by Nick Pirog
I took two steps in the direction of the back porch.
“Whoa!” shouted Miller. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I pointed at the paper bag. “My lunch.”
He glanced at the Chief.
Eccleston shook his head. “That’s evidence. Leave it.”
“My club sandwich is evidence?” I strode toward the chair, grabbed the bag, and walked back to the small group, which now included the two other officers.
I was opening the bag to take out the second sandwich when it was snatched from my hands by Miller.
He smirked and said, “Like the Chief said, it’s evidence.”
I was tempted to say something about the two engagement rings Wheeler gave back to him, but that was a low blow, even for me. So I said, “Like how the two engagement rings Wheeler gave back to you are evidence that you must really suck in bed.”
Miller’s face twisted. The Chief and the two other cops gasped in horror.
Point, Prescott.
I turned on my heel and walked away. When I’d gone a dozen steps, a hand wrapped around my arm. This is literally my least favorite thing in the world, and I stopped and stared at the tiny little paw squishing the bat wing of my triceps.
“We need you to come down to the station,” Miller barked. “To give a statement.”
I wondered if this had anything to do with me emasculating him in front of his friends.
I peeled his hand off my arm and said, “Sure thing, I’ll meet you there.”
“Why don’t I drive you.”
“Why don’t I meet you there.”
He pulled some handcuffs off his belt. “Why don’t I drive you.”
I ignored him and headed for my car.
He grabbed my arm again, this time three clicks harder than before.
I turned and shoved him in the shoulder.
He took two steps back. Blinked twice. Looked like he probably did when the doctor told him he was in the negative thirtieth percentile for height.
He was a college wrestler, and I wasn’t surprised when his hands shot up in front of him, his knees bent, his feet shoulder-width apart. But college wrestler or not, I had him by seventy pounds. In a fight, there was no substitute for mass. I was a rhino. He was a squirrel. It was as simple as that.
“You don’t want to do this,” I said.
The three other officers and Chief Eccleston overheard the exchange and turned. One of the officers took out his phone and began videotaping. Maybe they all secretly detested Miller. Maybe they were looking forward to watching me kick the shit out of him and posting it on the internet.
I would happily oblige.
Miller took two steps forward.
I crouched, ready for him to tackle me to the ground, whereby I would roll on top of him and dangle a loogie over his face until he cried uncle.
Then it happened.
He rose up on his toes, twisted his body around, and pivoted on his front foot. It was lightning quick, and a nanosecond later I was on my ass in the dirt, my ears ringing, and my vision supernova white.
I wouldn’t know what happened until I was forwarded the video “Guy Gets Ass Kicked by Cop” by my sister two days later. After it had racked up nearly nine million views.
Miller hit me with a spinning back kick, smashing his foot into my temple at roughly sixty miles per hour.
I’d been punched in the face a handful of times, but I’d never been kicked. Lying on my back in the grass, I ceased to exist for two long seconds.
When my vision cleared, Miller was on top of me. I attempted to wriggle from beneath him, but he had my arms pinned to my chest. I could hear feet clomping in our direction as his fellow officers ran to root him on.
Now I understood why the other officer was recording with his phone.
Miller was some sort of badass.
I bucked up with my hips in an attempt to slip from beneath him, but he dug his knee into my side. “Stop,” he said calmly.
“Fuck off,” I wheezed. The seven seconds we’d been wrestling exhausted me and I felt like vomiting. It could have been from my poor cardiovascular shape or it could have been from the karate kick to my skull.
I tried to roll over onto my stomach, which I was able to do easily. Too easily. A second later, I knew why. Miller rolled onto my back and slinked his forearm under my chin, the other one behind my neck, creating a vice around my throat.
What we call in the business a “rear naked choke.”
I clawed at his arms with my fingers, but he only clamped down harder. I tapped his arm frantically. Finally, after six taps, he released me.
Ten seconds later, I was in handcuffs.
“Don’t feel too bad,” Chief Eccleston said. “He almost made it to the UFC.”
I held the can of Coke to the side of my face, which was swollen to near Elephant Man proportions. My lower jaw pulsated, and I was nearly positive one of my back molars was cracked.
“The UFC?”
“Yeah, after he lost his wrestling scholarship, he came back to Tarrin and started getting into Mixed Martial Arts. He won a bunch of amateur fights, then went professional. Did pretty good too, ended up getting on that UFC reality show they do. But he lost, never made it. That’s when he came back and went to the academy.”
I made a mental note to 1) look Miller up on the internet and 2) ask Wheeler how it slipped her mind to mention her ex was a fucking cage fighter!
I said, “I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to press charges.”
Eccleston laughed. “You assaulted him first. You assaulted a police officer.”
“He grabbed me.”
“He said he gently grabbed your arm.”
I rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt, exposing my triceps. The once rock hard muscle had atrophied by half and hibernated beneath a robust layer of fat. However, in this case, the fat benefited me, as it bruised more easily than muscle. My arm was red and beginning to purple where Miller grabbed me. “Does that look gentle to you?”
“That could have happened during the fight,” the Chief countered, “after you assaulted him.”
To the Chief’s credit, it could have. But it didn’t. Miller’s hand never touched my arm during the scrum. He was too busy choking the shit out of me.
I was on the other side of the table enough times to know it didn’t matter what a police officer did to you. It mattered what you did to them. And I’d pushed—which, sadly, is considered assault—a police officer.
“Fine,” I said. “I assaulted him. Charge me, do what you’ve got to do.”
“To be honest, I don’t really give a shit about the assault.”
I sat up in the chair a half inch.
The Chief took a sip from his can of Mountain Dew and said, “I’m more concerned with why you were meeting with Mike Zernan.”
I bet he was.
“And,” he continued, “why you killed him.”
“Are you out of your mind? I didn’t kill him.”
“We know you were there on Saturday.”
“Yeah, because I told Officer UFC that I was.”
Eccleston’s jowls flexed.
Maybe he knew a different way.
I hadn’t really given much thought to who Mike thought bugged his house. In all honestly, I pretty much wrote it off to paranoia. But if his house really were bugged, then it would make sense it was the Tarrin Police Department listening in, making sure he wasn’t talking about the case with anyone.
“Know what I think?” Eccleston asked. “I think you went out there last Saturday to scout Mike’s place.”
He was baiting me, trying to get me to say, “No, you asshole, I went out there to ask him about the Save-More murders.”
“You’re right. I wanted to get the lay of the land.”
“So you don’t deny it?”
“You know I didn’t kill him.”
“Oh, do I?”
He did. And maybe he even knew who did kill Mike. Or had a
good idea. Hell, maybe it was him.
“Pretty convenient,” he said, “that you were the one who found him.”
“I’m pretty sure I know how to get away with murder.”
It was a bold statement, but true.
“Everyone makes mistakes.”
“No, amateurs make mistakes. I’m no amateur. And neither are you.”
“What are you implying?”
“I don’t have any motive to kill Mike Zernan. I don’t know if I can say the same for you.”
“What did Mike tell you?” he blurted, louder and harsher than he probably wished.
I shrugged.
He composed himself, then opened up a file in front of him. He said, “According to Dina’s records, you paid for two club sandwiches and a bag of fries at 11:13 a.m.”
“That sounds about right.”
“It is right.”
“Okay.”
“How long did it take for them to make them?”
“I don’t know, ten minutes?”
“That’s what she said. So would it be safe to say that you left Dina’s at around 11:23 a.m.?”
“Sure.”
“Then you drove directly to Mike’s?”
“I took a wrong turn. Had to double back. But yeah, I drove directly to Mike’s.”
“What time would you say you got there?”
“I don’t know, ten minutes later.”
“So 11:33 a.m.?”
“Give or take.”
“So let’s call it 11:35 a.m.”
“Sure.”
“According to your statement, you knock on the front door, nobody answers. You go around back, don’t see him, then you peek in the window.”
“That’s correct.”
“Do you go peeking into a lot of windows when people don’t come to the door?”
“No, but his car was there.”
“He could have taken a different car, or been on a walk, or a dozen other things.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t.”
He snorted, then said, “So you break the door down, then find him lying on the ground?”
I nodded.
“How long from when you arrive to when you find him?”
I finally saw what he was driving at, where he was going with all this. “I dilly-dallied in his backyard for a while. Checked out the hot rod. He’d put in new halogens.”
“That’s not in your statement.”
“Really? Well, it should have been.”
He knew I was lying. He knew I was trying to buy myself a couple minutes. Minutes that were unaccounted for.
“And how long would you say you looked at the hot rod?”
“I don’t know, five minutes.”
He smirked.
Damn.
I should have said longer.
“Okay, so even with you checking out the hot rod—which we both know you didn’t do—you would have broken down the door by, oh, say 11:40 a.m.”
I nodded hesitantly.
“So at 11:40 a.m. you break down the door and you find Mike. Do you know what time you called the police to report it?”
I tried to think how long I had poked around Mike’s house. At least long enough to eat a club sandwich.
“Probably a couple minutes later,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.
“12:04 p.m.”
Oh, bugger.
“Twenty-four minutes after you found him,” the Chief said.
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Oh, it’s right. The record here and the call record on your phone. 12:04 p.m.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“Now, I’m curious,” he said, smiling for the first time, “what exactly you were doing for the twenty-four minutes between the time you found Mike dead and the time you called 911?”
“I took a shit.”
“What?”
“Dead bodies are my prune juice.”
He glared at me.
“Seriously, I can’t tell you how many crimes scenes I’ve taken a dump at.”
“What were you doing for twenty-four minutes?”
“I was playing Words With Friends.” I paused. “On the crapper.”
“I think you ate a club sandwich while you were poking around Mike’s stuff.”
I tried not to react, but my eyebrows betrayed me.
How did they know?
The Chief explained, “We found a piece of bacon on the floor in his garage.”
It must have come out when I pushed the door open with the side of my hand.
I said, “That could have come from anyone’s club sandwich.”
“What were you doing for twenty-four minutes?” he demanded.
I was testing his patience. I mean, I didn’t want him to go grab the phone book and start slapping me around.
“You want the truth?” I asked.
He crossed his arms and leaned back a couple inches.
“Mike was dead. He’d been dead awhile. I’m not a pathologist, but I have a pretty good idea of time of death. I’d guess the coroner said he died sometime the previous night. Maybe a three-hour window between 9:00 p.m. and midnight.”
The Chief didn’t say anything, which meant I was right or at least close.
I continued, “Whoever did it had ample time to make their way to Canada or Mexico if they wanted. So yeah, I waited twenty minutes to call the cops.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you think I did?”
He leaned forward, his chair rattling as all four legs found purchase on the concrete floor. “You worked the scene.”
I nodded.
It was more reflex than anything else. Once I realized Mike had been murdered, the switch flipped. Not calling the police was a conscious decision. I wanted to give myself five minutes to poke around. I could hardly believe I poked around for twenty minutes. I’d been careful not to leave any fingerprints. On the other hand, I had left a piece of bacon.
I was surprised when the Chief asked, “You notice anything funny?”
I had, but I didn’t want to share it with him. Still, I had to give him something.
“I’m guessing the person who did it was left-handed.”
His eyes narrowed.
I thought maybe another one of his officer’s would have noticed this.
I said, “He fell onto his right side, his left arm draped across his body.”
At the scene, I ran the simulation over in my head. Whoever killed him came up from behind him. Mike was a decent-size guy so I’m guessing it was somebody he knew, somebody he possibly invited into his home. Otherwise, it would have been hard to get the jump on him.
I said, “The killer got the cord or belt around Mike’s neck, cinched it tight, then waited for Mike to suffocate. When he was sure Mike was dead, he shoved him to the ground. If he shoved Mike with his right hand, Mike would have most likely fallen on his left side. But Mike landed on his right side, ergo, he was pushed to the right, most likely by someone’s left hand.”
“You might be onto something,” the Chief said.
“Yeah, or it could be nothing.”
But there was another tidbit that made me think the guy was left-handed.
When I was consulting with the FBI, we were investigating a serial rapist who would strangle his victims with a length of rope. The bruising around the women’s throats was always deeper on the left side and it was because the guy was right-handed. After he was caught, he confessed his crimes, even going as far as to show how he wrapped the rope over the victim’s head, crossed his arms, and pulled it taut. He naturally pulled slightly harder with his dominant hand, which due to his arms being crossed, increased the bruising on the opposite side of the victim’s throat.
In this case, the ligature marks were more pronounced on the right side of Mike Zernan’s throat, which led me to believe he was strangled by a left-handed man.
There was another thing. Contrary to what I’d said to Ecclesto
n, I didn’t think the murder weapon was a cord or a belt. There was a cut under Mike Zernan’s Adam’s apple, which I was almost certain was caused by a garrote.
A garrote is a military weapon, a three-foot length of thick wire with handles on the ends, which often cuts into the victim’s skin during strangulation.
I didn’t tell Chief Eccleston any of this. Sometimes it’s better if people don’t know how smart you really are.
“Okay, I told you the truth,” I said. “Now charge me with something or cut me loose.”
Another Mountain Dew later and the Chief finally let me go.
On my way out, I bypassed the front desk. The woman who gave me Mike Zernan’s name and address was sitting in her chair, a blank expression on her face. We briefly made eye contact, and she whipped her head away like I was the witch from the Narnia books who will turn you to stone.
Guilt can do that.
I put myself in her shoes. She either figured that I killed Mike, which would be her fault because she sent me there, or my going there pissed some people off and they killed Mike. Either way, she thought she was to blame.
Sure, she may have set the ball in motion, but the only person to blame was the asshole who wrapped a garrote around Mike’s neck. Or whoever sent him there to do it.
“I’ll give you a ride.”
I glanced at the door. Miller was holding it open for me.
I nearly forgot that I hadn’t driven to the station myself. I must have suffered brain damage from Miller’s sleeper hold.
“Don’t you have Fight Club to get to?” I asked.
“Fight Club is tomorrow,” he said with a smirk.
“The first rule of Fight Club is to not talk about Fight Club.”
Idiot.
“Oh, right.”
He followed me down the steps and said, “Seriously, let me give you a lift to your car. It’s the least I can do.” He had the decency not to add, “after kicking the piss out of you.”
“I can Uber.”
“We don’t have Uber.”
“I’ll get a taxi.”
“We only have a couple. Could be an hour or more.”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s four miles.”
“I’ll run.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“You don’t seem like the running type.”
“I used to run almost every day.”