was what we’d been waiting for.
When the stenographer had sat down and opened his notebook, Sergeant Thurman said, “Name?”
I took a breath. “My name is Stanley Hastings, and I have no idea why I am here. I was dragged in here without a warrant and without explanation. If I am charged with anything, I demand to see an attorney. If I am not charged with anything, you have no right to keep me and I want to go home. You are violating my rights by this irregular, unorthodox, illegal interrogation.”
I admit irregular and unorthodox might be slightly redundant, but I think under the circumstances I spoke pretty well.
Sergeant Thurman didn’t think so. He looked like he had just smelled a fart, which considering my state of health was possible, but I think it was just what I’d said.
“Mr. Hastings,” he said. I could tell he was controlling himself with a great effort and solely for the benefit of the stenographer. “Mr. Hastings” was not indicative of his usual mode of address. “You dumb fuck” would be a little more like it.
He took another breath, repeated the distasteful words again. “Mr. Hastings. You are not under arrest. You are here as a material witness. You are here of your own volition, and you are free to leave at any time. I assume that you wish to cooperate with us in our investigation. I should point out that if you do not, you will be subpoenaed and dragged in front of the grand jury. But that’s up to you.”
For Sergeant Thurman, that was a long speech. By the end of it he looked out of breath and slightly red in the face.
It was also a good one. He had smacked the ball cleanly in my court. If I didn’t cooperate after that, it was entirely my own fault.
“As I say, I have no idea why I’m here. Of course I’d like to cooperate with the police. But I don’t know how I can until I know what this is all about. Now, you wanna tell me, or you wanna play guessing games all day?”
Sergeant Thurman frowned. “Mr. Hastings, we are investigating the murder of David Melrose, who was shot to death in his apartment some time last night.”
I’m afraid my jaw dropped open. “What?”
“I see that means something to you. For your information, at the present time we have a suspect in custody, one Melissa Ford. I believe she is also known to you.”
My heart sank. Jesus Christ. “At this time I have no statement to make, and I would like to call my lawyer.”
I can’t say Sergeant Thurman looked too upset. He nodded, as if that were exactly what he’d expected and said, “That concludes the interrogation of Mr. Hastings at this time.” He jerked his thumb at the stenographer. “You can go.”
The stenographer folded his book, got up and walked out.
As soon as the door closed, Sergeant Thurman turned back to me. “All right, asshole. Let’s you and me have a little talk.”
That sounded more like the Sergeant Thurman I knew. After his stiff formality in front of the stenographer, it was almost a relief.
“I have nothing to say,” I said. “I wanna call my lawyer.”
“Sure, sure, you can call him at any time. But I don’t wanna wait for it. If you don’t wanna talk, you can still listen.”
“To what?”
“The facts of life.”
The facts of life according to Sergeant Thurman? Not an attractive proposition. But David Melrose was dead and Melissa Ford was in custody, and I wanted to know all I could. “Go on,” I said.
“All right. Here’s the facts of life. Melissa Ford hired you to check up on her boyfriend, David Melrose. You did, and found out he was playing around with a young blonde. You told her that yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon she confronted him in the mail room where he works and they had a screaming fight. We have three independent witnesses to that. She said he was a cad and a cur and a fucking asshole and anything else you wanna think of, and she said she’d kill him.”
“That doesn’t mean she did.”
Thurman smirked. “Grow up, willya. This is an open and shut case. I’m telling you what the story is so you’ll talk straight to the grand jury. And I tell you, if you don’t corroborate it, it’s gonna be your ass.”
“I’m sure glad you sent the stenographer out before you started making threats.”
“What threats? I’m tellin’ you how it is, so you see you gotta talk. You choose not to, it’s your funeral. We don’t need your testim
ony anyway.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Give me a break. You’re a witness. Before you go on the stand, the prosecutor’d like to know what you’re gonna say.”
“I told you I’m not talkin’.”
“And I told you to listen. So shut up and listen.”
I shut up. As long as he was dishing out the information, I’d be a damn fool not to take it.
“Okay,” he said. “They had a huge fight and she storms out sayin’ she’ll kill him. That’s around three o’clock. Melrose gets off work at five, then we start tracing his movements. No one knows where he goes from five till nine, but at nine o’clock he shows up at the apartment of some broad named Melony Tune, if you can believe that.”
“You’re kidding. Melody Tune?”
“No. Not Melody. Melony. As in tits like melons. Blonde bitch on East 89th Street.”
So, that was her name. Melony Tune. If I hadn’t been fired, I’d have investigated and discovered that.
“He goes in there at nine o’clock, he’s out at eleven-thirty. According to the Tune dame. That, as far as we know, is the last time anyone sees him alive.”
“According to her.”
“Sure, but why should she lie? Anyway, this morning there’s a call to nine-one-one. Logged in at eight-oh-five. Melissa Ford calling to report her boyfriend’s been killed.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not at all. Cops go to the address, check it out, find one stiff on the floor. Gunshot in the chest. Gun, twenty-two, lying next to the body. Ford bitch sittin’ in a chair.
“I get there, she’s still sittin’. I can’t believe her. Dumb cunt with a capital D. She’s not hysterical, she’s not cryin’, she’s just sittin’ there, no expression at all.
“I ask her what happened, she said, ‘Someone shot David.’ Just like that. No expression. No nothin’. Just like I asked her what time it was.”
“She was in shock.”
“Shock, hell. She’s like that. You met her. You know.”
“What about the fight in the mail room?”
“I call it a fight, but the way I get it, he was the only one raisin’ his voice. She was calmly, matter of factly cutting his balls off—’Who’s this woman? You lied to me. How could you do that?’—simple, direct, like she was ordering a pizza. No wonder he started shoutin’. It would be enough to drive anyone up the wall.”
“What about the death threat? I thought she said she’d kill him.”
“She did, but same way. Simple, direct. I’ll kill you. Flat, just like that. Turned out she meant it.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “What makes you think she did?”
He grimaced. “Give me a break. Who do you think did it? Anyway, I read her her rights—you can be damn sure of that—but she don’t care, she talks. She says she’s up all night feeling bad—though how you can tell how she’s feelin’ one way or another is beyond me. So she comes by his apartment this morning to apologize and finds him dead.”
“How’d she get in?”
He grinned. “With a key.”
I frowned. “What’s the big deal with that, in this day and age?”
He waved his hand, but kept grinning. “Nothin’, nothin’. No big deal. She had a key, she let herself in. Found him dead and called the cops. See, at this point I don’t know about the fight or this Melony-tits dame or any of the rest of it.
“But she tells me. Tells me about the fight. Tells me about the dame. Tells me about hiring you.
“Which makes for a nice little picture, don’t it? Motive, method and opportunity, all wrapped up with blue ribbons on it.”
“Method?”
“Gun’s there, registered to him. Right in the apartment. Whoever used it, just picked it up and plugged him with it.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like such a solid case to me. What is it about the gun?”
“Well, for one thing, her prints are on it.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “No. They’re hers, all right. We told her that, she said, yes, when she found the body she picked up the gun and looked at it before she called the cops.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Hey, she had to say something. Then there’s the key.”
“What about the key?”
“Well, the key was brand new. Like it was just made. Stuck out on her key ring like a sore thumb. Anyway, we checked around the neighborhood and found a locksmith open seven-thirty in the morning.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“You got it. The guy shows up to open up, there’s a woman standing there waiting to get an apartment key copied.”
“He I.D. her?”
“What do you think? You know what she looks like. You think she’d be that hard to I.D.?”
I sighed. What a fucking mess.
“We confront her with that and she changes her story. She got there at seven o’clock. The entrance door was open. It’s a small apartment building with a buzzer system, no doorman, so there’s no confirmation there. Anyway, the door was open so she went in and went up. The apartment door was ajar, she went in and found him dead.”
“And the key?”
“She says she panicked. Hard to believe, lookin’ at her, right? She says she was afraid the cops wouldn’t believe her story—about the door being open. They would think the guy had to be alive to let her in. So she took his key ring out of his pocket, found his apartment key, and went out and had it copied so the cops wouldn’t think that.”
“It could be the truth.”
“Yeah, sure. Anyway, she told us that as if that should be the end of it. I think she was rather surprised—of course it’s hard to tell with her—but I think she was surprised we didn’t buy it and let her go.”
I shook my head. “Jesus Christ. Is that it?”
“More or less. When it finally dawned on her we didn’t believe her, she clammed up and called a lawyer. Big deal. Too little and too late, huh? I tell you, she gotta be the dumbest killer I ever caught.”
I held up my hand. “Look, sergeant, let’s take it easy here. Just ’cause she lied don’t mean she did it. I mean, her story sounds bad, but from her point of view maybe it makes sense. I gotta tell you, knowing this woman, I just can’t see her killing anyone.”
He grinned. “Are you kiddin’ me? It’s these mousy, repressed types do it every time. And sex, hell, that’s always the motive. You take a husband/wife, a girlfriend/boyfriend, it’s always the other one who did it.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean it happened here. I have to tell you, from what I’ve seen of him, this David Melrose was a sharp character, probably involved in some shady stuff. We know he was playing Melissa Ford for her money. He probably had some other scams going too. I’d say drug running, gambling, maybe industrial secrets. I think one of those probably fits him, and you could dig it out with a little work.”
He snorted. “Give me a break. I got my killer. It’s open and shut. We have her statement to the cops, and your testimony to corroborate it. You’re getting a subpoena and you’ll be on the stand. From what I told you, you know how important your testimony is, and you know you’ll be up shit creek if you don’t give it. So you stick around, you be available, and when the time comes you talk. Got it?”
“Yeah, but—”
He held up his hand. “Hey, I know you think you’re a hotshot private eye and you’d love to help me solve this case. But this time do me a favor—don’t. Thanks, but no thanks.” He grinned and jerked his thumb at the door. “On your way, hotshot.”
12.
I WALKED DOWN THE HALL to MacAullif’s office. He was on the phone when I came in. He waved me into a chair and proceeded to chew the shit out of whoever the hell was on the other end of the line. I figured that did not bode well. I figured right.
MacAullif finished his tirade, slammed down the pho
ne and turned on me. “Jesus Christ, what a fucking day. I got detectives screwin’ up in the field, I got the brass on my ass cause the crime rate’s up, and now I got you a material witness in a murder case I got nothin’ to do with, but you’re gonna bug me about it anyway.”
“You heard?”
“Yeah, I heard, and it made my day. I said, shit, the asshole will be in here before the day’s out, and the fact it’s got nothing to do with me won’t faze him one bit. Nor will the fact it’s an open and shut case.”
“You heard that?”
“Come on. It’s your typical sordid little domestic tiff. A man and a woman and another woman, bang. The way I hear it, you gave your client the goods on the guy and she went out and popped him. I suppose that makes you feel bad, but there’s nothin’ you can do about it, so why don’t you give it a rest?”
“I don’t think she killed him.”
“Of course not. You have a storybook mentality. Anything that obvious couldn’t be true.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But it needs to be checked out. And there’s a problem with the investigation.”
“What’s the problem?”
“You know who’s in charge of it?”
“Yeah. Sergeant Thurman. So?”
“Thurman’s an asshole.”
“He may be an asshole, but that don’t make him wrong. Odds are, the broad popped him.”
“Yeah, but what if she didn’t?”
“Who gives a shit!” MacAullif controlled himself, took a breath, blew it out again. “I’m sorry, but what the hell has this got to do with me? You got a theory, talk to your client.”
I frowned. “Well, that’s the thing.”
“What?”
“She fired me.”
He stared at me. “What?”
“When I told her that her boyfriend was playing around, she got pissed off and fired me.”
MacAullif shook his head. “Jesus, what a moron. You got no obligation to this woman at all.”
“If she’s innocent—”
“If she’s innocent, I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window. You’re in here to sell me on the theory the woman’s innocent and Sergeant Thurman hasn’t got the brains to see it. Well, it’s no go. You bring in a perp and we’ll talk. You got a perp?”