by Blair Howard
The evening of marital bliss turned into a serious discussion of the Nicholson case, which Amanda remembered vividly, and was not wild about me taking.
“Judge Ellis Warren, Alex Harrison, and Heath Myers…. You don’t for one minute think they’re going to talk to you, do you, any of them?” she asked. “All three of them, are the… the… the worst… oh I’m going to say it. They are three of the finest criminal minds in the tristate area, and I’m not talking jurisprudence. They are damned crooks, all three of them, and so are the people who work for them. Damn it, Harry. You know how it is in this town. Everybody knows everybody. There was even talk that Warren was—and maybe still is—involved with Little Billy Harper. Harry, please think very carefully about this.”
She was seated across from me at the table. She’d eaten almost nothing, and she looked worried. Very worried.
I laid down my dessert fork, pushed away my untouched plate of cobbler, and reached for my glass.
“Honey, I know those three better than anyone, and you’re right about them, but if one of them… or all of them together killed Peter Nicholson, I have to find out and bring them to justice. Besides,” I said, almost as an afterthought, “I need something to do, and this is right up my street. It has all the makings: a mysterious death, three really bad characters… and Lauren Bacall.” I grinned at her as I said it.
She stared at me, eyes wide, and then said, “Okay…. Lauren Bacall. Do tell.” And I did, and she smiled.
“So now you think you’re Sam Spade.” She laughed. “Sometimes, Harry, you’re just too much. I’m going to bed.” She got up from the table and walked to the door. “If you need me, just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you, Harry?”
“Yeah, yeah, I just put my lips together and blow. Now get outa here and leave me to think a little longer, and then….”
“No chance, Sam. I am not in the mood.”
“All right, all right. But hey, one more thing before you go. The Nicholson death was pretty high profile back in the day. Channel 7 should have all sorts of stuff in the archives, right?”
“Maybe. I’ll take a look.”
“Okay… when?”
She heaved a sigh. “Tomorrow?” And she left me there alone with my thoughts, the remains of the meal, and what was left of the wine. I sighed and began to clean up the table.
Nice one, Amanda.
Chapter 6
Tuesday January 10, 8:00 a.m.
I got to the office early the following morning. In fact, I was the first one in the door. I fired up the gas logs in my office, turned on all the lights to brighten up the place, and then went back to the outer office to get coffee. I selected a large ceramic mug and filled it with two nine-ounce shots of Dark Italian Roast. The Keurig had just finished its second cycle when Jacque walked in, followed by Bob. I removed my mug from the machine and stood back and watched as first Jacque then Bob repeated the process. I left Bob to do his thing and steered Jacque into my office.
The box, containing what little evidence there was, was still where I’d left it on my desk, right next to the plastic bag containing Peter’s clothing. So I dropped into my seat and began to dig through it; Jacque sat opposite.
First I flipped quickly through the photos, crime scene and autopsy, and then handed them to her to look at. They were all standard stuff: well shot, and they told the story, as far as was possible. Next, I scanned the incident report, also standard stuff—short, plain, and to the point: the man had tripped over his bootlace and fallen on his gun. The autopsy report I set aside for later. The smaller box contained a typewritten inventory of the contents of Nicholson’s pockets, several evidence baggies containing spent and live shells, a small plastic bottle containing, so its label told me, 147 shotgun pellets—number four shot. There were also nine Sony Hi8 Handycam 8mm video tapes, each individually bagged and labeled.
I picked up the phone and punched the buttons that would connect me with Tim and asked him to join us.
Tim Clarke is an anomaly. He’s my computer geek and extremely expensive—he earns every penny of his salary and much more, but he has an annoying habit of buying expensive equipment for the company and not telling me about it, his idea being that, if he needs it, so do I. He handles all things Internet, including operating and maintaining the company website. His more mundane duties include running background checks and skip searches. He can find people, addresses, phone numbers, you name it, no matter where they might be. He's a geek in every sense of the word: tall, skinny, glasses, twenty-six years old, perhaps the most intelligent person I’ve ever met, and arguably the most useful and effective tool in my bag.
He entered my office loaded to the gills: laptop in the crook of his arm, iPad under the other arm, stylus between his teeth, an overfull cup of coffee in his free hand that he laid down on my mahogany desk, slopping the stuff all over it.
“Whoops,” he said, spitting the stylus into his now free hand. “Sorry, boss. I’ll get some paper towels.”
“No need, Tim,” I said dryly, taking a fistful of tissues from the box Jacque insists on putting on my desk and wiping the offending liquid away. “What the hell is all that stuff for?”
“Well, you never know,” he said, taking the seat next to Jacque. “It’s always best to be prepared, I say. I might need the laptop for—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But you won’t need any of it.”
I reached into the box and took out the incident report. “These three men, and the victim. I want to know all there is to know about them, from grade school through today. I want five copies and I want them by two o’clock this afternoon. Can you manage that?”
He gave me a wry look that said I should know better than to ask such a stupid question. And I should have, but still.
He nodded. “Anything else?”
“No. I’m going out. When I get back, I need you ready to go to work. We’ll meet here in my office at two. Okay?”
He grinned, got to his feet, somehow gathered his stuff together again—this time managing not to spill the coffee—and left. Jacque did have to get up and open the door for him, though.
When she sat down again, I looked at her across my desk, hesitating for a moment. She was wearing a dark gray business suit, and three-inch heels. Hardly the right outfit for what I had in mind. “How busy are you, Jacque? I need you to turn yourself loose for two or three hours. Can Leslie run things for a little while?”
She looked at me. There was a strange light in her eyes. “Yes…. She… can manage without me. Things are pretty much together. Why?”
“Good. I’d like you to come with me and Helen Nicholson to the scene this morning. There’s something bothering me about what I’m seeing in these photos. She’s also bringing the gun that killed her son. I’d like to do a little reconstructing. You up for it?”
“Am I up for it?”
I grinned at her. Her Jamaican accent always came out front and center when she was excited.
“What you tink? Of course I am.”
“Good. We’re going to need some luminol. There’s not much chance we’ll find blood after all these years, but it’s not unheard of. See if we have some Bluestar; that’s about the only stuff that might bring it up. Can I leave that to you? Oh, and we’ll also need a small tarp, a measuring tape, and one of the Nikons.”
“You got it. An’ I’ll need to change clothes,” she said, and went off to do it.
I opened the plastic bag and took out the packages one by one. They were labeled, but the seals were broken—the chain of custody, if there ever officially had been one, was no more. Each bag contained a single item: a white undershirt, a red and black flannel shirt, and a dark gray Arc’teryx vest; the fronts were stiff with dried blood. The rubber hunting boots were L.L.Bean, the socks were thick wool, the white ball cap was by Ahead, and a pair of white boxers and a pair of Arc’teryx outdoor pants completed the ensemble.
I laid the undershirt, shirt, and vest side by side
on the desk. Each piece had a hole in it approximately one and a half inches in diameter. Without bothering to put the items together, I could see that the holes matched up, about four inches down from the top of the left shirt collar and about an inch and a half from the vest’s zipper. I looked closely at the hole in the vest. If there was gunshot residue present, I couldn’t see it. It might have been masked by the dried blood, which itself was beginning to powder.
That will have to be tested.
I placed the items back in their respective bags, looked at my watch, and then put the evidence bags back in the plastic bag. It was 8:40—time enough for another cup of coffee.
***
It was just after nine when Helen Nicholson walked into my outer office, a soft leather shotgun case under her arm. I greeted her, took the case from her, and unzipped it.
The gun, a 1968 Belgian Browning Superposed, over/under 12-gauge was, itself, encased in a large paper evidence bag; its seals were still intact, and the chain of custody list still intact—hers being the last name on it.
I took it from her and added my name to the list, Jacque initialing as witness to the change of custody. As I said earlier, the chain, if ever there really had been one, was no longer valid for anything else, but I did my stuff anyway. Habit, I guess. That done, I set the gun down on my desk; the seals would remain intact, at least for now. I wasn’t sure what good that would do, but I wouldn’t break them until I had to, and only then with witnesses present.
“So, you ready for a look at the site?” I asked Mrs. Nicholson.
She nodded. I looked at Jacque, now dressed in jeans, a sweater, and hiking boots; her hair was, the giant black Afro she liked to affect from time to time. I shook my head, smiled at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. You look great.”
She pursed her lips, frowned, and glared at me. “You want me to go change?”
“Nope. Just grab a coat and let’s go.”
“Huh!”
I grabbed the Browning and went to the gun safe in the back office, where I deposited it and checked out my own Benelli 828U over/under 12-gauge shotgun; not quite the same as Peter’s, but near enough for what I needed.
Jacque, now wearing a white, shiny, quilted jacket, had a camera slung over one shoulder and a large black backpack over the other. She gave Leslie a few last-minute instructions and we headed out into the parking lot. We dropped everything into the trunk of my Maxima and I nosed the car out through the security gates into the traffic on Georgia Avenue, turned right, then right again onto MLK, and finally right again onto Highway 27, and then headed across the river. Twenty minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of the TWRA’s Forest Office. I always like to check in with the powers that be, and I had an idea these folks could be helpful. And I felt so even more when Captain John Evans, grinning like a fool, stepped out from behind his desk to greet me.
“Harry Friggin’ Starke,” he said, shoving his hand out. “Who the hell would have thought it?”
I smiled back at him—I couldn’t help myself—and I shook his hand; a gorilla would have been proud of his grip. I’d known this man for more than half my life. We had gone to McCallie together, been the best of friends, but when we graduated, he went his way and I went mine. Every so often we’d bump into each other, sometimes at the club, sometime at that sordid little downtown joint, the Sorbonne. Today was a good day for me to meet up with him once more.
He looked at the women, and his face dropped. “Mrs. Nicholson.” He shook his head. “You back again?”
“Yes, and I’ll keep on coming back until I get justice for my son. You have no objections, I hope.”
“No ma’am. In fact, I admire your spirit. After all these years….” He shook his head, looked at Jacque, and his lips broadened into a wide smile.
“And you are?” he asked, offering his hand.
“Jacque Hale, I’m….” She looked at me.
“Jacque is my personal assistant, my right arm in almost everything.”
He nodded, released her hand. “You wanna tell me why you’re here, Harry, and with Mrs. Nicholson?”
“Oh, I think you can guess.”
“Yup. Ain’t gonna do you no good though. Too many have already tried, and they all came up with the same answer: accident.”
“Were you here back then, John?”
“Sure was. I was just an officer then, but I remember it well enough. In fact, I arrived at the scene just after they removed the body.”
“You never told me that,” Helen said, low-level anger in her voice.
“You’re right, I didn’t. Nor would I have now had it not been for Harry here. There was no need. I wasn’t, and still ain’t, a detective. Harry is though. You done good, Mrs. Nicholson. If anyone can get you some answers, it’s him. Now—” he looked at me “—what can I do for you?”
“I’m going to visit the scene, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course,” he said, grabbing a heavy green uniform jacket from the rack by the door. “In fact, I’ll go with you. Jake, you keep an eye on things. You heah?” The other man, significantly younger, looked up from his computer screen and nodded.
“Let’s go,” Evans said, as he held open the door for us. Once outside, he looked at the Maxima, shook his head, grinned, and said, “Good luck with that. It sure as hell ain’t built for these forest roads…. You wanna take my truck?” He jerked his head in the direction of a muddy, green GMC 150 state truck. It was a king cab and I probably should have taken him up on the offer, but when I looked at the clothes the women were wearing, I knew it wasn’t an option. Besides, all the gear was in my car.
“How about we follow,” I said. “The Maxima has upgraded suspension; she can handle it. Just stop well short of the scene. I want to walk in.”
He looked doubtfully at the Maxima’s wheels, then at me. “What the hell are you expecting to find after all these years, Harry? You do know it’s rained since then, right?”
He was being facetious, and I smiled for him. “Let’s go, John. If you don’t want to, I’m sure Mrs. Nicholson can show us the way.”
He snorted. “I’m sure she could.”
He ambled away to his truck, jumped in, and hit the starter. The diesel engine coughed once and clattered to life, and the vehicle started forward with a jerk. He hit the brakes, leaned out through the window, and tried to make like he was impatient. It didn’t work. He couldn’t help but grin at me.
“C’mon. Let’s hit the trail.” And we did.
After almost fifteen minutes of slow, bone-jarring, back-twisting, knee-cracking agony, the road widened a little and the big green truck finally came to halt, much to everyone’s relief. I got out of my Maxima and walked around it. The shiny black surface was a vast map of tiny scratches made by its passage through the overhanging branches.
“I told ya,” Evans said as he joined me and surveyed the damage. I wasn’t too bothered; it was all superficial and most of it, I was sure, would buff out, but damn it.
“So where are we?” I asked.
“About a quarter mile off Haley Road. That was the main road… yeah, yeah, I know. Some main road, huh? Well, this is a forest, damn it. Anyway, the site is about a hundred yards that way.” He pointed down the trail over the hood of his truck.
It was a pleasant woodland trail, ideal for hiking, although how the hell anyone would find it I had no idea. These were the game fields. Be that as it may, it was a beautiful winter’s day. The sun was shining through the trees—some bare, some conifers—casting beams of light and shade that gave the place an ethereal, cathedral-like ambiance. Beautiful.
I grabbed Jacque’s bag out of the trunk, asked her to take my Benelli and the camera, and I set off down the trail toward the site, photographs in hand, walking slowly, most of the time with my eyes closed.
I can feel it.
No, I don’t believe in ghosts, but sometimes I get this feeling…. I can’t describe it. It’s just a feeling
. And every once in a while….
I walked slowly, stopping every few yards, opening my eyes, gazing down the trail, closing them and moving on again. Finally, the track widened slightly, but even then it was little more than a couple of wheel ruts in the overgrown grass.
This is it.
And it was. Just a few yards ahead and to the left was the stump of a hornbeam tree, easily recognizable by its fluted trunk. I checked the photographs. That’s the one.
It was maybe three feet in diameter and had been cut high enough to form a stool or seat. It was old, weathered, though more so on the southwest side. All of its bark was long gone.
I stopped, dropped the bag, took the camera from Jacque, and began to photograph the area. Why, after all these years? To compare the site as I saw it today with the photos I still had in my hand. I wanted to see how much the area had changed. I photographed the stump from every angle. I walked on down the trail a few yards, then back again, trying to get a feel for what it must have been like that day back in 2002.
Not too different, I think.
I returned to the stump, looked at the photographs, stared some more, looked around at the track and the trees. Except for the stump, it was an unremarkable spot in the forest.
So why here? He’s finished for the day. He’s walking back to his vehicle, to meet his friends. He has his gun either over his shoulder, or under his arm….
“Hand me the gun please, Jacque.” She did.
I took it from her and handed her the photos and the camera, and then walked a few yards back down the trail. I turned and laid the Benelli over my right shoulder, the butt of the gun facing back down the trail. No, that’s not it. Not comfortable. He was done shooting for the day so, if what she said was right….
This time I broke the action of the gun, and replaced it, still holding the tips of the barrels, the butt facing back down the trail. Better, but if he tripped and fell there’s no way he could have fallen on it and shot himself with the breach open.