by John Misak
I didn’t want to be in his shoes, if that was the case.
I spent the next couple of hours running things through my mind. Steve Eckert would be waiting for me at Kasey’s, and if things went as I suspected they would, he’d finger Mullins’ killer, either by accident, or on purpose. I thought about the possibility of him lying to me, thus throwing my investigation, if that’s what you want to call it, completely off. I knew things about people, though, and I didn’t expect Steve to do that. Whatever he would tell me would be the truth.
Jacob met me an hour early, across the street, as planned. He had a slew of gadgets, including the microphone, a recorder, and several other pieces of small audio equipment. He came prepared. He looked nervous, and I felt the way he looked.
“Let’s get you ready,” he said, after we said our hellos.
“Let’s.”
He attached the microphone underneath the collar of my shirt, and when he was done, you couldn’t see a thing.
“I assume you have a pack of cigarettes on you.”
“I do.”
“Okay,” he said, taking one of the small objects. It wasn’t even as big as a book of matches. “You’ll keep this inside your pack of cigarettes. Of course, you don’t want him to see it.”
“I doubt he smokes.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let him see the inside of your pack.”
“What does that thing do?”
“It’s a long distance transmitter. The microphone only transmits over a distance of fifteen feet. This,” he said, holding the object in his hand, “can transmit over 100 yards. I’ll have a receiver hooked up to the recorder.”
“Where are you going to be?”
He pointed to a white van parked a store away from Kasey’s. “In there.”
“It’ll go through the building?”
“Without a problem.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
He fumbled with the recorder for a second. “We’re going to have to test this out.”
“That might be a good idea.”
He handed me the object. It was heavier than I expected. It felt and looked like solid copper. “You see that small white switch on the side?”
“Yeah.”
“Flip it up when you are ready. You’ve got a battery life of almost an hour, so try and make your conversation as quick as possible.”
“Got it.”
“I can give you another one, but you’ll have to notify me somehow, and then go into the bathroom or something. That could get risky.”
“Maybe you should give me it anyway. I don’t know how long it will take to get anything out of him.”
Jacob shrugged. “If you think so.” He handed me another one, which I slipped into the breast pocket of my shirt. “Okay, go outside, flip the switch, and start talking.”
“Do I have to direct my voice toward my collar?”
He laughed. “That wouldn’t be too obvious, would it? It’ll pick up on the closest voices it senses.”
“Kasey’s can get pretty loud.”
“I’ll handle that. Don’t worry.”
I walked outside, flipped the switch on the device, and placed it into my pack of cigarettes, which I held in my left hand.
“You want me to say something specific?” I asked, then looked toward him through the window. He shrugged. I didn’t know if that meant he couldn’t hear me or I could say whatever I wanted. The street outside was fairly noisy, so I figured this would be a good test.
“You know, I read somewhere that men who listen to a lot of classical music have small balls.”
I could see Jacob laugh.
“The study also said that such men are prone to high estrogen levels, making them act like bitches at certain times of the month.” He laughed harder.
“So you know, I have very large genitals.”
He started to laugh uncontrollably, and because I didn’t want to attract too much attention, I walked back inside.
“Nice,” he said, still chuckling.
“What I said is true.”
“Of course. Just ask your girlfriend how I am built.”
Good one, Jacob. I didn’t think he was capable of humor.
“It worked?”
“Perfectly. I really didn’t hear much in the way of ambient sounds while you were talking.”
“What if there’s music playing in the bar?”
“You should be fine.”
“I hope so.”
“Let’s just hope you hear what it is you want.”
“Amen to that.”
It was crunch time. Jacob and I had gone through the motions one more time, and we had set up a series of codes, in case I got into trouble, or if the battery died on the transmitter. Now, all I had to do was go across the street and make the whole thing happen.
I walked across the street to Kasey’s and opened the door. Luckily, there were only three guys at the bar and, from what I could tell, two tables on the left side taken. It was quiet, something else I was thankful for, and the bartender, John again, was staring at the TV screen. When I walked in, he looked at me and nodded. “How are you?” I asked.
“Could be better. My stocks are taking a beating, as usual.” If that wasn’t a sign of the times, a bartender with a stock portfolio, then I don’t know what is.
“I have no luck in Vegas or Atlantic City, so I don’t mess with those things.”
“It’s easy.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Meeting someone?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.” I checked my watch. “Should be here in about ten minutes.”
“Need a drink?”
“Yeah. Get me a Dewars and soda.” I made a mental note to watch the drinks. The last thing I needed was to be plastered while I was trying to get information from Steve.
John got up, and poured my drink. He brought it over to me. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Everything okay?”
“Fine. Just been busy.”
He nodded. He really didn’t care, and that didn’t bother me. He was courteous, poured a nice drink, and brought me back when
he was supposed to. What more could I expect from a bartender?
“I’m gonna take a seat over there,” I said, pointing at the second booth on the left. “If someone asks for me, send them over.”
“No problem.”
I walked over to the booth, sat down facing the door, and took a sip of my drink. I took a gulp after that, hoping the small dose of alcohol would calm my nerves, which were jumping. I wasn’t sure what I was afraid of. It really wasn’t Steve, only because I wasn’t banking everything on him. It was the tape. I had doubts about giving it to the guy at NBC, only because I couldn’t be sure what was going to happen if it was aired.
I finished the drink quickly, but decided against having another. Too late. John was already preparing one for me, and he handed it to a waitress, who had come out of the back to give it to me. She walked over. She was another twenty-something blonde, just like most of the other waitresses there, and she had deep green eyes. Yeah, even at that point, when I was nervous as hell and had a lot to think about, I thought about sex. I wondered, if had Destiny shined upon me at that moment, could I run into the bathroom with her and take care of business in a short enough period of time?
The answer came quickly. No.
“Here,” she said, in a very high-pitched voice. “John said you look like you need this, and it’s on him.”
I’d have preferred it to be on her.
“Thank you.” I fished into my pocket and handed her a dollar.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the dollar and smiling at me.
I told myself to take the next drink slowly, but before I knew it, I was half done. My nerves were that shot. I pushed the drink forward, as if it not being close to me would stop me from drinking. Before I had the chance to consider another sip, I saw the door to the bar open, and Steve walked in. He was wearing his usual, a white oxford shirt, and a pair
of khaki pants. He was also wearing sunglasses. He walked over to the bar without looking in my direction. I seized the opportunity to grab my pack of cigarettes, pull out the transmitter, and flip the switch.
“Here we go,” I said, hoping Jacob heard me.
I saw Steve go over to John, who pointed in my direction. I was actually surprised that John knew my name, but then again, there wasn’t anyone else in the place who was a cop. Steve strode, and I mean strode, over to me. He was smiling.
“Detective Keegan,” he said, standing over me, “how nice to see you again.” I really couldn’t tell if he was being a wiseass, or if this was just his way.
“Hello Steve, have a seat.”
He looked at me, then sat down slowly.
“Need a drink?”
“I’ll take a vodka and seven,” he said.
I flagged the waitress, who was staring at the television with John, and she walked over.
“Get my friend here a vodka and seven, and I’ll take another as well.” I know I said I was going to watch the drinking, but I didn’t want Steve to think this was some sort of formal interrogation. I wanted him to relax. Things come out easier that way.
The waitress walked away and got the drinks.
“Thanks for coming down,” I said. “I’m sure this is the last place you want to be right now.”
“I could think of others.” Steve seemed relaxed, and didn’t at all seem concerned about talking to me. “I’m not sure what it is you want to talk to me about.”
“There’s a few things. It’s no big deal.”
“How’s the case going?”
There was a good question. “It’s going. We’ve got a few things we are working on, and I was hoping you could shed some light on a few things.”
“No problem. You still don’t think he committed suicide?”
“I can’t say. Why? You really think he did?”
His expression changed. It was subtle, but I noticed it. It was hard to put a finger on what I saw from him, but the best I could do is say that he seemed to get deeper into thought.
“Everything looks that way from my standpoint. I mean, I’m no detective, but all the signs point to that.”
“Like what, that he had a fortune, was going into the career he really wanted, and he had a great wife?”
“Well, no, not that. Just everything else. You know, the car,
the way he was acting right before he died.”
“Can you get into that a little further? That was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
The waitress came by, picked up my half-empty drink, and placed the other two down. Steve took his, drank a good bit of it, then put it down. I had a sip as well. He looked at me. I couldn’t tell for sure, but he seemed to be either hiding something, or trying to make me think some particular thing. What? I had no idea.
“Let me put it to you like this. I knew the man pretty well. I wasn’t on a social level with him, of course, but I could tell when he was in a good mood or a bad mood. He had been in a bad mood for like two weeks before he died. He just didn’t seem like himself. He almost seemed depressed.”
I tried to remember what story he had told me the first time we spoke, and I was pretty sure he had said something similar.
“You think he was depressed enough to kill himself?”
He acted like he thought about that for a second. I could tell it was only an act.
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Okay. So he was depressed, and depressed enough to kill himself. Then why would he drive his car all the way into the city, and then ram himself into an embankment? Why not take a bottle of pills, or, if he wanted to be really violent about it, take a gun to his head and blow his brains out? That would make a lot more sense that vehicular suicide, where the odds of survival are high.” “Hey, I’m just saying that I saw indications that make me think he might have actually killed himself. Why he did it the way he did, I have no idea.”
“Right. You see, the way I look at it, suicide seems unlikely. I’m sure there is something more to this.”
“There might be.”
“What do you know of the business, Techdata?”
“Honestly, not much. I took him there a few times, and I heard him on the phone, but I can’t say I know much about the whole thing.”
“You know anything about his partner, Harold Chapman?”
“A little. I met him a few times when he came to the house.” “In your opinion, how did they get along?”
“You think Harold Chapman murdered him?” The question came as though he couldn’t believe I was thinking that. Like it was the most outlandish thing he had ever heard.
“Anyone could have done it. Of course, the first step is to investigate the people closest to the victim.”
“That guy doesn’t seem to have it in him.”
“You’re saying, in your opinion, it’s impossible?”
“I guess so. Like I said before, I’m no detective.”
“Of course.” The mood had changed at the table. Steve had come in confident, almost completely comfortable talking to me. Now he had shifted a bit. I had him on the defensive, but to be honest, I had no idea what I said that did it.
Steve had finished his drink, and I signaled to the waitress for another round. I was relaxed after the three drinks, and I didn’t have that nervous feeling I had earlier.
“Okay, so you think Chapman is incapable?”
“I do.”
“What do you know about marital problems between Mullins and his wife?”
“Sondra?”
“Yeah, unless he had another wife.”
He didn’t laugh, but I was certain it wasn’t my problem with timing this time.
“From what I knew, they were getting along fine.”
That was a change. I seriously doubted that Steve didn’t notice they were having trouble, the way Sondra and Mullins’ mother had told me.
“I understand there were major troubles between them over the years.”
He didn’t say anything at first. He shifted in his seat.
“I didn’t notice that they were having any trouble.”
It was time to get to the meat of this questioning. It was time to take a risk. The worst thing that could happen would be him getting up and walking away.
“Listen, Steve, you’re lying to me. I’m not sure why, but I don’t appreciate it. I need the truth here.”
He started to object, then he looked down.
“I just don’t want to drag my former boss’ reputation through the mud, you know?”
Sure he didn’t.
“I understand, but please tell me what you know.”
“You’re not considering Sondra a suspect, are you? I mean, she was in the Bahamas and all.”
So, there it was. He was protecting Sondra the whole time. Well, I couldn’t be certain, but it was looking more and more that way. The only way I would find out would be to question him further about her.
“I know that. I didn’t say I was considering her a suspect.” “Oh.”
“But it does help to know what sort of trouble they were having.”
“You gonna keep this between us? I don’t want to see this all over the tabloids.”
“Of course that won’t happen. It’s between you and me.”
He took another swig from his drink. I wanted to light up a cigarette from the pack that was sitting in front of me, but I was afraid to do so. As long as the pack stayed there on the table, I wasn’t risking Steve seeing the device, or the switch accidentally going off. Not that Steve had told me anything I could use yet.
“Okay, they were fighting constantly. As a matter of fact, that’s another reason why I think he committed suicide. He treated her bad. Well, I don’t mean that he was a bad husband, but he was always doubting her, always thinking she was cheating on him. They would fight about that all the time. I would try not to listen, you know, it was their business, but they screamed in fron
t of us sometimes. It was mostly about that.”
“How often did they fight?”
“A lot, especially over the two weeks before he died. He was certain she was cheating on him.”
“Did he say who?”
“No, of course not. He was always making blind accusations. This was probably just another one.”
I looked at my watch casually. I couldn’t be sure that the battery would last exactly an hour, and I had been talking to Steve for almost forty minutes. I needed to make my way to the bathroom, or hope he would do that.
“Well, to be honest,” I said, “she is a piece of ass. I’d probably wonder about her like that too.”
Stevie-boy didn’t seem to enjoy that comment.
“Sondra is a good woman, from what I know of her. Every one of his accusations came up empty.”
He really was protecting Sondra. Why not let it ride even further?
“Well, if I was her, I’d be looking to get out of that marriage, if that’s what he was doing.”
“You are considering her a suspect,” Steve said.
“I told you the first time we met, I consider everyone a suspect. Though she has a great alibi, I still have to explore the possibility that she has something to do with it.” I stood up. “Listen, these drinks ran right through me. I’m gonna go take a leak.”
“Yeah,” he said, a bit angry. “No problem.”
I walked over to the bathroom, which was right next to the bar. When I got there, I noticed that the television was set to NBC, and there was a bulletin.
“We now bring you to a live broadcast of a press conference from Commissioner Agnelli of the New York Police Department,” the blonde anchorwoman said. For all the good luck I had experienced that day, it was all turning to shit.
“Turn up the volume,” one of the men at the bar said. John complied, and I ran into the bathroom, hoping Steve wouldn’t overhear the press conference, which undoubtedly was about the Mullins case, and how the department was officially closing it as a suicide. This wasn’t good.
I walked into one of the stalls, and pulled out the transmitter. Before I switched it off, I decided to alert Jacob of my situation.