He quickly deduced that she wanted him to get out of her way. Theodore stepped forward toward the locker as she drove past behind him, steered around the corner at the other end of the corridor, and disappeared from sight. He told himself to relax. Surely the police department wasn't so hard up that they had resorted to enlisting senior citizens in their police auxiliary in order to fill current gaps in the Long Blue Line, gaps caused by budget cuts in these hard economic times. Removing a large manila envelope from the locker, he hoped he was correct in his assumptions, and hurried out of the mall.
As extra insurance to ensure he was not being followed by anyone, Theodore drove four times around the same block before returning to the offices of the Twin Brothers Bail Bond. For a moment, he had been concerned about the multitude of moving yellow cabs behind, beside, and in front of him, but then he reminded himself there were a lot of taxis operating in the city. They couldn't all be surveillance cars. Upon closer observation he also noticed that the cabs had different numbers stenciled on them, and none of the same numbers seemed to be parading after him during his around-the-block countersurveillance tour. As a final measure, he parked three blocks away and walked to the office.
Inside the Inner Sanctum, Theodore found that Moklal had already returned and was finishing up his verbal report to the proprietor with the words, “Unfortunately, he has no alibi.”
By that, Theodore assumed that Moklal was referring to the captain. And if the captain had no alibi for the murder, then the Twin Brothers Bail Bond Firm would lose its inside man at the police department. Which meant there would be no further warnings of pending raids on questionable businesses owned by silent partners, no intelligence reports on which criminal organizations various sections of the police department were currently working on, and most importantly to Theodore, there would be no further protection from arrest during one of his “tying up loose ends for the proprietor” escapades if something should go awry, as sometimes happened. For a brief moment, Theodore pictured some of the firm's previous clients who had inadvertently fallen from high places, carelessly gone deep-water swimming without appropriate underwater breathing apparatus, or had been struck by a wayward taxicab, and each time, the firm made an exorbitant amount of profit on their special bail transactions. Although as Theodore reminded himself, those rendered deceased by an errant cab had been jaywalking outside the officially recognized crosswalk at the time of contact. In any case, perhaps he was right to maintain a certain paranoia toward city taxicabs. One never really knew.
“Are you daydreaming?” inquired the proprietor.
Theodore glanced quickly at his boss, realizing that Cletis Johnston was staring directly at him, and had his hand extended as if he were expecting to be handed something.
“Oh, the report.”
The proprietor took the manila envelope, removed the contents, and commenced to read.
“According to this report,” he said, “the Internal Affairs detective was having a couple of drinks in his favorite bar two nights ago with fellow associates. At approximately nine fifteen he received a phone call and left immediately to make an appointment with one of his secret informants. He didn't come into work the next morning.”
“Where'd they find him?”
“Patience, Theodore, we are coming to that part. On yesterday afternoon, the deceased was found lying beside his unmarked police vehicle at the end of a dirt road in the county. He'd been shot three times with an automatic pistol, nine millimeter. Three casings were recovered at the scene.”
“Three times,” muttered Theodore. “Somebody really wanted him dead.”
“Forensics ran a ballistics test on the three slugs removed from the body,” Cletis continued, “but there were no matches in the national files and no fingerprints on the three casings.”
“Then how,” questioned Theodore, “did they pin the rap on our captain?”
“In a later report,” said the Proprietor as he finished shuffling some of the documents, “it seems an anonymous caller suggested that the police department check their own internal files for a ballistics match. They did, and up comes our captain's department-issued nine millimeter as a perfect match.”
That didn't sound right to Theodore. “You mean the police department keeps its own special ballistics files?”
“A mere precaution, Theodore, in some of the larger law enforcement organizations these days when it comes to department-issued weapons. A newly received firearm is discharged into a water barrel to ensure it works properly, the slugs are retrieved from the water barrel, and a ballistics record is made before the weapon is issued to a particular officer. That way, in any questionable shootings involving a policeman, the department can quickly determine from which officer's weapon the bullet was fired. It's like having a DNA data bank already in place, except this one's established for guns instead of people.”
“That's sneaky,” said Theodore. “What's the captain got to say about things.”
“Our good captain says he didn't shoot this particular detective, so Moklal had him go over all his recent activities, trying to find an alibi or a reasonable explanation for the charge.”
“I already heard Moklal say there was no alibi.”
“Quite right, Theodore, which leaves us with finding a reasonable explanation for the charges.”
Theodore waited for more, but Cletis Johnston only stared off into the darker recesses of the Inner Sanctum. Fearing to interrupt the Proprietor's meditation on the situation, Theodore turned to Moklal and whispered, “So what do we know about an explanation?”
“Not much,” replied Moklal in a normal voice. “For yesterday and the day before, the captain was involved with his mandatory semiannual firearms qualifications. During the first day, he fired standing from the fifteen-, twenty-five-, and fifty-yard lines for a numerical score, and on the second day, he shot a tactical combat course.”
Theodore shrugged his shoulders. “That doesn't tell us anything.”
“Actually, it does,” injected the Proprietor. “Moklal, return to the jail and ask our good captain who else was on the firing range with him. I need more details. When you have him in the interview room, call me on one of our throwaway cell phones so I can ask him all the right questions.”
Nodding his head in a short bow, the Hindu turned and was gone.
“What about me?” inquired Theodore.
“Go wait in the outer office while I contemplate a strategy. I think you will soon be dining at the food court in the mall again.”
As Theodore backed away, he noticed that the proprietor had resumed staring off into the dark recesses of the high ceiling at the far end of the Inner Sanctum. Turning abruptly, Theodore hurried his steps toward the door. Even after all his years at the firm, he had never turned his vision upward toward those dark recesses like the Proprietor did. In truth, Theodore was afraid of what he might find lurking there. He strongly suspected it was the lair of something sinister.
* * * *
With a bulky sealed envelope in hand, Theodore returned to the mall food court for an early supper. His instructions were simple: Purchase something which would be placed into a food bag, eat the food, and place any remnants back in the bag. Then, before he threw it into one of the trash receptacles in the food court, he was to surreptitiously insert the envelope into the bag, roll up the bag's top, and then dispose of it like any other customer getting rid of his trash.
Since the envelope had already been sealed, Theodore had no idea what was written on the paper inside. All he knew was that the heavy envelope contained instructions from the Proprietor to the Internal Affairs secretary, and that these instructions were very important to the outcome of the captain's dire situation. After throwing away the bag, Theodore was to leave and not look back.
All had gone almost as planned.
While consuming something allegedly from the chicken family—he had declined to return to the sandwich and fries shop because the snide young man was still wor
king that counter—Theodore mentally picked out one of the nearby large metal trash cans as a drop. The only problem as he saw it was that the mall janitor was slowly moving through the food court, emptying all the receptacles.
Theodore ate slower. He didn't want to finish too soon, throw the bag away, and then have the mall janitor pick up his food bag containing the important instructions along with all the other garbage. In that case, they would lose the valuable services of their bent captain, and he, Theodore, would be in serious trouble with the Proprietor. Theodore figured he already had one broken and improperly set left pinky finger, he didn't need a matching finger on his right hand.
The mall janitor seemed to be working slower.
Theodore ate even slower.
Finally, the janitor emptied the receptacle nearest to Theodore and wandered off with an overfull trash cart.
Theodore breathed a sigh of relief, inserted the sealed envelope into his food bag, and tossed it carefully into the large metal trash can. With all that empty space now in the can, Theodore could hear his bag hit bottom with a muffled thud, but then that bulky envelope of instructions had been rather heavy, heavier than just paper. Before leaving, he glanced all around. None of the other food court patrons seemed to be paying any attention to him.
He left the food court, walked a short distance, and then turned where he could still observe the trash receptacle. Nobody made a move toward that particular can. After ten minutes of boredom, Theodore decided to leave his post and go on up to the mezzanine where he had a better view of the entire food court. True, he wasn't supposed to look back in order to identify the receiver of the bag, or even to see what happened after he left, but this delivery was important and needed to go correctly. Besides, who would know other than himself? He took the escalator up.
If it hadn't been for the large crowds of shoppers on the escalator, plus those taking their own unhurried time along the elevated walkway, Theodore figured he would have arrived at the mezzanine rail earlier. As it was, he showed up just as a second janitor was making his rounds of emptying the same trash receptacles. Didn't these guys coordinate with each other? And, sure enough, there was Theodore's own food bag with the rolled-up top now joining garbage from several other cans.
“Hey,” shouted Theodore.
Without turning in the direction of Theodore's voice, this second janitor, pushing his semifilled cart, slowly meandered off in the same direction the first one had taken. By the time Theodore fought his way back through the crowds and down the escalator, the janitor had vanished. And, so had the food bag with sealed instructions for the Internal Affairs secretary. Theodore wasn't sure how he was going to explain this to the proprietor.
Dragging his feet, Theodore once more returned to the office. Mulling circumstances over in his head en route to the Inner Sanctum, he decided that denial was the best defense. As far as he was concerned, he had done as he was told. Except for the last part, of course, but then he could deny sticking around to see who picked up the bag, and that it turned out to be one of the mall janitors instead of the Internal Affairs lady. This particular error was clearly not his fault; therefore, he'd remain silent on that part.
The proprietor glanced up. “I see you're back. Did you make the drop as instructed?”
“Yes, sir, envelope in the bag, bag in the trash.”
“Good, then all should go as planned and our captain's murder charge will soon have a different explanation.”
“Excuse me, sir, but how exactly do we provide a different explanation for his murder charge?”
Cletis Johnston came as close to a smile as Theodore had ever seen on the proprietor's face.
“Having a working knowledge of semiautomatic pistols is of immense assistance in determining a very rational set of circumstances as to how our captain's gun fired the deadly bullets.”
Theodore, himself, carried a six-shot revolver. Having the extra duty of remembering to thumb the safety on an automatic pistol to an off position was just one more thing that slowed him down when he needed to use a weapon. As he saw it, committing crimes was difficult enough without having your weapon fail to fire because you forgot to flip off the damn safety. A guy could get himself killed that way.
“Automatics of the same model,” continued the Proprietor, “have interchangeable parts. The barrel, that's the piece with lands and grooves which determine an individual weapon's ballistics, of one automatic will easily fit into the slide of a same model automatic.”
Theodore nodded his head as if he understood so far, but in truth, he still didn't get the big picture.
“Since weapons are usually cleaned after daily use on a police firing range,” Cletis went on, “I had Moklal inquire as to who was in the firing lines the same days as our captain. It seems most of the higher brass prefer not to qualify with the lower echelon in attendance at the range. Something about losing face if the brass happen to shoot a lower score than, say a common patrolman does.”
That made sense to Theodore.
“Turns out the only other police officer qualifying on the same two days as our captain was a lieutenant in Vice.”
“But, how'd the lieutenant do it?” asked Theodore.
“During my second questioning of our captain, he remembered being called away to the phone on both days, just as he was in the middle of disassembling his weapon for cleaning. I think the lieutenant arranged those calls in order to swap barrels on that first day, then used his own gun with the captain's barrel inserted to shoot the Internal Affairs detective out on the dirt road, and of course swapped the barrels back during cleaning on the second day. Thus the subsequent anonymous phone call for the department to check its own internal ballistics files. The killer wished to direct blame toward someone else.”
“But,” exclaimed Theodore, “now that we've figured out how it was done, all you have to do is notify the Homicide Squad.”
“Think about it, Theodore. We have no witnesses to the exchange of gun barrels and no actual proof it happened that way.”
“Then what is our strategy? What do we do?”
“I've already done it, Theodore. The envelope of instructions you delivered to the Internal Affairs secretary will take care of the matter.”
“How's that?”
“It seems,” replied the Proprietor, “that Internal Affairs still has the captain's pistol in evidence. It has not yet been test fired again to confirm the original ballistics match. I merely instructed the Internal Affairs secretary to get into evidence and replace the barrel in the captain's gun with a third barrel from an unregistered automatic of the same model. When Forensics fires the captain's gun, there will be no incriminating match. When confronted about the difference in ballistics from when his service weapon was issued long ago, the captain will conveniently remember that he replaced his original malfunctioning barrel a few years back.”
“Smart,” said Theodore, “but where will this new barrel come from?”
“Simple,” Theodore, “you delivered the new barrel yourself in that sealed envelope at the food court.”
“Oh,” said Theodore. He remembered the heavy thud in the bottom of the trash receptacle, then he had visions of two different janitors picking up mall garbage. At this point, he didn't know whether to stay and squeegee, or find an excuse to suddenly be elsewhere.
“What I have also set in motion,” continued the Proprietor, “is to arrange a private meeting with our industrious lieutenant in Vice. Anyone as clever as he is should work for us.”
“Why would he do that?” inquired Theodore, who now felt his brain operating on two tracks simultaneously like subway trains going in opposite directions. One track tried to maintain normal conversation as would any person clearly innocent of malfeasance of duty, while the second track contemplated damage control due to the third gun barrel possibly having ended up in a garbage compactor.
“Don't forget those three shell casings left at the crime scene,” said the Proprietor, “Upon close ex
amination, forensics may be able to determine that the marks left by the pistol's extraction and ejection mechanisms do not match the captain's pistol, but they may match those of the lieutenant's weapon. I wonder if the lieutenant is willing to gamble his life on a test of his department-issued automatic.”
“Excellent strategy, sir,” said Theodore, using the first track of his brain.
On a third track of the same brain, Theodore wondered when the proprietor's phone would ring, and would it come from the Internal Affairs secretary now mad about her lost-in-the-trash instructions, not to mention the third gun barrel, or would it be their bent captain inquiring why he had not yet been released from his holding cell.
“In any case,” said the proprietor, “the captain should soon be exonerated, which will tighten our bond with him.”
“And the lieutenant?” inquired Theodore, as if all was still going according to the proprietor's plan.
“He has the choice of prison or becoming ours.”
At this point, the Inner Sanctum phone rang.
Theodore surreptitiously retreated three steps toward the exit, just in case. The longer Cletis Johnston talked on the phone, the more steps Theodore figured he could take.
“I see,” muttered the proprietor. He hung up.
Theodore took one more step and hesitated.
“That was the Internal Affairs secretary,” said Cletis. “She did as I instructed and the captain is being released at this very moment.”
Theodore gave a sigh of relief. “All's well that ends well then, sir.” Somehow something must have gone right after all. He turned for the door.
“There is one thing, Theodore.”
The bail agent froze.
“Yes, sir?”
“The Internal Affairs secretary has refused to work with us anymore under any circumstances, and she attributes that to you.”
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