by Frank Zafiro
The sound of a car engine on the road broke into my thoughts. I glimpsed a flash of silver through the foliage as it passed, and continued up the street.
I took another deep breath and let it out. Then I made my way back to the street and left behind as much as I could of what I’d imagined.
15
I knew the Brassarts’ address from the notes Harrity had given me. Back in my car, I continued down King Pigeon Lane. I passed only two more driveways before I came to a cul-de-sac. To the right was the Brassart residence, sitting at the end of a fifty yard driveway. To my left was an even longer driveway. The mailboxes only had numbers on them, no names.
The Brassart home had a look of simple elegance to it. The siding was a pale yellow. The garage had two full-size doors facing the driveway. Both were closed, and no cars were parked outside.
I considered driving up to the house for a closer look, but decided not to. At least not yet. It wouldn’t be trespassing, exactly. Curtilage laws tacitly allow anyone to go onto the driveway or walkway approach to a house, at least in most cases. But I decided I didn’t want to tip my hand to anyone. Not yet.
Instead, I turned the car around slowly, and drove out of Namaste Estates and back into the world I knew.
Once back inside the welcome congestion and claustrophobic confines of the city, I found myself at a loss. I knew I could go back to my apartment and read through the materials I had again. That might shake an idea loose on how best to proceed. But it wasn’t like I had case files sitting on my kitchen table. I had newspaper accounts, and most were carbon copies of each other except for one or two new tidbits that seemed to justify another article. None of those tidbits told me anything that I needed to know.
I sat at a traffic light, drumming my hands on the steering wheel. There had to be options here. Maybe I should return to Harrity and ask about other people in Henry Brassart’s life. People who could provide some background. Same thing with Marie Brassart. There had to be people who knew them well enough to give me some insight into the marriage. Of course, there was no guarantee that any of them would talk to me, and I couldn’t make them, either.
But still.
I almost flipped my turn signal to go right and head toward Harrity’s office when another thought struck me, and I stopped. My hand hung poised above the signal.
Of course.
It was obvious.
Too obvious.
But it made sense.
And there was nothing stopping me.
I flipped the turn signal for a left turn instead of a right, and headed toward the jail.
The white-haired desk officer had the washed out skin of a three-pack-a-day smoker. His stained fingers bore testament to his obvious habit. Even his hair seem to have a yellow tinge to it.
“Who did you want to see again?” he asked, his voice rough even through the speaker and from behind the security glass.
“Marie Brassart.”
“When was she booked?”
“I don’t know.”
“It would help if you did.”
“Well, I don’t. I gave you her name.”
“You her husband?”
“No.”
“Family.”
“No.”
He looked me up and down. “Not her lawyer.”
“Not that, either.”
He scowled at me. “Well, then who are you exactly?”
I slid my identification through the slot. He glanced down at it, started to look away, then did a double take. I stood, waiting. After a minute, he looked up to me.
“I know you. You used to be on the job.”
I didn’t answer.
He waited for my reply. When it didn’t come, he said, “You were the one. With that little girl.”
I winced in spite of myself. He made it sound like I was a pedophile.
“You got her killed,” he said, warming up to the task.
I gave him a frank, even stare. “I fucked up,” I said. “But that was a long time ago. Today, I’m here to see Marie Brassart.”
He kept looking at me, then shook his head as he turned to the computer. “A long time ago, huh? Tell that to her parents.”
I wanted to scream at him, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. All it would do is hamper what I was trying to accomplish today. Besides, he wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t said to myself a thousand million times.
A few keystrokes later, his eyebrows went up. “Oh, Brassart. The lady who killed her husband. I almost forgot about her. Thing is, I don’t know if she’s even allowed visitors.”
My heart sank. I hadn’t considered that possibility.
He punched a few more keys, then scowled and shrugged. “Guess she is, after all. Imagine that.” He glanced over at me. “So you come to compare jailbird notes, or what?”
The rest of my check-in was almost as pleasant. I answered the same round of questions twice more before I found myself on the second-to-the-top floor of the jail. I knew the top floor housed the long term prisoners. Murderers and rapists, kidnappers and assaulters, all of whom were serving state or federal time. The jail made some pretty good coin leasing out beds.
The second-to-the-top floor was for violent criminals awaiting trial. It was an isolation ward, in which the prisoners were confined to their own cell except for a brief period of exercise each day. I wish I could say I knew about this floor from my days on the job, but the truth was I’d spent most of fifteen days in one of these cells. My crime didn’t merit isolation, but having been a cop at one time marked me in the eyes of every other inmate in the place. They assigned me to this floor for my own protection, but that didn’t make the experience any better.
Based upon his expression, the officer in charge of the floor didn’t seem too pleased to have to deal with a break in the routine. But he led me to the visiting room without a word of complaint.
Ten minutes later, Marie Brassart was ushered in. I stood but she didn’t notice. Her head hung and she stared at her feet while the guard uncuffed her. Then she looked up at me.
My immediate thought was that she was a study in contrasts. In the outside world, she would be attractive, but here she appeared frail and washed out. Much more so even than the grainy photographs in the news articles. My guess is that jail clothing and no makeup is a friend to few women. I’m sure the harsh light of the visiting room probably didn’t help, either. Yet somehow a sense of urgent vibrancy lurked underneath the pained and haunted expression.
I didn’t think Marie Brassart was the prom queen or the porn queen in any man’s eyes. What I immediately thought of when I saw her was that she was prey. She was the deer in the grass, head raised, eyes intent, the certainty of a nearby predator etched in the lines of her face.
Only there was something more. Something I couldn’t quite pin down, though I knew the emotion it evoked. I’d seen it plenty of times. Women like her bring out a man’s desire to possess them. And, sometimes, to protect them.
All of that flashed through my head in the moment our eyes met, followed with another thought.
What did she see when she looked at me?
I’m poor but clean.
That thought broke the momentary spell. “Mrs. Brassart?” I said. “I’m Stefan Kopriva.”
She shuffled toward the seat across from me, her steps tentative. The legs of the chair scraped on the floor as she pulled it out and sat slowly. “I don’t know you,” she said.
“No.”
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
Her voice matched her expression. The tone was vulnerable. A slight waver rode underneath her words, almost imperceptible but ever present.
I took a deep breath. “I’m doing some investigative work for Mr. Harrity.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Oh. Then…he’s agreed to represent me?”
“No.” And then because that seemed too harsh, I added, “Not yet.”
She nodded slowly as if she understood. Her eyes were a light brown, fleck
ed with a lighter gold. She kept her gaze on me, waiting.
I cleared my throat. “Uh, the reason I’m here is that I’d like to ask you a few questions. If that’s all right?”
She didn’t answer. She kept looking at me as if trying to gauge something about me, though I couldn’t have said if it was my intent, my character, or what the hell else. It wasn’t an intimidating stare at first, not in the way a stare down from an opposing boxer might be. But after a few seconds, I shifted in my seat subconsciously. A light sheen of sweat popped out on my brow. The heat from her wasn’t sexual exactly, and it wasn’t angry, but it was uncomfortable.
Finally, she said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
I cleared my throat again. “Why not?”
“My lawyer has strongly advised me against talking to anyone except him.”
“From what I hear, you’re firing him.”
“But I haven’t yet,” she said.
We were quiet again, looking across the table at each other. For my part, I was trying like hell to figure her out. Maybe she was doing the same.
After a short while, she said, “Why is Mr. Harrity conducting an investigation if he hasn’t agreed to take the case?”
“You’ll have to take that up with him,” I said. “I’m not able to divulge the particulars.”
A shadow of a smile creased her lips. “Then we’re at an impasse.”
“I don’t see why. You want Harrity to help you. I’m helping him. It only seems to make sense that you’d want to help me by answering a few basic questions.”
“When he agrees to represent me, I’ll answer any question he might have. Or any you do.”
“But…”
“But not until.”
I leaned back, a tickle of frustration creeping into my chest. “Mrs. Brassart, I’m trying to help you.”
She cocked her head slightly and blinked. “Are you?”
“I think so.”
“Then thank you.”
“You can thank me by answering a few questions.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, then shook her head. “What did you say your name was?”
“Stef. Stefan Kopriva.”
“Mr. Kopriva, I will tell you one thing, if you like.”
“Please.”
She leaned back, mirroring my posture. “Henry and I did not have the closest of marriages. But he was a good man, and he was a smart man. And he told me something once that he said was very important, so I’ve always remembered it.”
“What’s that?”
“He said that if you pay an expert for their advice and don’t follow it, you’ve just made two bad decisions at once.”
I didn’t know what to say in response to that, so we sat quietly for a few moments. The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to fill the air with a thick, almost harsh, buzz. More than a full minute passed before Marie Brassart rose and walked to the door. She tapped on it lightly with her knuckles, but the corrections officer must have been watching the camera because it opened on her second rap.
Head down, she extended her wrists to be handcuffed. A moment later, she shuffled away, her slender frame disappearing around the corner.
16
All the way back to my apartment, I rolled the brief conversation with Marie Brassart around in my head. On the surface, the trip was a complete waste of time. The only nugget of information I garnered was that she and Henry Brassart didn’t have the closest of marriages. That wasn’t exactly breaking news. Especially if she killed him. And the police affidavit alluded to the same thing.
I knew going was worth it, though. As confusing an image as she presented, it was better for me to have some idea about Marie than none at all. Or one based upon news accounts. It might not help a lot now, but I hoped it would at some point.
Halfway to the apartment, as my mind clicked through my conversation with Marie, I realized where I needed to go next. Funny how the brain works. Or doesn’t, since the answer that came to me should have been obvious from the start.
Once I got home, I tore into the research material again. This time, I focused on Brassart’s business.
What I could piece together was skeletal. He worked for a financial firm called Stoker, Shelley & Bynes in the heart of downtown River City. I jotted the address down on a piece of scrap paper. Before I left the apartment, I took a quick look at myself in the bathroom mirror. That convinced me to shave and change into a collared shirt.
SS&B occupied the seventh floor of the Braimer Building, one of the newest, and tallest, commercial buildings downtown. The River City core was in the midst of a resurgence due to a combination of some new construction and a lot of refurbishment. A university district had been in place on the east end of downtown for several years and now housed satellite classes for all of the regional colleges. Once the students were there, the nearby businesses adjusted to cater to that crowd.
The downtown core benefitted from the investments, but the biggest change was police presence. I’d noticed the change whenever I walked to visit Clell at whatever building he was guarding. More cops downtown, in cars, on bikes, even sometimes on foot. The business people loved it, I’m sure. So did the shoppers. The street kids, panhandlers, quiet drug dealers, and subtle prostitutes didn’t.
I didn’t have a problem with a so-called cleaner downtown, and I didn’t disagree with the mayor’s mission to create a “robust” downtown district. Honestly, my biggest problem with the increased police presence was that I had to see them more often, and that came as an unpleasant reminder of a past I’d been trying to leave behind for over a decade.
The other disadvantage to a busy downtown shopping district became apparent when I had to park three blocks away from the Braimer building. I plugged the meter and trudged to the office, riding up to the seventh floor in the elevator.
The receptionist wore a silky white blouse with a red stone brooch. She looked up at me with practiced pleasantness, smiling a tight, plastic smile. Her headset sat stylishly atop her head. “Welcome to Stoker, Shelley, and Bynes. How may I help you?”
I flashed my driver’s license at her, putting it away as I spoke. “I’m investigating Mr. Brassart’s death. He was employed here, and I need to speak to his manager.”
She blinked at me, her smile never faltering, but her eyes darkened just a little. “Mr. Richards is…I mean, was…please hold on.”
I waited while she dialed and spoke softly into the small microphone. She paused, listening, then spoke again. I was surprised at how softly she spoke and by the fact that I couldn’t hear more than a murmur.
“Your name, sir?” she asked, speaking up.
“Stefan Kopriva.”
She relayed the information, listened again, then nodded. “Mr. Richards will be right out,” she told me, though I could tell she wasn’t happy about that development. I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirrored pillars along the wall behind her. The collared shirt did little to change what was obvious at a glance. I wasn’t the kind of person that normally came through those doors.
The receptionist watched me out of the corner of her eye, while pretending to ignore me and go about her work. I wondered what would happen if some multi-millionaire or recent lottery winner wandered in looking to do some business. Would she sniff out that cash and have a different attitude?
Probably. It seemed like an essential skill in that role.
A couple of minutes passed in silence while I stood waiting. Then a husky man dressed in a sharp suit came into the lobby.
“Mr. Kopriva?”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand. “Thad Richards.”
I shook his hand.
“Why don’t you come back to my office and we’ll talk?”
“That’d be great.”
Richards led me through the doors, down a wide hall past several offices, and finally through a door on the left. His office was large but simple. His desk wasn’t plain but it was far from ornate. W
hen he motioned me to sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk, I noticed it was made of quality leather but no more decorative than the desk he sat behind.
When he’d settled into his chair, a near match for the one I sat in, he gave me a sad look. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. Even after all these months.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
He nodded his thanks, his cheeks flapping slightly with the motion. “I guess I should ask the obvious question,” he said.
“Which is?”
“Who are you?”
“Oh. Yeah, of course. Well, like I told the receptionist, my name is Stefan Kopriva, and I’m investigating Mr. Brassart’s death.”
“But you’re not the police.” His statement had a hint of a question in it.
“No.”
“No? You look like a cop of some kind.”
“I used to be.”
“So is this about the insurance, or…?”
I shook my head. “It’s about the trial. I work for an attorney.”
“Oh…” He nodded as if he understood, then stopped. “Wait a minute. Prosecutor or defense?”
I hesitated. “Well, neither yet. But if he takes the case, it’ll be for the defense.”
“Who are we talking about here?”
“I can’t say just yet.”
Richards pursed his lips. “But I’m guessing you’re going to want me to share information with you.”
“I hope so.”
“Seems like an unfair exchange. Do you have any identification?”
“I have a driver’s license, if you want to see it.”
“Don’t private investigators have licenses?”
“I’m sure they do. I’m not a private investigator. I’m just looking into this for the attorney.”
“The attorney you won’t identify.”
I stifled a sigh. This wasn’t going well. “Yes.”
Thad Richards sat looking at me for a few moments. Then he said, “Why don’t you tell me as much as you can, and I’ll decide if I can help you or not. Sound fair?”