Absolute Rage

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Do you like catfish, Mr. Cade?” was Karp’s first question.

  Bo looked confused, then nodded warily. A trick question, his face declared. He still smelled strongly of beer, but no longer felt drunk. Being arrested for murder often has a literally sobering effect.

  “Good,” said Karp. “I brought you some catfish from Rosie’s.” He handed over a paper sack. “We can talk while you have your supper. I think the sheriff can spare a soda, too.”

  Karp and Hawes watched Bo eat catfish and drink RC. “Pretty good, isn’t it?” said Karp. “I never had catfish before today, but I’m a fan now. I don’t think it’s usually on the menu in the prison system—correct me if I’m wrong, Stan.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so,” said Hawes, “not at Mt. Olive. Or not fresh like Rosie’s anyway. Maybe you’d get some soggy frozen fish fingers, though.”

  Cade stopped chewing. “I got nothin’ to say to you. I didn’t do nothin’ and I don’t know nothin’. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Karp, “I hear what you’re saying. Well, let me do something then. I’m going to read to you off this sheet of paper, and then I’m going to ask you to sign it if you understand what’s on it.” Karp read off the Miranda rights and asked, “Do you want to see a lawyer now, or would you like to talk with us some more?”

  “Hell, I told you I don’t know nothin’. Why’d I need a lawyer then?”

  “Good, then sign the form.” Bo signed. Karp said, “Okay, Mr. Cade, let’s talk about your situation. On May twenty-eighth of this year, you went into the Bi-Lo in town and purchased a pair of Rocky-brand hunting boots, size nine and a half. We have a copy of the receipt and the clerk remembers you. You wore those boots the night you killed Mr. and Mrs. Heeney and Elizabeth Heeney.”

  “I didn’t kill—”

  “Right, you didn’t do nothing. But just hold that for a second. Subsequent to the murders, upon finding the boots were spattered with blood, you threw them off the green bridge on Route 130, where they were found and worn by Mose Welch. You also left several good sets of fingerprints at the Heeney home. Now, we have done a detailed analysis of the interior of the boots—”

  “Hey, now, wait a minute! I thought you got that Emmett Heeney for all that anyway.”

  “No, actually, that was a ruse.”

  “A what?”

  “A trick. A swindle. We pretended to arrest Emmett Heeney so that you boys would come down from Burnt Peak and we could arrest you without having to go up there and drag you out, with the chance that someone might get hurt.”

  Bo Cade gaped.

  “Yes, I thought it was pretty smart, and it worked,” said Karp. “As I was saying, we took apart one of your boots. Do you know what DNA is, Mr. Cade?”

  “Yeah, the forest rangers.”

  “No, that’s DNR,” said Hawes. “The Department of Natural Resources. DNA is a chemical found in your body. It’s different for different people. If we got some DNA from a crime scene, we can compare it to the DNA in your body and tell if you were there.”

  “Thank you, Stan,” said Karp. “Well, Mr. Cade, it turns out that when you wear boots, little flecks of skin get shed through your socks and stick to the leather. We’ve extracted some of those little flecks from your boots. Now, naturally, some of them belong to Mose Welch, because he wore those boots, but others of them we’ve found belong to someone else. I would bet a lot of money that when we compare that DNA to a sample from your body, it’ll match right up. Also, we’ve got good footprints of where you stood on the night of the murder right outside the Heeneys’ back door. Our lab people can tell the weight of whoever made those footprints with your boots, and I would also bet a lot of money that they’re going to come up with exactly your weight. So we have what we call a good circumstantial case. That means we can put you in your fancy boots at the Heeney home the night of the murder, where you got them splattered with Mrs. Heeney’s blood right after you killed her.”

  “I told you I didn’t kill no one.”

  “Yes, you did. But the problem here is you’re the one we have. You’re the only one with bloody boots.”

  “Oh, hell, Earl had blood all over his shoes, too. He throwed them away into the laurel.”

  A considerable silence followed this remark. Karp let it hang, then said, “Uh-huh. He killed the Heeneys with his shotgun, didn’t he?”

  Bo hesitated, looking sullen. Karp waited, his expression neutral. Bo said, “I ain’t got nothin’ more to say to you.”

  Karp said, “I see. So that means you were the one that shot Lizzie Heeney in the head? That’s funny, because I didn’t figure you for someone low enough to shoot a ten-year-old girl while she was sleeping in her own bed.”

  “I did not! I didn’t do no killin’ at all,” Bo shouted. In a smaller voice, he added, “It was Wayne did the little girl. I didn’t think they was gonna kill all of them.”

  “Uh-huh. And where was George Floyd while all this was going on?”

  “How’d you know about him?”

  “Mr. Cade, I know everything,” said Karp, smiling gently. “I’m only asking you these questions because you’re a kid in trouble and I’m trying to catch you a break. I know you didn’t kill anyone. But you’re going to go away for murder unless I hear it from your own lips that you weren’t pulling any triggers that night and you sign a paper that says so. Then I can go to the judge and get you off. But you have to tell me the whole truth about what happened so that I can tell him that your part of the story is true, okay?” Karp passed a pad of yellow paper and a ballpoint across the table. Bo Cade looked at it, glowered briefly at Karp, then took up the pen. I dindt kil no one, he wrote, the pen clutched vertically in the crotch of his thumb. It was Gorge Floyd got my broter and my cousin Wayen and me to do it.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Karp and Hawes were in the latter’s office waiting for Bo Cade’s handwritten confession to be typed.

  Hawes still seemed a little stunned. “Boy, I thought they’d be tougher nuts to crack. You were pretty smooth.”

  “Oh, right,” said Karp, eyes to the ceiling, “the battle of the Titans. I was rolling dumb kids twice as bright as Bo Cade before he was born. No, the real sweat on this case is going to be getting Floyd, and then getting him to rat out Mr. Weames. In fact, as soon as that confession’s done, I’ve got to get a hold of Judge Bledsoe, have him issue a warrant for Floyd, and a warrant to search his personal effects and any bank accounts to which he has access. You can take a statement from Earl. I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble. I presume Wayne is still having his testicles reattached?”

  “That’s what I hear. He won’t be ready for questioning until tomorrow late at the earliest.”

  “Yes, I should be sadder about his misfortune, but somehow . . . anyway, then I will whistle up Captain Hendricks and go bring in Mr. Floyd. But no catfish dinner for Mr. Floyd. He’s already had his catfish.”

  * * *

  George Floyd did not dwell in a mobile home like so many of the people who employed him, but in a large, distinctly stationary two-story brick home on nicely kept grounds in the southeastern, more genteel regions of the county. It was hard to find a place in Robbens County unscarred by coal, but a good number of people had persevered, it seemed, and the community of Peale was the result. Peale was ten miles south of McCullensburg on Route 11. Here were located the substantial estates of the coal barons, the Killebrews and the Hergewillers, as well as the (somewhat) less imposing homes of the union grandees.

  Armed with warrants for arrest and search, Karp arrived at Floyd’s house in the evening, accompanied by Captain Hendricks, two Blazer-loads of green-clad troopers, and a crime-scene van from the state lab at Charleston. The frightened housekeeper tried to keep them out, but was bullied out of the way with threats and waved papers. Some forty minutes later, Floyd himself pulled up in his Chrysler. Karp watched Hendricks arrest him in his own living room, while troopers dismantled his hom
e. It was a good arrest, the rights read out properly, no violence, or rather, no obvious violence. Karp had, of course, heard the expression if looks could kill, but had not often seen a demo so vivid as the one he got from George Floyd, who kept looking at him as Hendricks snapped the handcuffs on. Floyd’s face had turned an interesting shade of lavender, tending to scarlet along the cheekbones. His pale eyes bulged and his lips were drawn back over his big yellow teeth, as if preparing to rend living flesh. He didn’t say anything dramatic, as they do in the movies, neither protesting his innocence nor promising dire consequences.

  After Floyd was driven off, Karp hung around to watch the search. Troopers carried out boxes of papers and one locked four-drawer filing cabinet.

  “Find any guns?” he asked a technician.

  “Yes, sir. Rifles, shotguns, a couple of semiautomatics.”

  “Not a .38?”

  “Not yet. We’re still looking, though.”

  Karp nodded and the man went out of the house. After a moment Karp followed him. Puffy clouds had appeared, bringing a gentle mountain breeze. It had turned cooler, too, nice weather for strolling around the grounds. The sun was behind the mountains, but the day still hung on in the long twilight of high summer, still plenty light enough to find things. Karp strolled, observing men probing flower beds, going over the lawn with metal detectors. The man he had spoken to and another man were in the center of the backyard, inspecting a birdbath made from some black, glossy stone. Karp wandered over and inspected it, too.

  “That’s a birdbath,” said Karp.

  Karp’s pal smiled. “Yes, sir. It’s a birdbath someone moved not too long ago. Lookee here.” He knelt and indicated a tiny width of naked earth forming a crescent around the base.

  The man addressed his colleague. “Bob, let’s get the digital over here.”

  “Wise move,” said Karp. “There might be something under it. Unless an extremely large robin used it.”

  “I’d almost rather believe that than that the man buried a murder weapon in his own backyard.”

  “Oh, about now I’d believe nearly anything,” said Karp.

  The other man came back with a fancy Sony digital camera and began to click it. Karp helped the technician lift the bath proper off its pedestal. When the base column was rolled away, they saw a round patch of naked earth. The technician probed it with a trowel.

  “Was that a clink?” said Karp.

  The photographer snapped away as the trowel uncovered a revolver wrapped in a Bi-Lo clear plastic bag.

  “You think that’s it?” asked the technician.

  “Would you bet against it?”

  The man laughed. “Not me.”

  “Me neither,” said Karp. “How long will it take you to generate prints of these pictures?”

  “Couple of minutes. We got a laptop and an ink-jet in the van.”

  “Everything’s up-to-date in West Virginia,” said Karp. “I’m impressed.”

  The man gave him a grin and went off. The other technician lifted the weapon. “Looks like a Smith .38, three-inch barrel.”

  “Any chance of prints?” Karp asked.

  “Well, sir, we’ll check, but I kind of doubt it. This puppy’s been in the water. It’s got rust on it, look here. Probably down in the mud, too. You can see it stuck to the cylinder.”

  Karp could. It was greenish and it stank of chemistry.

  * * *

  Karp drove back to town with Hendricks, followed by their motorcade. Karp was silent, so silent that Captain Hendricks broke a life-long habit and opened a conversation.

  “Something wrong? I thought it went pretty good.”

  “Oh, no, it went great. I’m thinking about that pistol.”

  “It’s on its way to Charleston with results asap.”

  “Right. I’m assuming that we’ll find it’s the gun that killed Lizzie. If it is . . . it doesn’t make any sense. According to Bo Cade, his cousin Wayne used it on Lizzie. According to your technician, someone tossed it into the water. If both of those things are true, how in hell did it migrate to George Floyd’s birdbath?”

  “Floyd took it from Wayne on the night of the murder?”

  “Unlikely in the first place, but suppose he did. Then he throws it into some lake and then thinks, hey, the bottom of a river isn’t that good of a hiding place, I think I’ll . . . duh! . . . dredge it up and bury it on my property, and I’ll stick a birdbath on it, because the cops never think to look under birdbaths.”

  “Criminals do stupid things,” said Hendricks.

  “Yeah, they do. And to tell you the truth, the first thing I thought when we found it was something like that. This whole murder has been amateur hour anyway, and I thought, it’s the impunity. They never thought there’d be a serious investigation, so they were sloppy. George probably had it in his bedside drawer, and then when we picked up the Cade boys, he said uh-oh and shoved it under the birdbath. I’d still believe that, if it wasn’t for the mud. That gun was at the bottom for a while, in slimy, polluted mud. What I’d guess is that the boys threw it into a local body of water sometime after the murder, and someone saw them do it and picked it up and sometime later buried it where we found it. Someone was trying to implicate Floyd.”

  “But . . . Floyd is implicated,” Hendricks protested. “By Cade. So . . .”

  “Yeah, so why go through the trouble of framing a guilty man?”

  “Unless Floyd did it himself, to mess up any case against him.”

  “Yeah, that crossed my mind, too, but if you don’t mind me saying so, that’s a little too deep of a game for Robbens County. In any case, it tends to cloud the value of our presumed murder weapon. It’s a complexity, and I like it simple. According to Bo Cade, Floyd never had the pistol anyway. The whole thing ranks way up there among stories I would prefer not to tell a jury.”

  * * *

  Upon arrival in town, Karp went immediately to see Stan Hawes. “How’d you do?” Hawes asked.

  “Found the murder weapon. It was under a birdbath.”

  “A black birdbath? Shiny?” Karp nodded; Hawes snorted. “That’s kind of ironic.”

  “Why? This is a famous birdbath?”

  “Oh, they had a testimonial for George a couple of years ago, fifteen years of distinguished service to the union. It’s carved out of slate from Majestic Number One.”

  “That’s interesting.” Karp told him about the mud and the rust. “It adds to the theory that some third party was trying to make a point. How’d you make out with Earl?”

  “Oh, Earl rolled right over when I confronted him with Bo’s statement. He got all red up about it. According to him, it was Bo that shotgunned the Heeneys. He was just along for the ride. Confirms that Wayne did the little girl, though, and that Floyd was there. Also confirms the payoff, twenty-five hundred cash to each. He spent his fixing up that truck. Back to the gun: This is not good for the good guys, is it?”

  “No, not necessarily. Let’s wait for what the lab has to say before we start worrying too much, though. Have you been in to see Floyd?”

  A hesitation here, a hint of embarrassment. “No, I was . . . I mean I thought we could go in and see him together.”

  “Sure, let’s talk for a minute about how we’re going to play him. I think double-teaming is the way to go with George. And let me order some muscle from Wade. I don’t much trust the jailhouse guys.”

  * * *

  Floyd had taken off his jacket and tie and rolled up the sleeves of his white-on-white shirt. His forearms were massive and flecked with brownish hair. He rested them on the coffee-room table, their muscles flexing as he clenched his fists. Behind him, flexing even more massive forearms, stood Curtis Vogelsang, the largest state trooper in southwestern West Virginia. A much smaller jailhouse deputy, Peagram by name, sat on a chair in a corner.

  “Here’s what we got, George,” said Karp breezily as he sat down. “We have two confessions to the murders of the Heeney family, from Earl and Bo Cade. They s
ay you organized the whole thing. They say you were there in the house supervising the proceedings.”

  “I was at a meeting. Twenty guys will vouch for me.”

  “All on your payroll, I have no doubt. We’ll see how much they vouch when we explain the perjury statutes to them. Also we have this.” Karp passed across a sheaf of ink-jet printouts—the photographic record of the finding of the .38 under the birdbath. “That’s a .38 there, George. If it proves to be the murder weapon, you’re in big trouble.”

  To Karp’s dismay, Floyd barely glanced at the photographs. He grinned and said, “That’s horseshit. Someone planted it. Maybe you, or your little dickhead friend there.”

  “No, you know it wasn’t anything like that,” said Karp dismissively. He stared for almost a minute at Floyd silently, as if examining a specimen. He had found it a useful technique before this. Then he said, “It is interesting though. Although we know you’re an asshole, I can’t quite believe you’re that big an asshole, because I couldn’t help noticing that you walked in here with your shoes on the right feet, and also neatly tied with bows. We know you’re an asshole because only an asshole would have planned a murder with a bunch of half-wit hillbillies for triggermen. And of course they screwed it up, and of course we grabbed them, and of course they ratted you out instantly. But you were smart, in just the way that assholes think they’re smart. You told them to throw away the gun because you saw on the TV somewhere that we could match bullets to guns. You didn’t take the gun and throw it away yourself. You’re not capable of that much intelligence, you pathetic sap! No, you told your witless accomplice to throw it away. But this moron actually had more sense than you. This moron planted the gun on you, so that if anyone ever asked any questions, they could say, ‘Oh, George did it. George shot a sleeping little girl.’ And you’re going to go away for it, for the rest of your miserable life. You know, George, they don’t like child killers in prisons. You’ll be at the bottom of the pecking order in the joint, instead of at the top like you are here. When you go up, you better bring a large jar of Vaseline and a frilly negligee—”