Police Brutality (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 2)

by Gregory Ashe

  But there was something else. Something that Hazard couldn’t quite place.

  After the kitchen, he and Somers had gone into Hoffmeister’s bedroom. They had found nothing, so they had continued to the living room. Hazard had seen Hoffmeister, the wire rope, the winch, the plug adapter, the broken ceiling, the overturned chair. Hoffmeister’s phone.

  He flipped back through the pages of the report.

  “Fucking hell, what happened here? The phone was dead. The battery, I mean.”

  “Yeah, man. Talk it out, talk the whole thing out.”

  “Why does he have the phone out in the first place? He activates the winch, steps onto the chair—God knows why—and has his hands taped so he can’t back out. Why is his phone on the ground? Why isn’t it in his pocket or in the bedroom or on the table?”

  “He’s a slob, right? He knows he’s about to—” Dulac mimed a noose jerking tight. “Maybe he just drops it because he doesn’t care anymore.”

  Hazard shook his head slowly; he didn’t have an answer, but he didn’t think Dulac was right either. “Someone killed him. So let’s tell the whole story that way: they get into the house somehow, and they subdue Hoffmeister long enough to rig up the gallows.”

  “My guess,” Somers said, tapping the ME’s report, “is they get the drop on Hoffmeister. They hold a gun on him and make him drink until he’s more manageable. But they don’t want him dying, not yet, so the pills are just a distraction.”

  “Except you said his BAC was low.”

  Frowning, Somers nodded as he checked the report. “It was.”

  “Ok, that makes no sense at all after a bottle of Maker’s Mark, but let’s skip past it for now. They’ve got Hoffmeister subdued, they set up the gallows—just to be safe, let’s say it takes an hour—and then they get Hoffmeister into position on the chair, activate the winch, wipe everything down, take the toaster, and leave.”

  “Without anyone seeing them go in or out,” Dulac said, waving the sheaf of papers. “Without anyone hearing anything. And with rock-solid alibis for the time of death. One lady talks about hearing the fight, the one we saw on Schoen’s security cameras. She was so nosy that she even came through her backyard, went in through Hoffmeister’s back gate, and went around the house because she wanted to see what was happening.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. She couldn’t identify the men who were fighting, although she guessed one of them was Hoffmeister. And then she turned around and went home.” Dulac scanned the page again. “Tripped over a garden hose on the way out, which she complained about at length. I told her it was her fault for sneaking through someone else’s yard.”

  “It’s impossible,” Somers said. “And don’t tell me it was obviously possible; I know it was possible because someone did it. But it looks impossible, and that’s driving me crazy.”

  It was driving Hazard crazy too, although he wasn’t going to say as much. Instead, he motioned to Somers. “Switch.”

  “Let’s take a break,” Somers said.

  “Yes, God, please,” Dulac said, jumping up from the table.

  “Not you.”

  “Dude, my back is killing me. These old man chairs are, like, hard as a rock.”

  “They’re normal chairs. And the fact that you don’t own any furniture means you don’t get to complain. Ree, come on, let’s just move around for a few minutes, get a drink, use the bathroom.”

  “Good idea, bro, totally good idea.”

  “No, you stay. Ree.”

  Hazard was already a page into the report; he waved off Somers’s words. “You two go ahead. I’m going to keep working.”

  “I really think—”

  “Go.”

  “It’s, like, really hot when he gets intense like that, right? That’s not just me?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Somers said, and Hazard glimpsed him catching Dulac’s arm and dragging him out of the kitchen.

  They were still talking, but Hazard blocked them out and focused on the ME’s report. As Somers had already said, Hoffmeister had shown a slightly elevated BAC, but not enough to corroborate the suggestion that he had drunk a full bottle of bourbon. Hoffmeister did have several bruises and cuts—worse than Hazard had expected, in fact. The fight with Wesley, as seen on the neighbor’s security camera, had looked short and quick, more like a scuffle than a brawl. Hoffmeister looked like he’d been beaten within an inch of his life, but Dr. Boyer’s report suggested all the wounds had been delivered over twelve hours before the time of death. In other words, the killer hadn’t used them to subdue Hoffmeister before hanging him.

  Hazard read over the remaining details: Hoffmeister had voided himself, which was common with death in general; he had been, overall, in decent health before his death; and pages and pages of data that told Hazard absolutely nothing useful.

  He thought, for a nanosecond, about crumpling the report and hurling it against the wall. Instead, he set it aside. He thumbed the stack of witness statements, their edges feathering his hand, and tried to rein in his growing frustration. Taking every scrap of paper outside, dumping kerosene on the pile, and throwing down a match wouldn’t help anything. It would feel incredibly satisfying. But it wouldn’t help anything.

  Hazard couldn’t bring himself to start on the witness statements, not yet. Maybe he needed a break, as Somers had suggested. Or maybe he was losing his touch.

  From the living room, Somers’s and Dulac’s voices drifted to him.

  “Calling him up to yell at him isn’t exactly what I had in mind when you told me you were going to go on a date with him.”

  “Bro, I had to yell at him.”

  Hazard couldn’t see his boyfriend, but he could imagine the look of resignation on Somers’s face.

  “He got me flowers instead of chocolate. I, like, had to rip him a new asshole so he’d understand that I’m worth chocolate. I’m worth champagne. Fuck, I’m worth diamonds and caviar.”

  “And he still went on a date with you?”

  “Dude,” Dulac said with ultimate scorn.

  “Well? How’d it go?”

  “Uh, it was a date with me. It was fucking fantastic. It was the best date of his life.”

  “Ok, drop the swagger or stop spitting game or whatever the hell kids say these days and just tell me before I get Hazard in here to paddle your ass.”

  “Uh.”

  “And if you make one joke about a threesome, I am kicking you out of the house.”

  “Unfair, bro. Massive injustice. You get to spank me, and I can’t even get freaky with your boyfriend.”

  “I did not say—” Hazard heard the struggle in Somers’s voice. “Start talking about your date, fast, before I change my mind.”

  “I mean, it was all right.”

  “All right like your grandmother could have chaperoned, or all right like he wanted to talk about roasted broccoli at dinner, or all right like terrible but you don’t want to tell me.”

  “All right like all right.”

  “Sweet Jesus. Never mind; I don’t need to know.”

  “He was really sweet. He held the door for me. He pulled out my chair. He wanted to know all about me, asked me about growing up, if I had liked working in Springfield, making detective young, what I wanted to do in the future. He brought me chocolates, but they were all the kind with that gross jelly stuff in them, so I had to scream at him about that for a few minutes and throw the whole box in the trash.”

  “What?”

  “He cleans up really nice too. He was wearing this blazer and—hold on, I’ve got a picture.”

  “You screamed at him? At the beginning of the date? About the chocolates? And you threw them in the trash?”

  “Yeah. They had that jelly stuff; they were gross. Here, look. We’re cute together, right?”

  “Ok,” Somers said with a note of surprise. “You guys actually do look cute together.”

  “Too bad I
’m never going to see him again.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He didn’t want to have sex last night.”

  “But I called you. You were at his house this morning.”

  “Oh, yeah. I just drove over there to scream at him some more. That’s why I was out of breath.”

  The silence, to Hazard’s ears, practically had its own pulse.

  “Ree,” Somers said in a strangled voice. “Will you come help me?”

  “No,” Hazard called back.

  Somers muttered something under his breath that Hazard couldn’t quite catch but that didn’t sound pleasant; then, more loudly to Dulac, said, “What are you talking about?”

  “He didn’t want to fuck last night. So I screamed at him last night. And then I went over to his place again this morning and screamed at him some more.”

  “Oh God. Can you walk me through that a little slower?”

  “We finish dinner. We walk down to Market Street and get ice cream at Mary Jane’s. We’re sitting in the booth together, snuggling, and I give him an over-the-pants squeeze. Just one. Totally classy—”

  “Uh huh.”

  “—and he says, ‘Let’s not rush things.’”

  “Ok.”

  “So I think, ok, this guy is into edging. Great. I can get guys to make some pretty awesome sounds when I edge them—”

  “Skip over this part, please.”

  “—but when we get to my apartment, I ask him if he wants to come up, and he says, ‘Let’s not rush things.’ So I figure he’s not getting the message, and I say, ‘I want to fuck around.’ And he says it again. I mean, what a fucking prick, right?”

  “Ree?” Somers called with a hint of desperation.

  “Absolutely not.” Then, because Hazard was feeling a little bit like a prick himself, he added, “You’re the one who needed a break.”

  Somers muttered something again. “Ok,” he said. “You understand that he was trying to be a gentleman, right? You understand that he was trying to treat you with respect. And even though you have the same high sexual standards as a truck stop glory hole, maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe that decision was more about how he felt than about you.”

  “Dude,” Dulac said, dragging the word out with frayed patience. “Never mind. I forget you two are like basically ancient virgins.”

  “We are not virgins. Ree, please, he’s calling us—”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I mean, I know you’re not technically virgins. But you basically are. And it’s not your fault. It’s because you’re so old and gross.”

  “Stop right there. We are not old. Or gross. Ree!”

  Hazard leaned back in his chair far enough that he could see into the living room. He caught Somers’s gaze, tapped the corner of his eye, and said, “Crow’s feet.”

  Somers’s jaw dropped. Then he pointed a finger. “You are a goddamn Judas.”

  Hazard shrugged and bent over the files again. He picked up the evidence record, reading it with only half his normal attention; the rest of his mind was busy replaying his walkthrough of the house. He had noticed something with Somers. He had noticed something, and it wasn’t on this list, and that knowledge prickled in his gut.

  “If he will ever see you again,” Somers was saying in the living room. “If he’s not already sick to death of you or if he somehow hasn’t realized you’re a psycho because you showed up on his doorstep this morning to rip his head off, you should go on another date with him.”

  “Pass,” Dulac said.

  “Fine,” Somers said, “but how many of those pretty boys you go out with have ever asked you about your job, your goals, your childhood?”

  Silence. Hazard ran his finger down the list; in his mind, he was halfway through Hoffmeister’s kitchen, trying to remember what he had noticed.

  “He’s nice to you,” Somers said. “He’s respectful. He’s a gentleman. And for some reason I will never understand, he actually seems to like you. Is there something else I should know? Is he broke? Is he in a dead-end job? Those aren’t deal breakers, but you should know up front.”

  “No, he’s got like millions of dollars, I think. I should probably marry him just so I can be a trophy husband for a while.”

  “What? He lives in a trailer.”

  “Yeah, and he wears those godawful overalls all the time, and he drives an Impala from the 90s.” Dulac said it like it was the Stone Age. “But he works for some tech firm based in Silicon Valley. They pay him a fortune already, plus some huge ‘relocation incentive’ nonsense just so he won’t live in the Bay Area. He grew up in the Bootheel, and he came back so he could save money and retire early.”

  “He works for a tech company?”

  Hazard dropped the evidence list. He was so close to catching what he had missed that he felt like he was buzzing. He could almost hear his own thoughts as he had analyzed the house, but he needed something, needed a reminder. He spread out the glossies from the crime scene, trying to remember.

  “Yeah,” Dulac was saying, “that’s how he knew enough about computers to do that side gig, where he lures assholes over and they think they’re meeting up with a little kid. Kind of the pros and the cons of the internet all wrapped up in one package: anybody can pretend to be anybody, which Darnell likes to use against those assholes. The cool part is that it lets him work from home; all he needs is an internet connection, boom, and he’s in charge of something on the other side of the country.”

  Hazard’s fingers stilled on the photograph in front of him. It showed the front room of Hoffmeister’s house: the wire rope, the overturned chair, the electric winch, and winch’s cord running to the outlet, where—because it was an old house, Hazard thought, feeling overcharged with the recollection, with how clearly he had seen and dismissed the most important piece of evidence—someone had used a three-prong adapter with the winch’s grounded plug.

  “Holy shit,” Hazard shouted. “Get in here.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  DECEMBER 21

  FRIDAY

  11:17 AM

  HAZARD EXPLAINED WHILE SOMERS drove them to the station. They had sent Dulac to Paradise Valley.

  “It’s a smart plug,” Hazard said, displaying the photograph. “I thought it was an adapter, which, technically it is. Old houses like Hoffmeister’s weren’t wired for grounded outlets, so you have to buy these cheap little bricks to use anything with three prongs. That’s what I thought was happening here. Technically, I was right.”

  “Technically,” Somers said, grinning at him. “Now quit trying to cover your ass. We don’t have this locked down yet. We’ve still got to make sure the timing matches up, you’ve got to be right about what Andy-Jack’s been lying about, and more importantly, we’ve got to track down the physical evidence.”

  “It’s going to line up,” Hazard said. “Andy-Jack gets his ass beaten. He’s in the hospital. It’s bad—and it’s a case of police brutality. Nobody asks any questions when he starts using a wheelchair. We all assumed, especially after that wheelchair lift on his trailer, that he legitimately couldn’t walk.”

  “Hoffmeister’s defense attorney should have checked.”

  “Andy-Jack didn’t have to be a paraplegic for the criminal case; he just had to be hurt bad enough that sitting in a chair made sense. In the civil case, when Andy-Jack was trying to get damages, there would have been a lot more scrutiny about the extent of his injuries—but they hadn’t made it to the civil case.”

  “Do you really think Andy-Jack will walk around, right out in the open? Dulac is surprisingly competent at his job—sometimes—but Andy-Jack is running a con. He’s not going to slip up easily.”

  “But he’ll slip up eventually, and Dulac will catch him. Or I will. We’ll take turns until Andy-Jack stands up to grab a beer or take a piss, and then we’ll have him.”

  Somers shook his head but didn’t argue. “So, the night before Hoffmeister is k
illed, Andy-Jack is waiting for a chance to get into the house.”

  “Presumably he had planned some sort of distraction so that the neighbors would be looking somewhere else when he broke into the home, but in the end, he didn’t need to use it.”

  “Because Wesley showed up and started the cat fight in the street.”

  “Right; even the nosey neighbor behind Hoffmeister got interested enough to leave her post. I think that’s when Andy-Jack snuck into the house. He was waiting when Hoffmeister came back inside. He held a gun on Hoffmeister and forced him to drink Maker’s Mark, maybe take one of those sleeping pills, until Hoffmeister was pliable. Then he let his guard down.”

  “And Hoffmeister hit him with the toaster.”

  “Had to have; must have cut up Andy-Jack and gotten skin or blood, some kind of DNA evidence that Andy-Jack didn’t want to risk being found. That’s why Andy-Jack took the toaster.”

  “Which we’re going to find, with a search warrant, in his trailer.”

  “Count on it. I’ve been inside that trailer; he’ll think it’s the perfect spot. We know he likes hiding in plain sight.”

  “So,” Somers said. “He’s got a cut now, but he’s lucky because he got into a fight the night before at Slick’s, so he’s already got cuts and bruises. One more isn’t going to look suspicious, especially not when it’s scabbed over by the time he shows up in court the next day. He subdues Hoffmeister again, tapes his hands this time, and sets up the gallows. He doesn’t have to rush; he’s got all night. He puts Hoffmeister on the chair, gets the noose around his neck, and—Jesus. Did Hoffmeister wait all night like that?”

  “That was part of the torture, I think. Andy-Jack made him wait for his own execution. That’s why the urine was dry from Hoffmeister voiding himself; that’s why his BAC was too low for having drunk a bottle of bourbon. It all happened the night before. All Hoffmeister could do was hope somebody showed up.”