She smirked. She had gotten him back. His anger boiled up and he lost it. He knew he should keep calm, not leave an impression, but he couldn't hold back.
"Now who's being rude, hmmm? You know what you are, you are fucking disgusting. Those veins running up your ass look like the road map to hell, lady."
"Hey! You watch your-"
"Or what? You kicking me out?"
"Just watch what you say."
Gladden got the last coin up, a dime, and turned to walk away without replying. Out on the street, he went to the newspaper box and bought the morning edition.
Safely back inside the dark confines of his room, Gladden dug through the newspaper until he found the Metro section. The story would be here, he knew. He quickly scanned through the eight pages of the section and found nothing about the motel murder case. Disappointed, he guessed that maybe the death of a black maid wasn't news in this town.
He tossed the paper down on the bed. But as soon as it landed a photograph on the front page of the section caught his attention. It was a shot of a young boy on his way down a sliding board. He picked the section back up and read the caption that went with the photo. It said that swing sets and other children's amusements had finally been replaced at MacArthur Park following the long period of their removal while a subway station construction project caused the closure of most of the park.
Gladden looked at the photo again. The boy on the slide was identified as seven-year-old Miguel Arax. Gladden wasn't familiar with the area where the new park was located but he assumed that a subway station would be approved only for a low-income area. That meant most of the children would be poor and with dark brown skin like the boy in the photo. He decided that he would go to the park later, after taking care of his chores and getting situated. It was always easier with the poor ones. They needed and wanted so much.
Situated, Gladden thought. He knew then that getting situated was his real priority. He couldn't stay in this motel or any other, no matter how well he had covered his tracks. It wasn't safe. The stakes were constantly rising and they would be looking for him soon. It was a feeling not based on anything other than his gut instinct. They would be looking soon and he needed to find a safe place.
He put the paper aside and went to the phone. The smoke-cured voice that answered after he dialed zero was unmistakable.
"This is, uh, Richard . . . in six. I just wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I was rude and I apologize."
She didn't say anything and he pressed on.
"Anyway, you were right, it's getting pretty lonely in here and I was wondering if that offer you sort of made before was still out there."
"What offer?"
She was going to make it difficult.
"You know, you asked if I saw anything I liked. Well, I did, actually."
"I don't know. You were pretty testy. I don't like testy. Whatcha got in mind?"
"I don't know. But I've got a hundred bucks to make sure it's a good time."
She was silent for a moment.
"Well, I get outta this dump at four. Then I got the whole weekend. I could come over."
Gladden smiled but kept it out of his voice.
"Can't wait."
"Then I'm sorry, too. About being rude and the things I said."
"That's nice to hear. See you soon-oh, you still there?"
"Sure, baby."
"What's your name?"
"Darlene."
"Well, Darlene, I can't wait till four."
She laughed and hung up. Gladden wasn't laughing.
18
In the morning I had to wait until ten before Laurie Prine was at her desk in Denver. By then I was anxious to get on with the day but hers was just starting and I had to go through the greeting and questions about where I was and what I was doing before finally getting to the point.
"When you did that run on police suicides for me, would that have included the Baltimore Sun?"
"Yep."
I assumed it would have but had to check. I also knew that computer searches sometimes missed things.
"Okay, then can you run a search of the Sun using just the name John McCafferty."
I spelled it for her.
"Sure. How far back?"
"I don't know, five years would be good."
"When do you need it by?"
"Last night."
"I guess that means you're going to hold."
"It does."
I listened to the tapping of keys as she conducted the search. I pulled the Poe book onto my lap and reread some of the poems while I waited. With daylight coming through the curtains, the words did not have the same hold on me as the night before.
"Okay-whoa-we've got a lot of hits here, Jack. Twenty-eight. Anything in particular you're looking for?"
"Uh, no. What's the most recent?"
I knew that she could scan the hits by having just the headlines print out on her screen.
"Okay, last one. 'Detective fired for part in former partner's death.' "
"That's weird," I said. "This should have come up in the first search you did. Can you read me some of that?"
I heard her tap a few keys and then wait for the story to be printed on her screen.
"Okay, here goes. 'A Baltimore police detective was fired Monday for altering a crime scene and attempting to make it appear that his longtime partner had not killed himself last spring. The action was taken by a departmental Board of Rights panel against Detective Daniel Bledsoe after a two-day closed hearing. Bledsoe could not be reached for comment but a fellow officer who represented him during the hearing said that the highly decorated detective was being treated with undue harshness by a department he had served well for twenty-two years. According to police officials, Bledsoe's partner, Detective John McCafferty, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 8. His body was found by his wife, Susan, who first called Bledsoe. Bledsoe, officials said, went to his partner's apartment, destroyed a note he found in the dead detective's shirt pocket and altered other aspects of the crime scene to make it appear that McCafferty had been killed by an intruder who had grabbed the detective's gun. Police said'-Do you want me to keep reading, Jack?"
"Yeah, go ahead."
" 'Police said Bledsoe went so far as to fire an additional shot into McCafferty's body, striking him in the upper leg. Bledsoe then told Susan McCafferty to call 911 and he left the apartment, feigning surprise when he was later informed that his partner was dead. In killing himself, McCafferty had apparently already fired one shot into the floor of his home before placing the gun in his mouth and firing the fatal shot. Investigators contend that Bledsoe attempted to make the death appear to be a murder because Susan McCafferty stood to receive a higher amount of death, health and pension benefits if it could be proved her husband had not killed himself. However, the scheme unraveled when suspicious investigators interviewed Susan McCafferty at length on the day her husband died. She eventually admitted to what she had watched Bledsoe do.' Am I reading too fast? Are you taking notes?"
"No, it's fine. Keep going."
"Okay. 'Bledsoe refused to acknowledge any part in the scheme during the investigation and declined to testify in his behalf during the Board of Rights hearing. Jerry Liebling, Bledsoe's fellow detective and defense representative during the hearing, said Bledsoe did what any loyal partner would do for a fallen comrade. "All he did was try to make things a little better for the widow," Liebling said. "But the department has gone too far. He tried to do the good thing and now he's lost his job, his career, his livelihood. What kind of message does this send to the rank and file?" Other officers contacted Monday expressed similar feelings. But ranking officials said that Bledsoe had been treated fairly and cited the department's decision not to file criminal charges against Bledsoe or Susan McCafferty as a sign of compassion for the two. McCafferty and Bledsoe had been partners for seven years and handled some of the higher-profile murders in the city during that time. One of those ki
llings was attributed in part to McCafferty's death. Police said that McCafferty's depression over the unsolved killing of Polly Amherst, a first-grade teacher who was abducted from campus at the private Hopkins School, sexually mutilated and strangled, led him to thoughts of killing himself. McCafferty was also struggling with a drinking problem. "So now the department hasn't lost one fine investigator," Liebling said after Monday's hearing, "it has lost two. They'll never find two guys that were as good as Bledsoe and McCafferty. The department really blew it today." ' That's it, Jack."
"Okay. Uh, I'm going to need you to send that to my computer basket. I have my laptop. I can get it."
"Okay. What about the other stories?"
"Can you go back to the headlines? Are any of them about McCafferty's death or are they all stories on cases?"
She took a half minute to scroll through the headlines.
"It looks like they are all about cases. There are quite a few on the schoolteacher. Nothing else on the suicide. And you know what, the reason that story I just read didn't come up on my search on Monday was because the word 'suicide' was never in it. That was the keyword I plugged in."
I'd already figured that out. I asked her to ship the stories on the teacher to my computer basket, thanked her and hung up.
I called the main detective bureau of the Baltimore Police Department and asked for Jerry Liebling.
"Liebling, autos."
"Detective Liebling, my name is Jack McEvoy and I'm wondering if you can help me. I'm trying to reach Dan Bledsoe."
"That would be in regard to what?"
"I'd rather talk to him about it."
"I'm sorry I can't help you and I've got another call."
"Look, I know what he tried to do for McCafferty. I want to tell him something that I think will help him. That's really all I can say. But if you don't help me, you are missing a chance to help him. I can give you my number. Why don't you call him and give it to him. Let him decide."
There was a long silence and I suddenly thought I had been talking to a dead line.
"Hello?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Look, if Dan wants to talk to you he'll talk to you. You call him. He's in the book."
"What, the phone book?"
"That's right. I gotta go."
He hung up. I felt foolish. I never even considered the phone book because I never knew a cop who put his name in it. I dialed information for Baltimore again and gave the former detective's name.
"I have no listing for a Daniel Bledsoe," the operator said. "I have Bledsoe Insurance and Bledsoe Investigations."
"Okay, give me those and can I get the addresses, please?"
"Actually, they are separate listings and numbers but the same address in Fells Point."
He gave me the information and I called the investigations number. A woman answered, "Bledsoe Investigations."
"Yes, can I speak to Dan?"
"I'm sorry, he's unavailable."
"Do you know if he'll be in later today?"
"He's in now. He's just on the line. This is his service. When he's out or on his line it rings through. But I know he's there. He checked for messages not ten minutes ago. But I don't know for how long. I don't keep his schedule."
Fells Point is a spit of land east of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The tourist shops and hotels give way to funkier pubs and shops and then old brick factories and Little Italy. On some streets the asphalt has worn off the underlying brick and when the wind is right there is the damp tang of the sea or the smell of the sugar factory just across the inlet. Bledsoe Investigations and Insurance was in a one-story brick building at Caroline and Fleet.
It was a few minutes after one. On the door of his small street-front office was a plastic clock face with adjustable hands and the words BE BACK AT. The clock was set at one. I looked around, saw no one making a run for the door to beat the deadline and decided to wait for him anyway. I had nowhere else to go.
I walked down the market on Fleet, bought a Coke and went back to my car. From the driver's seat I could see the door to Bledsoe's office. I watched it for twenty minutes until I saw a man with jet-black hair, a middle-age paunch peeking through his jacket and a slight limp walk up, unlock the door and go in. I got out with my computer satchel and headed for him.
Bledsoe's office looked as though it had once been a doctor's office, though I could not figure out why a doctor would have hung a shingle out in this working district. There was a little entry room with a sliding window and counter behind which I imagined a receptionist at one time sat. The window, glazed like a shower door, was closed. I had heard a buzz when I had opened the door but no one responded to it. I stood there a few moments looking around. There was an old couch and a coffee table. Not much room for anything else. A variety of magazines were fanned across the table, none of them fresher than six months old. I was about to call out a hello or knock on the door to the inner sanctum when I heard a toilet flush somewhere on the other side of the sliding window. Then I saw a blurred figure move behind the glass and the door to the left opened.
The man with the black hair stood there. I noticed now that he had a mustache as thin as a freeway on a map traveling over his lip.
"Yes, can I help you?"
"Daniel Bledsoe?"
"That's right."
"My name's Jack McEvoy. I'd like to ask you about John McCafferty. I think we both might be able to help each other."
"John McCafferty was a long time ago."
He was eyeing the computer satchel.
"It's just a computer," I said. "Can we sit down someplace?"
"Uh, sure. Why not?"
I followed through the door and down a short hallway that had three more doors lined along the right side. He opened the first one and we stepped into an office of cheap faux maple paneling. His state license was framed on the wall as well as some photos from his days as a cop. The whole thing seemed about as cheesy as his mustache but I was determined to play it out. The thing I know about cops, and I guessed that it extended to former cops, was that looks were deceiving. I knew some in Colorado who would still be wearing pale blue polyester leisure suits if they made them anymore. But nevertheless they were some of the best and brightest and toughest of their departments. I suspected it was that way with Bledsoe. He took a seat behind a desk with a black Formica top. It had been a poor choice when he'd bought it at the secondhand office furniture store. I could plainly see the dust buildup on the shiny surface. I sat across from Bledsoe in the only other chair. He accurately registered my impressions.
"Place used to be an abortion clinic. Guy went away for doing third-trimester jobs. I took it over and don't care about the dust and looks. I get a lot of my work over the phone, selling policies to cops. And I usually go to clients, the ones that want an investigation. They don't come to me. The people that do come here usually just leave flowers out by the door. Memorials, I guess. I figure they must be working off old phone books or something. Why don't you tell me what you're looking for here."
I told him about my brother and then about John Brooks in Chicago. I watched his face fill with skepticism as I talked. It told me I was maybe ten seconds from being thrown out the door.
"What is this?" he said. "Who sent you here?"
"Nobody. But it's my guess that I'm maybe a day or so ahead of the FBI. But they'll be coming. I just thought you'd maybe talk to me first. I know what it's like, you see. My brother and me, we were twins. I've always heard that longtime partners, especially on homicide, became like brothers. Like twins."
I held up for a few moments. I had played everything but my ace and I had to wait for the right moment. Bledsoe seemed to cool down a little. His anger was maybe giving way to confusion.
"So what do you want from me?"
"The note. I want to know what McCafferty said in the note."
"There was no note. I never said there was a note."
"But his wife said there was."
"Then go talk to her."
"No, I think I'd rather talk to you. Let me tell you something. The doer on these cases somehow gets the victims to write out a line or two as a suicide note. I don't know how he does it or why they oblige him, but they do. And every time the line is from a poem. A poem by the same writer. Edgar Allan Poe."
I reached down to my computer satchel and unzipped it. I pulled out the thick book of Poe's works. I put it on the desk so that he could see it.
"I think your partner was murdered. You came in and it looked like a suicide because that was how it was supposed to look. That note you destroyed, I'd bet you your partner's pension that it's a line from a poem that's in that book."
The Poet (1995) Page 18