Deadly Science

by Ken Brigham

  Seltzer was waiting for the elevator to take him from the subbasement of police headquarters up to his office when his cell phone rang. The screen indicated that the call was from the assistant chief, so he answered it.

  “Seltzer.”

  “Detective Seltzer,” the familiar voice of Myra, his boss’s long-time secretary, said. “The boss wants to see you in his office immediately. He says it’s urgent.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Seltzer answered, “Tell him I’m on my way.”

  Seltzer had gone down to the ballistics lab as soon as he saw the yellow note stuck to the screen of his computer informing him that Peter Harvey had called and would like to talk with him. Hardy had descended to the domain of Pistol Pete where he had endured a very long and detailed lecture on the elegance of the science of ballistics analysis—a careful description of the strengths and limitations of the process—before the eminent forensic scientist finally told him the results of the tests comparing the markings on the bullets test-fired from Jody Dakota’s gun with the markings on the bullets recovered from Bonz Bagley’s cranial cavity at autopsy.

  Seltzer had intended to return to his office to assemble all of the evidence in the case before taking it to the higher-ups. But his boss was forcing the issue. There were no doubt political pressures at work to which the detective was not privy. It was always politics that precipitated this kind of urgency. Hardy Seltzer was a methodical investigator and didn’t like having his hand forced prematurely. That was particularly troubling when the forces were those of politics rather than justice. But he didn’t have the final say. He would tell his boss everything he knew, put all the cards on the table, and see how things played out.

  “We’ve got to move on the Bagley case, Hardy,” the assistant chief said.

  The secretary had ushered Seltzer into the office immediately without waiting to announce his arrival to her boss. The assistant chief was pacing back and forth behind his desk. He didn’t greet Seltzer, just waved toward the guest chair opposite the desk, and launched into the subject at hand as Hardy sat down.

  The assistant chief continued, “I think we need to bring Jody Dakota in and charge him. You said yourself that we had a case—motive, opportunity, and a murder weapon. Tell me why we should wait any longer.”

  “That’s obviously up to the chief and the DA,” Hardy responded.

  “But, you’re the detective, Hardy,” his boss said, and after a short pause continued. “The ballistics. Do we have those results yet? Harvey should have done the tests by now.”

  “I just reviewed the findings with him and was about to bring them to you when I got your call,” Hardy replied.

  “So?” His boss’s impatience was becoming obvious in spite of his efforts to show respect for the detective’s well-known deliberate approach to the analysis of the evidence in a case. “What about the ballistics?”

  “I’ll spare you the details of Mr. Harvey’s lengthy explanation,” Seltzer said. “The bottom line is that the results are a maybe, neither yes nor no. Mr. Harvey explained that in about ten percent of cases nationwide the ballistics results are equivocal. Harvey says his results are better than that; he can make positive conclusions in all but about five percent of cases. But this is one of the five percent.”

  “Damn! The assistant chief responded, pounding his fist on the desk, “Damn!”

  “Harvey offered a further opinion,” Seltzer said. “He thought that since this is such an usual gun—he says no more than thirty of this particular model were ever produced and probably many fewer than that still in existence and in working order—that the probability of two of them being owned by residents of a town the size of Nashville must be extremely low.”

  “So, we have a case,” the assistant chief said. “Motive, opportunity and very strong evidence that we have the murder weapon. Let me get the chief on the phone and see if we can move on this.”

  The DA had also received a call from the mayor, the content if not the tone of which was similar to that of the mayor’s earlier conversation with the police chief. The DA had just hung up from that call when his secretary rang the police chief through to him. The DA was in a foul mood and was fully prepared to make the chief aware of that fact.

  Foregoing any preliminary niceties, the DA answered, “What the hell do you want? Unless you’re going to tell me that we can arrest someone for the Bagley murder we don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you,” the chief responded.

  “So, talk to me,” the DA responded, his tone softening only slightly.

  “We have the ballistics.”

  “So?”

  “That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not conclusive.”

  “What do you mean not conclusive? Ballistics don’t lie.”

  The chief explained to the DA that the results of the ballistics were equivocal but that the fact that the gun was so rare still made it entirely possible, even likely, that Jody Dakota’s gun was the murder weapon and Dakota was the murderer.

  “Bring the little bastard in and charge him with murder one,” was the DA’s immediate and unequivocal response.

  “We’ll do that,” the chief answered. “And, I suggest that the two of us hold a joint press conference later today to announce the arrest. We need to get ahead of the media on this. I don’t want the headline in the morning paper to be the first the public hears about it.”

  “Capital idea,” the DA answered and ended the call.

  The chief had put the call on speakerphone so that the assistant chief had heard the entire conversation.

  “You heard the man,,” the chief said, “Do it.”

  “You’re the boss,” the assistant chief replied.

  He made no move to get up from his chair and they sat for a few minutes looking at each other.

  Finally the chief said, “You don’t seem entirely comfortable with this. What’s bothering you?”

  “Well, Detective Seltzer did as he says you suggested to him. He discussed the case with Shane Hadley.”

  “What does Sherlock Shane think about it?”

  “Shane is convinced that Jody Dakota isn’t the killer.”

  “Does he have a better idea?”

  “He thinks he does, but I’m not convinced.”

  The assistant chief proceeded to give the chief what details Seltzer had given him about the mysterious Elizabeth Reid who had allegedly test-fired a gun like Dakota’s at a Brentwood firing range and Shane’s efforts to find her through a connection to a dead Texas lawyer who had willed a rare gun collection to a daughter with that name. There remained a lot of unconnected dots in that story. In fact Seltzer thought that Shane’s theory was pretty much a collection of dots without enough connections to make anything close to a coherent story. Seltzer very much liked stories to make sense and he was always troubled by the data gathering phase of an investigation unless there was a clear direction. That is exactly where he thought Shane was with his mystery woman theory. It could pan out, but it was impossible to tell whether that would be the case.

  The chief listened intently to the story, looking directly at his subordinate and occasionally scratching his head as though assimilating the information required some effort.

  When the story was finished, the chief paused for a minute and then said, “Tell you what. Let’s bring in Jody Dakota and charge him as the DA instructed. Turn all of the evidence incriminating Dakota over to the DA. But I have disregarded what seemed like outlandish theories by Shane Hadley in the past with some undesirable consequences, situations that I would strongly prefer not to repeat. Get Seltzer to do everything possible to follow Hadley’s line of investigation, but to do it quietly. The DA doesn’t need to know about it. Let him think he’s got the killer unless and until there are solid reasons to believe otherwise.”

  As the assistant chief was leaving the chief’s office, he passed the secretary who held a note in her hand and seemed in a pa
rticular hurry to deliver it to her boss. She rushed into the office and handed the chief the note.

  “This call came while you were meeting with detective Seltzer,” she said, “Mr. Coniglio said to be sure that you understood that it was urgent that you return his call.”

  “Thanks Myra,” the chief said.

  The secretary left, closing the door behind her and the chief sat behind his desk looking at the note and dreading the call that he knew he would have to make. He had no idea why the attorney X Coniglio would need to talk with him so urgently but it would certainly not be for any reason that the chief would enjoy dealing with. They were generally on opposite sides of any issue that involved both of them and Coniglio was a formidable opponent. The chief placed the call.

  The secretary who answered the phone put him through to Coniglio immediately and the attorney got right to the point.

  “Chief,” he said, “Your department is in possession of some property of a client of mine and I want you to see that it is returned. Can you do that?”

  “Well X,” the chief responded feeling as always that addressing the lawyer using only the near-terminal letter of the alphabet that the attorney insisted was his actual name, not an initial, was awkward. “Perhaps you can give me some more details and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’m talking about Jody Dakota’s gun,” X responded. “An officer under your command has taken possession of a rare firearm belonging to my client, Mr. Dakota, and we wish it returned to him immediately.”

  “You’re representing Jody Dakota?” the chief asked.

  “That is correct, sir,” replied X. “He employed me in that capacity a few days ago and he is here in my office at this moment extremely upset about the unauthorized confiscation of his property and by his treatment at the hands of your detective, one Hardy Seltzer.”

  “Your information is incorrect, X,” the chief said. “Mr. Dakota voluntarily relinquished his firearm to Detective Seltzer. It cannot be returned to him now because it is being held as evidence in a murder case.”

  “Evidence?” X queried. “I guess we’ll see about that. The gun was taken by one of your officers operating beyond the boundaries of the territory where the Metropolitan Police Department has authority and outside the legal boundaries that protect the property rights of a law-abiding citizen. My client maintains that your detective threatened him, coerced him into relinquishing said firearm. I seriously doubt that such behavior will be looked on favorably by any criminal court judge in this city. That gun will never see the light of day as evidence in any criminal case, sir.”

  There was a bright side to this, the chief thought. At least Jody Dakota was in the city and so could be arrested by the metro police legitimately.

  “I must tell you, Mr. Coniglio,” the chief said, avoiding the awkward use of just X to address the attorney. “We are about to arrest your client, Mr. Dakota, and charge him with the first-degree murder of Bonz Bagley. It would be most convenient if you could keep him in your office until my people arrive.”

  “He didn’t do it, chief,” X answered. “You aren’t going to come out of this looking very good when the truth is known. And the truth will be known. You can count on that. Of course my client will cooperate in every way with the police. You may come here to arrest him but rest assured that I will accompany him every step of the way.”

  I’m sure you will, the chief thought. X Coniglio defended his clients with the ferocity of a pit bull on steroids. The DA would have a stroke when he found out who was defending Dakota. Coniglio was the one defense lawyer in town who had several notches in his gun handle as a result of duels with this DA. The chief of police always enjoyed seeing the two of them go at it. But, the odds that Jody Dakota would walk were markedly improved by his selection of a lawyer. And if Bonz Bagley’s murderer walked, it would reflect on the whole system, especially the police department.

  Hardy Seltzer speed-dialed Shane Hadley’s home number on his cell phone as he was making his way to his office.

  “Hadley, here (hee-ah),” Shane answered on the fourth ring.

  Shane had been on the deck enjoying the late morning sun and biding his time until he could rationalize having his first glass of sherry for the day. There was little action in the alley. It was too early for the clubs and there seemed to be fewer people in the alley most of the time of late. He looked across at the dead façade of what had been Bonz’s Booze and Music, the sign now gone and the place looking as lifeless as its former owner.

  “Shane,” Hardy replied, “this is Hardy.”

  “Hi-ho my man,” Shane responded. “You’ve no doubt called to tell me that you have suddenly located our mystery woman and are about to arrest her. Am I correct?”

  “Not exactly,” Hardy replied. “We are about to make an arrest in the Bagley case, but you’re mistaken about the gender of the arrestee.”

  “So,” Shane said, “the results of the ballistics tests were equivocal.”

  “Why do you think that?” Hardy said.

  Hardy thought that the most logical guess about the results of the ballistics would be that they identified Dakota’s gun as the murder weapon since they were obviously proceeding to charge him with the murder.

  Shane answered, “It is the only possibility, my man. Since that gun is not the murder weapon the results could not possibly have proven that it was. And if the tests had ruled the gun out as the weapon of interest, you would not be proceeding to arrest and charge the owner of the gun with a murder which he did not commit. The only possible conclusion is that the tests were inconclusive, an unusual but not unheard of result of such tests. I suspect the DA, whose powers of reasoning are considerably less than optimal—he is, in fact, an idiot—reasoned that since it is such a rare gun and the ballistics left open the possibility that is was the murder weapon, that, in the context of the other evidence that has even you convinced of Dakota’s guilt, a case—the DA would say a prosecutable case—could be made.”

  “Yeah, that’s about how it went, Shane. Even though I still think Jody did it, I thought the chief and the DA were too anxious to make an arrest in the case, moving too fast. Sounds like pressure from above to me.”

  “Ah, yes,” Shane said, “the ever-recurring futile attempts to blend the immiscible elixirs of justice and politics.”

  Hardy concurred wholeheartedly with the fact that justice and politics didn’t mix well but would have chosen different words to make the point.

  “I fear you’ve acted prematurely, my man,” Shane continued. “I warned you about that.”

  “I hope not, but it’s out of my hands.”

  “If you’re going after Jody Dakota,” Shane said. “You’re going to have to go through X Coniglio, you know. I saw the little fellow entering X’s office the other day.”

  “That’s the DA’s problem.”

  “When the wee one walks, it will be your problem, my man, and the chief’s,” Shane responded.

  “I guess we’ll see,” Hardy said, then added, “You may want to watch the news later today. There’ll be a press conference. If nothing else it will be one of the rare occasions when the DA and the chief of police try to create the illusion that they actually like each other.”

  “Will do. Will do,” Shane responded. “Always an interesting performance.”

  “When can we get together?” Hardy asked. “I’ll have some more time once we turn the Dakota case over to the DA. We should stay after your mystery woman theory for the time being, see where it goes.”

  “Hardy, my man, do I detect a hint of actual interest in what you call my mystery woman theory? To what do we owe this change of heart?” Shane said.

  “Actually, the chief suggested it although he would like the fact that we’re working together on an alternative solution to the Bagley murder kept quiet for now.”

  “The chief actually told you to work with me? Amazing! When I knew the old warhorse, he didn’t seem especially fond of how I approached things. We lo
cked horns more than once.”

  “Not surprised,” Hardy responded. “But he tells me that he’s dismissed a cockamamie theory or two of yours in the past and wound up holding the short end of the stick. He doesn’t want that to happen again.”

  “True, true,” Shane said. “Surprising how passing time can change one's point of view. Nonetheless, this is a wonderful development. Come by tomorrow whenever it’s convenient and let’s set about finding the real killer.”

  “See you tomorrow, Shane,” Hardy said, smiling to himself. “It’ll probably be afternoon. I’ll call in advance.”

  It was still early in the day, but Hardy didn’t feel like sitting around in his stifling office all afternoon. He wasn’t going to attend the press conference, although the chief would have been perfectly OK with that. Hardy decided that he wasn’t even going to watch the conference on TV. He didn’t need to be reminded of how the criminal justice system worked. He was too well aware of that. He had his role to play and he played it as best he could. What happened upstream to his efforts often displeased him, but he wasn’t responsible for the actions of the people who occupied the spaces nearer the headwaters of law enforcement.

  After spending a while catching up on some long-neglected paperwork, Hardy decided to leave. He put on his jacket, lowered his window and left his office, heading for the elevator to the parking lot. He wandered around the underground garage trying to remember where he had parked the department’s black LTD, the aging behemoth use of which was one of the few dubious perks of his job. Having located the car, he decided to go to the Dew Drop Inn for a beer. He was also thinking that if it was Marge Bland’s day to work the early shift, he just might ask her to go to dinner with him.

  Hardy Seltzer was a solitary man. He had even been a solitary boy, an only child left pretty much to fend for himself on the mean streets of North Nashville. He learned how to do that early and those skills had done well by him over time. He was okay with that. Although he had been alone for a long time he had rarely felt lonely. It had been a while since he had felt any strong need for human company. But he was feeling lonely today, maybe had been feeling that more of late. He was enjoying the fortuitous connection with Shane Hadley, the Sherlock Shane of departmental myth reincarnated as a wheelchair-bound ex-detective holed up in his Printers Alley flat. And then there was also Hardy’s accidental rediscovery of Marge Bland. She seemed to be taking up some room in his head of late. Just as well see if he could figure out what that was about.