Bullet Beth (George Hastings police procedural)

by James Patrick Hunt

  “Haven’t I always told you what I think?”

  “Yeah, you have.”

  “Apart from the bump on his head,” Klosterman said. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle. I don’t see any signs of a killer. Yeah, you’ve got a missing computer and a missing key to his apartment. But that…that doesn’t add up to a homicide.”

  “You think I’m losing it?”

  Klosterman stared at him for a moment. Then he laughed. “Are you kidding?”

  Hastings didn’t answer him.

  “Christ, George, don’t be so dramatic. It doesn’t suit you. No, I don’t think you’re losing it. You had a hunch. Often your hunches are right, sometimes they’re not. If it’s not, doesn’t mean you’re having some sort of fucking mental breakdown. Remember the Colianos case?”

  “Yeah.” Colianos was a north side heroin dealer, one of the most savage, brutal men Hastings had ever dealt with. He had locked a rival dealer inside the trunk of a car and set the car on fire. Colianos had wanted his victim to die screaming, send a message.

  “We knew he killed that guy,” Klosterman said. “And he knew we knew. But we didn’t have the evidence. You said to me then, it doesn’t matter what we know. We have to prove.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “That was the one where you taught me not to take things personally. If it’s not there, it doesn’t mean we failed.” Klosterman raised his hands. “If it’s not there, it’s not there.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Murph opened the door. He held an envelope in his hand. He said, “A process server brought this by. The desk sergeant signed for it.”

  Hastings opened it up. It was a notice of deposition from Ryan Bradbury’s lawyer. Enclosed was a check for the cost of the subpoena and travel expenses to the lawyer’s office in Clayton.

  Hastings said, “Things just keep getting better and better.”

  Henry Brummell said, “Typically, lawyers schedule these things with the other lawyers. It’s a professional courtesy. But Cray didn’t do that. He just filed the notice and had it delivered to you.”

  Hastings asked, “He can do that?”

  They were in Brummell’s office. Brummell was behind his desk, doodling a picture of a anvil shaped weight hanging from a beam.

  “Yeah,” Brummell said. “He can do that.”

  “But they just filed the suit. And what about this motion to dismiss?”

  “It’s pending. They allowed time to file a response. Until the judge grants the motion, they can proceed with discovery.”

  “Can’t you put it off somehow until the judge rules on the motion?”

  “I tried that already. I filed a motion to stay discovery, pending the ruling on the motion to dismiss. The judge denied it.”

  “How come?”

  “He didn’t explain. He doesn’t have to, George. Not on something like that.”

  “Is there something else you can do?”

  “To postpone it? Like what?”

  “Well, like maybe calling Cray.”

  Brummell smiled and shook his head. “Oh, no. If I called Cray and asked him to reset it, he’d tell me to go fuck myself. Besides, I don’t think we should put if off.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “This is a psych game,” Brummell said. “If they were smart, they’d wait until all the other witnesses were deposed and until they got all their other evidence and then took your deposition. That way, there’d be more ammunition to use against you. In fact, I’m a little surprised at this.”

  Hastings regarded this lawyer, calm while he doodled on his yellow pad.

  “A psych,” Hastings said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well,” Hastings said, “I got to tell you, it’s kind of working.”

  “Don’t let it work,” Brummell said. “That’s what they want.”

  “I have to go to this asshole’s lawyer, this lawyer who walked this murderer, and sit there and let him question me?”

  “Yes,” Brummell said. “Haven’t you been sued before?”

  “Does a divorce count?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then no, I haven’t. And please don’t tell me it’s no big deal. Because from where I sit, I think it is.”

  “I understand that. Don’t get upset. You do that and you’re helping them with their case.”

  “I just can’t believe this is happening to me. The ass of these guys — it’s like they have no shame.”

  Brummell looked at him. “No shame? You’re talking about a guy who murdered a child and didn’t blink an eye over it. Why would he hesitate to sue you? Why would he hesitate to inflict pain on you?”

  Hastings didn’t answer him.

  And Brummell said, “It’s not pleasant being a victim, is it?”

  “…no, it isn’t.”

  “Ryan Bradbury is not the sort of man who’s going to face you in a fight. He’s not going ask you to meet him in the country with pistols and ask you to duel. He doesn’t have the balls for that. Here’s something he can do.”

  “So what are you suggesting? That I punch him out if he comes to this deposition?”

  “No, I don’t want you to do anything like that. You do, and you’ve given him a victory.”

  “So then I just go in there and eat shit.”

  “You go in there and you answer the questions his lawyer asks you. You’ve done nothing wrong, so you’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “It’s obscene.”

  “Yeah,” Brummell said, his voice firm. “It is an obscenity. It is an injustice. You’ve been shot at before, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I shot back.”

  “Or you took cover, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Brummell said, “Well, in a sense, you’re being shot at now. You’re in a field and someone’s got a high powered rifle and he wants to blow your fucking head off. You think you can stand up and say, ‘Hey, why are you shooting at me? I don’t deserve this.’ You can do that if you want, but he’s not going to explain it to you. He’s just going to put a bullet between your eyes. This is a man who had no compassion for a child. Who did not hesitate to kill a little girl. What makes you think he would show you any mercy?”

  “I guess he wouldn’t.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. And he won’t. You want to be a victim?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s get ready for the deposition. Put it behind us.”

  “All right. But please explain to me why I should be glad they’re taking my deposition sooner than later.”

  “Because it shows they’re being careless. Like I said before, the better strategy, for them, would be to take your deposition later. They’re doing it now just to rattle you. To inflict pain on you. My bet is, Bradbury’s acting from emotion. Pure hatred.”

  “And that should comfort me?”

  The lawyer said, “For now it should.”

  • • •

  He left Brummell’s office around six in the evening. He drove to the home Aaron Peterson shared with Jeff Lacroix.

  They lived in an apartment on a third floor walk up near the Botanical Gardens. Dogs started yapping when Hastings rapped on the door.

  Voices inside, yelling at the dogs to calm down.

  Aaron opened the door.

  He looked at Hastings for a moment. Then said, “I thought you were going to come tonight?”

  “I found the time,” Hastings said.

  Two little Westie dogs stood next to Aaron, looking up at the stranger in the doorway. The dogs were well groomed and difficult to tell apart.

  Hastings said, “Is Jeff here?”

  “Yeah, he’s here. Jeff! That cop is here.”

  From the kitchen, a voice said, “Who?”

  “That cop I told you about,” Aaron said. “Thinks you killed Johnny.” Aaron gave Hastings a look and said, “Element of surprise
, huh?”

  Jeff Lacroix came out into the living room. He was a big man, a head taller than his partner, and big in the shoulders. He looked like he could have been a lineman for Nebraska or played a Spartan in 300.

  He said, “Well let him in, Aaron.” Like Aaron was being unconscionably rude.

  Hastings introduced himself in a friendly manner, extending his hand for a handshake. Hastings said, “For what it’s worth, you’re not a suspect in this investigation.”

  Aaron went into the kitchen.

  Jeff said, “Aaron seems to think I am.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help what Aaron thinks. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  “We usually walk the dogs about now.”

  “I can go with you,” Hastings said. “But I’d like to speak with you alone, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” Jeff Lacroix said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Jeff picked a pair of leashes off the coat rack. The little dogs started jumping in anticipation.

  They walked the dogs down to Tower Grove Park. Jeff let them off the leash and they ran after some squirrels.

  Jeff said, “That one is Madeline and that one is Rolf. They’re brother and sister.”

  “They’re very well behaved,” Hastings said.

  “Thank you. I took them to Chippewa Dog School. They really know what they’re doing there. You have dogs?”

  “No. My daughter wants one, but we really don’t have time to take care of one.”

  “Well it’s good you’re honest about it. So many people get puppies, throw them in the backyard and forget about them. Really infuriates me. So…Aaron says that Johnny may have been murdered?”

  “It’s possible,” Hastings said. He was surprised that the man had brought it up first. “What do you think?”

  “Are you asking me if I think he was killed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, I’d have no idea.”

  Hastings told him the date Johnny Rodgers went to the lake. He asked, “Where were you that evening?”

  “Well that would have been a weeknight, so we would have been here and then we would have gone back to the apartment and had dinner.…Let’s see…who was here that night?…Chase, he lives over there. And then Mary Ann and Cherry, they’re house is on Magnolia. And then there’s Sidney’s mom —”

  “Excuse me,” Hastings said. “Sidney’s mom?”

  “Yes. Sidney is this little French Bulldog. I don’t know his owner’s name. Oh…I see. Yeah, here, you know more of the dog’s names than you do the owners. It’s sort of a community.”

  “A dog park community?”

  “Yes. We don’t socialize much outside of this park. In fact, I don’t think I know the last names of most of the people who come here.”

  “Well I’m afraid I’m going to have to know them,” Hastings said. “And their phone numbers.”

  “I understand,” Jeff said. He did not seem the least bit offended. Or worried. He was a rather cool customer. Apart from being homosexual, he wondered what Jeff saw in Aaron. “Oh, there’s Mary Ann now.”

  He called over a plain looking woman in her fifties and introduced her to Hastings. The woman had a Dalmatian. The Dalmatian approached the Westies and was promptly snubbed.

  “Mary Ann, this is George. He’s a police officer. Last,” he turned to Hastings with a question.

  Hastings said, “Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday. Were Aaron and I here?”

  The woman named Mary Ann didn’t seem fazed either. She said, “Was that the night we lost Orson’s ball?”

  “Oh, yes, it was. Did you ever find it?”

  “No. I ended up buying him another one. Yes, I remember you guys being here, helping us look for it.”

  The woman turned to Hastings. “You’re a police officer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not going to give us tickets, are you?”

  “For what?”

  “Not having the dogs on a leash.”

  “Oh. No.” Hastings shook his head at the situation. He said, “Do you mind if I take down your name and telephone number?”

  “Okay. But you’re not going to send me a citation in the mail, are you?”

  “You have my word I won’t.”

  She gave it to him. Hastings said, “And your friend was here that night too?”

  “You mean Cherry? Yes, she was here too.”

  The Dalmatian had run off. The woman said, “goddamn it,” and ran off after him.

  Jeff said, “God I hate Orson.”

  “Who’s Orson?” Hastings said.

  “The Dalmatian,” Jeff said, like Hastings was thick or something.

  “Oh.”

  “Look at that,” Jeff said. “Never, ever get a Dalmatian. They are irretrievably stupid.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Hastings stood with Jeff Lacroix in Tower Grove Park and watched a fifty year old woman ran after her dog, pleading with him to come back.

  Hastings said, “So what were your feelings about Johnny?”

  “Johnny? I only met him a couple of times. Can’t say I much liked him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought he was a jerk. I knew he was trouble the first time I laid eyes on him.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Well, to begin with, have you noticed that Aaron’s a little old for him?”

  “No, I hadn’t.”

  “You don’t know much about our culture, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “For a guy like Johnny, Aaron’s just an old queen. I suppose I am too. The difference is, I know it.”

  “Did Aaron and Johnny ever have a…relationship?”

  “Relationship.” Jeff snorted. “Now that’s a very diplomatic word. No, they never slept together. If Aaron ever did that, I’d have thrown him down the stairs. But Johnny was never interested in Aaron that way.”

  “So they were just friends?”

  “Johnny Rodgers was not the type of person who was friends with anyone. For him, people were just objects. He liked to play people, get them to fall in love with him. People like Aaron.”

  “Women seemed very fond of him.”

  “Oh, of course. Johnny wanted them to be fond of him. One of the most insecure people I’ve ever met. Huge ego.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Huge. He had to have people in love with him. I’m not even sure he was that interested in sex. Not any sort of intimate relationship, anyway.”

  “Would you call him deviant?”

  “Why, because he’s homosexual?”

  “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Okay. Well, who can say what deviance is in this day and age? I really wouldn’t know much about his private life. I met him and I wanted as little to do with him as possible.”

  “But Aaron liked him.”

  “Aaron gets enamored of people. Men and women. Especially sort of charismatic ones like Johnny. I love Aaron, but there is a bit of an adolescent in him.”

  “Were you ever worried that Aaron would leave you for Johnny?”

  “Never. Aaron likes to flirt, but he’s comfortable with me. And, for all his faults, I’m comfortable with him. We’re a relatively stable couple. Johnny Rodgers left his wife and children. He’s not interested in a stable, healthy relationship, with a man or woman. Believe me, I know the type.”

  “To your knowledge, was Johnny mixed up with anything criminal?”

  “Well…he sure drank a lot. And I’m sure he was involved with drugs.”

  “Did he ever do things for money?”

  “Things…you mean oral sex, that sort of stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he did.”

  “His body was found floating in the Lake of the Ozarks. Do you ever go there?”

  “Not since I was a kid and I hated it then. No, wait a minute. I was there for a college weekend
. I was in a fraternity then.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “Mizzou. Awful place. But I had a football scholarship.”

  Hastings waited for a smile or something indicating a joke. But there wasn’t one.

  Hastings said, “You — you played football for Missouri?”

  “Yes. I was a linebacker.”

  Hastings had to look at that man again.…Christ Almighty, he did look like a linebacker. Or what a college linebacker would look like thirty years later.

  Jeff said, “You seem surprised.”

  “Oh, no,” Hastings lied.

  About eighty yards away, the woman had caught her Dalmatian. Now she had him secured on the leash, telling him he had been very, very bad.

  “No offense,” Jeff said. “But I can’t believe that there would be a homicide investigation for Johnny. It just doesn’t make much sense to me.”

  Maybe it didn’t make much sense, Hastings thought. And was suddenly sad for the woman who would never train her dog. Hastings said, “Maybe not. Do you know if Johnny had any enemies?”

  “I’m sure he had plenty,” Jeff said. “But enough to kill him? I just don’t see it. Johnny used people and he got around. But at the end of the day, he was just a loser. Who would want to kill him?”

  Hastings got home around eight o’clock. He thought about calling Amy, wondered about the difference in time zones, then decided it would probably be too late. That led him to thoughts of the private school he could not afford. Starting as early as next fall…Shit, it would have to be decided soon. Take Amy’s stepfather’s money because he couldn’t afford to pay for it himself. If a jury ruled against him and for Bradbury, he would have even less. Maybe nothing.

  But Brummell had told him not to think of things like that. Bankruptcy, ruin, the disgrace of having been successfully sued by a murderer. Brummell had said, “Think about the question you’ve been asked and then think about our answer. Don’t think about stuff that’s months ahead of you or events that may never occur. You’ll just make yourself sick and you’ll make Bradbury and his lawyer smile.”

  It was a new experience for George Hastings. Not so much the being sued, though that itself was new. But mainly it was having to rely on someone else to get him out of trouble. He was usually the one taking care of people. His family, the officers under his command, the victims of crime. Yet with Henry Brummell, Hastings was the one who needed guidance and direction. On this matter, Brummell was in charge. A police officer’s relationship with lawyers is generally adversarial. For cops, the lawyers are usually the enemy. Until they needed a lawyer. Hastings trusted Brummell and was coming to like him. Still, it was uncomfortable placing his fate in someone else’s hands. But he knew he had no choice.