by David Archer
It was not the normal procedure to send the deputy chief of station out in the field, but Sean Higgins seemed too right for the job to stand on ceremony. One of his greatest strengths as an agent was that he was an excellent actor, having minored in theater arts in college, and a master of disguise.
The bureau had been hard-pressed to track down an angel dust operation, somewhere—God knows where—in the Pine Barrens. A few of the locals had been doing a brisk business selling pot laced with phencyclidine, and not just a little bit. There had been a number of incidents from Baltimore to New York, but mainly in Philadelphia, where people had become extremely destructive under the influence of the stuff. The operators figured the cops would eventually track down their general location, so they kept hidden to the best extent they could and on the move. It helped that the rest of the locals had little but contempt for big-city cops. If the bureau expected to crack this case, they needed to infiltrate the operation. That’s where Sean came in. After going up and down the entire roster, Section Chief Chuck Spangler decided nobody could make a more convincing Piney than his assistant.
Sean had been on the case for a bit over two weeks and was making excellent progress. After a couple of good-faith buys, he had broached the idea of merging his nickel-and-dime operation with that of the sellers. The dealers figured that could mean more money for them in the long run, so they took him on. Right off the bat, he made the biggest “sale” for them yet in Trenton. It was only a matter of time, Sean figured, before he sprung the trap. Then it would be back to the friendly confines of his office and—far better yet—a long-awaited chance to once again make sweet love to his fiance.
Chapter 8
“Anything crazy happen while I was gone?” Sean asked a cluster of agents gathered around the candy machine.
“Naw, same old same old,” Dwayne Jackson replied. “You should be caught up in no time.”
“Good. I want to hit the ground running.” In that spirit, Sean had made a beeline for the office the moment the miscreant Pineys were in handcuffs. There would be time enough to check in with his fiancée. Oh, yes, time enough to make himself happier than he had been for several days. “You sure nothing interesting happened?”
“There might have been one thing,” Dick Hawkins volunteered. “Some self-important cop from Philly made a big fuss about wanting to see you. Said it was some bullshit emergency, just so he could make me spill the beans, which, of course, I didn’t.”
“Um, okay, was the guy’s name Frank, by any chance?”
“Yeah, I think it was. Is he really related to you?
“Not yet, but soon. I’ll be marrying his sister-in-law this June.”
“Ha! Looks like those Piney boys won’t be the only ones dragging a ball and chain,” Sid Graupner joked.
Tears of joy welled up in Frank’s eyes as he looked down at the bundle he held: Juliet Camilla Mueller, all six pounds, fourteen ounces of her. It was a little past 3:30 in the morning. Both Frank, who had been present at the birth, and Sadie were exhausted. If it were not for the vexing case of his sister-in-law, he would have gladly taken the rest of the day off, but, for all his happiness, he itched to get on with the business. There was little he could do except keep checking in with Ernie. Oh, yes, and that other unpleasant task. If he could, he wanted to prepare his future brother-in-law for the bad news that awaited. Arlene would have to tell him as well, but it might be better for her if he had a little advance warning.
Frank called as soon as he got to his desk. This time he was in luck. Deputy Chief Higgins had just returned earlier that morning.
Well, that was if you could call it luck. Frank still resented the guy as much as ever, but he knew better than to say anything about how he felt. He continued to maintain a charade of comradery with Sean, but he was not as good an actor as the guy he was pretending to like. He sometimes wondered if Sadie or Arlene had managed to pick up on his true feelings.
“Sean? This is Frank Mueller. Welcome back.”
“Why, thank you Frank. You know, I was just about to call you. What can I do for you? Word I got around here is there is some kind of crisis going on. Any chance you all managed to sort it out?”
“No, not quite. Look, it’s really important we get together and have a talk.”
“Sure, drop by tonight after work. I really want to do some catching up with Arlene, but I can give you a few minutes.”
“Actually, it’s kind of important we talk before you go home. Any chance you can come into town?”
“’Fraid not. I got as mountain of paperwork to get caught up. How about you drive over here?”
“Maybe you haven’t heard, we just had a baby—a beautiful little girl. Anyway, I’ve been up all night. Tell you the truth, I’m dog-tired.”
“Uh, okay, how important is it you talk to me today?” No congratulations—just you come here if it’s so damn important.
“Very. I’m on my way as soon as I hang up See you when I get there.”
Frank broke the news as gently as he could. He was quick to emphasize the few good points about the incident, such as her not having been beaten or, for that matter, been awake to endure the horror and humiliation, up close and personally. Still, it had been quite a blow.
“I see,” was all Sean said after Frank had finished. “Okay, Detective, you have successfully conveyed your message. I would very much appreciate it if you could leave me alone with my thoughts.” Frank left the office and sought out the men’s room. His trip from there to the exit brought him past Sean’s office. Though the door was closed, Frank could hear him franticly pacing and moaning.
“Oh, man; on, man; oh man!” he groaned over and over. Then, to Frank’s shock, he heard him cry out, “How could she DO this to me?”
Among the three women, it seemed that Arlene Gomez was the calmest regarding the recent calamity. To be sure, she was furious at the dirty coward who had done the deed, but she was able to put the whole thing in perspective. She did not get knocked up, nor did she catch a disease. Her virginity had vanished on her third date with Sean, quite some time ago, so that was not an issue either. In fact, she was more worried about how being missing at a critical moment during the convention would affect her job. Of course, she had a more than reasonable explanation for her absence, as everybody at the Civic Center readily agreed. As for Martha Payne, she got the care she needed, once the medics arrived. No, they assured her, the effect would not be permanent. Just give the alcohol time to seep out of her system and she would be as good as new.
All that said, Arlene worried that her failure would weigh on the executives’ subconscious and affect her getting another important assignment. In particular, she hoped Mr. Ellsworth would understand. It was he, more than all the others, who had been her champion. If he were to give her the cold shoulder, she would find it very hard to keep working there.
In the end, she had managed to get Sadie and their mom down to a level of quiet rage. That was especially important for Sadie. Who knew what effect all that stress would have on the birth—due at any moment, it seemed.
“Tell us who you think it was,” Camilla Gomez had urged her daughter. “Your Uncle Dominic has connections to Angelo Bruno. He says the word, that guy could be dead the next day.” Arlene had her suspicions, alright. The pig she knew, Bob Jenkins, came quickly to mind, as did the pig she had only met, Fernando Flores. It was a good bet one of them had done the deed, but she had no idea which. In addition to the very large considerations of not wanting to get her family involved in a murder and, in the process, become indebted to the Mafia, she would never forgive herself if she chose the wrong guy between the two.
“For the tenth time, Mom, I have no idea. I slept through the whole thing. How about we let the police take care of this, okay?”
“Excuse me, you have a headache?” Arlene shouted. “I thought it was the women who were supposed to get the headaches.”
“Seriously, Honey, I feel like crap. That trip really took a
lot out of me. Maybe I should go back to my place and rest,” Sean replied. “How about we try for the weekend?”
“Really, you want to wait that long? I thought you’d be horny as a hoot-owl after all this time.”
“Yeah, I was really looking forward to it, but, you know…”
“Or maybe you’re not all that horny. Did you hook up with some slit-eyed bitch while you were gone?” Arlene knew he harbored a special lust for Asian women.
“Jesus Christ, Arlene, give me some credit. I have been true-blue the whole time.” That was true, he had. He just didn’t know if he could ever touch her again after this.
Chapter 9
“Okay, Einstein, that’s what the vic’s told us so far,” Detective Pacini explained to Ernie. “Now let’s see you make heads or tails out of it.”
“I wanna catch that mick bastard, soon as I can,” Halloran added.
“Oh, so we know we’re looking for some Irish guy?” Ernie asked.
“No, not really,” Halloran admitted. “On account of how he pulled off the rape, we’ve been calling him Mickey Finn. I’d like to get his real name toot sweet.”
“All right,” Ernie began, “who are your suspects?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Sherlock? Everybody at the damn convention,” Pacini snapped. “How’d you get this reputation as a super-sleuth anyway? I knew that from the get-go.”
“To answer your question, I don’t know. What can I say, it’s a gift.”
“Give me a break,” Halloran muttered.
“You want a break, how’s this?” Ernie responded. “We can rule out anybody in the place that didn’t know the victim already.”
“Aw, jeez, you’re killin’ me,” Halloran moaned. “I really liked that beaner for the rape. I mean she said he was hitting on her real aggressively. Why wouldn’t it be him?”
“Simple. Whoever did it was able to take her right to her car, out of all the cars in the garage, when he got done. Remember, the vic said she’d left her purse in a locker, and that included everything to do with her car. Only someone who knew her beforehand would know she drove a black Trans Am.”
“Shit! I was sure that guy was our man,” Halloran griped.
“You want to go all the way out to Newark and try to drag him back for questioning, it’s no affair of mine,” Ernie said. He had to keep in mind that, even if he was supposed to be the brains of the outfit, these two jokers outranked him. “Trust me, though, you’ll just be wasting your time. He’s not the guy, okay?”
“So what you’re telling us is it was one of her co-workers,” Pacini said.
“Yeah, but maybe not necessarily from the Civic Center. There were three people from the place she used to work—you know, Harbison Bell and Hathaway, was it?” Ernie did not want these guys getting any notion that he too knew the victim.
“Hallowell, Genius,” Halloran snorted.
“Yeah, fine, whatever. Anyway there were more guys who knew her besides the Center’s staff.”
“Now that you mention it, one of them looks pretty good for the crime. That guy Jenkins,” Pacini pointed out. “Remember how she said he had it in for her? Good catch, Campanella.”
“One of us should go after him. See what he knows,” Halloran suggested.
“Just him?” Ernie asked. “Why not check out all three?”
“Because the other two aren’t rapists, that’s why not!” Halloran snapped. “You talk about wasting your time, how about you go check out those other two while I make this Jenkins character sweat.”
“Sure, I’ll do that. Even if it’s a dead end, we should be as thorough as we can, you know, for Frank’s sake.”
“I think you got it right, there, about the dead end. Go ahead and check ‘em out, but don’t take forever with it,” Pacini suggested.
“You know, I wonder if we’re not leading ourselves off the path,” Ernie observed. “Here we are focusing on three guys, two of whom are probably guilty of nothing worse than felony parking, while we’re ignoring the most obvious suspect of the bunch.”
“Meaning who?” Pacini asked.
“Arlene’s boss, Howard Ellsworth. Think about it, guys. When they were trying to get help with that woman flipping out, they couldn’t reach Miss Gomez, because she was busy getting fucked, but then they tried this guy Ellsworth and couldn’t get him either. Wonder why that might be?”
“Bingo!” Pacini shouted as he slapped his palm onto the table.
“To tell you the truth, I have mixed emotions,” Arlene told her brother-in-law. “On one hand, the thought of Bob Jenkins getting gang-raped in the slammer warms the cockles of my heart. On the other hand, the thought that he may have had his way with me leaves me with a bad case of the creeping willies.”
“The guys on the case tell me they like him a lot for the crime,” Frank said. “You know, we don’t get to pick and choose. If he did it, he’ll get what’s coming to him. If not, well, like you said, be glad he never got to fourth base with you”
“Okay, so how sure are they that Jenkins was the guy?
“Not a hundred percent. They think he’s a strong possibility, but they have another suspect they like—maybe even better.”
“And who might that be?”
“Your boss, Mr. Ellsworth.”
“No, no, no. no. NO!” Arlene raged in the manner she and her sister had adopted from their sometimes hot-tempered mother. “It can’t be him.”
“Why do you say that? For someone who was out cold, you seem to be pretty well-informed.”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure it isn’t him. Can you ask the detectives to please lay off the guy?”
“Sorry, Arlene, I can do no such thing. They’ve given me a coupla really good reasons why he might be the perp, and all you’ve got is a hunch.”
“It’s more than a hunch, Frank. I almost know it for a fact, even if it took me a while to figure it out.”
“And do you plan to unveil this mysterious fact?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Do I need to point out that this is a serious crime against your person we are investigating. I think at the very least you ought not to impede us. Now come on, what’s the big reveal on this Ellsworth character?”
“All right, he’s gay, that’s what.”
“And you know this how? Did you actually see him, you know…”
“No, I did not actually see him, I just know, that’s all. I also know he’s a kind and decent man. The last thing in the world I want is to have his secret exposed. Come on, Frank, he didn’t do it. Please, call off your dogs.”
“I can’t make any promises.
Chapter 10
At the end of their conference, the three cops on the case agreed to the division of labor: Halloran would go after Bob Jenkins, while Pacini checked out this guy Ellsworth. Meanwhile, Ernie would go on his fool’s errand for no more gainful purpose, the two detectives figured, than staying out of their hair. They had heard Frank Mueller promise that Campanella wanted none of the glory, and maybe he believed that, but neither one of them trusted Ernie not to swoop in and grab the spotlight at the last minute.
Jack Halloran kept to his word about making Jenkins sweat. There were two large, dark semicircles of wetness under the sleeves of his white shirt by the time the detective was done with him. The suspect grudgingly admitted to the various incidents that had taken place between him and the victim, but steadfastly insisted he did not rape her. Christ, he had protested to the cop, I never even got to see her naked. Halloran was not ready to dismiss Jenkins altogether as a suspect, but he had been around long enough to sense a difference between an innocent man’s protests and the attempts of a guilty man to brazen his way out of trouble. Once he got done with Jenkins, he talked to the partners and a few co-workers. They all seemed to confirm what Arlene had said about him, but most of them doubted he was a rapist. On the other hand, they were unanimous about his disdain for grooming, manners and appearance. Many of them referred to him as Bo
b the Slob. Then one of the ladies in the typing pool threw a wrench into the works.
“Let me tell you something that happened between me and him a couple years ago, Susie Olafssen told Halloran. “I got so tired of his hitting on me, I decided to call his bluff. I said to him, ‘Okay, Bobby-boy, I’ll give in, but only tonight after work. Meet me in the supply room and we can get it on. If you’re not there by five thirty, you’ll never get another chance, ever.’ Of course the chickenshit never showed.”
Likewise, Vic Pacini had no luck getting Howard Ellsworth to confess. He was able to catch the guy in a lie, and that counted for plenty. When confronted about his absence during the drug reaction crisis, Ellsworth first said he had been exhausted, so he went off into a private room to take a nap. He must have really been out of it, he said, because he slept through all the attempts of the P.A. system to page both him and Miss Gomez. Unfortunately for the suspect, Pacini had seen fit to lay a little groundwork before the interview. He let the guy dig himself in good and deep with the nap story, then sprung the trap. The parking attendant had seen his van leave the premise about ten minutes after the awards banquet started. Ellsworth pretended to look concerned and told the cop they had been having trouble with street punks sneaking into the garage and taking cars that weren’t theirs out for a joyride. No, Pacini cheerfully informed the suspect, the attendant says he saw you at the wheel. Besides, who’d take a van for a joyride?
Ellsworth finally admitted he had left the building, but by himself. Arlene Gomez was not with him and he didn’t do anything to her. Where had he gone? It’s none of your business, Officer. Fine, you can have plenty of time to think about my business in the Graybar Hotel, Pacini finally told him. Oh, he was the guy alright. No maybes about it.
While the two detectives were busy with their prime suspects, Ernie Campanella dutifully stayed out of their hair by checking up on George Harbison and Ed Smith. To ensure he’d stay out of their way for a long-enough time, he not only checked out the two of them at work, but at their respective homes as well. Nothing much had been forthcoming.