By His Own Hand

by Neal Griffin

  “Come back to bed, baby,” he said, towering over both women and pulling Carla back through the door. He gave Tia a yellow smile. “You can come along, too, if you want.”

  Tia held up her badge. “Actually, you probably oughta hit the road, pal. Me and Carla have some things to talk about.”

  “He don’t have to leave and I already told ya,” Carla leaned in toward Tia. “I ain’t talking to you.”

  “You heard the woman.” The man took two steps onto the porch toward Tia until his massive stomach pushed against her. Considering the mood she was in, that was all she needed.

  Tia grabbed his groin and squeezed. Even as he folded at the waist, he came around with a drunken and sloppy haymaker that she easily avoided. She hooked him under the arm and he stumbled farther forward on the porch. Tia allowed his own momentum and three hundred pounds of body weight to carry him over the short railing and onto the hard dirt below. He landed in a heap.

  Easily vaulting the railing, she picked up a shovel leaning against the trailer. He managed to pull himself to all fours, cursing. She didn’t wait for him to come toward her before she swung the flat metal head of the shovel at full strength, striking him in the meatiest portion of his back fat. No doubt it stung like hell, but other than a nasty bruise, he’d be none the worse for it. He howled out anyway.

  “Bitch! What kinda cop are you?”

  “Get your fat ass up and in that truck or the next one, I swear, I’ll put it right in your ear.”

  It was obvious the man wasn’t one to take orders from women, even ones armed with a shovel. “Fuck you. I ain’t leavin’.”

  Irritated that he’d call her bluff, she walloped him again in the same spot.

  “Goddamn!” he yelled. “All right. Just let me get my clothes. I’ll go.”

  “Forget it.” There was no way Tia was letting the man back inside the trailer, where he could easily arm himself. “Carla, go get this man his clothes and car keys. He’s decided to leave.”

  “I told you, he don’t have to. You do.”

  Tia kept her guard up and shouted back over her shoulder, “I swear, Carla, you ever want to get your kids back, you better help me out here. Give the man his clothes.”

  Carla huffed and disappeared inside the trailer. When she came back she threw a wad of dirty clothes at the man, along with a wallet and keys. She looked at him with disgust, clearly disappointed he couldn’t even defend her against a woman cop a third his size.

  Tia nudged him with the business end of the shovel. “Now get in your truck and head down the road.”

  The man pulled himself to his feet and stumbled to his pickup, still carrying his crumpled up shirt and jeans. Tia waited until the truck turned onto the main road before she threw down the shovel and turned back to the trailer. Carla was no longer in sight. Tia jumped back up onto the porch and went through the door.

  Wide-eyed, Carla stood holding her cell phone and Tia grabbed it away.

  “Not yet. First, you and I are going to have a talk. Then you can call whoever you want.”

  “I told you, I want you to leave.”

  Winded from the scuffle, Tia took a deep breath. “Look, Carla, I just want to talk to you. Can we just sit? Five minutes?”

  The woman shook her head and held out her skeletal hand. “Give me that phone.”

  Looking around, Tia noticed the floral-print couch had been replaced by one of blue cloth that looked brand new. The filth-covered carpet was now a low-pile, stain-free Berber. A flat-screen television was showing Jerry Springer. Tia shook her head and tossed Carla the phone.

  “Fine. Call your lawyer. But you should know—you were right. Henry didn’t kill himself.”

  “The doctor said nobody else was there.” Tia heard the doubt in Carla’s response. “He said Henry was all alone and he killed his self. Why would he lie to me?”

  “I don’t know, Carla. He could be lying. Or maybe he’s just wrong. Maybe he’s not very good at his job. But, I’m telling you”—Tia pointed a finger at Carla and spoke as if to give credit where credit was due—“you were right.”

  “I was?” Carla still held the phone but showed no interest in using it.

  Tia sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. Carla took a step back, crossed her arms in front of her, and shook her head. Tia didn’t force the issue.

  “Do you remember when you told me Henry had a bone thing?”

  Tia was encouraged by Carla’s quick nod.

  “His condition was called hypochondroplasia. Basically, it meant his arms were too short for his body.”

  Carla’s face brightened. “That’s it. That’s what the doctor in Bemidji called it. Hypo-something.”

  “Right,” Tia said. “And because he had that condition, he couldn’t use that shotgun to kill himself. His arms just weren’t long enough.”

  Carla dropped onto the far end of the couch, as far from Tia as she could get. Her voice was low. “Then how did he die?”

  “Someone else used the gun to kill him. And they used it in a way that would make people believe Henry killed himself.” Tia paused. “That’s the truth, Carla.”

  The dead boy’s mother stared blankly ahead. The woman would either tell her to leave or start asking questions. There was nothing more Tia could do. A silent minute stretched by.

  “Then who?” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper. “Why?”

  Tia surprised herself by leaning over and taking Carla’s hand. “I don’t know, but I want to try and find out. For that, I’ll need your help.”

  Carla scanned the trailer, gazing at each of her new possessions. Tia forced herself not to judge the woman too harshly. She spoke quietly. “No one needs to know you talked to me.”

  “I told you,” Carla said, her anger replaced by a helplessness that Tia sensed was very much a part of her life. “I don’t know nothin’. I didn’t think Henry would do that but … I just don’t know anymore.”

  “Do you know why Henry went to the woods that night?” Carla looked at her lap and shook her head. “How about how he might have gotten there?”

  “He hitched a lot. Sometimes he’d take the bus. He had some friends who had cars.” Carla smiled, looking proud of her son. “I told you. Henry was smart. He just knew how to make his way in the world.”

  Tia imagined a dark-skinned teenage boy standing on the side of the highway with a shotgun on his shoulder, trying to hitch a ride or jump on a bus. Even in rural Wisconsin that would be a stretch. “What about his friends, Carla?”

  “He didn’t have much in the way of friends, but there was one fella. Somebody he called Kimo. They was in that juvenile school together. I know Henry’s seen him a bunch of times lately, since they both got out. Kimo always be pullin’ up in a big black truck and they’d go off.”

  “Kimo?” Tia didn’t want to write the name down just yet, worried that might spook Carla into going quiet. “What about a last name?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all I knowed him by.”

  “Could Kimo have gone to Newberg with Henry? Did you see him around that day, before Henry left?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe he was here.” Carla shook her head. “Lots a times I don’t remember things so well.”

  Tia got the impression Carla was really trying, but the woman’s limitations were obvious. But the name could be helpful.

  The Rock County Sheriff’s Office had told Tia that Henry had spent some time in Lincoln Hills, the correctional facility for Wisconsin juvenile offenders. If Henry and this “Kimo” were at Lincoln Hills together, it should be easy enough to determine the boy’s identity. She moved closer to the woman.

  “Carla, Henry had a thousand dollars in his pocket when he died. It was brand-new money. The serial numbers were sequential. Do you know what that means, ‘sequential’?”

  “Like in a row? One, two, three? Like that?”

  “Exactly.” Tia nodded. “Numbers in a row and brand-new bills. That means the mon
ey most likely came right from a bank. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Well, Henry always had money, but I never heard about no bank. He just had it is all.”

  “You say he always had money? But he didn’t have a job, did he?”

  “He didn’t need no job. I told you, Henry was smart that way.”

  The well was going dry and it was time to back off. Tia put as much warmth as she could into her voice.

  “Thanks for talking to me, Carla,” she said. “You know, when I first met you, I thought Henry killed himself and you said you knew he’d never do that. Well, I was wrong and you were right.”

  “I know. I know I was. But that doctor saying he did … I mean, how am I supposed to tell a doctor what he don’t know? I didn’t think much of him, but he is a doctor. I mean, who am I?”

  Tia nodded, imagining how Kowalski must have come across. “You’re Henry’s mother, Carla. That’s who.”

  “Yeah?” Carla almost smiled. “That doctor don’t care nothing about that. He don’t know anything about living like this.”

  “I’m going to go now, Carla. Do you still have my card with my phone number?”

  The woman nodded.

  “You call me if you think of anything else. Or if you need anything.”

  Tia got back to her car and banged out a quick text. The news conference had made it clear this case wouldn’t be solved through conventional means. But that was no problem for Tia. She was at her best when she was ad-libbing. Before she got to the end of the driveway she got a reply to her text and the answer she wanted. No surprise there, she thought. There were certain people Tia knew she could always depend on.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “So, what? We’re like spies now?” Tia leaned her elbows against the metal pipe railing, sure to speak loudly enough to be heard over the rushing water below.

  “You wanted to talk,” Livy said. “What did you think? I’d say, sure, come on down to the office. We’ll chat.”

  “Something like that, yeah,” Tia said. “But hey, this is fine. Very scenic.”

  It was Livy that Tia had texted when she left Carla’s trailer. Now the two women were standing on the walkway over the Nagawicka Dam, just outside Newberg. The location for the meet struck Tia as a bit melodramatic, but she’d agreed. The thousand-acre Lake Nagawicka, affectionately known by the locals as Nag, was one of fifteen thousand documented lakes in Wisconsin, which in the mind of most Wisconsinites made their state the real Land of Lakes.

  Driving in, Tia had passed a dozen or so shoreline properties owned by the Milwaukee elite and rarely occupied, other than for weekends and holidays. She’d parked and walked in from the beach, where a couple of teenagers sat at a picnic table smoking a blunt. Half a dozen old men sat in lawn chairs on the boat dock; they looked more interested in drowning worms and swapping stories than catching the largemouth bass and pikes Nag was famous for. Come the weekend, Nag would play host to families from a hundred miles around, but on a mid-week sunny afternoon, all was peaceful.

  If Livy was looking for a place they could talk unnoticed, Nag was a good choice.

  “So how’s Mort?” Tia asked. “Still all spun up?”

  Livy wordlessly nodded, staring into the white foam of the mini-waterfall. Tia followed Livy’s gaze to a disoriented walleye, about twenty inches long, swimming in tight circles in the pool just beneath the dam. Tia figured the yellow fish must have gotten caught in the spillway from Nag. Once he got his bearings, he’d spend some days in the cool waters of the Bark River. From there, he’d likely swim with the current as far south as Fort Atkinson. Then it would be on to the Mississippi and the world would lay wide open before him. Tia thought to herself a fish could do worse.

  “Mort’s not exactly thrilled with me right now,” Livy said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Livy straightened up and grabbed a piece of the pipe railing in each fist. She stretched her back and cast a long shadow on the water below. “He’s pulled me off the callout rotation and all current death investigations, including the Hayes case.”

  “But that’s your job, Livy.”

  “Not anymore.” Livy smiled but her voice broke and Tia saw a glisten in her eyes. “You’re now looking at the new director of postmortem property control.”

  Tia stared at her, dumbfounded, so Livy continued, “Current assignment? Inventory of all nonevidentiary unclaimed property recovered from decedents. I guess he wants to make sure nobody makes off with an old pocketknife or anything.”

  She finally looked up from the water and smiled at Tia. “You’d be amazed how many guys die with a condom in their wallet.”

  “Damn, Livy.” Tia was at a loss. “How long is this going to last?”

  “Well, we got stuff going back about ten years, so that should keep me busy for pretty much the rest of my career.”

  “What about the Hayes case? Who’s going to process the evidence?”

  “Kowalski filed his report with the state DOJ this morning. Manner of death, suicide. End of story. That means no DNA analysis. No gunshot residue testing. No evidentiary processing of any sort by the state crime lab. Forensically, we’re dead in the water.”

  “But what about the gun length? We proved it. Henry couldn’t have shot himself.”

  “The man with MD after his name disagrees and that’s how he wrote it.”

  “Then we’ll go to the county medical examiner. Get a second opinion.”

  Livy shook her head. “Henry was cremated about three hours ago. There won’t be any second opinion. Just Mort’s word.”

  Tia was stunned. There were always hurdles in a major investigation, but this was different. In this case, the obstacles were being set up by the very people who were supposed to help clear the path.

  “So how’s your boss taking it?” Livy asked. “The press conference, I mean. Mort’s findings.”

  “Sawyer? Haven’t seen him. Travis either. But when I do, if either of them knew about that bullshit?” Tia thought about the possible confrontation. “Safe to say I might end up with a new job assignment myself. Maybe no job at all.”

  “Well then, what?” Livy asked. “Any ideas?”

  “Yeah. Good old-fashioned police work,” Tia said. “And you know what that means, right?”

  Livy raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Follow the money,” Tia said.

  “Sounds good.” Livy looked up. “How do we do that?”

  “The thousand dollars in Henry’s pocket. It was in an envelope, right? Uncirculated, sequential bills?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So it’s not robbery,” Tia said, staring into the water. “And I’m pretty sure it’s not dope-related either.”

  “I agree on no robbery. The shooter would’ve taken the money. But you don’t see a possible dope angle?”

  “Nah.” Tia talked it through: “Even if Henry was slinging a bit of dope, he wasn’t big-time. He was just taking care of his mom. So if he was doing some nickel-and-dime deals, I don’t see any of his customers paying for their shit with uncirculated Franklins.”

  “Good point.” Livy nodded.

  “That money was a payoff.” Tia spoke with certainty.

  “Come again?”

  “Someone brought him a grand in brand-new bills. Someone owed Henry for something.”

  “But if you were paying him off, then why kill him?” Tia could hear the interest in Livy’s voice and she wasn’t surprised by it. Tia knew Livy wouldn’t be able to just let the case go. “And if for some reason you did kill him, why not take your money back?”

  “Haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

  “I guess that’s why you get paid the big bucks, right, Detective?”

  Tia smiled. “Actually, Liv, this is where you come in.”

  Livy narrowed her eyes and her voice was suspicious. “I’m afraid to ask but, how’s that?”

  “The money is impounded in the ME evidence locker, right?”

&nb
sp; “So?”

  “So,” Tia leaned one elbow against the metal railing and turned to her friend, “we might not be able to get any DNA work done by the state lab, but we can still use good old-fashioned fingerprints.”

  Livy stared back in silence and Tia went on, “Everyone knows you do the best print-comparison work in the state. You already pulled some great prints off the shotgun. Maybe you’ll find some on the money too.”

  Livy shook her head. “Slow down, Tia. Quite a few problems there. Number one, what exactly would I be looking for? Comparison-wise, I mean.”

  “Who knows?” Tia said. “I’ve got a list of every staff member from the retreat. Rich is working on that, so maybe—”

  “Rich?” Livy perked up.

  Tia didn’t want to explain Youngblood’s suspension. “Yeah. He’s assisting me while he finishes his training. But the point is, if you work up any latents on the envelope and bills, maybe we can come up with someone to match them to.”

  “Okay,” Livy said. “Do I get to move in with you? Maybe live in your garage?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just told you,” Livy said. “I’m cut off. I don’t have access to the case or the evidence. If I start checking things out of the evidence locker? Working up a latent-print report? Like I said, it will be a real test of our friendship because when Mort finds out, I’ll be fired.”

  “Look, Livy. You could have signed off on suicide, but you didn’t. You put in the effort, processed the shotgun, and now look where we are.”

  “That was dumb luck. If Rich hadn’t been there, we probably both would have missed it.”

  “Exactly.” Tia lightly swatted Livy on the arm. “And who says we can’t get lucky one more time? Maybe with a little print work?”

  Livy shook her head, but Tia could sense her slow surrender. “All right. I’ll look for a chance to process the evidence for latent prints. But you have to bring me something to compare them to. No promises. And for the record, as far as your typical schemes go? This is pretty weak.”

  “It’s all we got, Liv.”