“Keep an eye on him,” I tell Colby. “Don’t let him leave until I get his statement. If you want to take a preliminary, be my guest. Get him whatever he wants from McDonald’s. Afterward, leave him alone to sleep.”
“Yes, Detective.”
“And Colby? Find him a cigarette, all right? I’ve got a stash in my top desk drawer if you need ’em.” I don’t smoke. I call them my witness smokes. They’re probably pretty stale by now, but no one’s ever complained.
She leads Anthony Dwayne Smith to her zone car, helps him into the backseat, and closes his door.
I hope he doesn’t start thinking he’s under arrest. Witnesses sometimes clam up and shut down when they’re locked in the back of a police car with no way out.
As Colby pulls away, I head back over to talk to Gray Suit, but I don’t see him. Good, patrol is talking to him already. “Hey,” I call to the young patrol officer that I saw near Suit Man earlier. “You see that tall guy in a gray suit? Which zone car has him?”
He walks over to me but doesn’t get too close. “Guy in a gray suit?”
“Yeah. Tall guy.” I hold one hand about six inches above my head. “He was here five minutes ago. Where’d you guys put him?”
“Uh… I… I don’t know,” he replies.
“You don’t know?” I glare at his name badge and feel my face get hot.
He shakes his head and looks away.
“You don’t know, or you do know but you know you fucked up?”
“I think he left. I mean, he mighta left after we talked to him.”
“Did you get his license number and address? His phone number?”
He makes brief eye contact and looks away again. “Uh… no.”
“You better be kidding me.” I feel as if my spine is going to explode out of the back of my neck, and I don’t like it at all. I’ve got to get a grip on this bubbling in my chest before I have a heart attack. “You let him go. You let the guy in the suit go with no info.” I shake my head. “What about college boy?”
“Your partner’s with him. I’m sorry. We heard—”
I stare him down. “How long have you had this job, Officer Gable? Do you like it?” I’m using my scary-calm voice, even though what I’d like to do is yell and scream, maybe throw a couple of punches. “Who’s your partner?”
He gestures toward a shorter, stockier, slightly older guy.
“Call him over here.”
“Ramirez!” he shouts, raising a hand when the other man turns around.
Ramirez trudges over as if we have all the time in the world. He takes a wide-legged stance, one of those cop poses, next to his partner.
I look back and forth between them, pen against notebook page, and it isn’t lost on me that Gable looks relieved, happy to let Ramirez do the talking. “Tell me what you two have gotten on Gray Suit. Who the hell is he? I assume you at least got his name?”
Ramirez tips his head at Gable, who flips open his notebook. “His name’s Brian Little. Says he’s an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Down here to—his word—‘decompress’ for a while. Claims he had a bad day at work. Says he was at Winky’s and heard a commotion in the street, so he came out to see what was happening.”
So you talked to him and got that much but couldn’t get an address? What the fuck? “Did you tell him not to go anywhere?”
“Of course,” Ramirez says. “In fact, I made it pretty fuckin’ clear. I told him to stand right there”—he points at a spot next to a fire hydrant—“until either you or your partner could get over here. He knew not to leave.”
Guy standing next to a dead body who leaves before detectives can talk to him? Yeah, that’s suspicious. I don’t ask why no one bothered to follow procedure and put him in a zone car.
“Look,” Ramirez says, “there was a loud noise, some kind of scuffle over there.” He points across the street at another twenty-years-past-its-prime rock-and-roll club. “We thought it was worth checking out. We took our eyes off him for thirty seconds. There wasn’t anything interesting about him, anyway. He said he came outside, saw shit going down, and got curious. He realized this other dude had found a body. That’s when we showed up. He didn’t see anything, except the other guy freaking out. It seemed routine. We followed procedure.”
“Yeah,” Gable says, braver sounding with his partner beside him. “We got a photo. We did what we were supposed to do.”
You didn’t do even a third of what you’re supposed to do. I hand him a business card. “Email the photo to that address. Now.”
He takes my card and nods vigorously.
“I need to talk to him. So you need to find him. Fucking stat.” I spin around to walk away. I turn back and see them still standing there. “By ‘fucking stat,’ I mean right now,” I say with a sweep of my arm.
As the two uniforms finally move their asses, I hear Goran’s steady footsteps behind me.
“I’m getting photos.” He raises a digital camera. “Where’s the guy in the suit? What’d you get on him?”
“Uniforms let him go.” I flex my jaw and reel off the information the uniforms gave.
He chomps his gum. “At least they got that, right?”
“What about your guy, college boy?”
“Sean Miller. Down here looking for a good time. Lives over on the East Side, spent most of his time over there, too.” He tips his head in the direction of Winky’s, which used to be a Hooters and still tries to be like Hooters but fails. “Found the kid a little before one thirty, called 9-1-1. He saw the body when he was walking back to his car. He was pretty cooked and more than a little freaked out.”
“We’ll have to verify that he was in there. Brian Little, too.” I look at the restaurant. “Terrible food. Always has been. Remember that Hooters slogan? ‘More than a mouthful.’”
He chortles. “Yeah, you aren’t kidding about the food. Anyway, I told Miller not to go anywhere. He’ll be in tomorrow afternoon to answer some more questions.” He shakes his head and smirks. “More than a mouthful.”
“Watson’s here.” I point at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s black SUV.
As we approach, Michael Watson is pulling the sheet back from the little boy. “Happy first day of spring, Detectives,” he says in a deep baritone without turning around. “Did you get good angles on all of this?” he asks Monica, his assistant.
She nods after taking two more pictures of the victim. She looks tired but gives us a little smile and wave.
Watson points at the boy’s feet. “Get a couple shots of this, down here. We’ll need to remember the way it’s folded like that.”
Monica takes more photos while we watch then puts the sheet into an evidence bag.
Watson slides a thermometer into the child’s right side, where his liver is. “We’ll be ready to go with the body in ten minutes, so get the guys over here,” he tells Monica.
She repeats her boss’s order into a small radio.
The thermometer beeps, and Watson hits a button on it to save the reading. “I’d say he’s been here for about two hours, maybe three, but dead for longer. From rigor and liver temp and given how cold it is out here, I’d put time of death at about seven thirty, eight o’clock last night.” He slides the thermometer out.
The kid was found at one thirty. The body was probably dropped somewhere between midnight and one, given Watson’s timeline. And he was killed four or five hours before that.
“Blunt force trauma here.” Watson points at the dent in the victim’s skull and looks up at me. “You look like you could use some sleep.”
“Right, thanks,” I reply. “How’re you?”
“Not too bad, all things considered.” He flips the body over. “The first thing we need to do is figure out the deal with the missing hand. Looks like branch cutters or some similar instrument. See?” He holds up the small wrist.
<
br /> I grimace but lean forward to get a closer look.
Watson uses his left forefinger and thumb to demonstrate. “It looks like a blade came down on either side in a single motion. Branch cutters, maybe loppers or bolt cutters. Probably a garden tool.” Monica edges in and takes a photograph. “He’s also got some bruising here”—Watson gestures at the child’s rib cage—“that looks pre-mortem. I’ll get to the autopsy tomorrow or the next day.” After Monica gets her photos, he rolls the body back over.
“Tomorrow, please?”
“I’ll do my best.” He gives me a look, but I’m too tired to know what it means. “I will say that he wasn’t killed here. There isn’t enough blood. He’s awfully clean.”
“Another scene somewhere,” I mutter. “Any sign of sexual assault?”
“Not that I can tell, but—like always—the autopsy will tell us for sure.” He straightens. He’s taller than either one of us and has to be over six five. He has several college basketball trophies in his office, along with a picture of him with a very young LeBron James, Cleveland’s golden child, the one who we all hoped would make the Cavs into something and revitalize the city.
I step back and swallow a few times to get the acid out of my throat.
Watson’s dark-brown eyes search my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just wired,” I lie. “Thanks, Doc.” I turn to my partner. “Let’s work the grid.”
Goran and I head back into the alley by the alcove. I hope to find the murder weapon, but we both know that’s not going to happen. Child victim. Mutilated, abused. This won’t be easy.
My phone buzzes with the email from Ramirez. The photo of Brian Little is dark and underexposed but could be usable for an ID.
After we work the scene, we start on the most important part of the job: talking to people. No one stands out among the group of bar owners, drunks, teenagers, and a couple of musician types who have gathered in the street, so we head over to Winky’s. I pull the door open and am blasted by the smell of cheap beer, fryer grease, and sadness. No one comes to greet us—the hostess stand is unattended—so we head back to the bar.
One of the Winky’s waitresses, Jen Kline, a petite brunette in her early twenties with a bad red dye job, meets us at the bar then takes us to a rickety table in the corner for her interview.
After we show her pictures, she says Sean Miller and Brian Little were both in the restaurant for a couple of hours. “That guy”—she points at my phone when I show her the photo of Little again—“was here before the other guy.”
“When did the other one get here?” Goran asks.
“Maybe around eleven? I’m not exactly sure. They sat two seats away from each other at the bar. You know, joked about the basketball game.”
I nod. “Did it seem like they knew each other?”
“Maybe? I don’t really know. I was the only one working the bar, and from nine to eleven is our busy time.”
“Did you notice anything else about either of them, even something that might seem insignificant?” I ask.
“One of them, the weird-looking guy in the suit, took a lot of phone calls.” She makes a thinking face. “He looked like he was doing something important. He got up and left a couple of times, too. I figured he was just going to the bathroom or out to smoke.”
Goran pretends to be disinterested, but I know he’s making a mental recording of the conversation. He’s like that.
“About what time was he here?” I ask.
“He came in around nine. I remember because I took a break right after he got here. He left right around midnight. He was a dick. He tipped me two dollars on a twenty-two tab. Then he came back later and stayed and watched the rest of the game and SportsCenter. I don’t know. He was here late.”
I glance at Goran out of the corner of my eye and catch the almost imperceptible shift in the set of his jaw. “How long was he gone?”
She shrugs. “Like I said, it was busy for once. More than ten minutes. Less than two hours.”
So Little was in the bar, left right around the time the body was dumped, then came back. Anthony said he saw some guy drive off in a car, but that could have been anyone. Generally, a killer would want to put as much distance between himself and the vic as possible, but sometimes, for whatever sick reason, they like to stick around. It gives me the creeps just thinking about some guy sitting at the bar, making cracks about the game, when all along his car is outside with a little boy’s body in the trunk.
“Does he come in here a lot?”
She shrugs again. “I only remember him from last night. No clue if he’s in here a lot.”
“What about the other guy, Sean Miller?” Goran asks. He’s probably stepping in to let me process—in a nice, calm way—the fact that a likely perp was at the scene and a couple of uniforms let him walk.
Jen nods. “Yeah, he’s a regular, friends with one of the bartenders. Cheeseburger, fries, and a basket of hot wings. I don’t remember when he got here or when he left last night. Like I said, maybe around eleven? I only noticed the other guy ’cause he was kind of a dick.”
I write “soft alibi” in my notebook next to Miller’s name.
“Anything else?” Goran asks.
She shakes her head. “I don’t get into other people’s drama. I’m not even supposed to be here tonight.” She rolls her eyes. “I usually work days. I’ve been subbing for Allie all week.”
I’m skeptical. Almost every server I’ve met loves getting involved with drama. It’s part of the restaurant business.
“Who is Allie, and why are you subbing for her?” he asks.
“She works here. I dunno. She called and needed a sub. I could use the money, so here I am.”
I make a note of this next to her name in my notebook. “Jen, do you have an ID that I could see? It’s routine.”
She shakes her head. “Shit, no. I left it at home. But I live over in Tremont.” She rattles off an address, and I write it down along with her phone number.
“Can you get us a list of the other servers who were on tonight?” Goran asks.
“Sure, yeah. Just let me go get it.” She stands, tosses her hair off her shoulders, then walks down the hallway next to us and disappears through a swinging door.
Goran stifles a yawn then pops a toothpick in his mouth. I attempt a smile but know it looks fake and forced. A couple of minutes later, Jen returns with a piece of paper. I glance at the list before folding the page and sliding it into my notebook.
“Thanks, Jen.” I hand her a business card. “Call me if you remember anything else.”
Goran and I go outside. No one else saw a thing, at least according to Roberts and Domislaw, two of our guys who were on the canvas with a couple of more senior patrol officers. The owners of the clubs are more worried about how this will affect their businesses than about the fact that a child’s body was found on their doorstep.
I swing by the gas station for more coffee before heading to the station to interview Anthony. I put my phone on speaker and call my partner. “All right, so if we can get the witness, Anthony, to put Brian Little dropping the body, then we’re golden, especially if they get anything off the vic. DNA, hair—”
“Yeah, and Watson’ll run prints. We’ll find him, Liz.”
I pull into the parking lot. “You look into Miller and Little, and I’ll start the board.” I’m more visual than Goran, and his handwriting is atrocious.
He swings his car into the spot next to mine, and we get out and meet in front of our vehicles.
I tip my head at his Taurus. “You need to get those brakes fixed.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He takes his coffee from my outstretched hand.
It’s nearly dawn, one of my favorite times of day. The city will lurch to life as the sun rises behind Terminal Tower and illuminates the chugga-chug of the smokestacks
to our east.
I toss my jacket over the back of my chair and swig a big mouthful of coffee from my paper cup. “Fucking gas-station coffee.” I wince. “Battery acid.”
“You know it always is. I can make some—”
“Oh, right, like that’s not just as bad.” We plop down in our chairs and stare at each other for a minute. “How fast do you think Watson’ll work this?”
“Tomorrow.” He flips open his laptop as I stand. “I’m gonna check Missing Persons now, since I didn’t hear back from them.” He looks at his notes. “Hey, you know what? That guy, the one who found the kid? Sean Miller. He works at CSU.”
Cleveland State, my alma mater. I drag the rolling dry-erase board over to our desks and sketch out what we have so far. “We both know it’s more likely the other guy, who’s probably on a fucking airplane by now.”
“Don’t forget Jen Kline’s missing ID,” he says.
I add that information to the board then open my laptop. After verifying Kline’s address with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, I type my suspect’s name into the database. “Hey, there’s a Brian Little not far from here.” Even though the guy in the picture doesn’t look much like Gray Suit from the scene, it’s worth a trip. Driver’s license photos can be as deceiving as underexposed patrol photos from crime scenes, and this guy is the right height and weight. “It’s too early to call Merrill Lynch.”
Goran grunts then tosses his empty coffee cup into the trash can.
“Nice shot,” I say.
“So you’re thinking this Brian Little guy is good for it?”
“He’s sure as shit suspicious, don’t you think? Leaving the scene like that, leaving Winky’s on and off, hanging out next to a dead body?”
“Any other Brian Littles in the database?”
“A couple. None of them are as tall as this guy, though. I mean, he could lie about his weight, but six four is hard to fake.” I jot down Brian Little’s address in my notebook. “Let’s go talk to him when I’m done with Anthony. We gotta be smooth. Becker will never get us a warrant until we know for sure it was branch cutters and until we find the fucking branch cutters and get his DNA off them.” I chuckle at the image of the prosecutor pounding on her desk and demanding more evidence. “In fact, he probably has to be holding them.”
The Flats Page 3