Damnable

by Hank Schwaeble

  “Excuse me one moment,” Detective Wright said. She doubled back after one of the pissed-off looking cops who had passed them. The cop exchanged a few words with her over his shoulder that Hatcher couldn’t hear. Her body language indicated that whatever he told her, she wasn’t happy about it.

  She stood in the middle of the hall, stuck to the spot for a few seconds, acting like her feet were caught in mud. The trio moved on. She watched for another moment, then started back toward Hatcher, wearing a look of extreme displeasure.

  “Sorry about that,” she said.

  “Something bad?”

  The detective’s eyes were on the tall man in the sharp suit, drilling him as they passed. He stood his ground, ignoring her. Waiting for something, like he owned the place.

  “Yes,” she said, still watching the man, the man still ignoring her.

  At the far end of the hall Hatcher saw a pair of uniformed cops exit an elevator, escorting a man in cuffs. This one was unnaturally large in the upper body, the product of three-hour workouts, maybe longer ones, five or six days a week. His unflexed arms looked like a pair of thick pythons that had each swallowed a football. He caught Hatcher’s eye and fixed him with a cold stare. A prison stare. He was bald, his head shiny and waxed. A mustache curved down around his mouth and up to his ears, forming sideburns to nowhere. Hatcher didn’t look away, held the man’s gaze even as the tough passed a few inches to his left and looked like he might lean over to take a bite out of Hatcher’s face. Each held eye contact until the prisoner eventually turned his attention to the tall man. His guards stopped and lifted his hands so one of the cops could uncuff him. The tall man in the suit placed a friendly hand on the big man’s shoulder. The guy glanced back over that hand at Hatcher one more time and stretched his mouth into a humorless smile. He winked before being led the opposite way.

  Hatcher turned back in the direction he and the detective were heading just in time to see Wright cross over into the path of another man. This one’s suit wasn’t so nice. The coat didn’t hang so well, the material flat and stiff. The guy wearing it was medium height, on the stocky side, with broad shoulders but a waist that didn’t give him any taper. He had a dense head of black hair, pomped straight back. A lot of body on top. Too much, in Hatcher’s estimation. Most likely a weave. He’d seen a similar one before, on a CIA agent who debriefed him. You could tell when they sweat. The sides would get wet and flat, but the rug would stay the same. There’d been a lot of laughs when that guy’d left the room.

  Detective Wright stepped forward into the man’s space, looking almost straight up, her hands in the air.

  “You’re letting him go?”

  The man shrugged. His hands were large, but delicate-looking, almost feminine, with slender fingers. He carried himself with the dismissive demeanor of someone in authority, an air of it about him. Hatcher figured he would have had even more of that air without the weave. A gold shield was clipped to the front of his belt.

  “It’s not my call, Amy.”

  “Doesn’t anybody in the DA’s office have a set of balls? For Christ’s sake, Dan!”

  The guy thrust his chin in the direction of the big man and the others as they disappeared down the other end of the corridor. “Did you see his counsel? Stephen Solomon. Need I say more? That’s heavy-duty representation right there. We knew it was shaky.”

  She shook her head. “Gutless wonders.”

  “DA says the search won’t hold up and that we’re going to be nailed for harassment if we’re not careful. I don’t like it any more than you do. But the captain agreed. We had nothing to hold him on.”

  Wright shook her head one more time, twisting her upper lip, then continued walking. Dan watched her, sliding his eyes to Hatcher, obviously not caring whether Hatcher noticed.

  She led Hatcher up a flight of stairs to a room packed with desks. Most had computer monitors, but several along the wall had old and faded Selectric typewriters the color of the wild man’s vomit before the Pine-Sol. That made them almost the same color as the flecked linoleum flooring that stuck to his rubber soles and made an adhesive peeling sound with each step.

  “Forms,” she said, noticing where his eyes were as she took a seat behind one of the desks. The desk had a wood veneer top with metal sides painted to approximate a walnut grain. Government furniture, through and through. She held her palm out in the direction of a chair next to it. Also the obvious product of a government contract.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “We use lots of forms. The computer system is not that reliable, goes down a bunch. We have to file everything on paper. Those dinosaurs are the quickest way to fill them in. The department’s too cheap to bring us into the twentieth century. Guess we’re not far enough into the twenty-first yet.”

  “I take it you didn’t join the force for the paperwork.”

  She sighed, contorted the side of her mouth into something that created a dimple, and began sifting through a stack of folders. “You said on the phone you had some questions.”

  As if hearing its cue, the telephone on her desk buzzed. She gave him an apologetic look, and he nodded for her to go ahead and answer it. She was gruff to the person on the other end, tersely repeating that she was busy, but apparently to no avail. Her body seemed to deflate slightly as she listened. A sag of surrender.

  She cupped the bottom of the handset and gestured over her shoulder. “I’m going to be a minute. Help yourself to some coffee.”

  Not much for pleasantries, but he decided the rough, sultry sound of her voice more than made up for it.

  Taking the hint, he made his way to the coffeepot on a small table near the wall. The squad room had a lot in common with a good number of military offices he’d seen. Bleak, utilitarian. Personalized here and there in a way that only seemed to make it more oppressive. Reminders that some people spent a good deal of their lives in this space, hours they’d never get to live again.

  He poured himself a cup and stared at a nearby desk where a splash of color caught his eye. A chalk-white face with big orange wisps of hair sticking out from the sides, a single smaller one on top. Sinister, drooping eye holes shaped like large eggs. A grin that looked predatory. A clown mask. Halloween type. It was displayed prominently on the desktop, pulled over something to hold its shape, like a severed head.

  “The Bozo Killer,” Wright said as she hung up the phone.

  Hatcher looked over to her, tilted his head. “Huh?”

  “Some kook went around cutting people up dressed as a clown.” She jutted her chin toward the desk. “Reynolds caught him, walking a beat. Homeless guy sleeping in box. Had the murder weapon on him. The bust got him his detective shield.”

  Hatcher nodded, giving the mask one final glance as he returned to her desk and took a seat.

  “Okay.” She let out a long breath, rubbed a finger over one eye. “You had some questions.”

  “I can come back later if this isn’t a good time.”

  “No. No, it’s not that. I’m just a bit agitated right now.”

  “I can see that. Something to do with that guy out in the hall, if I had to guess.”

  She looked straight into Hatcher’s eyes, exploring them. “I caught you playing staredown with him. I almost said something. Not a good idea.”

  “And why is that?”

  “That’s Lucas Sherman. Name ring a bell?”

  Hatcher shrugged, shaking his head. “Should it?”

  “He made the news a few years back. Serial rapist. Given a . . . controversial option in exchange for a lighter sentence.”

  “What kind of option?”

  “A chemical castration.”

  Hatcher watched her eyes appraising him. He was familiar with the term but knew it had a totally different meaning among people he’d worked with, one involving acids and guys in countries not known for their friendly attitude. He wondered what she’d think about that.

  “Doesn’t sound fun.”

  “It
’s never been authorized in New York. It was part of a plea agreement by some ADA who thought he had a better alternative to incarceration. Well, Sherman was caught cheating. He got picked up with a prostitute during a narc sweep and it turned out he was giving himself testosterone injections to counter the drugs. The DA went to court to invalidate the deal, and his lawyer pointed out the agreement didn’t say anything about him not being able to inject anything he wanted. The scumbag ended up laughing at us. He even beat the indecency charge. This was years ago.”

  “What did he do this time?”

  Detective Wright inclined her head, studying him with the look of a jeweler romancing a stone. Her lips bunched together as she seemed to weigh her options. She shot another glance over to the door, then leaned forward and lowered her voice to a gravelly whisper. “One of our patrolmen responded to a tip, spotted a limo in the parking lot after hours at an industrial facility, doing some random drive-by. Apparently it was parked sideways, across a loading zone, with an interior light on. He gets curious, checks it out. Sees the trunk isn’t all the way closed and lifts it. Inside, there are plastic sheets laid out with what looks like blood on them.” She jutted her chin toward the hall. “He calls it in and arrests our friend there.”

  “Problem with the search, I take it.”

  “No PC, according to the DA. Probable cause, that is. Trunk may have not been closed all the way, but he had no right to pop it open and look inside. Rookie mistake. A more experienced cop would have got it to stick.”

  “By finding probable cause?”

  “By lying about whether the contents of the trunk were in plain view.”

  Hatcher waited for her to laugh, giving away the joke, but she barely grinned. “Blood on plastic in a trunk probably isn’t good.”

  “He says he was burning laboratory waste. RMW. That’s a felony. Problem is, even his confession to that is considered fruit of the poisonous tree.”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’re not upset because he beat a dumping charge.”

  “His name has popped up in connection with some missing call girls,” she said after a pause. “Nothing too solid. No bodies, even. So much manpower is taken up by anti-terrorism activities since nine-eleven, it’s hard to devote attention to things like missing persons, especially when they happen to be hookers. But a pattern has started to emerge.” She pursed her lips, grunting. “And you heard about the nun who disappeared, I’m sure.”

  Hatcher leaned his head, gave it another little shake. “I haven’t paid attention to the news in a while.”

  “Wow. I thought everyone in the country knew about it. A couple of months ago. She was young, relatively new to the convent. Vanished without a trace.”

  “You suspect this guy Sherman?”

  “We placed him in the general vicinity. But that’s about it. A lot of work has gone into the hunt for her, but it’s turned up nothing and we’ve had to scale back. We’ve been hoping for a break. I thought this was it.” She huffed. “But his lawyer, the one you saw downstairs, he managed to quash our attempts to get an emergency search warrant for the furnace. I don’t know how, but he convinced a judge it would be a backdoor way to use the illegal search of the limo. That’s a lot of legal firepower for one count of illegal waste disposal.”

  “Don’t lawyers like that cost money?”

  “Lots. The whole thing smells. And that guy is bad news. I don’t think you want to go messing with him. Even if you do look like you could take care of yourself. I’m assuming you’re not a killer. I certainly can’t say the same about him.”

  “I’ll watch my step.”

  “And by the way, you didn’t hear any of that stuff from me, okay?”

  “What stuff?”

  Wright smiled, reserved, but genuine, then reached over and pulled a case file from a short stack. “Let’s get to your questions. The reason I may have sounded a little confused on the phone was we had the deceased IDed as Garrett Nolan.” She opened the file and set it on the desk. “You were his brother?”

  “I . . . yes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Hatcher.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Pretty much whatever you can tell me.”

  The detective thought about that for a moment. “I assume you know that your brother was killed when he was struck by a vehicle.”

  “That’s about all I know.”

  She lifted the file, propping it open in front of her as she skimmed through it. “It appears he was coming to the aid of a woman who was being assaulted. Witnesses said a man grabbed her out of Bean’s coffee shop. You know it?”

  Hatcher shook his head.

  “It’s over on Third Avenue near Twentieth. Your brother was inside, tried to intercede. The tussle spilled into the street, and they ended up in front of an emergency vehicle heading to a call.”

  “Are you sure that’s what happened?”

  She nodded. “There was no shortage of witnesses. It sounds like your brother was a brave man.”

  “I guess it does.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, according to the coroner it’s more than likely he was killed instantly. The EV was moving with a full party hat on, as they say.”

  Hatcher nodded. That part was probably bullshit, even if she wanted to believe it. Everyone was always killed instantly. No grieving mother was ever told that her son died a horrible, painful death, screaming in agony, pissing and shitting himself on the battlefield, limbs blown off, holding parts of his guts in, choking on his own puke. It was always painless. Nobody ever felt a thing.

  Then again, you never can know for sure. Maybe Garrett lucked out. If you could call something like instant death “luck.”

  The silence became awkward as he tried to think of something to ask and realized he didn’t know enough about his brother to come up with anything.

  “I have a question for you, Mr. Hatcher, if you don’t mind. Do you know who your brother was meeting that day? At the coffee shop?”

  “No. Why?”

  “No particular reason. The waitress indicated he was there with someone else. We weren’t able to locate him. Would be nice just to fill in that blank.”

  Hatcher considered that for a moment. “Do you think this person may have had something to do with what happened?”

  “No. Just thought you might know who it was.”

  “I didn’t really know my brother, Detective.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “In fact, I was hoping maybe you could tell me something about him.”

  The words seemed to catch her by surprise. She skimmed through a few of the pages in the file. It was the kind that secured documents to it via bendable fasteners poked through a pair of holes at the top, and Hatcher thought what he could see of the stack looked to be twenty pages thick. She rubbed a spot at her hairline as she thought.

  “I’m sorry, there’s not much information here.”

  Hatcher nodded. “Have you determined why she was attacked?”

  “No.”

  “Who was he? The attacker?”

  She shrugged. “We have yet to establish a positive ID.”

  Hatcher said nothing. He nodded again, watching her closely. The silence expanded for several seconds until she shifted in her seat and continued.

  “He seems to have had a psychotic break, picked this woman out more or less at random. Possibly because of the way she looked. We haven’t been able to find any connection.”

  “So you’re saying you have no idea who this guy was?”

  She swung her chin back and forth slowly, glancing down at the file, scratching the tip of her nose with an elegant, manicured finger. “He’s listed as a John Doe. Probably just some street person. I doubt we’ll ever know.”

  “How about the woman’s family? They had no idea who he was? He wasn’t a former boyfriend? An ex, stalking her?”

  “We haven’t been able to
find any family for the woman.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It happens. Look, Mr. Hatcher, this is a cut-and-dried case. By all accounts, it seems that whatever this man’s motive, it didn’t have anything to do with your brother. Wrong place, wrong time. It’s a shame.”

  “So that’s it, then? Nothing else?”

  “For now, yes. We hope to find out more when we talk to her.”

  Hatcher focused on her eyes. They were an interesting shade of light brown, almost a mustard yellow. She looked straight at him as he contemplated what she had just said. He was unable to square it with anything he knew. “Talk to who?”

  “The woman your brother tried to save.”

  “I thought they were all hit by the fire truck?”

  “Ambulance. All three were. But only two of them died.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In the hospital, just being released from ICU. In a body cast, I imagine. That’s really all I can say. Privacy issues, you understand.”

  Hatcher noticed her eyes jump beyond him and she nodded. He glanced back over his shoulder. It was Dan, with the hair, leaning against the doorjamb, a look of mild curiosity on his face.

  “Mr. Hatcher, I hate to cut this short, but Lieutenant Maloney and I have an appointment.”

  Hatcher nodded, thanking her as she stood, and walked with her back out into the hall. She told the lieutenant she was finishing up and led Hatcher down the stairs and to the counter he’d started at. A different cop there passed him a sign-out sheet beneath the glass and asked for the name tag back.

  “If you leave me your number, I can call you if I get any more information,” she said, as she pushed open the doors to the main waiting area.

  “It might be easier if I just check back with you.”

  “Okay. Feel free to call, but don’t expect me to have anything to add. This isn’t the kind of case that can be solved, if you know what I mean.”