Violence

by Timothy McDougall

  Crotty and Peterson looked at the cancelled checks. Then they looked at each other. They both knew they had their work cut out for them now.

  CHAPTER 31

  Lyndsey, biting the edge of a nail, nervously escorted Detective Crotty to the back of the Rave Record Store where Jeannie was busy rearranging a display.

  “Jeannie?” Lyndsey interrupted her, and introduced Crotty, completely intimidated by his presence. “This man would like to speak to you.”

  Lyndsey smiled tightly and quickly shuffled off.

  “Hi.” Crotty greeted Jeannie, displaying his detective’s shield. “Lieutenant Wayne Crotty. I’m a homicide investigator.”

  Jeannie’s eyes instantly grew wide with dread.

  Jack Trax could even see the clear worry on her face as he stood outside and stared at Crotty and Jeannie surreptitiously through the store windows.

  “You know Noel Anderson?” Crotty gravely asked Jeannie.

  “Oh, please no…” Jeannie blurted, her knees buckling. “…is he dead? Please don’t…”

  “No, no, he’s fine. He’s okay.” Crotty reassured her.

  Jeannie flopped against a sturdy wooden record rack, took a deep breath, braced herself and recovered.

  “Are you all right?” Crotty asked, concerned she was still somewhat in shock.

  Yes.” Jeannie nodded. “Thank you.”

  “But I am here to talk about a man who was involved in the death of Noel Anderson’s wife…” Crotty continued. “…a man who was found murdered this morning. Looks like he was killed last night. Between midnight and three. We’ve spoken with Mr. Anderson and he tells us he was with you last night.”

  “Yes, he was.” Jeannie remembered after a moment, only taking seconds to check back in her memory,

  “Was he with you all night?” Crotty followed up.

  “Yes.” Jeannie answered emphatically.

  Jack Trax watched Jeannie nod affirmatively and have some more conversation with the man. It was only several minutes or so later when the man shook Jeannie’s hand, gave her his business card and exited the store.

  Trax drifted behind a lamppost as Crotty got in his Crown Victoria, started the engine and drove away. Trax looked back in the Rave store window and saw Jeannie perusing Crotty’s card. She handed it to a curious Lyndsey like the card was infected.

  Trax clomped into the store and moved up to them.

  “What the fuck! Get away from me, Jack!” Jeannie seethed wearily upon sighting him, instantly antagonized.

  “Who’s that guy you were just talking to?” Trax inquired jauntily, stepping up and snapping Crotty’s business card out of Lyndsey’s fingers.

  “He’s a cop and I’ll call him to arrest you if you don’t leave me alone!” Jeannie hissed loudly since there was no one else in the store.

  “What did he want with you?” Trax asked, eyeing Crotty’s card intently, reading aloud, “’Criminal Investigations’?”

  “Yeah, did I hear him say something about a murder?” Lyndsey impatiently pressed Jeannie.

  Jeannie stared with irritation at Lyndsey, then spewed at Trax. “It’s none of your fucking business!”

  “Chill, huh. Is this how you treat all your customers?” Trax scowled, and turned to leave, but not before he added to Jeannie with a toss of his straw-like mane. “Just to let you know, I’m still available.”

  “What a surprise.” Jeannie harrumphed.

  “That goes for you, too, sweet cakes.” Trax said as he handed Crotty’s card back and extended the offer to Lyndsey.

  “Gag me.” Lyndsey sneered, curling her upper lip with disgust. She knew enough about Trax from her discussions with Jeannie to know he was a total turdball.

  “I’m open to everything.” Trax offered, undaunted by her derision.

  He marched proudly out of the store, shaking his ass in his tight jeans thinking they were watching him as he strode off.

  But they just wanted to make sure he left.

  Max Franks, a droopy-eyed young detective from Crotty’s station house, had been assigned the task of making sure they got copies of the forensic evidence reports in a timely manner from the other Area detectives who were handling the Gabriel Lysander murder. Max, like any detective, hated to be the bearer of bad news but he finished explaining the contents of a recent report to Detective Gene Peterson straightforwardly, just the same.

  Peterson nodded with appreciation and walked the report into Crotty’s office.

  Wayne Crotty was poring over some other papers on the Anderson case at his desk when Peterson dropped the newly arrived packet in front of him.

  “Preliminaries came back on Anderson’s shoe impressions.” Peterson announced sourly, leaning against a file cabinet and resting an elbow atop it. “They’re nothing like the partials that were lifted from the dirt around Roney’s car. And they aren’t even close to the bloody shoe impressions left at Lysander’s place. They only match the latents. And we know Anderson has an explanation for that because he can prove he was with Lysander in his hotel room well before the murder. So, there goes shoes and using any hair and fingerprint evidence to link him to that crime. There were a lot of partials at the Roney death scene, that alley had its share of foot traffic, but the fresh ones still don’t match up with anything else. If you went by this…” Peterson indicated the report. “…it looks like it was done by two different guys. And I still say Roney was a suicide, just how it appears. So now what?”

  Crotty took the news in stride, picked up the report and thumbed diligently through it.

  “You still got a jones for this guy?” Peterson asked him intently.

  Crotty didn’t answer. It was obvious. To Peterson anyway.

  “Even some of the other tenants have seen Anderson around Lysander’s place. Just not on the night of the murder.” Peterson continued listing the other pieces of information working against them in pursuing Anderson. “I mean, if he did it, and I don’t buy that bullshit about him helping the guy out either, you don’t give a guy who helped rape and murder your wife money, but if he killed Lysander, and maybe the other guy, he sure as hell covered his tracks beautifully.”

  “I wonder if he paid someone else to do it?” Crotty speculated, undeterred by Peterson’s defeatism. “Or helped someone? You know, drove the getaway car, and helped get rid of the clothes and the murder weapon?” Crotty sat back in his chair and looked off contemplatively.

  The suppositions hung there in the antiseptic room for a long moment. Crotty’s office had no personal touches. It matched his personality. Guarded. Bland. No attachments. It was how he felt about the job. Do your work but don’t leave any sign you were there. He hated it when he took over the space seven years ago and after they moved the file cabinets he found a convenience store receipt, coffee stirrers, a ticket stub to a baseball game, and a coupon for $2 off a pack of cigarettes. It told him too much about his predecessor. He never wanted anyone to know him that well. Peterson was the closest any person had ever come to him, and all Peterson knew was that Crotty liked fishing. Peterson told him he hated fishing and their friendship was sealed.

  Peterson, for his part, couldn’t stand it when his partner was like this, which was almost always. Peterson was used to his partner’s unemotional nature. He knew it was a defense mechanism to aid in dealing with the job of homicide, which at the beginning and the end of the day is about dead bodies. Peterson was just always afraid that one day, being composed and relentless like Crotty, that those qualities alone would take the place of his own individuality completely, and any shows of emotion, from laughter to tears, would be forever just playacting at being a person

  “We went over this before: he doesn’t seem ‘connected’”…” Peterson finally offered. “…and he doesn’t seem like the type to start stupidly hunting around for a hit man, because those people always end up getting cuffed by an undercover cop in some supermarket parking lot.”

  “What if he used someone else’s shoes?” Crotty toss
ed another theory out there. “They had a real unique wear pattern. We know they weren’t new shoes right out of a box.”

  “We’re going to go around to everyone this Anderson guy knows, or has had contact with, and ask if we can have a shoe sample?” Peterson asked sarcastically. “I don’t think he’d be dumb enough to pull some friend’s shoes out of their closet and use them in a murder. And what would that prove anyway, unless you can find the actual shoes that were used for the murder and link Anderson’s DNA to them. I’m sure he would’ve tossed them. It’s not something you hang on to. Anyway, my take is he doesn’t have many close contacts in his life. Maybe before, but definitely not now.”

  Crotty nodded, sighed, which was a tacit signal to Peterson that he reluctantly agreed it was probably not a fertile avenue to pursue.

  “I know I said ‘if the second guy dies’ and everything…” Peterson commiserated. “…and it doesn’t make me happy to say it: but we just don’t have enough to go on.”

  A female uniformed officer stepped into the doorway and said. “Wayne, someone here to see you.”

  Crotty and Peterson both looked past her into the reception area that connected the offices.

  It was there they saw, standing behind some security glass, this leather-jacketed rocker-type guy with long shaggy hair waiting nervously, his fingers tapping anxiously on a countertop. It was Jack Trax.

  CHAPTER 32

  Jeannie smiled tightly at the people who filed past her into the Our Lady of Sorrows church for the Saturday evening services. She looked off anxiously into the parking lot from her perch atop the steps and saw Anderson drive up in his Mercedes and park.

  She had only spoken to him briefly after the Crotty encounter at her workplace and Anderson had assured her that it was just a routine visit by the detective.

  Anderson got out of his car and met her gaze. He smiled and walked towards her.

  Jeannie eagerly descended the staircase.

  Suddenly, two police squad cars, along with the Crown Victoria containing Crotty and Peterson, screeched to a stop next to Anderson.

  Two teams of uniformed officers got out of the squad cars, and converged on Anderson. One policeman wrenched Anderson’s arms behind his back and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him.

  Crotty stared hard at Anderson as he climbed out of the Crown Victoria with Peterson who moved up to Mirandize and take custody of Anderson.

  “Noel Anderson, you’re under arrest for the murder of Gabriel Lysander.” Peterson recited as Jeannie looked on aghast and Father Cannova emerged from the vestibule, moving down to stand next to her. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to an attorney and have legal counsel present while you are being questioned. If you cannot afford to hire legal counsel, an attorney will be provided to represent you. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?”

  Anderson nodded and Peterson escorted him to the back of one of the squad cars, pushing Anderson’s head down as he deposited him in the cramped rear seat.

  A uniformed policeman firmly slammed the squad door shut behind Anderson in front of the now growing, gawking crowd of stunned churchgoers.

  The cops and detectives all climbed back into their vehicles.

  The Crown Victoria led the way out of the parking lot and the squad car containing Anderson fell in behind it. Anderson just stared soberly ahead as the group of police vehicles soon disappeared from sight almost as quickly as they had appeared.

  The interrogation room at Crotty and Peterson’s stationhouse was built right from the standard blueprint for designing a confined space where a suspect would have a complete sense of hopelessness. There was a seat for the suspect, and a desk and two chairs for the interrogating detectives (which is where Crotty and Peterson were currently planted). The room had nothing on the walls and a two-way mirror. Everything that occurred there was videotaped and recorded. And everything about the space made you want to confess and get the hell out of there.

  Crotty and Peterson also took the textbook approach for questioning a suspect and coaxing an admission of guilt. Ask easy questions up front, in addition to some that require a little thought (usually each shows a different standard reaction), and once you see a pattern, go for the kill. For instance, asking someone their name, where they live, and what kind of car they drive, this is simple remembering and a person tends to answer calmly and their eyes tend to look to their left when answering. However, if the answer requires thought such as “where were you at such and such a time,” that is they would have to either construct or fabricate something, a subject would be apt to look to their right and also do a lot more gesticulating or even show anger. There are numerous “tells”, but these are the simplest and usually help to form a usable guide to “getting the goods” on a suspect.

  Of course, Crotty and Peterson asked for a fast confession after Anderson waived his right to an attorney and agreed to a custodial interview. To which Anderson replied, “I can’t confess to something I didn’t do, although I know you want your job to be as easy as possible.” This response indeed set a pattern, but it was from Anderson’s point-of-view: Crotty and Peterson were beside themselves in their desire to get him to admit his guilt, which they were now absolutely, positively sure of.

  Peterson had actually still been reluctant at first to pick Anderson up, and was hoping Anderson could maintain an airtight alibi, but Anderson’s insinuation about law enforcement being lax in their duty even pushed him off his neutral stance and set him firmly in Crotty’s camp of – “let’s get this prick.”

  Anderson, seated with one hand cuffed to the chair, for his part, didn’t want to provoke them, but when they started the “interview” with the usual “I’m your friend” and “we understand where you’re coming from” patter that included the typical apologist phrase “the system isn’t perfect but it works” it sent Anderson into an android-like commentary that soon drove Crotty and Peterson nuts.

  “‘The system isn’t perfect but it works.”’ Anderson repeated the phrase back to Crotty as soon as Crotty had uttered it. “So, if you carried this argument to its logical conclusion then you must accept the whole system and that would include malicious prosecutors, corrupt judges, crooked police, dishonest government officials, all of it. Accept it. The system isn’t perfect but it works. If a defendant lies and his attorney gets him off, actually everybody expects a defendant to lie, then you have to accept it. It’s a verdict. The system isn’t perfect but it works.”

  “Is that what you’re doing right now when you tell us you had nothing to do with his murder? Lying?” Crotty asked, holding up a mug shot of Gabriel Lysander.

  “If a jury lets off an obviously guilty person because they didn’t want to make a hard decision… accept it.” Anderson just continued, showing little emotion. “If some kids are plowed into and killed by a drunken off-duty cop, or a cop is caught on video beating the hell out of a defenseless barmaid, and the judge lets the cops off because he doesn’t want to upset the police union… accept it.”

  “You tryin’ to get cute with us, smart guy?” Peterson bristled, rising up off his seat.

  “Back before the days of the civil rights movement…” Anderson simply went on, undeterred. “…if a black man was shot in the back or found hanging from a tree with his hands tied behind his back, there was no need for a real investigation. The killer can’t be found or it’s been ruled a suicide. Accept it. The system isn’t perfect but it works.”

  “So, is this a confession?” Crotty asked Anderson again after he had finished.

  “I’m merely expounding on your remark.” Anderson answered with a level tone.

  “Admit it, you killed him! You crossed the line and we got you, motherfucker!” Peterson angrily erupted, getting right in Anderson’s face, which was another trick for bringing about a suspect’s admission of guilt: invade their space. However, Peterson’s getting
nose to nose with Anderson only seemed to relax Anderson even more as Anderson simply stared calmly back at him.

  “I’ve already told you I would never hurt these men.” Anderson replied evenly.

  Peterson, frustrated, straightened and threw a furtive look at Crotty who stood up from his chair to assume a power position of towering over Anderson now. It was clear they weren’t going to get a read from Anderson’s eye movements or posture changes. They would have to continue to resort to the other tactics of alternating declarations of sympathy for the suspect with explosions of anger, maintaining close-quarter taunts and interrupting any denials to a crime a suspect wishes to express (a suspect’s confidence increases significantly with each expression of innocence).

  “I know you think you didn’t receive a fair shake at the trial. I understand that.” Crotty said, stopping in front of Anderson with Gabriel’s mug shot. “If anybody deserved to die, this guy did. And so did Ruben Roney for that matter-”

  “Nobody deserves to die. All human life is sacred.” Anderson interrupted.

  “You’re so full of it, you rotting piece of shit!” Peterson howled.

  “They’re children of God as we all are.” Anderson responded, staring at Peterson. “I pray for them.”

  “Cut out the religious crap! We’re not buying it!” Peterson snarled with increasing spite. “You’re just as bad as they are! Come clean now or we’ll fucking bury your ass!”

  “You’re not doing yourself any favors taking this approach.” Crotty coolly told Anderson, trying to act like the levelheaded one among the group. “A jury is going to see all this.”

  “That’s good.” Anderson said, looking back and forth between them. “I was going to ask you if you remembered to turn on the recording equipment. I’ve heard if interviews don’t go the way the police like, they have a tendency to disappear.”