No Place to Die (10 page)

On Friday and Saturday, Chris Doyle made a halfhearted effort to assist the rest of the team in interviewing the relatives, friends, and coworkers of the victims in our continuing quest to find something—anything—that would link the victims together. Having apparently exhausted himself in the process, he insisted on taking his regular day off on Sunday, leaving Maggie, Pierce, Chickris, and me to continue the effort without his assistance. The fact that we had to do so was certainly no great handicap, and we all fervently hoped that Bob Riggins would be back to work ASAP, relieving the four of us of Doyle’s company. Maggie and I were on our way to an interview early Sunday afternoon, and I asked her if she’d heard anything from Abernathy, the minister.

“Yeah. He took me to the Rhythm Room last night to hear Bad Sneakers, the Steely Dan tribute group.”

“That sounds like a good time. Those guys are on my short list of local faves.”

She nodded her agreement. “Yeah, well, the music was very good. We danced and had a few drinks. Actually, I had a couple of glasses of wine. He had one gin and tonic and then switched to club soda, so that he could preach with a clear head this morning.”

“Did he say anything more about the ex-wife?”

“Yeah. He asked me what had happened with me and Timothy, and so I gave him chapter and verse. More than anything else, I did it to impress upon him the thousand and one ways this job can fuck up an
otherwise pretty good relationship, even if there aren’t any kids involved.

“Anyhow, once I showed him mine, he figured he had to show me his. Apparently, while he was overseas in the army, the missus had a torrid affair with a sexy jazz musician who lived down the street. Once Patrick got back, she confessed her sins and begged his forgiveness, promising that nothing like that would ever happen again.

“It obviously hit him pretty hard, but he sucked it up, did the Christian thing, and took her back. He says he did it partly because of the kids, and partly because he still loved her in spite of what she’d done. Then, ten months ago, the jazz musician left Tennessee for a gig in Chicago, and Mrs. Abernathy went right along with him. She left a note for Patrick and didn’t even say good-bye to the girls.”

“Jesus, that’s not too cold, is it?”

“No shit. Anyhow, Patrick and the kids were all pretty devastated. He filed on the bitch, asking for custody with no visitation rights for her, and she didn’t even contest it. A judge granted the divorce and Patrick decided that the best thing for all concerned would be to get the hell out of Memphis. The job at my mom’s church came up and he applied. The church board offered him the job, and he ‘accepted the call.’ I wanted to ask him what sort of god would put some poor son of a bitch through a hell like that just to ‘call’ him to a new ministry, but I managed to hold my tongue.”

“There’s a first,” I laughed. “So, you gonna see him again?”

Maggie shook her head. “Hell, Sean, I don’t know. On the plus side, he
is
a nice guy. He’s attractive. We like the same music, and he’s got a good sense of humor. If it weren’t for all the baggage he’s carrying, there might be a chance that something could happen
between us. But he’s obviously been badly wounded, and I really don’t want to be the woman who catches him on the rebound, and then breaks his heart again when it doesn’t work out.

“On top of that, of course, there’s the kids. I tried to make it clear that I don’t relate very well to children and that unlike my mother, I’m not a churchgoing kind of woman. I also told him that I loved my job and that it would never allow me to take on the responsibility of a couple of kids in addition to a husband.”

“How’d he react to that?”

“He said that he wasn’t expecting me to make a lifetime commitment on the basis of a couple of dates and that he understood that my job would make it hard to have a family. But he insisted that lots of cops do have families and successful relationships and that I shouldn’t rule out the possibility that it could happen for me. He said he’d like it if we could continue to see each other without any pressure or expectations and just see where things might go.”

“So how’d you leave it?”

“I told him that I’d enjoyed the evening, and that if he wanted to go out again sometime I would. But I also told him straight out that I wasn’t interested in anything beyond that, and that if he was, then he needed to be looking for some other woman. He said he understood and insisted that he wasn’t going to put any pressure on me. Then he took me home, walked me to the door, and left me with a very chaste kiss. I don’t know if I’ll be hearing from him again or not.”

I signaled a turn and said, “I know you’re trying to be fair to the guy, Maggie, but do you think there’s a chance here that you’re not being fair to yourself?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, maybe you’re so concerned about making sure that his feelings aren’t hurt that you’re not willing to give this thing a fighting chance. I confess I have a
hard time imagining you keeping company with a minister. But if you like the guy—and it seems that you do—why not chill out a bit and see where it goes? Maybe it works and maybe it doesn’t. But the guy’s an adult. I’m sure he knows the emotional risks as well as you do.”

She sat quietly for a minute or so, staring out the window at the traffic passing in the opposite lane. Then she turned to look at me. “How in the hell did you manage it, Sean—you and Julie, I mean? Do you mind my asking?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. How do you mean?”

She gave a small shrug and went back to looking out the window. “This job. The hours. The things you see. How did the two of you build such a solid relationship around it? God knows Timothy and I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m not sure I really know, Maggs,” I sighed. “Thankfully, it wasn’t something that we ever had to work at. For openers, Julie respected the job. Unlike her mother, she never thought that being a homicide detective was beneath me—that I should aspire to something ‘better,’ or more socially respectable. I think it also helped a lot that I was already working homicide when Julie and I met and so she knew exactly what she was getting into from the start.”

Smiling at the recollection, I said, “Second date. I’m trying to make a good impression, right? I made a reservation at Vocé—dinner, then Khani Cole and her band in the lounge after. Julie’s dressed to kill. It’s gonna be a great night, and two minutes after the waiter puts the salads in front of us, I get called out to a murdersuicide.”

“Oh, Christ,” Maggie laughed. “I’ll bet that made the big impression you were after.”

“Yeah, well…I put Julie in a cab and fell all over myself apologizing. But she took it right in stride.
She’s
apologizing to
me
because the evening got ruined, and
that’s when I knew she was a keeper. She always understood that the hours were unpredictable, and she knew that in the middle of a case like this, there’s precious little time in your life for anything but the case. She gave me the space I needed to do the work, and she never worried that I didn’t love her or that maybe the job was more important to me than she was.

“Certainly it also helped that Julie was a very independent woman—comfortable not just in her own skin, but in her own company. On those nights when I couldn’t make it home for dinner on time, or when she had to spend the occasional evening alone, it wasn’t a major crisis; there wasn’t ever any drama. She was content to lose herself in a book or a movie, knowing that we’d make up the time together later.”

“Yeah, well, that damned sure doesn’t sound like Timothy. He didn’t mind that I was a cop. Hell, to tell the truth, I think the fact that I was a woman in a uniform with a gun and a pair of handcuffs really turned him on. But the man liked his dinner, his sex, and his social life to be right on schedule. And once I made detective and the hours became increasingly unpredictable, it upset the balance of his whole world. He thought that cops and robbers should work a sensible nine-to-five schedule just like everybody else. And when it became clear that they didn’t, things started to go downhill in a huge fuckin’ hurry.”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Is it hard for you to talk about her? Would you rather I didn’t ask?”

I shook my head. “No, Maggs, it’s okay.”

She nodded. “It’s just that every once in a while you suddenly disappear into yourself for a few minutes. I’m pretty sure I know where you’re going when that happens, but I never quite know how to react. My sense is that you’d really rather not talk about it, and so I usually just shut up and wait for you to come back into
the moment. But I hope you know that even though I might not say so very often, I really do care about the situation you’re in.

“I wouldn’t begin to pretend that I can understand the kind of pain you must be feeling, but if you do want to talk about it, or if there’s ever anything I can do to help somehow…”

“Thanks, Maggie,” I sighed. “I do know that you care, and that means a lot to me.”

Shaking my head, I said, “I just keep thinking about all the thousands of little things that would have made a difference. If the system hadn’t let that fuckin’ drunk back out on the road…If Julie hadn’t left work to run an errand…If she’d have left thirty seconds earlier or twenty seconds later…If the traffic had been heavier or lighter…

“I’d give my life if I could just go back and change any one of those things. But I can’t. Nobody can. And unfortunately, at this point, there’s really nothing else that could be of any help.”

The time and effort we put in on Sunday got us no closer to our killer than we’d been on Saturday night. At midmorning on Monday, I was sitting at my desk reviewing some notes from the Collins case when the phone rang. I answered it to find Tony Anderson from the crime lab on the other end of the line. We exchanged hellos, and he said, “You owe me a big one, Richardson. I’m about to make your day.”

“God, I hope so,” I sighed. “I could sure as hell use some good news for a change. What’ve you got for me?”

“We have a DNA match for hair samples that were taken from Beverly Thompson’s Lexus and from the chair in which Karen Collins was killed.”

I dropped my feet from the desk to the floor and sat bolt upright in my chair. “Jesus, Tony, you’ve got to be
kidding. I can’t believe we got that lucky. Who’s the match?”

“His name is Richard Petrovich, a white male, now forty-two years of age. He submitted the sample while a guest of the state six years ago. I’m faxing you the results as we speak.”

“Thanks, Tony. And you’re right—I do owe you a big one.”

I hung up the phone and practically sprinted down the hall to the fax machine. For a minute or so I stood there, anxiously drumming my fingers on the table. After what seemed like an eternity, the machine began humming and Anderson’s fax spooled out into my hand. I took a quick glance and then ran back up the hall to Maggie’s office.

“We’ve got the bastard,” I said. “Come on over. I’m running him now.”

Maggie followed me back to my office. Too excited to sit, she stood behind me as I dropped into my chair and called up the state-prison records on my computer. Glancing at the fax. I typed Petrovich’s name and Social Security number into the appropriate spaces and hit
ENTER.

A moment later, the screen refreshed. Six and a half years ago Richard Petrovich had pled out on charges of burglary and attempted rape. Under the plea arrangement, he’d done six years in the Lewis complex of the state-prison system in Buckeye and had been released last September.

According to the records, Petrovich had been assigned to report to the parole office in south Phoenix. I grabbed the phone and called the office. After waiting on hold for several minutes, I was finally connected to Petrovich’s parole officer, whose name was Nina Ellis.

Ellis had a deep, no-nonsense voice and sounded like a woman that you didn’t want to screw around with. I asked her if Petrovich had reported as ordered.
Apparently without even having to consult her records, Ellis said, “Yes he did, Detective, right on time. And he’s reported in on time as scheduled ever since. If the rest of my clients were as conscientious as Petrovich, this job would be a cakewalk. Why’re you asking?”

“We just need to have a chat with him on a couple of matters. Do you know if he’s found a job?”

“Yeah. The day he first reported he told me that he’d landed a job as a welder at a small manufacturing plant on East Buckeye Road. The owner is a righteous citizen named Fred Bourquin who’s hired a number of ex-cons and given them the chance at a fresh start. The guy rides them like a mother hen, both on and off the job, making sure they have the help they need and that they keep their noses clean. Please don’t tell me that Petrovich’s screwed up again.”

“I can’t say for sure, Ms. Ellis, but we do need to talk to him.”

She sighed heavily. “Well, I don’t know what this might be about, Detective, but I’ve seen a lot of scumbags come and go through this office, and I’ve gotten to be a pretty good judge of character. Petrovich is a guy who screwed up and made a stupid mistake. But he pled to it and by all accounts was a model prisoner. He did his time, and I’ve rarely known an ex-con to work hard as he has to put his life back in order.

“I’ve seen him every two weeks since his release, and at least as of last Friday, he’s stayed clean and sober. His employer is very happy with him, and by all appearances, he’s a model ex-con. I’d be very surprised to hear that he’d gone off the rails.”

“Well, I don’t know that he has, Ms. Ellis. As I said, for the moment we simply want to talk to the guy.”

Ellis gave me Petrovich’s home and work addresses, and Maggie and I hurried down the hall to the lieutenant’s office, where we found him on the phone. He
took one look at the expressions on our faces and said, “I’ll have to get back to you on that, Rusty.”

He hung up the phone, looked from Maggie to me, and said, “What?”

I gave him the news and he thought about it for a moment. “You’re assuming that Petrovich will be at work?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And I think that the best approach would be to go in relatively low key. This place employs a number of ex-cons, and so they’re probably accustomed to periodic visits from the police. If we go in full bore, we may well start a riot. But if we do it quietly, Maggie and I can probably waltz right in, grab Petrovich, and get him out of there without turning it into a major incident.”