BLUE MERCY

by ILLONA HAUS

  “Did she ever stay over?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Come on, Jer. You’re four doors down.”

  “Yeah, and I ain’t no Peepin’ Tom neither. I mind my own business.”

  “You have a girlfriend, Jer?”

  “No.”

  “So what do you do for fun then?”

  “I don’t know. Watch NASCAR.”

  “Well, you weren’t watching any races on May tenth of last year,” Finn reminded him. “You remember that night?”

  Bates shook his head, eyed his front door across the street.

  “That’s the night you got picked up for patronizing a prostitute. Remember that? And I guess there weren’t any races September eighth either, because they nailed you then too.”

  “What’s that gotta do with anything?”

  Finn gave him a shrug. “You ever pick up hookers with your friend Bernie? Go over to his house, do a little two-for-one?”

  “No. Bernie and I’d get high once in a while. Maybe five or six times, total. That’s it.”

  “What? Come on, Jer. You never shared a bit of ass with your best buddy? Or do you keep them all to yourself?”

  “Look, man, I don’t do that kinda thing.”

  “Do what?”

  “Share ass. Now come on, quit hassling me. I already told you we’d get high. That’s it.”

  “So while the two of you were getting high, did Bernie ever talk to you about the murders?”

  Bates flicked his middle finger against his thumb repeatedly, and when his gaze went to his front door again, he eyed it as if it were the portal to an eternal high that he couldn’t get to fast enough.

  “Just a few more questions, Mr. Bates, and you can go home,” Kay said from the front seat. “Annie Harris. You know about her?”

  His eyes went back to Finn, and he ran his fingers through his buzz cut, scratched at his scalp.

  “Answer her, Jer.”

  “Okay. Okay. She’s the girl they found in that Harlem Park row house, right?”

  “A plus, Jer.” Finn wondered if there was any substance to the clarity of Bates’s memory on that point.

  “Did Bernard ever talk about her?” Kay asked.

  Bates shrugged.

  “What did he say, Jerry?”

  “Said he knew her. This was after it was in the paper.”

  “That’s it?”

  Bates hesitated enough that Finn knew there was more, but the junkie had clammed up. He’d always hated interviewing addicts. The only thing on their minds was the next fix, the next score, even beyond self-preservation. He’d interviewed enough of them to know they’d say whatever it took to get to that next high. And if you pushed too hard, especially when they were needing a fix as Bates was tonight, they’d shut down. But Finn’s patience had been tapped.

  “Okay, look, Jerry”—Finn moved to get out of the car—“we may as well take you in.” He shoved his thumb at the radio car parked behind them. “I’ll just get these guys to run you downtown while we get a warrant. How much smack d’you figure we’ll find on your coffee table tonight, hmm?”

  “No. Wait. Shit, man, give me a break.”

  “Then give us something, Jer,” Finn said. “It’s not like we’re not askin’ pretty.”

  “Okay, look. Yeah, Bernie did say something, okay? We were getting high together, a week or so before he got arrested. He was acting all stupid. Asked me if I ever seen a dead body, other than at Hagen’s place. Then he asks me if I ever seen anyone die before, like while it was happening. And then he starts saying shit about how he killed Annie. Christ, I didn’t actually believe the son of a bitch. I thought he was just blowin’ hot air, you know? Joking around.”

  “You always joke about killing people, Mr. Bates?” Kay asked.

  “No. But I didn’t think he’d killed her. Now, honest, I don’t know anything else.” The whine in Bates’s voice had become irritating.

  “We know Bernard came to you when he was wanted,” Kay said. “He surrendered from your house. So was it you who talked him into turning himself in?”

  Bates nodded.

  “You must have a lot of influence over Bernard, huh?” Kay asked. “Convincing him to turn himself in on a multiple murder charge.”

  “Maybe.” Suspicion marked Bates’s whine.

  “So where were you Saturday night?” Kay asked, shifting the direction of the interview like a pro, deliberately keeping Bates off-balance.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to check my social calendar.”

  “Hey, don’t be a smart-ass, Jer,” Finn warned.

  “I’m home just about every night, okay? So I’m guessing I was Saturday too.”

  “Come on, Jer. Where were you? Cuz if you don’t give Detective Delaney here a good alibi right now, I’m thinking we’ll have to haul your skinny ass downtown.”

  Bates inhaled and sat up straighter. “Fine. Take me the fuck downtown.” His voice was suddenly stronger. The whine gone. “And then I’ll be needing to call my lawyer.”

  Finn backed off. It wasn’t worth it. They’d only spend the night dancing with a two-bit defense attorney. They needed more first.

  “Never mind.” Opening the door, Finn ushered the junkie out. “We’ll be in touch,” he said, and watched Bates scurry across the street.

  “I want a car on his house,” Finn told Kay after Bates disappeared behind his front door.

  Kay was silent, leaning against the roof of the Lumina, staring across the street.

  “This mope’s not as helpless as he seems,” he said. “Plus he had access to Hagen’s funeral home. Probably even had keys to the company van. If you’re thinking someone may have helped Eales ditch the bodies”—he shoved a thumb at the skel’s closed door—“he’s the most likely candidate so far.”

  “He’s a junkie, Finn. Do you really think he could pull off something like that?”

  “Hey, it didn’t sound like he was so strung out while he was working for Hagen.”

  “But what about now? What about Valley? And Beggs? Look, I agree, he’s mixed up in this. Somehow. But”—she nodded to the house—“do you really see this guy pulling off these murders?”

  Finn shrugged. “Who knows? There’s a big difference between an occasional skin-popper and an all-out main-liner. I don’t think Jerry’s there yet. I think we caught him on a bad night. Who knows what he’s like when he’s not jonesing. I don’t get the feeling his only hobbies are smack and NASCAR.”

  Kay shook her head, her gaze finally leaving Bates’s house to pan four doors down to Eales’s.

  “What is it, Kay?”

  “It just doesn’t feel right,” she said at last, shoving away from the car and pacing the sidewalk.

  “You’re saying we shouldn’t put a car down here?”

  “No, let’s get a car on Bates.”

  “But what’s your gut telling you?”

  She shook her head again, and Finn could see her mind working at the possibilities. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I think we need to find out more about Patricia and Eales, and what really went on in that funeral home.”

  37

  SHE BROUGHT HIM A FRESH PACK THIS TIME.

  The smoke spiraling from the tip of the Camel enticed Kay. She watched him flick a long ash to the concrete floor and imagined the smoke curling down into her own lungs, sedating her nerves.

  She’d come to see Eales alone again. Finn had conceded, begrudgingly agreeing that she’d likely get more out of Eales on the subject of Hagen’s molesting his daughter. The topic required sensitivity and the kind of familiarity Kay hoped she already had with Eales.

  But the bigger reason Kay hadn’t wanted Finn along was his anger. She recognized the hatred he had for Eales, the man who’d almost killed her, and she couldn’t afford to let it get in the way of the answers they needed.

  As predicted, Eales had again waived his right to have James Grogan present, doing so with a hint of amusement on his ug
ly face. And as he stared across the narrow table now, Kay was beginning to doubt the bargaining power of her cigarettes. Patricia Hagen probably stocked Eales with enough to outfit his entire cellblock.

  Kay kept an eye on Eales’s hands, free of the irons this time. In his left, the burning ash of the Camel sizzled down to his nicotine-stained fingers. His right was under the table. Kay saw a slight rhythm of movement in that forearm and hoped he was only scratching his crotch. When he tossed the last of his cigarette, he squashed it under the sole of his sneaker, his ankle swollen and pink, bulging with spidery veins.

  Kay drew her gaze up. She could tell Eales was eyeing the cut on her lip from her bar brawl the other night. Curious, but not bold enough to ask.

  “That’s a nice watch, Bernard,” she said.

  He’d been reaching for the smokes again, paused, checked the time, then grabbed the pack. The watch looked expensive.

  “Patricia give you that?”

  “Maybe.”

  Kay wondered how long before he traded it for drugs. “She sure takes care of you, doesn’t she?”

  He ignored the comment, tapped a cigarette out onto the table. When it rolled toward Kay, he left it. Slow revolutions gaining momentum. Only as she was about to reach out to stop it from spilling over the edge did Eales make his move.

  She’d forgotten how fast the son of a bitch was.

  His meaty hand shot out, slammed down on the cigarette, nearly catching her hand. She jerked back, but not quickly enough. Kay felt the moist heat of his palm. The thickness of his fingers.

  He smiled, brought the cigarette slowly to his lips, and lit it with the easy grace a high-society dame might afford a cigarillo.

  Don’t let him get to you, Delaney.

  “I bet Patsy brings you lots of things, hmm?” she asked.

  He shrugged. Examined the lit cigarette between his fingers.

  “After all, she owes you, doesn’t she, Bernard? Owes you a hell of a lot.”

  “Wadda ya mean?” His eyes narrowed.

  “I saw the letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “The one you had tucked in your dictionary.”

  When he lurched forward, it was more the sudden clatter of his leg-irons than his movement that made Kay jump. She kicked herself mentally for the reaction.

  “What the hell you messing with my shit for?” His words hissed through crooked teeth and his sour breath spilled over her.

  “I didn’t mess with your stuff. I’m trying to find answers. Your brother gave me permission to enter your house.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that. It’s not his house.”

  “We talked to Patricia this morning. I showed her the letter.” She and Finn had pulled up to Patricia Hagen’s home just as she’d been stepping out of a Yellow Cab at 10 a.m. They’d followed her up the walk, but this time Patsy refused to let them in.

  “She said it never happened.” But Kay remembered the tremble that had taken over the woman’s hands as she held the letter. “She says her father never touched her.”

  Eales’s mouth was a red slash.

  “That’s why you never sent the letter, isn’t it, Bernard? You knew that, even if her father did do those things, Patsy would never have supported it. But she owes you, doesn’t she? It’s because of you that Hagen stopped molesting her, isn’t it?”

  There was a distant look in Eales’s eyes then, and Kay imagined he was reliving the day he’d confronted Hagen. She pictured the old man’s throat in Eales’s big hands.

  “I think it’s a good thing what you did, Bernard. What Hagen was doing to his daughter, to Patsy, that’s just wrong. No man should get away with that. And you stood up for her. You saved that little girl, didn’t you?”

  She hoped to see his expression soften. But there was nothing.

  “Is that why you made the false allegations against him?” she asked.

  “You mean about the negro-feel-ya?” he pronounced it. “They weren’t false. Cops just didn’t prove it. Didn’t want to.”

  “So they’re true then?”

  “And you’re gonna believe me?”

  “Yes, Bernard, I will.”

  “Great. So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I can do. Necrophilia isn’t a crime in the state of Maryland. We might have been able to go after him for defamation of a body, but that was fifteen years ago, Bernard. I can look into what the statute of limitations is, but—”

  “Forget it. You ain’t gonna do nothin’ about it.”

  “Sure I would, Bernard. If you help me.”

  When he looked at her then, Kay finally saw interest spark behind those blue eyes. The connection she’d been waiting for.

  “I need to know who helped you dump the women,” she said. “The night Valerie Regester saw you in Leakin Park, who was with you?”

  “No one.” His voice was flat. The spark gone as quickly as it had appeared. “I was dumping my trash. Why don’t you go to the park and check it out, huh? No one ever did that. Why don’t you go there, ’stead of sittin’ yer skinny ass in here wasting my time.”

  “Bernard, you’ve got nothing but time. I think you can afford a half hour. Now, we both know you dumped Roma Chisney’s body in the park. Those women were killed in your house. Who helped you get rid of them?”

  “I didn’t kill nobody.”

  “Oh. Right. They committed suicide. Sorry. Then who helped you dump those suicide victims, hmm?”

  The tip of the Camel flared.

  “Was it Jerry Bates?” she asked.

  “You been talkin’ to Jerry?” The flicker of worry in his eyes was so fleeting Kay wasn’t sure she’d seen it or if her desperate need for answers had put it there.

  “Jerry’s a good friend of yours, huh?” she asked. “You two spent a lot of time together. Getting high together.”

  “So?”

  “Did you ever do anything else together?”

  Eales offered no reaction.

  “Was Jerry with you the night you brought Annie Harris home?”

  “Which time?”

  “The time she ended up dead.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Was he there the night you brought Roma Chisney home?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Maybe he killed those women, hmm, Bernard?” she suggested, offering him some wiggle room.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Maybe it was you helping him?”

  But even given that out, Eales wasn’t biting. His lips made a smacking sound around the Camel.

  “Was it Jerry who was with you when you dumped them, Bernard?”

  With the pinkie of his cigarette hand he picked at some dirt under a nail, then tore a hangnail from his thumb with his teeth and spit it across the holding cell.

  “Was it Jerry who helped you get them out of your car trunk?”

  “Hey, where is my car anyway?”

  She considered not allowing the divergence, then said, “Police impound.”

  He shook his stubbled head, his eyes going to the floor. For a second Kay could have sworn she saw genuine sadness behind those blue eyes. “That was my granddaddy’s car, you know. He drove her all the way down from Canada in ’62. Only made ’em up there. Nineteen fifty-nine Pontiac StratoChief. Best damn car. My mother let it rot in the back alley for years. I put a lot of work into that beaut, and now she’s stuck in some fucking police lot.”

  Kay could almost see him withdraw, as though his mind had taken him back to the alley behind his Gettings house, polishing the big, black Pontiac.

  “Who helped you, Bernard?”

  She watched him withdraw from the memory.

  He took a deep drag on the cigarette.

  “I know you couldn’t have done it on your own.”

  His reply was a cloud of blue smoke.

  “Okay.” Kay backed off. Eales wasn’t interested in any “outs.” “So what if I told you I think you’re t
oo stupid to have pulled off those murders by yourself?”

  The half-smoked Camel hit the floor, instantly crushed under his sneaker as his leg-irons dragged across the steel-cased chair. When he leaned over the table now, Kay couldn’t be sure if he hoped to intimidate or impart a secret.

  “Oh, yeah?” His whisper was laced with spent smoke and sarcasm. “Well, what if I told you I thought you were so fucking smart that you shoulda bin able to figure all this out yourself by now?”

  Kay stood, needing space.

  From her briefcase she removed the folder of photos she’d prepared. She hadn’t known if she would use them, if she’d give Eales the opportunity to get his rocks off, but she was running out of avenues.

  The photos hit the table one after the next. Five in all. Beggs in the alley—pan shots, close-ups. One from Jonesy’s camera at the OCME. “So what can you tell me about these?”

  Eales’s eyes feasted on the images. Again, Kay wondered if she saw worry flicker in his features. Then something resembling a smile touched his dry lips. Then: “Nothin’.”

  “Her name’s Bobby Joe Beggs. She worked along Wilkens Avenue. You know her?”

  “Nope. Am I supposed to?”

  “What about the way she was killed? Anything look familiar?”

  “You mean the way she hacked up her wrists like that?”

  “Yeah. The same way those women did in your house. Is there anything you want to tell me about her, Bernard?”

  “How the hell you figure I know anything about this?”

  “I think you do. I think whoever helped you with those other women, I think he did this.” She gathered the photos. His gaze followed each into the folder. “Either that, or you have one very enthusiastic fan out there.”

  “Well, how ’bout that.”

  “I want to know who helped you.”

  “Nobody.”

  “Come on, Bernard. Was it Jerry?”

  No response.

  “No. Wait, maybe it was Patsy. How badly does she owe you, hmm, Bernard?”

  This time when he exploded across the table, even the guard at the door jumped. This time, though, Kay was ready. She didn’t move.

  “You leave her out of this.”

  “So was it Patsy?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Then who?”