Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane)

by Tony Healey

  “You investigated knowing you couldn’t make an arrest,” Harper says, shaking her head.

  “Who said anything about arresting him? He wouldn’t have lived long in my custody, believe me. I knew from the start that there would be no justice sought in his capture. No restitution in his imprisonment,” Lloyd says. “Anyhow, for what it’s worth, I never managed to make much progress. And every so often a body would turn up. When I retired, someone else took over. Every captain who comes in is sworn to secrecy.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Stu says.

  “Know what? I don’t give half a shit if you believe me. Who’s the captain these days?”

  “Morelli.”

  “He told you to come speak to me, didn’t he? Told you all about the Ruby Lane case?”

  Harper realizes what he is saying. “He set us on our way. I get it.”

  “The files I kept over the years are in the basement at the station. They’ve always been there. My altered records, the reports I made up, are in your database, I expect. Go back to Morelli, tell him you want to see the files. He’ll know what to do.”

  Stu stands suddenly. “Call yourself a cop?” he spits, stalking off.

  Harper stays where she is. “You telling us this because you think it gives you some kind of . . . redemption?”

  Lloyd shakes his head. “No. I’m telling you this because you need to put an end to this legacy. You need to catch this man. And when you do, put a bullet in his head.”

  “And Ida?”

  Lloyd shakes his head, eyes heavy with shadow. “That poor girl.”

  “She went to stay with Ruby’s parents, correct?”

  “But it wasn’t the end, if you get my drift.”

  Harper frowns. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Lloyd sighs. “Seems that she was let in to see her mother in the casket. You know, the way they do sometimes. All laid out, hair done, dressed in her best clothes, looking like a sleeping angel. In fact that’s what they called her, in the papers. Snow angel or some such. When we found her, she was covered in frost, head to toe. Anyhow, I dropped by that day to the chapel. You know, to pay my respects. Broke me, not being able to solve her murder.”

  “I’m sure seeing Ruby like that did have a lasting effect on Ida.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not it. She went in there, and from what I heard she reached inside the casket and laid her hand on her mother’s. Next thing anyone knew, she was on the floor, out cold. When she woke up . . . well, she wasn’t the same. It was like someone took that sweet little girl and wrung her out.”

  Harper frowns. “What do you mean?”

  Lloyd smiles weakly. “Listen, young lady, maybe it’s best you go out there, see for yourself. She probably still lives at her grandparents’ place.”

  “I might just do that,” Harper says, already dismissing the notion in her head.

  She starts to stand. Lloyd slaps a hand on her wrist, holding her in place. The old man looks her right in the eyes and she sees in his, not a retiree, but a fiery detective at his peak. A good man who tried his best but failed.

  “Do it,” he tells her. “Go see her. She knows something about her mother’s death. I always said that girl was the key to solving the murder, but my hands were tied, her being so young and all. She might talk now, if you’re lucky.”

  His hand relaxes around her wrist. Harper gets up.

  “I’ll drop by her place tomorrow, after I’ve had a chance to review your old files.”

  “Good,” Lloyd says.

  She leaves, pausing halfway across the room to look back at Lloyd. His head is turned away from her, looking out the window. In the reflection in the glass Harper can see him squinting against the sunlight.

  Revisiting the past.

  “Hey,” she says, loud enough to get his attention.

  Lloyd looks around.

  “I’ll drop by again,” Harper says. “Let you know if I catch the bastard.”

  He nods. “You know where I’ll be.”

  Ida sits out on the porch as the sun lifts into the soft white clouds. She’d spent her earliest years in Chalmer before inheriting her grandmother’s place outside of town. It did her good to be away from people, from the press of bodies, the rubbing irritation of minds. Out here, on her own, she found peace.

  She sips beer straight from the icy-cold bottle, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Sometimes she reads, or plays records—old stuff, on vinyl—and just watches the days go by. The world is a great canvas around her, the paint changing by subtle degrees on a daily basis.

  Occasionally, she will head into town in her pickup for stores and supplies. There are a few people she will speak to. But for the most part, Ida Lane is a faceless being. A loner black woman living out in the sticks, seemingly content with her own company.

  Sometimes it’s as if the house in which she spends her days is an axle, and the world turns around it. At night, this far out from the town’s illumination, she can see the stars in all their glory, their cold, hard light surrendered to the void. Sometimes it feels like there’s a great song she’s been listening for, all these years, barely audible at the edge of her hearing.

  She lifts the beer and drains the bottle. Despite her taste for suds, she’s kept lean. She knows the smokes are a killer, but they’re her one true vice.

  She thinks, Everyone’s got a vice.

  Ida stretches and heads inside to fetch another beer. She has the thirst like always, and the day is hot.

  “Hey hey hey,” Albie says as Harper plunks her bag down on her desk. “Lookin’ mighty fresh there, Harper.”

  She throws him a look. “Sucking up to me will get you everywhere.”

  “He knows it, too,” Stu says, patting their young apprentice on the back.

  Albie turns to him, looks Stu up and down. “And might I say you’re looking pretty fine yourself, Mister Raley!”

  A few of the men working at their desks look up at the sudden increase in volume of Albie’s voice. The blood rushes to Stu’s head and he removes his hand from Albie’s shoulder. Harper can’t help but chuckle at the way her partner is instantly uncomfortable around Albie when he does things like that—which, of course, is why he does it.

  “I’ll, uh, go make some coffee,” Stu mumbles, excusing himself.

  Harper looks over the scattered contents of her desk, lifting one file, dropping another on top of it. “That’s very naughty of you, Albie. You realize you’re practically the opposite of what your surname would suggest, right?”

  “How can you say that?” Albie grins. “Goode by name, good by nature.”

  “You wish . . . So where we at?”

  “I’ve got a list of supremacists who were active up to five years ago,” Albie says, handing her a printout.

  Harper scans the list. “These guys do time?”

  “All of them. Aggravated assault, violence with intent, you name it.”

  Harper nods. “Right. So just the kind of guys you wanna take home and introduce to mama.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, start looking into them. Each name on the list, in turn,” Harper says, handing back the printout. She looks at Albie’s face, and there’s something amiss. He’s about to deliver bad news—she can feel it. “What?”

  “Well, you see, John Dudley booked most of these guys before he transferred over. That’s what made his name, so to speak. My best bet in getting this done quickly and efficiently is to enlist his help, but I wanted to check with you first. I know you’re not exactly simpatico.”

  Harper sits on the edge of her desk, folds her arms. “Ask Dudley for assistance. Say that I told you to ask for his help, given his history with the KKK.”

  “You think he’ll help?”

  Harper shrugs. “If he won’t, then I’ll talk to him myself. If that fails, I can go to Morelli, but it’s best if that doesn’t have to happen. Dudley can be asinine if he’s not on our side.”

  “Got it, boss,�
�� Albie says, heading off.

  Stu arrives at the desk, toting two cups of coffee from the kitchen. “Here you are.”

  “Thanks, stud,” Harper says.

  “I bumped into Kapersky. Her toxicology came back,” Stu says.

  Harper’s eyebrows rise. “Yeah?”

  “Guess what it was he injected her with . . .”

  Harper sighs. “Our old friend, dextromethorphan.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I sent Albie off to ask Dudley for help.”

  “Jeez, is there no other option?” Stu blows across his coffee, then takes a tentative sip. “Damn that’s hot . . .”

  “Dudley got this far by busting the nutcases posing as the KKK. It’s his area. We’d be foolish not to get his help, much as I hate asking.”

  Stu sighs. “Fuckin’ hurts.”

  Harper looks across to the captain’s office. She realizes it’s no good putting any of it off. Best to just confront him, see if she can get to the truth.

  “You goin’ in there?”

  She nods.

  “Want me to come, kiddo?” he asks.

  Harper stands, straightening her shirt. “Nope. You can go check in with Albie, see how he’s making out with Dudley.”

  Stu sags. “Can’t we swap?”

  Harper is already walking away.

  She drops the Ruby Lane file on the captain’s desk.

  Morelli sits back in his chair, his hands on his stomach. “Hit me with it, Detective.”

  Harper takes a deep breath. “Captain, I think it’s time you told me about the Lloyd Claymore files.”

  Silence drags out as he considers; then he says: “I need to know I can trust you.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He picks his words carefully, as if he’s tiptoeing around a land mine.

  “When I was handed this position, my predecessor told me about a series of murders that took place over the years.”

  “Claymore alluded to them . . .”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said you’d tell me the truth,” Harper says.

  Morelli sighs. “Me and Claymore go way back. I was his partner, a couple of years before he retired. Never said a word about any of this. It was only when I got this job that I was let in on our department’s dirty little secret.”

  He reaches inside his desk drawer and hands her something.

  Harper looks at it—a small brass key. “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s the key to a legacy, and it’s high time that it was brought out in the open. When I took this office, my predecessor told me about a locked filing cabinet downstairs. It’s the only one down in the basement no one has access to. In there, you’ll find everything you need. You have to understand, Detective, that I was told in no uncertain terms: exposing these murders for what they were could seriously harm the town and everyone in it. Sometimes it’s best to leave the past in the past.”

  “Who told you?”

  “These are powerful people, Detective. Old money. They’re not going to let the murders of a few black girls get in the way of their own affairs.”

  “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you act on what you knew anyway?”

  Morelli says, “There were other considerations . . . threats against myself, against my family.”

  “From the people enabling this cover-up? Why not come forward about what they’re doing?”

  “Things are a little different out here than they are in San Francisco, Detective.”

  Harper weighs the key in her hand. “We swore an oath to protect the innocent, to see that justice is served to the full letter of the law . . . and here we are, hiding the truth, holding back the course of justice.”

  Morelli rubs his tired eyes. “I know these murders will never end. And I can’t go on any longer, living with the guilt. The injustice of it all goes against everything I joined law enforcement for. It’s time something was done to bring these to light. I’m just sorry it took me this long to find the courage.”

  “You realize I need to bring Stu Raley in on this?”

  “Of course; I trust Raley,” Morelli says. “I thought it was all over with. Yet . . . here we are.”

  “Here we are,” Harper repeats, shaking her head with distaste.

  “Don’t judge me for protecting my family, Detective. If the truth had gotten out, these people might have come after my wife, after my kids. But I can’t sit on my hands any longer. It’s time I started making things right.” Morelli fixes her with a hard glare. “The murders were covered up. Details changed about the circumstances of their deaths. Little things, enough to make them appear to be unconnected. No mention of the crowns he leaves on their heads, for one thing. But now you know the truth. And this is your chance at cracking this case.”

  Harper gets to her feet, eager to get down in the basement and start digging. “Keep this between you and Raley, okay? At least until the time is right. We don’t need media attention drawing our focus away from what’s important—finding the sick son of a bitch who’s killing these girls. Everything else can be handled after.”

  “Yes sir,” Harper says.

  “Right. Don’t let me hold you back any further. Let’s get out there and catch this bastard,” Morelli says, waving her off. He turns to the pile of papers on his desk that awaits his attention. “Good hunting.”

  As she walks away from his office, Harper can’t help but feel a chill run down her spine. There are people with so much influence, with such a stranglehold over the town, that they have kept these murders covered up for so long. To what lengths will they go for what they think is the good of the town?

  The basement—or dungeon, as the cops often call it—consists of rows of rolling shelves. By cranking a wheel on the edge of the unit, you move the shelf across, allowing access to its contents. The shelves have laminated printouts on the ends, with the contents of each mobile stack listed alphabetically and by category. On the other side of the basement are rows of old filing cabinets, and down one end is a caged-off area for sensitive evidence. A senior officer holds the key to the evidence lockup, and everyone has to be signed in and out.

  “I don’t get the subterfuge,” Stu says, peering left and right. They’re the only ones down there. “I mean, what’s it all about, huh?”

  “You’ll see.”

  She instructs him to try opening the cabinets. One by one they attempt to yank them open, succeeding every time. Stu arrives at the last cabinet and tries it. It won’t budge. “Hey . . . sucker won’t open.”

  “This must be the one.”

  Harper slides the key into the lock and opens it up. The top and middle drawers are completely empty. Only the bottom holds anything—a dozen or so files, held together like a Christmas present with white twine.

  “What’s that?” Raley asks.

  Harper scoops the files out of the cabinet and kicks the drawer closed with her foot. “This could be our big break. Let’s go to my apartment, away from prying eyes. You can drive.”

  “This is gonna give me a fucking ulcer,” Stu complains when they get through the door to her apartment. “This whole case is a nightmare.”

  Harper sets the files down on her kitchen counter and proceeds to cut the twine with a pair of scissors. She recounts how Captain Morelli handed her the key. “It was like ‘and this is your responsibility now,’ you know?”

  “Damn,” Raley says, pulling out a chair from her dining room table and sitting down. “So they’re the files Claymore was talking about.”

  “Yeah. Now remember this has to stay between us, at least until we catch this guy.”

  “I get that; I’m not dense. Just the two of us.” Stu takes a deep breath. “Okay, so where do we begin?”

  Harper hands him the file off the top. “We read.”

  It’s late by the time they’ve read through all the files to establish a broad sweep of events. The files are arranged chronologically.

  Ruby Lane, 1985. Followed by Od
etta Draw in early 1987. They go on like that, one every couple of years, with a quiet period of five years when there were no mysterious deaths at all . . . until Magnolia Remy and Alma Buford, that is.

  Harper rubs her eyes. “Assuming they were all committed by the same guy, that’s a total of ten victims.”

  Black girls. Raped. Strangled. Body fluids left at the scene. Most of them exhibiting other signs of violence, and puncture marks from hypodermic needles—no toxicology reports because, of course, that would arouse suspicion and make the cover-up impossible.

  “There’s definite evidence of serial activity. The killer does the same thing, over and over. And after what looks like a brief hiatus, he is increasing his activities. Like someone who smokes ten cigarettes a day moving to twenty, then forty . . . the killer’s turned it up a notch,” Stu says.

  The recent bodies—Magnolia Remy, Alma Buford—will cause a stir in the news, of that Harper has no doubt. “Ten girls, and more to come.”

  “We’ll get him.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Harper pats the files. They’re so much more than sheets of paper. They are an inconvenient truth, each folder detailing the end of a life. “I really don’t want to have to add to this pile.”

  “Me neither. So what’s the next play?” Stu asks.

  “Cross-reference these with what we have at the station. See if there’s anything from these files that’s actually helpful. In the meantime, I’ll catch up with Albie, see how he’s doing with Alma Buford’s friends. They might remember something odd going on.”

  “Right,” Stu says, getting up. “I might grab a few files now. Something to read tonight.”

  She shakes her head. “Hey, Stu? Don’t do that. Let’s both get a good night’s rest and attack it fresh tomorrow, huh?”

  “Sure,” he says. “You wanna go grab something quick to eat? I feel like I haven’t spent a lot of time with you.”