by Bruce Most
“Out of the damn alley!”
Zingano directed a uniform to escort the reporter to the street and stand guard. It wasn’t Zingano’s crime scene, but he posted another uniform at the other end of the alley. He turned back toward me with more questions in his eyes. But at that moment, two men in suits and fedoras strolled down the alley from the Curtis Street end, one with an all too familiar shape and face, a cigarette dangling in his mouth.
Swell. Luther Bock. One more reason to avoid telling the truth.
Bock was a homicide detective, and there wasn’t a sorrier excuse for a dick. We’d clashed over the headline kidnap and murder case two years before of the city’s biggest banker, Seth Rawlins. I’d solved it running my own side investigation, and in the process made Bock and the entire homicide department look like Abbott and Costello. Lou Sheppard got the story all down in the Rocky—at least the story I gave him—making me look like Sherlock Holmes. Neither Bock nor the brass were ones to forgive and forget. If I told Bock what really happened tonight, he’d come after not only Benedict but me. Anger and a sense of betrayal at my partner’s perplexing actions swelled in me. Anger at the deep shit he’d thrown me in. But I pushed it away. I needed to do this for my dead partner’s wife and son.
The uniforms parted for Bock’s paunchy body, and his taller, thinner partner, Daniel Kaufman. Laurel and Hardy always came to mind when I saw them, except they weren’t funny.
Bock pulled up short when he saw me. He adjusted his brown fedora, removed his cigarette, and blew out a stream of smoke. “Well, well, if it ain’t the infamous Denver Kid. On the crime scene again, eh, Stryker? Guess they didn’t need to send me and Danny.”
“The victim is my partner, Bock.”
His tired, watery eyes widened. “Your partner?”
“Benedict Greene.”
He shook his head. “You’re a fuckin’ walking landmine, Stryker. Two dead partners in four years.” He paused for effect, and images of my old partner Derek Flemming being gunned down in the rain raced through me like flames through a cheap house. “Shit, I’d quit the force before I’d partner with you,” he said.
“I’d help you put in your papers,” I offered.
Chuckles broke out among the cops watching us. Bock scowled. “Everybody outa here. I don’t need gawkers trampling all over my evidence. Go home.” He turned to Zingano. “That includes you, big boy.”
“Benedict was a union member,” Zingano shot back. “I need to be—”
“You don’t need to be anything but gone, sergeant. This is my crime scene. Unless you were with Landmine here when everything blew up.”
Big Z held Bock’s gaze long enough to register a silent protest, then stormed off, the remaining uniforms trailing him out of the alley except for the uniform guarding the rear door to the pawnshop.
As the alley emptied, Bock caught sight of the big radio sitting behind our patrol car. “What the hell is that doing there?”
I explained how Benedict and I found it, and then spotted the jimmied pawnshop door. The detective pondered my information for a few moments before dropping his cigarette to the ground and crushing it with a size thirteen shoe. “Stay put. We’re gonna take a peek inside and then we’re gonna talk. I got questions.”
Stay put? What did he think I was going do, wander off for corned beef at Al’s Diner?
The two detectives disappeared. I stared at the radio, my heart thumping in my chest. The radio loomed as a major kink in my account, I realized. I could only hope Bock wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.
Dammit, Benedict, what the hell did you get me into?
I leaned against the wall in the shadows of the pawnshop. I craned my head toward the door, trying to catch what was going on inside, but the voices were hushed, like mourners whispering at a funeral.
My thoughts turned to Benedict’s death bringing out all the extra cops. Most came out of curiosity or to pay respects to one of their own. But I sensed some came out of more ulterior motives. Motives unclear to me. Particularly Sergeant Zingano. Showing up as union boss made sense. But his focus on the radio and his outrageous suggestion that Benedict and I had jimmied open the pawnshop door were curious. Nothing as to what happened to Benedict or how the hell was I doing. Only the radio and the door. Was he aware of something about my partner I wasn’t?
A sharp whistle echoed down the alley from the Curtis street end. Lou Sheppard waved me over.
“What’s the scoop, Joe?” he asked as I passed the officer posted on guard. “Why are you here?”
Lou’s rickety, black 1930s Triumph motorcycle sat parked across the street and I gave him a bad time for arriving even later than the duty sergeant. The newshound prided himself on being the first civilian to a crime scene. Sometimes even before the cops arrived.
“My police radio wasn’t working,” he grumbled. “City desk called me. Slow as usual. The Rocky ever burn down, city desk will be the last to find out.”
Lou straightened his tie, which he’d fastened to his shirtfront with a paper clip. His small eyes looked bright despite the hour. He always got excited when he found me at a crime scene. Lou was the reporter who’d tagged me The Denver Kid years before, when I made a record number of felony collars as a rookie. He’d figured me for good copy ever since, even when I didn’t feel like being good copy. I hadn’t given him much to write about since the Rawlins case. I was keeping a low profile in an effort to regain the good graces of the brass, even make detective someday.
“Tell me what’s going on, Joe,” he repeated. “Officer down, I hear, but nobody’ll give me a name.”
“You know I can’t tell you.”
“Well, goddamn half the force didn’t show up ’cause Lennie ‘The Weasel’ Kaberec bought the farm.”
“Talk to Sergeant Hawkins or Bock.”
“Bock! God forbid, not him. C’mon, gimmie a name, Joe.”
Hell, the reporter would find out soon enough. We moved out of earshot of the sentry and told him it was my partner, Benedict Greene.
He jerked back, stunned, and let out a low whistle. “Christ, Joe, what are the odds of that?”
Yeah, what are the odds?
Lou begged for details but I waved him off and returned to the pawnshop. I stared at the radio, trying to figure out how to explain its presence. A few minutes later, Sergeant Hawkins appeared. Bock wanted me inside.
Inside! I didn’t want to go inside.
Bock and Kaufman were interviewing the pawnshop owner while Hawkins walked over to the M.E. A photographer was snapping pictures of the broken glass case where the watches had been scooped out. The two lab boys were dusting for prints. One asked if I’d touched anything.
I tried to avoid staring at Benedict’s body, yet couldn’t resist. He lay alone where I’d found him, his arms at his sides. A ragged chalk line outlined him now except where the blood pooled on the faded linoleum. Under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights, I could see both his hands were bloody. Yet little blood was on the handle of the knife. The killer had slit his throat first, then, while Benedict’s hands desperately tried to stanch the horrific wound, the killer drove the blade deep into his chest.
Sadness crushed me. And anger. Anger at his inexplicable behavior.
“Will somebody cover him up?” I said. “Don’t leave him there like that.” Heads turned but no one moved. “Christ, have the decency to cover him with a blanket!” I said louder.
Bock came over. “When the photographer’s through and I’m done.”
“Somebody tell Ellen yet?”
“Who?”
I frowned. “Ellen. His wife! Has anybody told her?”
“No.”
“Christ, nobody’s told her? I’ll go.”
“Sergeant Hawkins can take care of it, Stryker.” Bock drew close enough I could smell his Aqua Velva aftershave. “You’re not going anywhere. You got other worries.”
I forced myself not to swallow hard, not to move or blink. “What worries?”
The detective steered me into the backroom, which looked smaller now in the bright overhead light. I went through my story. Detective Kaufman joined us part way through. Both scribbled notes. They took me through it again, with different questions this time, as if trying to trip me up.
I repeated the lies I’d told Evensky and Zingano and the others. The more I told my lies, the more confident I grew that they would pass muster. Unless a mystery witness emerged from the shadows who’d seen me do other than what I claimed, the detectives had only my version of facts.
Bock scratched the nape of his neck. “You sure you wanna stick with your story?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s the truth.”
“Then explain your partner’s gun.”
“Explain what?”
We went into the showroom and Bock pointed to Benedict’s corpse. “His gun is still holstered. If you two suspected a burglary was in progress, why the hell would your partner go in with his weapon holstered?”
My heart skipped. “I have no idea. I was hustling round to the front at the time.”
“Did you draw your gun?”
“Yeah,” I lied after too much hesitation.
“Then why not your partner? He was inside the building.”
Every clock in the room tolled as loudly as church bells. “Maybe . . . maybe he thought the place was clear and he re-holstered. Then the killer surprised him.”
Bock scanned the room. “Helluva shitty job clearing it. The joint ain’t big enough to hide a Pekingese, let alone a killer.”
I stared at the holstered gun, recalling my partner’s lack of surprise at the jimmied pawnshop door. “Trust me,” he’d said. As if he’d known before we ever pulled into the alley that someone had already burglarized the pawnshop. As if he’d brought us to scoop up any leftovers that suited our fancy. Like a nice cabinet radio. The scenario would fit the “we.”
Or was there another scenario? One that involved someone waiting inside for us. Someone Benedict expected to be there and trusted?
Did Benedict know his killer?
Kaufman took his turn at me, like a tag-team wrestler. He usually chomped on an unlit pipe. Tonight all he chomped on was a grim expression. “You never called for backup?”
“We didn’t see a need.”
“Did you hear anyone inside before you or Officer Greene entered?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything once you got around front?”
“No.”
Kaufman nodded toward the carnage in the room. “You musta heard something.”
“I didn’t. He musta been killed while I was going around the block.”
“You don’t seem to know much of anything,” snapped Bock. “An asshole slices up your partner like fried potatoes and waltzes out while you’re standing around picking your nose.”
I braced in preparation to take a swing at Bock, which was exactly what he was goading me into. Draw me up on charges.
“How long did it take you to get from the back of the pawnshop to the front and spot your partner’s body?” Kaufman interjected, causing me to momentarily ease off.
“Three or four minutes.”
Suddenly I became aware my hands were smeared with blood, blood on my shirt, blood on my right knee where I’d knelt by Benedict’s body. I tried wiping it off my hands but it was sticky and only smeared more.
Bock tapped his pen on his notebook. “Where are the keys to your vehicle?”
I looked toward Benedict’s body.
“We checked his pockets, but can’t find them,” he said. “You got ’em?”
I patted my pockets and felt something. I pulled out the keys. I stared at them, then handed them to Bock.
“You said your partner was driving,” he said.
“He was.”
“Then why do you have the keys?”
Why did I? Then I remembered. Benedict had tossed them to me so I could stash the radio in the trunk while he went back into the pawnshop.
“I forgot,” I said. “He gave me the keys to drive the car around front to trap anyone inside the pawnshop. But then we decided the guy would hear the car and bolt out the front door before I got there. So I ran around instead. Guess I left them in my pocket.”
“Don’t you think the killer heard the car when you first pulled into the alley?”
“Obviously not enough to make him run,” I said. “Might not have realized it was cops.”
The neon sign in the window—“Pawnshop” in red and “Instant Cash” in green, with dollar signs in place of the letter S—mottled the detective’s face, his features twisted with skepticism.
We went into the alley where Bock pointed to the big radio. “You said you two came down the alley and spotted the radio in the middle of it. That made you stop and that’s when you spotted the jimmied door. That right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why is the radio behind your vehicle?”
“I don’t follow,” I said, stalling. He’d spotted what I feared would be a flaw in my story.
“I assume you drove headfirst into the alley. You didn’t back into it. Which meant when you saw the radio it was in front of your vehicle.”
“Yeah, it was,” I acknowledged.
I was sinking in quicksand.
“Then how did it end up behind the vehicle?” he pressed.
While my previous experience with the detective found him slovenly and incompetent, I grudgingly had to admit the man was no slouch tonight. Maybe his loathing of me gave him rare focus. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good for Benedict or me. They would discover Benedict’s fingerprints on the radio. I tried to stay locked on Bock’s suspicious eyes and his aftershave, and told him the lie I’d conjured up while waiting in the alley.
“It was in the way,” I said. “We couldn’t leave it in the middle of the alley. Benedict carried it around to the back of the vehicle. He was going to put it in the trunk until we figured out where it came from.”
“He carried it by himself?” asked Kaufman.
“He was a strong man.”
Bock crossed his arms. “You didn’t figure the radio belonged to the pawnshop? Which someone broke into?”
Shit! Now what?
“We didn’t notice the jimmied door at that point,” I said. “Benedict spotted it while carrying the radio to the trunk. He set it down and we went to check out the pawnshop.”
“You didn’t mention this when you told your story earlier,” Bock challenged.
“Hey, I’m pretty shaken up right now.” I pointed toward the pawnshop. “I got a dead partner in there. Excuse me for not remembering every bullshit detail.”
Bock stared at the radio. “Doesn’t strike me as bullshit.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You know the stories going round.”
“No, I don’t know the stories, detective,” I said, ignoring the “rumors” Sergeant Zingano didn’t want getting around. Rumors no self-respecting street cop would ever snitch to a detective.
“’Bout merchandise gettin’ pinched and stashed in the trunks of squad cars. By dirty cops.”
I moved toward him but Kaufman stepped in front of me. “Easy.”
“Then get your Nazi partner off my back. I don’t like what he’s implying.”
“His story’s shit, Danny,” said Bock.
“His partner just got iced, Luther. Give ’im a break.”
Bock glared at me. “You better come clean on your fucking story, Stryker, and soon.”
“You done with me?”
“For now. Get the fuck outa my sight and write up your offense report. We’ll talk again. Soon.”
Chapter 3
I returned to the district station, scrubbed my dead partner’s blood off my hands, and wrote my offense reports: a superficial summary available to the newshounds and a more detailed report for homicide, not available to the press. Both reports danced around the problematic facts, such as the radio in the alley a
nd Benedict’s holstered weapon. One day, I suspected, my statements would come back to haunt me—if not already, what with Detective Bock calling my story “shit.”
It was 3:30 in the morning before I arrived home at our ranch-style prefab on the south side of the city. I peeked in my daughter’s bedroom first—Olivia lay on her side entangled with her favorite white stuffed lamb. I lingered, watching her breathing, soft and steady. Innocent breathing. I lingered longer than usual, stalling from waking Paula. I dreaded telling her the news of Benedict’s murder.
Not because she would be appalled at the horror of it. She would. Nor because Benedict was someone she knew, though not well, nor because it was my second dead partner, nor because she would cry for his wife. She would feel all of that.
What I dreaded would be her inevitable anger at me.
She hated my being a cop. She feared the day I wouldn’t come home—even more so now that we had a child.
Benedict’s death would be one more cruel reminder.
All loving wives of police officers feared for their husband’s safety every day they walked out the door. Most never knew where their husbands were or what they were doing or what dangers they faced that day. Most didn’t want to know. Most wives learned to take it in stride, to hide their fears, to not cry, to not probe, to not get angry.
Paula would never grant me that.
Yet I couldn’t slip into our bed and go to sleep and let her learn of the murder from the morning news. I’d learned the hard way the last time I’d lost a partner that I would need to be truthful with her, to get it out in front of us.
I entered our dim bedroom and stirred her awake.
“Where have you been?” she said, relief yet unease in her voice. She slept restlessly when I worked swing and night shifts, which was most of the time these days. “Your shift finished hours ago.”
“At the station. Had to write reports after my shift.”
“When you didn’t come home on time, I was certain something happened to you.”