The Cruelest Cut (13 page)

Sheriff Crowley pulled his Jeep into the parking lot at the Panther Creek boat ramp, where Jack had left his car, and cut the engine. Jack stepped out into the cool breeze coming off the lake. The serenity of the blue water made it difficult to believe that such an atrocity had been committed less than a mile away.

Janet Parson had been of little help to them, and her confusion over the extent of her relationship with the victim didn't help things. She had been inside the scene of the murder and left. She then waited four hours to make an anonymous call to report it. And then she was hesitant to answer any questions about why she was there at the lake in the first place and about her relationship to the victim. Jack didn't really give a damn why she was there, except for how it related to the death of Tisha Carter. But he knew that after the state police investigators were through with her, she would wish she had been more forthcoming with him and the sheriff. The staties would not be sympathetic.

Of course, she had to be considered a suspect in the death for all of the aforementioned reasons. Could she have done it? Hell, yes. Jack had seen firsthand the results of the revenge of a jilted lover. But if Janet was telling the truth, they weren't lovers. Not yet, at least. So she would have no reason to kill her friend.

At the end of the interview, Jack was pretty sure that Janet was merely an innocent who had been caught up in something horrible. Both he and the sheriff had left business cards with her, promising to keep in touch about the case, and she was taken to the Dubois County Sheriff's Office to wait for the state police to be involved.

He waved good-bye to Sheriff Crowley and was about to get into his car when his cell phone rang. He answered.

“Jack. Why didn't you tell me the truth? It's all over Channel Six,” Katie said angrily.

 

Coin was hunkered down in a downstairs doorway of the Old Courthouse building when Liddell found him. It was around nine o'clock. Most of the street people would be up and moving about, spurred by the noise and foot traffic of the more fortunate. Liddell was surprised to find any of his older snitches except the prostitutes and some of the regular drug users. But Coin was homeless, had been since Liddell had first run across him, and would sleep in trash bins, public restrooms, or any place that was abandoned or had an unlocked window. He smelled like dried urine, feces, and smoke. The last place Coin had stayed was in the basement of an old theater, The Alhambra, in the Haynie's Corner district downtown. There'd been a fire there a few days ago. Most of the building was gone now. He was surprised Coin hadn't been caught in the fire.

“Liddell, my man!” Coin greeted him with a huge grin that showed what was left of his summer teeth. They call them summer teeth because sum'r there 'n' sum ain't.

Liddell didn't know Coin's real name was. He wasn't sure Coin knew his real name. But he had earned the nickname “Coin” because he would sell out his own mother for a few coins. He was snitching useless information to half the police force before everyone figured out his game. Now, no one would give him the time of day, except Liddell.

“Hey, I got some good stuff for you, Liddell,” Coin said, trying to stand but not quite able to get his feet under him. Two Mad Dog 20/20 wine bottles lay empty near him, and he had made a bed of wadded newspapers.

Glad someone appreciates the local newspaper,
Liddell thought and reached in his back pocket, pulling out the small brown paper bag. “I got something for you, pal,” Liddell said, handing the bag to Coin.

Coin peeled the bag down and twisted the top from a half pint of MacGregor scotch like a kid with a Christmas present. He turned the bottle up and downed half of it before grimacing and coughing, and then he rubbed his watery eyes with the back of one grimy hand and got quiet.

“You okay?” Liddell asked. He'd tried to get Coin into every homeless shelter in Vanderburgh County, but the man stunk, thieved, and fought his way out of so many that no one would take him. He'd finally given up trying to rehabilitate Coin and had decided to let him live his life the way he wanted.

Coin sniffled and rubbed at his nose with his sleeve before looking up with moist, rheumy eyes. “You're the only friend I got,” he said and hacked up a wad of phlegm into his hand, then started crying.

Liddell stuck a twenty in the old man's shirt pocket and left. He'd just walked back to his car when his cell phone rang. When he looked at the screen he saw it was Murphy.

“Wha'sup, pod'na?”

“It was him,” Jack said. “This time he wrote ‘You killed her Jack' in blood on the television screen.”

“Find a note on her?” Liddell asked.

“Yep,” Jack answered. “The sheriff has to wait for the state police. They're a small department and don't have the forensics for something like this. Where are you?”

“I was going crazy back at headquarters,” Liddell said truthfully. “I had to get out and do something. Oh yeah, the chief gave us his conference room and outer offices to work from. We got a sharp gal from Vice working with us now. She's some kind of computer genius. All the files we were trying to go through should be entered into a search program before you get back. If you are coming back, that is?”

Jack had to chuckle, even though it became obvious to him that Liddell hadn't yet heard about Maddy Brooks giving everything away.

“You haven't been in touch with the office, have you?” Jack asked.

“Nah. I just found Coin and was getting ready to run down some of the others. You know, Tennessee and BoJack and some of those guys. See if anything's shaking.”

“Well, shake it back to headquarters,” Jack said. “Maddy Brooks released the story.”

“Fuck me!” Liddell said.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, and while Liddell drove back to the station Jack filled him in on Patoka Lake. By the time they hung up, Jack was back on Interstate 64 and pushing.

 

He flew by the Lynnville exit and pushed harder, running with his grille-mounted lights only, not expecting to see any state police between Patoka and Evansville because they would all be going to Patoka. His cell rang again. It was Franklin.

“Yeah, Captain,” he answered.

“Fill me in,” Franklin said calmly. “But make it brief—we have some, uh, issues that have developed here.”

Calling what Maddy had just done “issues” was classic Franklin. He would call an alien invasion a little problem.

“I'm aware,” Jack said. “Katie called me, after Marcie called her. Liddell's on his way back to the office. I'll be there as quick as I can.”

“Katie called?” Franklin asked, and the way he said her name made Jack grind his teeth. Franklin had always had his eye on Katie, even when she and Jack were married. But it wasn't proper to cut the testicles from your boss, so he ground his teeth instead.

“She said Maddy spilled the whole deal this morning and released some things that even we hadn't released yet. Like this Patoka connection. The sheriff's guys turned a Channel Six news crew away before I got here this morning. That was the one we saw leaving from Maddy's place.”

“I kind of assumed that's what she was telling Goldberg this morning. We knew they were lying about something. But, Mother Goose?” Franklin said. “She says that we came up with the name.”

“What a surprise,” Jack said. He filled the captain in on the Patoka crime scene, leaving out the part about his business card being left behind by the killer. It wouldn't help the case right now, and he didn't want to be pulled off. After he hung up with the captain, an idea struck him. He hit the speed dial.

Sheriff Crowley answered on the first ring. “Murphy? I was just getting ready to call you,” he said.

Jack didn't wait for him to finish. “Listen, Sheriff, you have to get the note out of her mouth. Do it right now!”

“Calm down, boy,” Crowley said. “We already got the note. That's what I was calling you about.”

Well, then what the fuck does it say?
Jack wanted to scream into the phone, but he took a deep breath.

“It's some kind of damn poem or something,” Crowley said.

“Read it to me,” Jack said impatiently.

Crowley looked at the note and read:

 

little nancy etticoat
in a white petticoat
and a red nose
the longer she stands
the shorter she grows

 

“That mean anything to you?” Crowley asked.

Jack thought for a moment. “Yeah. I think it's another rhyme or a riddle or something. This bastard has been using Mother Goose rhymes for his messages.”

“Mother Goose?” Crowley said.

“Yeah. Listen, Sheriff, the white petticoat could refer to the nurse's clothes. I got a look at her face, and there was blood on the very end of her nose. Like it had been dabbed on. A red nose.”

“Damn!” Crowley said. “The longer she stands, the shorter she grows, might refer to how he hanged her in a kneeling position like that.”

Jack thought that sounded about right. “But taken together, what the hell does it all mean? What's he trying to tell us?”

“Damned if I know,” the sheriff admitted. “Well, the state police just showed up, so I guess I'll have some explaining to do about why I dug this note out of her mouth.”

“Just scratch your head and spit on the ground. Works for me,” Jack said.

“Shucks,” Crowley said, “why didn't I think of that? You take care, Jack. Oh yeah, when you catch up to this guy, don't worry about us, if you get my drift.”

Jack closed his phone and wondered,
What the fuck does
it all mean?
Then he thought about Maddy Brooks and wondered if she had received a new message yet. That was the pattern, after all. But since she had fucked her deal with the chief of police, he wasn't sure she would play nice anymore. He fumbled his phone open again.
Only one way to find out,
he thought.

“Maddy, someone on the phone for you!” Lois yelled from down the hallway.

Maddy shook her head and wondered what it would take for the old witch to lose her job. She was totally worthless as a receptionist and, except for getting rid of that even-more-worthless Detective Jansen, she had been nothing but a pain in the ass since day one.

“Lois, honey, can you transfer it to my phone?” Maddy purred.
No need to cut my own throat now,
she thought.

“I'm not your personal secretary,” Lois yelled back at her. “He says he is Mother Goose,” she said with contempt. “Shall I give him your desk phone number?”

“No! Don't hang up!” Maddy said in a panic and rushed to the front.
Don't hang up, don't hang up,
she desperately thought.
If you hang up, I'll kill you myself, you old bitch.

Maddy leaned across the counter and grabbed the phone from the older woman's hand. “Hello. Hello!” she said into the silence at the other end.
Jesus H. Christ, the woman's hung up on the killer,
she thought frantically, and was about to hang up when a familiar voice came on the line.

“Mother Goose?” the voice asked.

Maddy was almost breathless. “Listen, don't be offended. I did what you wanted.”

“And what was it I asked you to do?” Jack asked.

 

Mayor Hensley was furious. “Weren't you supposed to take care of this, Richard?” he yelled at Deputy Chief Dick.

Dick didn't answer because he knew it wasn't really a question. How could he have known that Maddy Brooks would break her deal with them? How could he know that?

Hensley paced the glass wall of his office that looked down Main Street toward the river. In a few weeks the Christmas parade would be filling Main Street. Thousands of voters with their children would be standing and sitting on both sides from Martin Luther King Boulevard to Second Street. He was supposed to officiate and judge the band playing the best music, the most colorful float. Now he would be a target of derision for the media, maybe the whole city.

It was already beginning. His secretary had already lied to three reporters, claiming that the mayor was in an emergency meeting. It wouldn't be long now before the media representatives that were scooped by Maddy Brooks would be clamoring at his office door demanding a story. He could hardly blame it all on the chief now, could he? And he would look totally incompetent trying to blame it on the deputy chief.
What to do?
he thought.

“If your damn detective hadn't pissed off Channel Six, we wouldn't be in this mess,” he said, knowing it wasn't true. It didn't matter. He just wanted to punish Richard Dick. Why shouldn't Dick sweat a little more?

“I've taken care of Detective Jansen,” Dick said.

 

While the mayor and the deputy chief were in their meeting, Detective Jansen was parked in the front drive of the Civic Center Complex, pointing a directional mike at the mayor's window. What he was doing was illegal, but it didn't matter. No one would ever know he had taped all of their conversation. No one would know the juicy things they had committed to his device. No one except the deputy chief and the mayor, that is. And it would certainly come in handy if they tried to get rid of him.

He smiled and drank his Irish coffee.

The phone went silent, and then Maddy Brooks went on the offensive. “Don't start with me, Detective Murphy,” she said. “I'm exercising my Constitutional rights to inform the public of a menace. I don't know why I let you all talk me into sitting on the story in the first place.”

Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Listen. You approached us. You're not going to change the subject by getting me angry, so tell me the truth. Are you expecting a call from the killer? What haven't you told me, Maddy?”

She was silent. Thinking. Then she said, “Let me interview you for the next segment, and I'll tell you everything I know.”

“How about I put your skinny ass in jail and let the lawyers fight it out?”

“You're not a very pleasant man, Detective Murphy.”

“Honey, you haven't seen unpleasant yet, but I promise you it's coming,” Jack said and broke the connection. He thought about it and then hit redial.

Maddy answered on the first ring. “Is that a yes?” she asked.

 

The chief's conference room was still being used to grind down information into usable bits, and so it was not available for the hastily arranged meeting.

Jack looked around Deputy Chief Dick's office and couldn't help but notice the spaciousness and expensive decor.
You could fit the entire detectives' office in here,
he thought. All that was missing were the marble Roman columns outside the doorway, draped with grape leaves. The chief, deputy chief, Captain Franklin, and a smallish woman he assumed was Angelina Garcia were in attendance along with Liddell and himself.

Liddell said, “Jack, this is Detective Angelina Garcia,” nodding toward the woman as they were finding their seats.

“I'm not a detective actually,” she said, somewhat embarrassed. “I'm a computer technician. Kind of an intelligence gatherer.”

“You ought to see her work, Jack,” Liddell said enthusiastically, and this time she did blush.

“Well, I think I may have found some things for you,” she said.

Before she could tell them what she had, the chief called for quiet.

“You all know of the recent issue with the news media,” he began, and everyone became silent with their own thoughts. “Deputy Chief Dick is working with the mayor's office on what to release to the rest of the media at this point, so any further information for the press is to go through him. Is that understood?” Everyone nodded assent.

Liddell leaned toward Jack and whispered, “I bet Double Dick has a woody right now,” which earned him a stinging look from Captain Franklin.

“Do you have something to say, Detective Blanchard?” the chief inquired.

“Yes, sir,” Liddell said. “I was wondering if Detective Jansen was supposed to attend this meeting, sir.”

Jack had to admire his partner. For a big guy, he was fast on his feet.

The chief shook his head. Not a yes. But not a no. “Any other questions?”

“Yes,” Jack said, and told them about his conversation with Maddy Brooks ten minutes earlier.

“You should have called me before you committed to that interview,” Deputy Chief Dick said, and the red began creeping up his neck.

“This was before I knew you were the PIO…sir,” Jack replied. PIO stands for public information officer, and Dick was offended immediately that he would be considered to hold such a lowly position.

“Let me remind you, Detective Murphy”—Dick began angrily, then seemed to think better of it and lowered his voice. “I am your superior officer, and if you are to remain on this case you will work through me in the future. Do you have a problem with that?” He sat back haughtily.

“No problem at all, sir,” Jack said. This wasn't a battle he needed to be fighting.

Chief Pope interceded and said, “What's done is done. After this meeting, Murphy will get with you, Richard, to go over the details of what he can release to Maddy. Let's get back to the other issues here. This is Technician Garcia.” He introduced her around the room. “I've asked her to crunch some information for us, and she may have some answers. Angelina.”

She pushed some stapled handouts to the men seated around the conference table. “I didn't have much success with the police files that I started with,” she said, “but if you look at the top page of your handouts, you will see that I created some lists of suspect possibilities based on arrests and incidents involving Detective Murphy over the last several years.”

Jack noticed how easily she had captured everyone's attention. He also noticed that she wasn't half bad to look at. His handout contained about twenty pages, and he wondered if he had really pissed that many people off over the last several years.

Garcia continued. “If you go down about five pages, you will see that I have copied several news articles from recent years.” The men flipped through their handouts, and she continued. “The first article is about the Lamar family. I noticed when I was going through the police records that Jack had worked a domestic violence case against Mrs. Lamar's ex-husband. I found the case file and read it.”

“The first victim, Mrs. Anne Lewis, was the court-ordered psychiatrist that was involved in that case. She interviewed Mrs. Lamar, her ex-husband, and the three children. It was because of Anne Lewis's testimony that the ex-husband was convicted and sent away for five years. It was because Jack had gotten Anne involved with the case that this story made the newspaper.”

They all looked at the story. The article itself looked like a filler column that was probably buried near the classified ads, but the importance of the story was that there was a photo of Jack inset next to a photo of the ex-husband, and below those a photo of Mrs. Lamar and her three children, one of them an infant.

The story was at least three years old, because the youngest Lamar kid was still a baby. Jack vaguely remembered the case, but even looking at the story and photos it didn't really register.

“You remember this one, Jack?” Pope asked.

“No, sir, not really. Well, maybe. I've worked a lot of cases, sir.”

Garcia plowed on. “And the next page is the story about Jack recuperating in the hospital after the shootout at the casino a few months ago.”

The men flipped to the next news article that Garcia had photocopied. The caption under the photo read:
Detective Murphy receives care at St. Mary's Hospital after knife attack
. The photo was one of Jack in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse.

“Shit!” Jack said. “That's Tisha Carter.”