by Rick Reed
Claudine was clearly unhappy with Jack’s suggestion and was going to say something when Mrs. Day spoke again.
“Detective Murphy, my daughter and I have discussed the murder for the last thirty-seven years. I think it may be a little late to separate our recollections.”
“Not necessarily.” Jack leaned forward to emphasize his words. “My partner and I have had a few successes investigating homicides. We’ll give this case our full attention and treat it as any other homicide investigation. Do you believe me?”
Mrs. Day had unconsciously made fists, but they now relaxed. “I knew your father, Jake Murphy. And Jake Brady. They were good policemen and good men. They built Two Jakes Restaurant, that place on the river?”
“That’s right.”
Jack’s father was named Jake. He and Jake Brady had been partners on the police department their entire careers. They’d been hired at the same time and retired on the same day with the intention of building a floating restaurant on a barge docked on the banks of the Ohio River. They did so and named it Two Jakes Restaurant. Not satisfied, they dredged out an inland marina and a dock for the floating restaurant. When Jack’s dad passed, he inherited half the business and a small, habitable river cabin two miles from the restaurant. Two Jakes Restaurant & Marina had become very successful.
Jack was a child when the murders had happened, but his dad and Jake Brady would have been patrolmen at the time. But his father had never mentioned the case to his knowledge. He made a mental note to talk to Jake Brady.
“I was sad to hear your father passed away. He used to talk about you a lot,” Mrs. Day said.
“If I might ask, how did you know my father?”
“Harry was friends, or acquainted, with a lot of policemen. Harry was a Mason and so was your father. Your father was quite the dancer,” she said with a wistful smile.
Jack didn’t know how to take this. He forgot his father was a Mason. He remembered now there had been shindigs at the Hadi Shrine his parents had gone to. He didn’t know much concerning that side of his father’s life and that embarrassed him. But he remembered seeing his parents dancing in the kitchen. Jake would have never made it to Dancing with the Stars. Mrs. Day didn’t have that part right.
“I hope he told you good things, Mrs. Day, but if it was bad, I have an excuse and a lawyer.” Jack said this with a teasing smile. She cracked a tiny, short-lived smile.
“The world has moved on since the time of your loss,” Jack said. “The police department has changed and I hope you can see that by how serious we’re taking this.”
Mrs. Day sat quiet for a moment, thinking. The moment of levity was over. She said, “My family requested many, many times to get the police to reopen my son’s case. Harry pursued it and he was murdered. We’ve heard nothing from the police department. You can’t know how frustrated I am with this place. My daughter is even more so.”
Jack said nothing.
“If I trust you, you have to promise me right now, in front of this reporter,” she said, meaning Claudine Setera, “you will include me in everything. You have to show me everything. I don’t want to hear any of this ‘ongoing investigation’ stuff. I’ve had enough. My next step is to get an attorney.”
Neither Chief Pope nor Captain Franklin responded to that last statement. Jack said,
“Will you talk to Detective Blanchard and myself, Mrs. Day?”
She surprised him with her answer. “Not here. Come by my house. My daughter will be there and will tape our conversation.”
Again with the taping. Jack said, “That’s perfect, Mrs. Day. That will give us time to do some digging and get some things together before we meet.”
“One this afternoon. I’ll be home. We can have tea and get comfortable in my kitchen,” she said and gave them her telephone number and address. “Miss Setera, thank you for coming with me. I’ll call you after I’ve had a chance to talk to these men.”
“Chief Pope,” Claudine said, “I have permission from Mrs. Day to use the audio recording. It will air this morning. I will mention that Jack and Liddell are on the case. Is there anything the police department would like to add? Is Deputy Chief Dick going to be put on administrative leave while this is under investigation? I would like to keep the public updated. Transparency is vital in a case like this.”
Transparency? Jack was sure Claudine had been talking to mayor-elect Benet Cato. Transparency was the watchword of the day. This was just getting better and better.
“Claudine, I can’t make a statement regarding the Deputy Chief’s situation without knowing what my detectives discover,” Pope said. “We have nothing to say yet—and no offense to you, Mrs. Day—but there are some things that shouldn’t be made public in the interest of prosecuting a suspect when we catch them. That’s in your best interest. Also, there may be legal questions in regards to taping someone’s conversation without their knowledge and using it to slander them with the public.”
“He has to do what he has to do, and so do I,” Mrs. Day said.
Claudine wasn’t satisfied, but she kept her peace. Jack figured she’d already cleared playing the recording on air with Channel 6’s legal department. He also knew that Chief Pope was telling the truth about slandering Double Dick. The man’s ego outweighed his common sense. Dick would most definitely sue the station and the Days.
As Mrs. Day and Claudine left the office, Chief Pope said, “Jack. Liddell.”
Jack pulled the door shut and he and Liddell sat again.
Captain Franklin said, “I checked the cold case files in the detectives’ office and in the record room. The file we gave you is on the Max Day case and it’s all we have. I could find nothing on Harry Day’s case from 1984. You’ll need to do a more exhaustive search.”
Chief Pope wrote on a piece of notepaper and handed it to Jack. “Here are some names. At least the ones I recall that might have worked on the case in some capacity. You can get a complete list of employees from personnel.”
Jack read the names. Most of them were no longer with the department and some he’d never heard of. One of the names was Captain Thomas Dick.
Jack’s father and Jake Brady’s names were on the list. He took out a pen and scribbled Mom next to his father’s name. He would call his mother and see if she remembered his dad ever talking about this murder. He might have told her something, but Jake was old-fashioned. He believed in keeping his family and his work separate.
Jack decided maybe he wouldn’t call his mother quite yet. He’d need a scotch or three to make that call as she would talk /nag him into a coma. Her new focus was on being a grandmother. She would say things like, “You and your brother are too busy with your careers to give me grandkids, and God forbid either of you should come and visit your lonely mother. It’s okay. I gave up my life to raise you.”
Chapter 5
Reina Day was late leaving Deaconess Hospital. A common theme for a doctor. Her mother and Channel 6 anchor Claudine Setera were waiting for her at the television station. Her mother had given Claudine a copy of the recording by now. They finally had something to hold over the police department’s heads to make them reinvestigate her brother and father’s murders.
She dialed her mom’s phone and it went straight to voice mail. Well, Mom, if you don’t answer your phone you deserve to wait. She drove north on First Avenue and turned left onto Diamond Avenue. Locust Hill Cemetery wasn’t far from Channel 6. She was already late, but a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.
On Diamond Avenue she noticed an SUV accelerating up behind her, its engine gunning as it pulled up close and swerved right and left as if it was going to pass her on one side or the other. It suddenly backed off. Just as suddenly, it sped up next to her, pacing her. She was already feeling a lot of emotion over the events of the last two days and now this jerk was video-game–driving beside her.
The SUV backe
d off and slowed. All she could see of the driver was a black hoodie. She thought maybe it was a kid who had mistaken her for someone else. A kid driving his parents’ vehicle. She turned right on Kratzville Road at the light. The cemetery gates were just ahead at the top of the hill. She checked her rearview mirror and the car was gone.
She turned into the cemetery and followed the paved lane up a rise toward the mausoleum. Her brother and father’s graves were in a small family plot near there. There were already headstones for herself and her mother, minus the end dates.
She felt an overwhelming need to visit Max and her father today, to tell them about Dick’s visit and his possible appointment as Chief of Police. The man had no compassion. He was a joke. She needed to tell them that they weren’t forgotten and the investigation might be reopened. She needed to say it out loud.
She parked the old Camaro SS in a gravel pull off at the side of the lane. She sat, thinking. Her mother had been through so much. Was it fair to bring all this up again and put her through another disappointment? The police hadn’t done anything and weren’t likely to, regardless of how they embarrassed Dick and the police department. Max was dead. Her father was dead. Nothing could change that. Max had been a fighter, but he never held a grudge. He didn’t believe in revenge. But he did believe in the truth. Her big brother had taken up for her more times than she could count. He was always there for her. But that didn’t mean he would want her to do this: Be part of the family obsession that bordered on mania.
Her father was the one who had obsessed over what he called “justice” for Max. Harry was a good man, but he had become obsessed. No one hurt Harry’s family without consequences. When Max was killed and Harry saw the police were knuckle-dragging, it infuriated him. At Max’s funeral, she’d told her father about the fight at Rex Mundi and he became convinced the police were doing nothing because the fight involved a cop’s son. Reina was afraid he was going to do something stupid. Something violent if the police didn’t find the killer. As it was, he’d gone to every television station, radio station, and newspaper in and around Evansville to plead for information relating to his son’s murder. He’d offered a big reward.
The police warned Harry he was making a mistake by offering money. They said it would bring out every kook within a hundred-mile radius. That had turned out to be right. Their home answering machine was full of messages from people claiming to have evidence or to have seen something. Two psychics had called, stating they had been in contact with Max’s spirit. It had been a waste of time and emotion. They had nothing.
Reina had watched her father spiral into a deeper depression each day, but he wouldn’t give up. He hired private investigators and lost thousands of dollars for tidbits and lies while he was being strung along, kept hopeful. Harry stopped asking the police for help and started putting up posters on telephone poles and in store windows and bulletin boards, any place that would attract attention. He told her, “Reina, I know you think I’m crazy, but I’ve got to try. He would do it for me.” And her father was right. Max would do anything for his dad and his family.
Harry’s obsession ended four years after Max died. He was shot dead in a robbery at his store. Guns and money were taken, along with her father’s life. The insurance barely covered the loss from the store and Harry wasn’t a big believer in life insurance. Her mother had to sell the store. Her father’s killer was never found. Like father, like son.
She got out of the car and a blast of cool air made her shiver. It was cold even for November. She walked down a row of gravestones and markers to two gray marble stones setting side by side with two empty plots beside them. One for her. One for her mother. There were fresh flowers near each headstone, so her mother had had the same idea this morning.
She took the digital recorder from her purse and pressed the play button. “Dad. Max. I want you to hear this.”
The conversation coming from the tiny speaker seemed unnatural in this place where people spoke in whispers. When the talking ceased she pressed stop and put the device back in her purse. Playing it again stirred something in her, brought that night at Rex Mundi. She felt shame that she hadn’t stopped Max from leaving. If he’d only stayed at school…
“What should I do, Dad? What would you do, Max?” she asked out loud. “Am I doing this to punish him or to get the truth, get your ‘justice’ for you. I could make sure he never becomes Chief of Police, but that won’t bring you back. I hate him. I wish it was him and not you. Either of you.”
She stood still, as if listening for the dead to speak, but she heard only the wind soughing through the trees and rustling the fallen leaves. Tears filled her eyes and cold determination replaced any uncertainty. She felt anger rising and clenched her fists at remembering the condescension in Dick’s voice. “How dare he! How dare he talk to my mother that way. He’s kept quiet for so long. So long…” she said.
She put the device in her purse, walked to her car and got in, closing the door. She wasn’t conflicted now. Dick may not have murdered Max, but he was the reason the police never caught the killer. She swore she would ruin his life like he had ruined theirs.
Her eye caught movement in her side mirror, a brief glimpse of a man in a black jacket with a hoodie pulled around his face coming toward her. She heard an explosion and the Buick’s rear windshield shattered. Another blast and the front glass exploded, showering her. She ducked and threw her arms up over her head, but the explosions continued. She felt something hit her skull and tug at her hair. She was still reeling when her door was yanked open and a fist slammed into her temple, knocking her face-first into the dash. She was yanked toward the door by her hair and the fist slammed into her face and head again and again. Pain exploded behind her eyes. The noise, the pain, the gut-clenching fear, began to fade and she followed it into blessed darkness. The last thing she felt was her purse being yanked from her lap.
Chapter 6
Jack and Liddell had just left the Chief’s office when Judy Mangold hailed them.
“Call for you from dispatch,” the Chief’s secretary said.
Jack took the phone, listened, and handed the phone back to Judy.
“We’ve got to go, Bigfoot,” he said.
Five minutes later they were driving down an access road inside Locust Hill Cemetery. Crime scene tape sketched out a twenty-foot diameter around an older model red Camaro. The car sat in the back portion of the cemetery. Crime scene techs worked the inside of the tape, searching for evidence, photographing the scene from every angle, while other techs and uniformed police officers combed the surrounding cemetery grounds.
Jack parked behind a police car from which Officer Steinburg exited and came to the detectives. Steinburg was in his mid-sixties, with a full head of dark hair and the physique of a personal trainer. He had over forty years on the PD and would be forced into retirement when he reached sixty-five. Jack knew younger officers and brass that were in much worse physical and mental shape than Steinburg, but that was the way the system worked. Retirement might not end him like it did so many policemen, but police work was all he knew.
“I know you guys have your hands full, but when I called dispatch with the victim’s name they said to get you out here.”
“You haven’t told anyone else?” Jack asked.
“No. Just crime scene and dispatch. I gave her Deaconess Hospital ID card to Corporal Morris.”
“Is that the witness?” Jack asked, indicating Steinburg’s police car. A man was sitting in the backseat, door open, his legs out and feet on the ground.
“You want him now or do you want to check out the scene first?”
“Have you talked to him?” Jack asked.
“He couldn’t give me enough to put out a BOLO, but he saw part of what happened.”
“Who was first arriving officer?”
“That’d be Sergeant Mattingly,” Steinburg said. “The sarge tur
ned the witness over to me and gave the ambulance an escort to Deaconess. He said you could catch up with him there.”
“Do you know who Reina Day is?” Jack asked.
“I know of Reina Day. Who could forget a name like that? I’ve never met her, but a long time back her brother was killed right over there,” Steinburg said, pointing toward the spot where Reina’s car was parked. “I was a third-shift patrolman back then. Mattingly was the one found the body that night too. Ain’t coincidence a bitch? Her getting attacked in the same place her brother was killed.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. What are the chances Mattingly was first on scene at both murders? He didn’t believe in coincidence. But if Sergeant Mattingly was the one who found the brother’s body, it followed that he might be familiar with this victim; it made a little sense that he would follow her to the hospital.
Steinburg admired the Camaro. “It’s too bad what someone did to that car—a1975 candy-red Camaro. What a beauty.”
Jack said to Steinburg, “Let’s see this witness.”
The witness was a big man, dark-skinned, taller than Liddell and a few pounds heavier. He was wearing a black hoodie jacket and black gloves, gray running pants. and kickers. The hood was pulled up tight.
“George Morgan,” He shook each detective’s hand. “Sorry. I don’t take the hoodie or gloves off. Burns ain’t pretty.”
Jack recognized the name. “You were a Fire Department Captain?”
“Was,” George answered.
Jack recalled George Morgan had responded to a house fire six or so years back. A meth head was cooking in a kitchen when his recipe went South and exploded. The resulting fire had engulfed the entire structure, but George had gone into the conflagration and rescued two children. The cooker had almost become the cooked, but the Great Turd God had protected him. He was blown through the kitchen door and landed in a baby pool.
George wasn’t so lucky. He was choppered to Wishard Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis with second- and third-degree burns over much of his body. His act of heroism had ended his career and almost ended his life. The meth cooker had suffered singed hair and was released on bail. A week later the Great Turd God wasn’t watching and this time the explosion killed the cooker. That’s why they called it dope.