Deadly Science

by Ken Brigham

  “Only peripherally so far, but they’ve arranged a meeting of the DA and the chief with me tomorrow to bring them up to date and get the DA’s opinion about whether to bring Dakota in and formally charge him. We’re that close.”

  Shane thought for a minute and wheeled himself up toward the front of the room that looked out over the alley.

  Staring out the window with his back to Hardy, Shane said, “What interests you in this kind of work, Hardy? Why do you choose to spend your life foraging among the darker doings of our citizens?”

  Seltzer wasn’t sure how to answer. There was a back story to his life that had influenced his choice of careers. But he wasn’t yet ready to share that story with Shane Hadley. Maybe never would be.

  “I’m not sure, Shane,” Hardy responded. “Maybe I like the logic involved in solving a crime. Life, what people do, ought to make sense, don’t you think? How about you? Why did you get into the business?”

  “Certainly not because I thought it made sense,” Shane answered, wheeling back into the center of the room to face Hardy. “In fact, it is the parts that don’t make sense that interest me. And I think murder never makes sense in any realistic way.”

  “Well, maybe,” Seltzer answered, not sure where Shane was going with this and therefore choosing to remain noncommittal.

  “In fact,” Shane continued, “when the story is too easily put together, I am very suspicious that something is being overlooked. I think of that as the rule of the other gun.”

  “What do you mean?” Hardy said.

  “It’s not the gun you see that should concern you, but the other one. And there is always another one. Forget that at your peril. I am living proof of the consequences.”

  Hardy was beginning to realize that this conversation was really about the Bagley case.

  “And,” Shane continued, “the other gun may be real or literal, an unappreciated piece of information, for example, that is the critical clue to the real solution rather than the apparent one. Do you understand what I am getting at, Hardy?”

  “Do you have some more information about the Bagley case, Shane? If so, please just tell me what it is.”

  Seltzer was way past ready for Shane to stop the philosophizing and cut to the chase. He would hear Shane out, but Hardy was very close to being completely convinced that he had solved the case. Very close. And nothing would make the department brass happier than getting this thing solved and passed on to the DA.

  “There is another gun.”

  “Would this be a real gun or a figurative one?” Hardy answered.

  “Perhaps both,” Shane responded. “You see, I talked with the rare gun dealer in Houston. It turns out that they keep very good records and could easily document that several years ago they had sold a rare Colt handgun like the one owned by Mr. Dakota, which you believe dealt the unfortunate Mr. Bagley the mortal blow to the Nashville dealer. However, about the same time they had sold an identical gun to someone else.”

  “So,” Hardy said, “they are a rare gun dealer. Why does the other gun interest you?”

  “I suppose because it is there. The rule of the other gun tells me to ignore this bit of information at my peril. And, I tracked it to a deceased lawyer in a small Texas town who apparently willed his collection of rare handguns to his only child, a daughter, Elizabeth Anne Reid, who lived in Houston at the time of her father’s death.”

  “Where are you going with this, Shane?”

  “Hear me out, please,” Shane replied. “Surmising that the killer might have felt the need to test the antique gun prior to using it in the crime, I also contacted shooting ranges in the Nashville area. What I discovered was that a woman visited one of the facilities twice, bringing a handgun like the one we seek to test fire. The establishment’s proprietor, an interesting chap incidentally, gave me a description of the woman. And her name. Her name is, pay attention, Hardy, the rule of the other gun, you know. Her name is Elizabeth Reid, ei like the Texas lawyer, not ee. Through Google, may God bless the sagacious Google, I found two Elizabeth Reid’s in Nashville who generally fit the description. Although neither name is a perfect fit with the Texas lawyer’s daughter, they are certainly close enough to pursue.”

  “So, Shane, what do you propose we do with this information? Seems to me we put it on the back burner until we get the ballistics on Jody Dakota’s version of the gun from Pistol Pete. If that gives us an unequivocal identification of that gun as the murder weapon, then the case is closed as far as I’m concerned no matter who else has a gun like it and visits shooting galleries to fire it.”

  “We would be wasting time to do that.”

  “I think we’d be wasting even more time and energy by any other course,” Hardy answered.

  “Think what you wish, my man,” Shane responded. “And if Mr. Harvey tells us without reservation that Dakota’s gun killed Bagley, then I will believe it. But, I am quite certain that that will not be the case. Quite certain. Can you humor me a bit, and do two things. First, contact any law enforcement connections you have in Houston and ask them to get a copy of the lawyer’s will. That document should establish whether an antique gun like the apparent murder weapon was among the possessions that his daughter inherited. It will be necessary for someone to go in person to the office of the probate court in the county where Greensward, Texas, is located and copy the document. I am not familiar with the geography of Texas but the office should not be difficult to locate. The will has been filed and so is public information, but it’s not possible to get it online. I tried that. Second, see if you can find out addresses, contact information, and anything else you can learn about the two Elizabeth Reids in Nashville. It would be especially interesting if one of them moved here from Houston at some point, don’t you think?”

  Hardy was annoyed at Shane for attempting to open a completely new line of investigation when the case against Jody Dakota seemed so clear cut. This rule of the other gun sounded like a license to chase wild geese in this case. And Seltzer had to present the findings in the case to the DA and the chief tomorrow. What would he do about this new information of Shane Hadley’s? They didn’t even know Shane was helping with the case, and they would be none too happy to discover that, Hardy suspected.

  “OK, Shane,” Hardy responded, “I’ll follow up on this as you wish on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is that if the ballistics implicate Dakota’s gun as the murder weapon, we drop this line of inquiry and turn it all over to the DA.”

  “Dropping a line of inquiry prematurely is not an approach that I have found fruitful in the past, my man. But, you have the advantage here, so I will agree to your proposal.”

  After giving Hardy Seltzer his notes on the conversation with Rory Holcomb and writing down the names of the two Elizabeth Reids and the Texas lawyer, Shane showed the detective out.

  Shane wheeled himself back to the rear of the flat and settled in at the windows overlooking Third Avenue to check out the action at the lawyers’ offices lining that street. He often did that without looking for anything in particular. He was just intrigued by that part of the legal system, the part of the process where the maneuverings of the manipulators were set in motion. Shane did think of lawyers as manipulators. He once asked a prominent defense attorney how he could bring himself to defend a client who was obviously guilty. Shane was not satisfied with the attorney’s answer that guilt was decided at trial, not before. Innocence was presumed until a jury of one’s peers decided otherwise. A defense lawyer’s job was to exploit every nuance that the law allowed to assure that the jury did not reach that conclusion regardless of, even in spite of, the facts in the case. Shane understood the concept of presumed innocence and the defendant’s right to competent legal counsel. But he still thought that the guilt should be dictated by the facts whether or not a jury of one’s peers could be convinced to conclude otherwise.

  People of all sorts were entering and leaving the law offices.
Men in dark suits and red power ties. Gaudily dressed women, their blond tresses troubled by the afternoon breeze. A couple with two small children in tow. People whose life stories had somehow led them to seek the services of these manipulators of the law.

  As he sat there musing and sipping at his glass of sherry, a particular couple caught his eye. A small man wearing a white suit with a bolo tie and a large Stetson hat accompanied by a blond woman in a short denim skirt with conspicuously large breasts. They were entering through a glass door on which was emblazoned in large gilt letters, X Coniglio, Esq., Attorney, the name and profession of the notorious mouthpiece of the country music stars. Shane studied the man entering the office for a moment before his identity surfaced from some remote corner of Shane’s memory.

  So Little Jody Dakota was feeling the need to get himself lawyered up. Interesting. Wonder who his lady is….and how she runs?

  Shane was unaware of KiKi’s presence behind him until he felt her warm, strong hands massaging his shoulders. He leaned back and looked up at her. She kissed him, the warm, soft kiss that was his sustenance. He wheeled around to face her.

  “You’re home early,” he said.

  She pulled up a chair and sat close in front of him, reaching for his hand.

  “Shane,” she said, “I may have committed professional suicide today.”

  He massaged her hand.

  “Professional suicide?” he said. “Surely not, my love.”

  “Quite likely,” she answered. “I would never have thought that possible either, but I may have done it.”

  “What did you do?"

  “I told Cy that I suspected that Beth had altered the data from the drug study. And, this may be the suicidal act, I gave him copies of the material I took from Beth’s computer that convinced me that she had done it. I thought about it a lot, and I decided that I had no choice.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “Basically told me to mind my own business. That he’d take care of it.”

  “So?”

  “He won’t do anything about it. I’m sure of that.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “I’ll have to lodge a formal complaint of scientific misconduct.”

  “That makes sense to me.”

  “You don’t understand, Shane,” KiKi looked directly in his eyes. “Cy is a powerful person at the university. He’ll ruin me if he can. And he probably can.”

  Shane drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it.

  “KiKi,” he said, “I have to believe that the bad guys don’t win in the long run. I spent much of my life trying to make sure of that.”

  “I hope to God that you’re right, my love. But the academic community doesn’t always play by the rules that you’re familiar with. We have our own norms of behavior that can be heavily influenced by the aura of success. Cy lives within the glow of that aura. Compared to him, I’m a small fish.”

  “But surely the rules of academe aren’t oblivious to right and wrong. There is something basic in human nature that must transcend professional stature. The bad guys can’t win in the long run.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m more concerned right now about the short run,” she said.

  “Well, you’re right about that. Short runs can be a problem,” Shane said, then, “You did keep copies of the documents?”

  “Of course.”

  Chapter 17

  Hardy Seltzer’s command performance was to happen in the office of the District Attorney. The Office of the District Attorney, twentieth judicial district, was located in suite 500, Washington Square, 222 Second Avenue, just at the southern fringe of the courthouse square. The building was once the home of Washington Manufacturing Company, producer of DeeCee brand work clothes long favored by the city’s blue-collar set. When the abandoned building was overtaken by the tsunami of gentrification that transformed that part of downtown, Washington was retained in the building’s name as a gesture to its history.

  Seltzer walked across the square from his office in the Police Department Building. He could vaguely remember when the square was fronted by a row of mom and pop establishments where politicians hung out and did the city’s business over beers and cheap cigars. The seedy little Gerst House restaurant and bar had been a favorite of the politicos before it moved across the river into a kitschy chalet-like establishment aimed at luring the tourists from the freeway for bratwurst, sauerkraut, wiener schnitzel and a pitcher of beer. Places like that were long departed from the square, their modest buildings razed years ago to make room for lawyers, accountants, and various other functionaries who fed on the largesse of the city’s taxpayers. They worked from a sterile array of low brick offices that squatted there, hunkered down on the meager remains of the place’s fecund history.

  As he approached the building and looked at the polished brass Washington Square sign, Seltzer thought that Nashville was rapidly becoming a city of gestures. The heart of the real city that he knew and loved was still beating in there somewhere, but an expanding canopy of gestures threatened to choke out the oxygen that kept the real place alive.

  Seltzer was ambivalent about this meeting for several reasons. He was not accustomed to meeting with his superiors that far up the chain of command so he was nervous, And while he was anxious to get the matter dealt with and turned over to the DA, and thought that he had a pretty good case, a couple of things about it still troubled him. There was the mysterious disappearance of the killer after running from the alley. Those two kids hanging out at Fourth and Union should have seen him, and Hardy was convinced that they told the truth when they said they hadn’t seen a single man passing that way. People don’t just vanish into thin air. That didn’t make sense. Then, he couldn’t dismiss the fact that Sherlock Shane was trying to steer the investigation in a completely different direction. True, Shane hadn’t been an active investigator for a while, but it was difficult to dismiss his theory out of hand. Hardy didn’t think Shane’s theory made sense and Hardy was inclined to dismiss things that didn’t make sense. He’d get a copy of the will. He’d run down the two Reid women as best he could. But he thought all that was a waste of time, and he desperately hoped that the ballistics on Jody Dakota’s gun would nail the case once and for all. A lot was riding on the ballistics.

  Hardy really didn’t relish appearing before this particular audience. It was unusual for the Chief of Police and the DA and his crew to arrange such a meeting. The chief and the DA were hardly on good terms. The long-smoldering hostilities between the two were no secret. And in such a high profile case, they would be vying for credit once a solution was in sight. The meeting could take a nasty turn, and if it did, Hardy was likely to be caught in the crossfire.

  When Hardy was ushered into the DA’s private conference room on the back side of the building overlooking the river, the four of them were already there. The chief, the deputy chief, the assistant chief, the DA, and two assistant DAs whom Hardy only vaguely recognized sat on one side of the rectangular table with a vacant chair on the opposite side obviously meant for him. Hardy didn’t like the looks of the arrangement. He was outnumbered and outgunned.

  “Do sit down, detective,” the DA gestured to the vacant chair without getting up.

  Hardy thought that the chief looked especially tired. There were dark pouches under his eyes, and he leaned forward with his elbows on the table and his chin resting in his cupped hands. The DA was the DA, a persona that he worked hard at. Hardy thought that the DA had watched too many Law and Order reruns and labored too conspicuously at an imitation of his old friend Fred Thompson.

  “I’m sure you are aware, Detective Seltzer,” the DA continued, “of how important it is that we get this Bagley case solved. Both the chief and my office are under some pressure, and we’re depending on you to get this thing sewed up as fast as possible.”

  “Yes sir,” Seltzer replied, fiddling nervously with his hands and scanning the faces of the opposition.

  “So, tell us
what you’ve got,” the DA continued. “I mean, convince me that you have a case that we can prosecute.”

  Hardy thought the choice of words was interesting. Not, convince them that he had identified the killer, but that he had a prosecutable case. They weren’t necessarily the same thing.

  Hardy recounted the details of his investigation that implicated Jody Dakota as Bonz Bagley’s killer—motive, opportunity, and possibly the murder weapon. The group listened quietly as he recounted the evidence.

  When Seltzer finished his recitation of the facts, the DA asked, “Eyewitnesses? The alley is a public place. The murder took place in broad daylight. Surely somebody must have witnessed the crime.”

  “It was early on a Sunday, sir,” Hardy responded. “Not much happening down there that time of day on a Sunday.”

  Hardy thought for a few minutes about what to tell them about Shane’s observation.

  After a short pause, Hardy added, “There were no actual eyewitnesses that we could identify. However, one resident of the alley alleges to have seen the killer running away just after the murder. He couldn’t provide any clear description since the apparent killer was wearing a hoodie, and the witness only saw him from the rear and at a distance.”

  “A resident of the alley? Who in hell was it? Not many folks actually live there. Who the hell would want to?” the DA responded.

  “The name of the resident in question is Shane Hadley,” Hardy said.

  The group went silent.

  Finally, the DA said, “Goddam. Sherlock Shane come back to haunt me after all these years. Thought surely I wouldn’t have to deal with that sonofabitch anymore,” he turned to the chief and continued. “Why didn’t you tell me this, chief?”

  Seltzer had told his immediate superior, the assistant chief, of the witness but had not told him who it was. He realized now that his attempt to keep Shane’s involvement in the case from the brass was a mistake. But they still didn’t need to know that Shane Hadley was involved in any way beyond revealing what he had seen.