White Collar Murders: Stanley Bentworth mysteries, #5

1. Partners

I was dug in at my desk, shuffling papers around in a case file, and ignoring the telephone ring that echoed throughout the near-empty Homicide Unit. I sat alone, the only detective in the room, and phone calls are important, but I paid it no mind. Yvonne, our administrator, secretary, receptionist, and all-around girl Friday, rushed through from the copier room, glared at me, went into the outer office—where she also serves as dispatcher—and answered the telephone. She called out, Who’s up? as if she didn’t know I was by myself on the unit, but sounding her usual summons when a caller, usually a uniformed street cop, calls in a homicide. The protocol would seem to imply that we take turns, but what she was really saying was, Who’s not doing anything?

Everyone was out working cases. Homicide detectives spend little time at their desks. It’s mostly knocking on doors, interrogating suspects in the box, and poring over this and that in Evidence Control. The others were off somewhere doing such important tasks, and I had stayed behind to catch up on paperwork before it buried me and to cover the phone, which I had neglected to do.

My caseload was full, but I can always take on another case. With luck, I’d draw a simple street shooting over drugs, respect, or a woman, and I could close the case without spending a huge amount of time and effort. Talk to a few witnesses, arrest the perp, and get another red line on the scoreboard and an improved closure rate.

That’s with luck.

I pushed aside the case file, got up and walked across the room to Yvonne’s desk, and she handed me the call slip.

Good morning, Yvonne? Gettin’ any?

That’s sexual harassment, Stan.

Sorry. Good morning, Yvonne. All your natural needs being tended to?

That’s worse.

I read the call slip as I walked back to my desk. It wasn’t going to be an easy case. A dead body, apparently the consequence of a gunshot wound to the noggin, awaited my attention at an address in the Heights, an upscale neighborhood in north Delbert Falls. Damn. It would have to be in the Heights. The complexity of an investigation seems to rise in direct proportion to the net worth of the victim and the appraised value of the crime scene.

I read the call slip again for the details. One body, inside a residence, gunshot wound. Could be murder, an accident, or suicide. The only other choice is natural causes, which are seldom accompanied by gunshot wounds. We wouldn’t know until we investigated the scene.

I say we because detectives investigate homicides in pairs, a lead detective and a backup. There can be more work than one detective can handle, particularly if there are a lot of witnesses.

I stuck my head in Bill Penrod’s office. He was Homicide’s shift commander, Lieutenant by rank, and my former partner. Bill, I said. Got what looks to be a white collar in the Heights. Nobody here to partner with. Should I go alone?

How you doing on the Ferber case?

That case had just come in the day before. Not much unusual about it. Something funny, though.

What?

Ferber was stabbed in his dining room. Then apparently the killer sat down at the table and ate a bowl of Rice Krispies right next to the body. He left the milk, the carton, and the bowl and spoon on the table. We’re processing for DNA.

Rice Krispies? Bill said, sputtering a hint of laughter.

I nodded, he looked at me, I looked at him, and then we both broke out howling at the same time. Yvonne called in from the outer office. What’s so damn funny in there?

Bill and I called out in unison, A cereal killer! Then we fell apart laughing again.

We regained control after a moment. I’m heading out to the Heights for this fresh one, I said. I could use a partner.

Yeah, Bill said. I’ll go. Might be fun to poke around a scene again. See if I still have it.

He still had it, of that I was certain. Bill had been my partner for years before his promotion. We had closed a lot of cases together, many of them thanks to his sixth sense about people and events and his skills in the box, our unit interrogation room. Sometimes we even did it sober.

A shift commander taking the street is an unprecedented event. Who minds the store while he’s out there rummaging around a crime scene? Who answers when the Captain calls? But he’s the boss; if he wants to go, he goes. He pulled himself out of his chair and walked over to the coat rack. He carried the load of a middle-aged man who loved food and hated exercise. He lifted the jacket off the hanger and pulled it around his body. He tried to button the jacket, but it wouldn’t quite reach.

This thing musta shrunk, he said and let the jacket fall open.

As we walked past Yvonne, Bill rapped her desktop with his fingertips. You’re in charge, he said, which answered the question about who minds the store.

Who’s lead detective? she asked so she could properly post the case on the scoreboard.

Detective Bentworth is. Don’t sell anything.

Have a good one, she said with a dismissive sniff.

I do, I said.

I used to, Bill said. Come on, Stan. Let’s hit the Heights.

We headed for the elevator. Stairs were not an option, neither of us being in good condition. What could she sell? I asked, knowing full well Bill had been joking.

I don’t know. Copy machine. A chair or two. One of the cars. We don’t pay her shit. Let’s get out there. The stiff’s getting cold.

Bill had always taken control when we worked together, even though I was lead detective on at least half our cases. It was his manner. He liked having control whether he was in charge or not. I didn’t mind. We closed a lot of cases as a team. And he always gave me credit even when I didn’t deserve it.

We stepped out of the elevator and went into the garage, picked out a Focus, and I took the driver’s seat. Bill wedged himself into the passenger’s side and, as usual, neglected to fasten his seat belt.

Click it or ticket, I said, echoing the catchy slogan of the seat belt laws as seen on signs on every highway and byway in the state.

Dick it or lick it, he said. Come on. Let’s roll.

I fired up the Focus, pulled out of the garage, and headed for the Heights, a happy detective, teamed up again with my old partner, the best in the business.

This day promised to be a good one.

But it wouldn’t keep its promise.

***

The crime scene was a typical upper-priced house on the edges of the Heights. Not a mansion and not a shack, but a ranch style perched on a well-groomed lawn with a brick-paved driveway and a two-car garage. Stone walls and a red tile roof completed the faux-Spanish effect.

Two black-and-whites were parked in front, their lights flashing, and an ambulance stood by. A crime scene van was parked behind the ambulance. Yellow tape stretched across the front door, and passersby and gawking neighbors milled around outside in the lawn.

I ducked under the crime scene tape. Bill couldn’t stoop like that, so he ripped the tape down, walked into the house, and said to a uniform, Fix that.

What we got here? I asked the uniform.

He pointed through the foyer into the kitchen. Perry Sanders, male, Caucasian, pajamas. Looks like he was sitting at the table.

We went into the kitchen. The dead guy was sprawled on the floor next to an overturned chair alongside the kitchen table. A hole in his temple suggested that he’d taken a small-caliber round from close up. Could be self-inflicted or not. I hoped it was. Suicides close quickly.

The crime scene technician was putting markers on the floor to show where items had been found: a bowl, some tableware, salt and pepper shakers, all apparently swept off the table when he took the fall.

You find a weapon? I said.

Yeah, the uniform said. Down there. He pointed to a small revolver on the floor next to the body.

Tag all the stuff scattered around, Bill said to the uniform. Make sure you get the bowl. This might be the work of another cereal killer. He winked at me. Second one this week.

The uniforms burst into laughter, which got me laughing too. We were stopped short by a small woman standing in the doorway and glaring at us.

Something funny about all this? You men think this is funny? You should be ashamed. She started crying.

One of the uniforms rushed to the woman’s side and put his arm around her shoulder. This is Mrs. Sanders, Lieutenant.

I’m sorry ma’am. Sometimes this is how our people cope with such tragic events. Please don’t hold it against them. Sometimes they just have no sensitivity. He glared at me and the uniforms self-righteously as if he hadn’t been the instigator of the inappropriate behavior. Now you go in the other room and try to rest. We’ll come talk to you soon. Do you need someone to sit with you?

No. I’ll be fine. But tell your ruffians to show some respect.

I’ll do that, ma’am. I’ll do that for sure.

Bill’s eyes swept the room and stopped, fixed on a kitchen cabinet above the dishwasher with the cabinet door wide open.

Wonder what is or was in there, he said. The photographer get all this?

Yes, sir, the uniform said.

He slid a chair over to the cabinet and climbed up with a great deal of effort. As he straightened up to look in the cabinet, his face flushed red then went ashen gray, and he grabbed his left arm with his right hand. Stan... he gasped and tumbled off the chair with a heavy thud onto the floor next to the victim.

Bill! I rushed to his side, knelt and felt his neck for a pulse. There was none.

Get the EMTs in here, I shouted. Now!

The uniform ran outside and came back with two guys from the ambulance pushing a wheeled cart with equipment and supplies. They pulled me away from Bill, and I stood by feeling useless.

I was numb. I went outside and lit a cigarette. There wasn’t much I could do inside until they’d taken care of Bill, so I took out my pad and began interviews of bystanders and onlookers. I had to force myself, given what had just happened, and I did it mechanically, but it had to be done, and it helped occupy the time.

After about twenty minutes, they brought Bill out on a collapsible wheeled stretcher. The EMTs struggled to manage his heavy frame, keep it on the stretcher, and get it into the ambulance. I excused myself, ran across the lawn to the ambulance and asked, How is he? I didn’t have to ask. They’d covered his face with the stretcher cloth.

Dead before he hit the floor, the EMT said.

Why do they always say that? How do they know?

The EMT continued. He didn’t respond to CPR or the paddles. They’ll pronounce him at the hospital. Sorry.

Bill. Dead. How could that be? He was just here. I’ve seen dead bodies, lots of them. But I don’t usually know the person, never heard their voice, didn’t know what made them laugh, what they believed, what could anger them. They leave nothing to hang onto, nothing to miss about them, the corpses that used to be individuals, no concrete reason to grieve. My experience with death is unlike that of the average Joe. Grief to me is only a passing expression of sorrow for someone else’s loss. Detachment. The job. Routine. An entry on the unit’s case scoreboard, a case to close, that’s all, nothing more. Can’t get too close to the cases. Can’t be emotionally moved. Which makes it all the more difficult to handle when from out of nowhere the loss is mine too.

I was devastated. The case here didn’t matter anymore. Not much did. After a certain age you come to expect to lose friends, but this was like losing an arm and a leg. It’d be a while before I could accept the notion of a world without Bill.

Detectives aren’t supposed to cry. I almost did and got away from everyone so I could gather myself together.

I called Yvonne and told her. Please get the word out, I said. She cried. I wanted to go somewhere and have a drink, but I still had the first dead body to investigate. The crime scene tech came out and said, Looks like suicide. Stippling around the wound and GSR on his right hand.

Good, I said. If the ME thinks it’s anything else, let us know. That wouldn’t happen. Everyone in the Medical Examiner’s office and the Homicide Unit preferred suicide over murder. Less paperwork.

I finished my outside interviews, went inside to the living room and sat next to Mrs. Sanders. I took out my notepad and pencil.

What was all that with the ambulance? she asked. Did they already take Perry out?

No ma’am. One of our people took sick. Tell me about what happened here with your husband.

She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and said, Perry came downstairs, and went in there. I heard a loud noise and ran in. There he was...

Had he been depressed lately?

Oh, yes. He’d had to shut down his appliance store. The big chains ran him out of business. He couldn’t compete. He spent every night in there working with numbers trying to figure out how to keep going. I told him forget it, we can retire, go to Florida, but he just couldn’t let go.

Everything in its own perspective. Sanders died in misery, a broken man. Bill died on duty, working a case, back on the street where he belonged and was happiest. Difference? Not much now. They were both dead.

I’m sorry for your loss, I said to Mrs. Sanders and left for my next errand, an unpleasant task that goes with the job. I had to notify Bill’s family, and I would do that with a strong sense of guilt. I don’t believe I’d ever been at his house except for the rare occasion when I’d picked him up, and then I hadn’t gotten out of the car. I wouldn’t know his wife if I met her on the street. And that was after a thirty-year professional association and close friendship. Our social get-togethers had been mostly him and me sitting somewhere knocking back Jack Daniels and giving one another the red-ass.

On the job it had been all business. If you don’t count the Jack Daniels.

2. Saying Goodbye

Bill had been my drinking pal, my boss, my partner, my rabbi in the department, my best friend, and now he was none of them. He lay on display in an overpriced casket, pale and puffy-faced, sporting a double-breasted, pin-striped suit he had never worn in life, and looking about as dead as a dead guy could look.

Some of the good people were there, Bill’s co-workers and friends. Jane Jarvis, my partner on cases in Homicide and Narcotics, was among them. I visited with her for a while. That’s what funerals are good for. You get caught up on what your friends are doing.

All the Homicide Unit was there, guys I’d worked with on many cases. Barloga, Calderaro, and several others. There was no catching up needed with them. We saw each other almost every day. Jane had transferred back to Narcotics.

You happy since going back? I asked. We’d left Narcotics under a cloud for having busted some dirty cops.

It’s fine now. When the guys learned I could do undercover, they lightened up.

And when they saw you dressed like a hooker.

Oh, stop it.

Jane was a plain girl in her late twenties who dressed conservatively and downplayed her sexuality. But she scrubbed up really nice. Makeup, miniskirts, and spike heels would turn Plain Jane into a delicious hottie. She was smart as a whip and had aced the sergeant’s exam, scoring higher than any of the men applicants.

When did you get the stripes? I asked. She was in dress blues and wore sergeant’s stripes.

Blaisdell retired, and I got the billet.

No one deserves it more, I said. I’d never do what Jane had done, a matter of priorities. Passing that exam requires intense study during off-duty hours, and I spent my spare time at Oliver’s, a regular hangout.

Only the undertaker’s assistant and I shared the secret, which was that instead of an undershirt, Bill wore my rattiest old polo shirt, my personal favorite but one that he had hated. He said more than once that he wanted to be buried in it so no one would ever have to look at it again, so, whether he meant it or not, I saw to it that his wish was honored. As a result, I was one polo shirt poorer, and the undertaker’s assistant was fifty bucks richer.

Bill’s wife, children, grandchildren, and other family huddled in the first two rows, moving among themselves, hugging, commiserating, and crying. The viewing chapel was filled with brass and detectives from most of the department’s units, each one decked out in dress blues, eager and ready with stories of endearment for a man that most of them had ignored when he was alive and some of whom he detested.

That’s how funerals work. Everyone wants a piece of the sympathy, has suffered the greatest loss, had been talking to the deceased only last week, and no one could believe he had been taken so swiftly and without warning.

Without warning, my ass. Bill had been a heart attack waiting to happen for several years. This probably hadn’t been his first.

His mourners told one another how grateful they were that his death had taken him swiftly and spared him the suffering of a protracted illness.

Bullshit. Bill hadn’t been spared anything. He’d been obese and diabetic for years, had endured a lot of pain, walked with difficulty, and approached every staircase as the enemy. I was glad that the ordeal for him was over, but, given a choice, I’d rather he’d have hung around a while longer, and I’m sure he would have agreed.

This is how he’d have wanted to go, someone said, in the line of duty, doing what he loved.

That’s bullshit too. No detective loves dropping dead before the