Fixed in Fear

by T. E. Woods

  “Tommy’s my son,” the man told them. “Well, technically my stepson. He’s not done anything wrong, has he?”

  “No, sir, he sure hasn’t,” Rita answered. “But he lives here, right?”

  The man looked confused. “You’re both cops?”

  “We are, Mr….” Mort needed an ID.

  The man hesitated for a heartbeat before sticking out his hand. “Hayes. Wilson Hayes. Cheryl, that’s Tommy’s mother. Cheryl and I have been married five years now. Tommy’s a good kid. What do you want with him?”

  Hayes stood in front of his door, looking like a man who’d face any danger to protect his family.

  “Tommy’s birth father,” Rita said. “Is he Augustus Apuzzo? Sometimes called Auggie?”

  “That what this is about? Auggie’s done something again? And what? You think Tommy knows something? Let me tell you about that no-good piece of dirty excuse for a human being. Tommy gets nowhere near him, and Auggie gets nowhere near my son. If I ever have to—”

  Wilson Hayes’s rant was interrupted when the front door swung open. A petite redhead with a round and pretty face looked up at Hayes, putting one hand on his arm and the other on her robustly pregnant belly.

  “Will?” she asked, while looking at the two strangers standing on her porch. “Everything okay here? It’s almost halftime. Time to fire up the charcoal.”

  Wilson Hayes put a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her outside just enough to close the door again.

  “These folks are cops,” he told her. “Looking for Auggie.”

  Cheryl Hayes slipped her arm around her husband’s waist. Her face was twisted in disgust. “What’s he done now?”

  Mort apologized for interrupting the game. “We need to locate Auggie Apuzzo. The address he gave his parole officer doesn’t make sense. There may be a mistake, but—”

  “There’s no mistake,” Cheryl interrupted. “Auggie doesn’t like to be found. Sees himself as a lone wolf or some such bullshit.”

  “Cheryl!” Wilson Hayes chastised his wife. “There’s no need for that kind of talk.”

  The woman looked up at him with tired but adoring eyes. “Sorry, honey. That guy brings out the worst in me every time.”

  Mort tried to imagine how different Cheryl’s life was when she was married to a career criminal like Auggie. He was confident foul language was the least of her concerns.

  “So you have no idea where we might find him?” Rita asked. “We need to ask him a few questions.”

  “What’s he done?” Cheryl rubbed her bulbous belly. “Wait, don’t tell me. Not unless you can tell me he’s going away long enough for there never to be the slightest chance of Tommy or me being forced to see him ever again.”

  “Like Chief Willers said, we just have a few questions.” Mort hoped he could reassure the anxious parents.

  Cheryl turned to Rita. “You’re the chief?” She nodded toward Mort. “You his boss? A woman? For real?”

  “I’m chief of police down in Enumclaw, Mrs. Hayes. Detective Grant is a detective here in Seattle. We’re teamed up on a case. Nobody’s working for anybody. We’re a team.”

  “And this case involves Auggie?” Cheryl asked.

  “Again,” Mort said. “We just have a few questions for him.”

  “Yeah, I have a few questions for the weasel, too.” Wilson Hayes sounded like he wanted to do more than ask Auggie something. “Like what’s it going to take for him to stay away from my family and how the heck can he look himself in the mirror every morning.”

  “So he’s not staying away?” Mort asked. “You’ve seen him?”

  “Not for a long time,” Cheryl answered. “But he came by, what?” She looked up to her husband. “Was it yesterday? Day before?”

  “Yesterday.” Wilson Hayes had an angry glint in his eye. “That lowlife always waits till he knows I’m at work to show up. He knows I don’t want Cheryl or Tommy anywhere near him.”

  “He threaten you?” Rita asked. “Or Tommy?”

  Cheryl Hayes shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. Just came by long enough to drop off an envelope. Bum owes me tens of thousands of dollars in back child support. For all he cares Tommy would be starving and naked.” She gave her husband a squeeze. “It’s my Will here who cares for Tommy. Keeps him safe. Teaches him stuff.” Her smile was a combination of adoration and embarrassment. “Gives him a little sister sometime this month.”

  “Congratulations,” Rita said. “I wish you a speedy delivery.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” Cheryl said. “Tommy had me in labor for thirty-one hours. Of course Auggie was nowhere to be found.” She pressed closer to Will. “This time’s going to be different.”

  “You said Auggie came by yesterday.” Mort needed to keep the conversation on topic. “With an envelope?”

  “Yes. An envelope filled with cash.” Cheryl went back to caressing the daughter resting in her womb. “Bum wanted me to stop the state from hounding him for back support in exchange for the money he was offering. I told him I’d do just that and he could even keep his money. ‘Sign away your parental rights,’ I told him. ‘Let Will adopt Tommy nice and legal and you won’t owe me a thing.’ Asshole wanted nothing to do with that.”

  “Cheryl,” Wilson Hayes warned again against the harsh name calling.

  “Sorry, honey. Anyway, Auggie says a few choice words over that suggestion, shoves the envelope into my hands, and storms off.” Cheryl alternated her attention between Mort and Rita. “Probably the last I’ll see of him for another year.”

  “How much was in the envelope?” Auggie had paid Costigan in cash, too. Mort wanted to get some idea of the profit Auggie had made for killing five people.

  “Two grand.” Cheryl glanced at her husband with apologetic eyes. “Sorry. I meant two thousand. Two thousand dollars cash.”

  Mort nodded. “And you have no idea where we might find him?”

  Cheryl thought for a bit, then shook her head. “Wait. It’s Friday. I don’t know if he still does it, but back when we were married there wasn’t a Friday went by that Auggie Apuzzo wasn’t down at Finney’s playing poker, talking smart, and getting as drunk as he could on someone else’s dime. He’d start in the afternoon and run right through to bar time…or until somebody caught him cheating, whichever came first. Might be worth swinging by.”

  Mort glanced to Rita, who nodded in response. They each thanked the Hayeses, wished them the best with the upcoming birth, and turned to leave.

  “By the way.” Mort stopped at the bottom of the steps. “How we doing?”

  Cheryl’s smile was as wide as her belly. “Up by nine at the half. Looking real good for the Dawgs.”

  Mort returned the smile, wishing Edie could have had one more winning season with her team.

  —

  “You know this place?” Rita asked as she and Mort walked up to the yellow brick bar that sat like an island in a sea of cracked asphalt and hearty weeds. Finney’s was the kind of joint that might have been considered a neighborhood bar back in the day when there was a neighborhood in this part of south Seattle. A place where men who worked in blue collars to build Seattle’s airline manufacturing dominance could wet their whistles after a long day on the line before heading home to families they supported with steady union wages. But the area fell into disrepair when the industry collapsed forty years ago.

  Streets that once held hundreds of three-bedroom, one-bath ranches were abandoned when the jobs dried up. The bankers came in first, foreclosing and trying to sell the homes off at bargain-basement prices. When that didn’t work, the government stepped in, hoping subsidized rent payments would lure folks back to the blighted area. Then came the dope dealers and the wretched souls they fed off. Crack houses brought the police, along with furious demands from the good citizens of Seattle’s luckier neighborhoods to clean things up. That brought a brief fiscal boom for heavy equipment operators as entire blocks of neglected properties were bulldo
zed. Now all that was left was the occasional strip mall, a couple of fast-food joints, and Finney’s Bar and Grill.

  “I remember coming here as a kid, actually.” Mort recalled his father’s best friend swearing Finney’s had the best deep-fried cod in town. “It was different back then. Kind of a family place. Now it’s a watering hole for regulars to drink without anyone asking any questions. Cops get called in every now and again, but never anything serious enough to get the liquor license pulled.” He held the door open and let the chief enter first.

  A polished wood bar ran down the north-south wall of the space, and every stool at it was filled, despite it being just after five o’clock on Friday afternoon. A few tables in the open area were occupied as well. But this was no end-of-the-week let’s-mix-and-mingle crowd. Men and women sat hunched over their drinks, turning their heads to watch Mort and Rita enter. Mort thought they looked disappointed to see it wasn’t anything more exciting than an unfamiliar man and woman arriving without fanfare and returned their attention to the glasses in front of them. Only the two bartenders kept their eyes on Mort and Rita as they walked up and stood at the only space wide enough to accommodate them. One bartender, older than the other by at least two decades, looked at his partner and gave a you take care of this nod of his head. The younger man smirked, gave a weary shake of his head, and sauntered over to where Mort and Rita stood.

  “What can I get you folks?” He wore a Seattle Seahawks sweatshirt over worn jeans and a dingy white service apron tied around his waist. “Happy hour special is anything on tap two for one till six.”

  Mort looked around the room. A neon Budweiser sign sputtered on and off in a dusty corner. An ornate jukebox sat against one wall, unlit with its power cord duct taped to its side. The out-of-order sign taped to the front glass had the yellowed look of age. The linoleum tiled floor was marked with grime caked into so many cracks, no amount of mopping would ever get it clean.

  It would take more than BOGO beers to make any hour in this place happy.

  Mort waved the bartender closer. “I’m police.” He kept his voice low. He nodded toward Rita. “She is, too. We’re looking for Auggie Apuzzo. Comes in here to play cards.” Mort jerked his thumb to the back wall where three doors were evenly spaced across it. The one on the left was marked MEN, the door on the right was marked WOMEN, and the center door was labeled PRIVATE. “I’m assuming that’s the game room?”

  The bartender stepped back and glanced toward his inattentive elder partner before speaking. “I don’t know,” he said in that way that said he knew exactly what that room was used for. “I don’t want no trouble.”

  Mort reached for his wallet, pulled out a twenty, and laid it gently on the bar. “Neither do we. Tell me one thing. Are we going to walk into some sort of tactical situation? Maybe somebody in there’s gonna greet us with a weapon?”

  “There’s no guns allowed in this place.” The bartender’s hushed answer caught the attention of the overweight man sitting next to where Rita stood. Mort figured something about the word gun seemed to register no matter how softly it was whispered. The guy looked Rita and Mort up and down before turning back to his beer.

  “That’s not what I asked,” Mort said. “Let’s try this again. Do my partner and I need to have our service revolvers drawn when we walk through that door?”

  The bartender looked again to his elder, who was too focused on the recap of the Huskies’ victory over Auburn being broadcast over the wall-mounted TV to notice his partner needed guidance. The younger barman wiped a nervous hand over his mouth, leaned in, and spoke in a rapid, quiet staccato.

  “Look, there’s no worries about weapons. But that’s an invitation-only game. They’re not going to take it good some cop walking in. And they have fists. Know what I mean?” He looked more nervous than scared. “I get off in half an hour. I got plans. I don’t need to be held up by some brawl that brings in who knows how many of you guys wanting to take my statement or anything.” He nodded toward the door. “Those guys are old school. They’ll be in there all night. Can’t you come back when I’m gone?”

  Mort marveled at the logic of self-involvement. “Tell you what. Maybe there’s a win for both of us. We’re looking for Auggie Apuzzo. We’ve got no interest in the game. No interest in a brawl. You get Auggie to come out here and there’s no need for my partner and me to even step foot behind that door.”

  The bartender looked unsure. “How’m I supposed to do that? They got their own supply in there. Beer, snacks, whatever. They even got their own door to the john. They walk in there, it’s for the night, man. Stumble out just after I lock up. Usually singing some old Eagles tune and slapping one another on the back. They have one last shot, bitchin’ about their wives while I’m mopping up, and then it’s adios, don’t let the door hit you in the ass until next Friday.”

  Mort nodded. “I understand. Looks like you better call whomever you’ve got plans with. Maybe even lock the front door. My partner and I are going in. We’re gonna get Auggie and we’re gonna deal with whatever comes of it. Then we’ll need the statements of every person in the place. And I’ll make sure yours is the last one we take.”

  “Look, man, I don’t want no trou—” The bartender’s plea was cut short when the obese man sitting next to Rita slammed his hand down on the bar. He shot Mort a weary look, pushed himself off his barstool, and waddled to the back wall. He pounded on the door marked PRIVATE and yelled.

  “Auggie, you better get out here! Simone got here about ten minutes ago and there’s some jerk-off in a sailor suit won’t leave her alone!”

  Overweight waddled back, speaking to Mort as he climbed back onto his stool. “Auggie will be right with you.”

  Five seconds later the private door flew open. A stocky man, five feet ten inches tall, wearing sweatpants and a Seahawks sweatshirt emblazoned with a giant number three, stormed out. He took four steps into the bar, stopped, and scanned the room. Mort and Rita approached him as he gave Overweight a Where is she? look.

  “Auggie, I’m Mort Grant, Seattle PD. This is Rita Willers, chief of police, Enumclaw PD.”

  Auggie’s small, close-set eyes widened when he heard where Rita was from. He pivoted to his right and took just one running step before Rita kicked his legs out from under him. Auggie thudded to the floor. Rita was on him, pulling his right arm behind his back and slapping on the cuffs she had pulled from her jacket pocket before Mort had even called out a warning. Mort dragged Auggie to his feet, locked one hand on Auggie’s arm, the other on the neck of the man’s sweatshirt, and steered him to the door as Rita called for a squad car. He paused as he passed Overweight.

  “Thanks, buddy. And when you see her, thank Simone for us.”

  Overweight gave one bored nod and returned to his beer.

  —

  Mort felt the buzz in his pocket telling him he had an incoming call. He glanced at the screen. It was Lydia. If she was calling with news about Allie it would mean a longer conversation than he had time for at the moment. He clicked his phone closed and turned to Rita. “You ready?” She nodded and they headed down the hall on the second floor of the Seattle PD’s headquarters.

  “Which one of you was Sam and which one was Ernie?” Mort asked as he and Rita walked into the interview room. Auggie Apuzzo had been processed under an initial charge of interfering with a police officer. It was past sunset by the time he was finished with the booking process and settled into his metal chair to answer questions. Mort had used the time between bringing Auggie in and his interview to check in. He had first touched base with Larry and learned his friend had called a taxi and gone home with three boxes of Carlton’s papers to review. After Mort apologized and continued his façade of being engrossed with departmental paperwork, he’d asked Larry about Bilbo Runyan.

  Larry had told Mort that Runyan hadn’t returned to the house before Larry decided to leave.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Auggie Apuzzo was doing his best t
ough-guy act. “Bert and Ernie I know. Sam and Ernie I got no clue.”

  Mort sighed. He turned to Rita, who took a seat across from Auggie and laid a thick folder on the desk separating them.

  “Am I going to have to go through this again?” he asked her. “Do I have to tell him we already got that other Anderson brother? How he already told us all about how Auggie was the mastermind behind the sweat lodge murders?”

  “Look, I don’t know anybody by that name and I don’t know nothing about no murders,” Apuzzo insisted. “Somebody tells you different, they’re a lying sack of shit.”

  Rita opened the file and made a show of glancing through its contents. “You’re telling us you never stepped foot into Tall Oaks Lodge. Never registered there as one of the Anderson brothers out of Moses Lake. Is that right? Never participated in a sweat lodge. Never slaughtered five people and burned their corpses. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” Auggie dialed his expression to satisfied smirk.

  “How about the name Jerry Costigan?” Mort asked. “That name ring any bell with you?”

  “Jerry? Sure I know Jerry. Our paths crossed in Monroe. He was a scared little cunt looking for somebody to protect him in the joint. Wanted to be my bitch. I don’t swing that way and told him to bark up some other tree. Didn’t see much of him after that. Heard tell he was pissed as all hell that I didn’t cover for him. Told somebody he was going to see I got mine or some horseshit like that. Make me pay. That what this is about? Scared little Jerry Costigan making up stories about me?”

  Mort was impressed. He wondered if Auggie had made that story up on the spot or if he’d had it in his back pocket all along just in case Costigan decided to finger him.

  “Costigan gave you up in a heartbeat,” Mort said. “Says you planned the murders. Said in fact you killed all those people. Poor old Jerry had no idea what was going down. Yes, sir. He laid it all on you. Promises to say that exact thing to whoever wants to chat.”

  Auggie shook his head. He was doing his best to look unconcerned, but Mort could see the man’s breathing had shifted to shallow and rapid. “I can’t help what nobody says about me. But some pussy talking don’t make a lie true.”