Dead Wrong

by William Kienzle

  He would know he’d gained her complete confidence when she had little new to tell him about herself.

  The next step was to turn a corner and make himself indispensable to her and thus make her dependent on him. He must create the impression that not only was he in love with her, he was contemplating marriage.

  All this was accomplished with relative ease. Except that time was definitely a factor—and he didn’t have much left.

  He didn’t really want to have sex with her, but he would have had it furthered his purpose. Fortunately, she was shy, and, reading her correctly, he perceived that she wished to save herself, if not for their wedding night, at least until a firm proposal of marriage.

  November was coming to a close before all was ready for the moment of truth.

  They spent a weekend together in Cadillac, Michigan. They stayed at a multipurpose resort in separate but adjoining rooms.

  Most of the leaves had fallen from the trees. Fall was sliding toward winter. They hiked through the skeletal forest. They swam in the heated indoor pool. They ate in the nearly deserted dining room. They laughed and shared intimate glances and chaste kisses by the huge log fire.

  Almost as an aside, he mentioned one evening that a friend of his was going to have a problem with a paternity suit. The friend, of course, was not the real father. But the mother was intent on blackmailing him. So she had given the friend’s name for the birth record. It would be a crying shame for this friend to have to go to court and spend possibly thousands of dollars fighting this malicious suit that would ruin his life if he lost. Chardon would consider it a favor of love if Agnes would correct the record by removing his friend’s name from it.

  Though such an action would of course be illegal, the request was straightforward enough. It was his understated tone of voice that gave her the clear impression that this was of great and significant importance to her Peter Arnold.

  The thought crossed her mind that this might be the entire purpose of his relationship with her. He certainly knew that she worked in the clerk’s office; that’s where they’d met. And he had gone where no man had entered before—into a love affair with her.

  Could it be? Could he have trifled with her affections for the sole and simple purpose of getting her to change an official record?

  No! Thoughts like that were an insult to their relationship. They had shared too much. She had confided in him too deeply. They had had too much fun together. He respected her too much.

  No man—no man!—would have done all he’d done for her for so trivial a reason.

  “Yes, darling. Yes, of course I’ll do it for you. I’ll do it for your friend, for your sake.”

  NOVEMBER 30, 1960. Agnes had drawn a heart around the date on her calendar.

  Unless she missed her guess, either at the conclusion of dinner or in the privacy of his apartment, Peter would propose. She would accept. For the first time in their relationship—for the first time in her life—tonight they would consummate their love and commitment to each other.

  Dinner was lovely, as usual. The Pontchartrain Wine Cellars lived up to its reputation. Agnes reflected that they had never dined at the same place twice. She attached no particular significance to that.

  There was no post-dinner proposal. But the evening was by no means over.

  At his apartment, once they were settled in, he offered her a glass of sherry. A large sip of the amber liquid warmed her. But she didn’t need the drink; she was ready for him.

  He had noted the changes in her appearance tonight. Her hair style, the makeup, her perfume—all were new and attractive. Having assisted her in being seated at the restaurant and just now as he bent over her from behind and offered her the glass of wine, he was aware that she was wearing a lacy black slip. The fact that her dress was cut low enough for him to see that was also significant.

  Adding it all up, he concluded that she had plans for tonight. After all this time and all these dates, this freshly suggestive transformation had to have some special meaning.

  Perhaps she expected him to propose this evening. Perhaps with or without a proposal, she was ready to go to bed with him. Whatever, she was ready for romance, and all the barriers would be down.

  He had to admit she looked good. And her perfume was seductive. The way she was tonight, he would not at all mind going to bed with her. It might be a lot of fun. Loosing all those years of her repression could be a fantastic aphrodisiac. But … this was business, not pleasure.

  For just a moment, he was tempted to compromise. He could let things follow their natural course and conduct his business after the lovemaking. No, that was sloppy thinking. Let emotions run away, even momentarily, and pretty soon his reputation could be in jeopardy. He could not afford compromise in any form. He would have to do it now.

  But first, one final check.

  He had already run one test. Knowing her lunch-break time, he’d gone to the clerk’s office in her absence and obtained a copy of the Monahan birth certificate. It had, indeed, been altered. The father of “Baby Girl Monahan”—evidently Maureen had not yet selected a name for her child—was “unknown.”

  Now, the only item left to be verified was that Agnes was the one responsible for the change … that she hadn’t collaborated with anyone else … that she was the only one besides himself and Nash who knew.

  From behind her, near the wet bar, he said, “By the way, Aggie, did you do that favor for me? In the records?”

  The fact that he had never again mentioned it after his initial request was further indication, if any were needed, that the record had nothing whatever to do with their love affair.

  She smiled. “Yes, I took care of it … there was no problem; nobody will ever know.”

  He was standing behind her, the blackjack ready. There was no purpose in further delay. He delivered an expert blow to the right temple.

  For his line of business, he had not killed all that often. By actual count, this was his sixth victim. The only time he’d had any doubts was prior to the first murder. He had wondered how he would react to killing another human being. He had been slightly surprised that he had felt … well, nothing: not shock, not horror, not pleasure, certainly not remorse. If anything, there was satisfaction in a job well done.

  Now, having bludgeoned Agnes, he again felt nothing. It was part of his job.

  He inventoried the apartment. Earlier this day, he’d gone through the place, removing every trace of his stay there. This was merely a fail-safe check.

  In a little while, he would leave with Agnes’s body. He would never return. The bill for this month had been paid in advance. He would leave the security deposit behind. No evidence, no questions; it would be as if he had never been there.

  All was ready. He checked the body. Agnes was dead. Only he and Charles Nash would know what had happened to the birth record.

  This was the hard part—physically. He hoisted the canvas sack containing her body onto his shoulder, carried it down the stairs into the parking lot and slid it into the trunk of his car. He then drove out onto the nearly deserted streets of Detroit.

  He rarely smoked, but he needed one now. He rolled down the window and lit up. The cool breeze quickly dried his perspiration.

  He turned onto East Jefferson and headed for Belle Isle.

  He drove slowly across the bridge to the island. There were a few other cars on the bridge. That was not encouraging. He would check the island for oncoming traffic. It didn’t matter how long this procedure took, he wanted to be sure there would be no one around when he got rid of his bundle.

  He circled the Scott Fountain. There were a few parked cars, no lights, windows raised and fogged. He had one thing in common with the couples in those cars: He and they wanted privacy.

  He swung around the fountain and once again approached the bridge, this time heading back toward the mainland.

  The traffic was as it had been, sparse … but the bridge was not empty. It would be risky to stop her
e. Everything had gone so well, he wasn’t going to take any risks.

  He turned onto Jefferson and drove back toward downtown. Then he swung down to Atwater, the street closest to the river. There, in an utterly deserted spot, he disposed of his bundle.

  He did not wait to see it hit the water, although he heard the splash. As soon as it was out of his hands, he turned and reentered his car and drove away.

  This would cost Charlie a bundle. But the work was of vital importance to Nash.

  However, Chardon would not bill exorbitantly. He had done business with Nash before. Nothing approaching murder, but several hatchet jobs. Charlie paid well and promptly. Chardon wanted to continue to free-lance for Nash. The bill would have to be carefully computed.

  Chardon, after all, had worked hard on this job and invested a considerable amount of his valuable time. The bill would have to be impressive but not offensive. He had time to figure it out. He had plenty of time now.

  He did not give a thought to the dead body he’d thrown in the water, to be swept downriver by a powerful current.

  ACTUALLY, the canvas sack had caught on a piling just at the surface of the water, where it would bob up and down for the better part of two weeks.

  All in all, not Chardon’s idea of a best-case scenario.

  C H A P T E R

  19

  PATROLMAN Walter Koznicki was a mite old to be a rookie Detroit police officer.

  After graduation from the University of Michigan, he served a hitch in the army; after mustering out, he enrolled in the police academy. All this was a preparation for law enforcement, which represented his highest ambition in life.

  Almost every course he took at U-M would be relevant to police work and investigative science. His term of army duty as a military policeman constituted direct preparation.

  His maturity and single-minded dedication won him the only two trophies awarded by the academy: one for the highest academic score, one for marksmanship on the shooting range.

  So it was with genuine promise that Koznicki graduated and was assigned to what was then termed a patrol car, under the guidance of a senior officer. Sergeant Cooper preferred street smarts to what might be achieved in any educational institution. He didn’t let Koznicki, his maturity, or all the prizes and book learning in the world impress him. On the contrary, this rookie was under special pressure to prove himself. And just such a test was coming up.

  The police had received a call about a suspicious object in the water off Atwater in the vicinity of Woodward. Cooper’s unit was dispatched to check it out.

  Cooper hoped for the worst. And he got it.

  It did not take them long to locate the object. It was a bag or sack of some kind, canvas perhaps. It appeared to be snagged on a fractured piling.

  It was Cooper’s guess that it had to have been dumped from this very spot where they were standing. If it had been dropped in from any point further upriver, it would probably have been sucked under by the current long before it reached this point.

  If it had just been the bag that was visible, no one might have paid much attention to it. But there was an added point of interest. Evidently, the zipper had not been firmly closed or the canvas had ripped; in any case, something was sticking out of the sack. It looked like a human arm. No doubt about it, the bag would have to be retrieved.

  Similarly, there was no doubt in Cooper’s mind about which of the two of them would be doing the retrieving. “We’re gonna have to get that sack.” Cooper pushed his cap back and scratched his head.

  “Were you going to help?” It was Koznicki’s form of jest.

  Cooper did not get the joke. Even a lightly made proposal that he drag a possibly rotting corpse out of the river lacked any measure of humor. “No, no. You’re a big, strong young buck. I’m just an old copper waiting around for merciful retirement. Why don’t you be a good lad and go get the bag?”

  Cooper was absolutely correct: Koznicki was a big, strong, relatively youthful buck. Standing a few inches over six feet, big-boned, about 230 pounds and few of those pounds fat, he was at about the peak of his physical prowess.

  It being mid-December, Koznicki was more than loath to get wet. But if he was careful, he might be able to keep himself, at least from the knees up, dry.

  He studied the piling and its supports for a few moments. He knew that this operation might better be carried off by a team, with perhaps a diver present in case the bag was fumbled and dropped into the water. But if Cooper wanted to make it a test, so be it.

  As Koznicki swung a leg over the side and began his descent down the pilings, he noticed Cooper surreptitiously applying Vicks Vapo-Rub under his nostrils. Koznicki knew it was a maneuver intended to mask the putrid odor of a decaying corpse.

  He’d been through this as an MP, not in the context of a murder, but with dead bodies nonetheless. Some officers smoked cigars, others used products such as Vicks. No matter how accustomed one became to the singularly distinctive necrotic odor, blocking that odor was the easier way out. That Cooper did not offer the rookie the salve was part of the test. Koznicki was resolved to take whatever the senior officer chose to throw at him, including this difficult and unpleasant task.

  If he had not been strong as an ox, he could never have carried it off. Holding on with his left hand, he balanced himself carefully, while with his right arm he reached for, grasped, and lifted the water-soaked sack and its dead-weight contents off the spike of jagged piling. Then, laboriously, he struggled back upward to street level, tugging the sack after him. As he was about to attempt to heave his burden over the ledge, Cooper stepped forward and helped haul the ponderous package up onto the frozen ground.

  Koznicki stood by, his breath coming in chunks, as Cooper pulled down the zipper and threw open the sack.

  At that point, Koznicki, gulping in air, was most grateful for the cold. At least there had been no heat to intensify the putrefaction. Also, the body could not have been immersed more than a month at most; it was just beginning to show the “washerwoman” syndrome of wrinkles.

  “Better call Homicide. And while you’re at it,” Cooper added, “you better stay in the car. With those wet feet, you’ll have icicles in your shoes.” He was somewhat in awe of Koznicki’s strength. Cooper knew he could never have retrieved that sack unaided, not on the best day of his life.

  Koznicki didn’t waste a moment. He was in the patrol car as quickly as he could move. While he radioed Homicide, he turned on the car’s heater and focused its output on the floor. Fortunately, the engine had not cooled off too much, so there was still some residual heat.

  Now enjoying the warmth that enveloped his wet feet and chilled legs, Koznicki studied the site just a few feet away. It was his first homicide scene.

  Was it a homicide? Though the answer seemed obvious, he thought it a logical question. It was either homicide or a suicide. But who would zipper herself inside a canvas bag and dive into a river? Or had someone chosen this method to dispose of Aunt Sally rather than pay for a funeral?

  Was she a drowning victim? The medical examiner would have an answer to that. But again, even a casual glance at the corpse revealed that mark on her right temple. That probably did it. The murderer had to be pretty strong if he killed her with one blow. He? Well, a reasonable supposition since superior strength was required.

  And the victim? Young, Koznicki thought. Perhaps late twenties, early thirties. Nicely dressed. In life she might have been attractive. Now, the soul long gone, only the shell of what had been a young woman with most of her life ahead of her.

  Something came over Koznicki. It was as if an inner voice was telling him something special. The feeling, he thought, must be similar to that which a bird experiences when it first leaves the nest and finds itself flying. This is what he would do for the rest of his life … the rest of his working life—which he now hoped would encompass his mortal life.

  He was utterly captivated. Who had done this? Who had killed this young woman? O
f all the questions on his mind, this was paramount.

  He looked around. The homicide team was gathering. The immediate area was cordoned off. Each member of the team was doing what he specialized in. One was taking photographs of the area, concentrating on the victim. Two plainclothesmen were taking notes. One of them was questioning Sergeant Cooper.

  So completely was Koznicki caught up in what was going on, he became inured to his discomfort. He got out of the car and approached the detective who was not talking to Cooper. The officer seemed to be drinking in the scene, memorizing it perhaps. Koznicki, not wanting to interrupt, said nothing.

  In time, the detective became aware of this huge man. He turned and slowly appraised Koznicki from head to toe. He noted the patrolman’s damp trousers. “Cooper make you get the body?”

  Koznicki nodded. He did not like being reminded of what he’d just been through. He was still soggy enough to have belonged inside the heated car.

  The detective looked Cooper up but mostly down. Dry. Completely dry. He turned back to Koznicki. “You bring that body up all by yourself?”

  Koznicki hesitated. The truth might have compromised Cooper to some extent. Koznicki was aware that they should have called for help. Cooper had simply imposed a test, and Koznicki had submitted to it. But it was a direct question from a superior. “Yes.”

  The detective chuckled and extended his hand. “Davis. And you are …?”

  “Patrolman Koznicki.”

  Davis was struck by some memory. “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of you. Just out of the academy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes … uh …”

  “Oh, Lieutenant Davis. I’ve got Squad Three, Homicide.”

  After a pause, Koznicki asked. “What happens next?”

  “Huh?”

  “What do you do next? If you do not mind my asking.”

  Davis nodded. “Find out who she is … was.”

  “How do you do that? Do you mind my asking?”

  Davis smiled and shook his head. Some detectives definitely would mind. He did not. Especially not over questions from so promising a rookie.