The Cruelest Cut (30 page)

It was almost midnight as Chief Dick sat in front of Mayor Hensley's desk, his hand trembling as he pressed the play button on the small tape recorder. Maddy Brooks's disappearance had forced his hand. He hadn't wanted to go to the mayor with the tape, but what choice did he have?

Hensley sat silently and listened to the tape twice before reaching over and shutting it off.

“Who else knows about this?” Hensley asked.

Dick's face went red. He didn't want to admit that he didn't know. He said, “Like I said, that tape was shoved under my office door, so it had to be a policeman or cleaning person.”

“Or it could be someone from maintenance, or one of your record room clerks, or even some damned homeless person, or an alien for all you would know,” Hensley said. All the blood seemed to drain from his face in his rage and fear. What Dick didn't know, and what he debated not telling him, was that his mother had called him last night to warn him that Jack Murphy was in possession of the contents of the tape, and possibly the original tape itself. She had told him about the package that Maddy Brooks had mailed to herself, and that Jack had found it contained a cassette tape and a note. The fact that Murphy had not informed the chief of police about the tape made him wonder what Murphy was playing at, and how he could manipulate things to control any damage to his career.

His mother had assured him that if he just kept away from Murphy and let him do his job, Murphy would eventually clean this mess up. The killer would be caught; the news would eventually die down. But she had warned that if he continued to keep Richard Dick as chief of police he could kiss his career good-bye.

She had also told him that one of the Channel Six employees, a brainless little blond thing named Letty Breeden, was bragging about having information about the disappearance of Maddy Brooks. Thatcher allowed himself a small smile, thinking about how his mother had slyly gotten the name of Detective Larry Jansen out of the girl. He was sure that Jansen was the one responsible for the tape, but he wouldn't share that bit of information with Dick yet. However, he couldn't allow anyone to get to Jansen yet.

“What you will do, Richard,” Hensley said, “is suspend Detective Jansen immediately. With pay.”

Dick looked surprised, saying, “Why would I do that? What justification do I have?”

“You're the damned chief of police, Richard. You can do anything you want.” Hensley gave a sigh of disgust. It was like talking to a moron. He wondered why he had ever thought this egotistical asshole would be beneficial to him.

“Listen. I want you to go to him. Quietly. I want him to disappear for a while,” Hensley said, patiently, as if he were speaking to a young child.

“But where?” Dick questioned.

Hensley glared at him as if he was at his wit's end, and Dick recoiled as if a snake had bit him. “I'll take care of it,” Dick said, and partially rose, then stopped to see if he was dismissed.

“Get out of here,” Hensley snapped at him. “And don't let anyone talk to Jansen. If you screw this up, Dick, I swear that will be the final straw.”

Chief Richard Dick hurried from the mayor's office, his feelings smarting with the chastising he had received, but not so much he couldn't snap at the mayor's secretary on his way out.

“Don't you have something to do besides sit there all day doing your nails?”

She just glared at him and then dismissed him from her mind. They both knew his days as chief were numbered.

 

“I hope you have a good reason for asking us to sneak out to a marina restaurant at midnight,” Captain Franklin said to Jack and Liddell as they entered the back room at Two-Jakes that they had come to know as the war room.

Captain Franklin and Marlin Pope were occupying seats around a small conference table. After Pope's removal as chief of police, he had been relegated to the nether regions of the Police Personnel Unit. Pope actually had no authority to be involved in the murder investigation, but Jack needed to get his take on what was going on.

Jack had a lot of respect for Pope's ability as an administrator and as a policeman. He hoped that Pope might have some insight that could get the case back on track again.

But first he wanted to let both Franklin and Pope hear what was on the tape that Maddy had mailed to herself. He cued up the tape player he'd brought with him and switched it to play. The sound quality was not great, but then, Jack thought, the method of recording the conversation may not have been exactly legal to begin with.

Lois Hensley had suggested that the mayor's office had been bugged. While that wasn't very plausible, Jack remembered hearing tapes recorded by undercover narcotics officers using a directional mike, and this tape sounded similar to them.

When the tape began to play, Chief Richard Dick's voice could be heard saying:
“I don't think we should give in to this killer's demands, Thatcher.”

The next voice was not familiar to Jack, but Pope stiffened when he heard it say,
“If we don't he'll kill more people.”

“That's Hensley,” Pope confirmed.

The men listened to the rest of the short tape—the mayor's
“I don't give a damn about the public”
remark, and then the admission that
“I got rid of Pope for you.”

“Does Dick know about this tape yet?” Pope asked.

Jack shook his head. “I haven't told him. But that doesn't mean he doesn't know. It may be why he's keeping Jansen out of reach.”

Pope knew that the conversation alone would not be as damaging to the men politically as Jack thought. But combined with the disappearance of Maddy Brooks, and the interference of the chief and the refusal of the mayor to assist Murphy in his inquiries, it might be enough to get him ousted in the next election.

“What I don't understand, Chief,” Jack said, “is how they can deny me access to Jansen. He's one of the last people to see Maddy Brooks before her disappearance.”

Pope sat with his hands folded on top of the conference table and considered his possible answers to that question. On one hand, he didn't want to be involved in this matter any more than he had to be. He had been angry and depressed about being removed from his position as top cop in Evansville, but then he noticed that he was sleeping more soundly, feeling better during the day, and his wife was even paying more attention to him in the bedroom. He'd lost almost ten pounds over the last several weeks, and he credited this miracle with the lack of stress in his new job. He no longer ate constantly to be doing something.

On the other hand, he was still a cop, and he had a lot of empathy, not to mention sympathy, for the impossible position that Captain Franklin and Detective Murphy found themselves in. As chief of police, he'd played the political game long enough to know that you can't fight city hall.

Pope had an idea, but it would mean putting his job on the line. If Dick or the mayor found out—and it was almost a sure thing that they would—he would find himself being forced into retirement. But then, he was going to be sixty-five next year, and would have to retire anyway.
Better to get kicked out for doing the right thing,
he thought,
than leave with my tail tucked between my legs.

“Quit calling me Chief,” Pope said, and then told Jack and Franklin his idea.

 

Al Leathers turned his work van into the gravel drive that jaunted north from the county road and stopped to admire the sunrise just peeking over the pine trees in the east.
No one should have to be up this early. Sun's barely getting up.
But he knew that his job with the power company was on shaky legs right now.

He checked his clipboard. The radio towers were on his list. Yeah, he was two days behind schedule, but a little creative writing would fix that problem. On the top of the work order, he backdated his inspection, then marked the order as completed.
That oughtta do it.

Brushing some donut crumbs from the top of the work order, he inspected his work. No one would be able to prove that he hadn't been there two days ago. It would be their word against his.

Doing the inspection was unnecessary in the first place. This type of equipment never needed repair. But he would get out and check it anyway, just in case those rats back at the office were still checking up on him. He was still furious that someone had told the boss about the place he'd found to hide his van and take a nap.

He remembered old man Casselman, sneaking up on him, knocking on the van window, waking Al from a pleasant dream. It still rankled with him. There was no way Casselman found his hiding place without someone ratting him out.

Just go through the motions,
he told himself, and putting the van in gear, he drove back to the deserted STAR broadcasting station, where he was to inspect the twin radio towers.

Jack and Liddell rode to the scene together. Liddell turned east onto Mohr Road from St. Joseph Avenue and the uniform car that was blocking that street backed up enough to let them pass.

“Stop here,” Jack said, and Liddell saw that Jack was squinting into the sun. Liddell stopped the car, and both men got out, shielding their eyes against the early morning glare.

The twin radio towers of the old FM radio station pointed at least one hundred feet into the sky like metal fingers. About halfway up the side of the nearest tower, a naked body was secured somehow to the structure in an inverted cross position.

“I think we found Maddy,” Liddell said.

Jack said nothing. Both men got back into the car and continued down Mohr Road until they reached the next roadblock.

The area was crawling with police activity. Marked uniform cars were set up at hundred-yard intervals to discourage or detain any curious sightseers or aggressive news media. Techs in white Tyvek protective suits were combing every inch of ground around the abandoned station building, while uniformed officers moved in a line down both sides of the road, searching the high weeds, looking for anything that didn't belong.

Liddell pulled off the side of the road, and they continued on foot to where a heavyset man wearing a blue work suit was sitting in the back of an ambulance being looked over by paramedics.

Al Leathers wore a strained look. One of the medics whispered to the detectives that the poor guy had a weak heart and they were discussing transporting him to a hospital as a precautionary measure.

Jack was surprised to see the rookie cop, Kuhlenschmidt, looking composed and confident as he comforted Leathers.

“Kooky,” Liddell said to the young officer. “I see you have things under control here.”

Kooky smiled shyly, guessing that Liddell was referring to the fact that he wasn't pale or shaking like a leaf at what he had just seen. In fact, he had felt a little light-headed when he first got a look at the killer's handiwork. But he fought it back in time and now it didn't seem so horrible. Still, he was glad they hadn't posted him to guard the body.

“I'll talk to”—Liddell looked at the name tag sewn on the blue work shirt—“Al.”

Jack nodded and walked down the gravel road that led to the twin radio towers. He had spotted the body when Liddell turned east onto Mohr Road from St. Joseph Avenue. The station was several hundred yards in the distance, but Jack was sure it was going to be the body of Maddy Brooks. He crossed under the yellow caution tape and signed the crime scene entry log handed him by the uniform officer on duty.

“Walker's waiting for you,” the officer informed Jack.

Jack walked the gravel path that led to the radio towers. Sergeant Walker was near the base of the closest one, looking skyward, when he spotted Jack and motioned that it was okay for Jack to come closer.

“We've only been here a short time, Jack,” Walker said. “An employee, Mr. Leathers, was here to inspect the tower and discovered the door to the old station was standing open. Mr. Leathers said he figured kids had broken in. He just pulled the door shut and walked back here to the towers to do an inspection. He looked up and saw the body, and, well, you can guess the rest.”

Jack stepped forward, but Walker put a hand out.

“You might be careful right there,” Walker said, and pointed to stains on the bottom metal strut. Jack saw what appeared to be dark stains splattered down the side of the tower, and a pile of something dark and sticky-looking lying at the base.

“The glorious life of a policeman,” Jack said sarcastically, and Walker smiled.

“Well, at least this time the mess wasn't from one of our guys,” Walker said.

Jack looked up and shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. It had rained overnight, and the bright morning sun was causing a mist to rise from the vegetation and the metal tower. The heat was also adding to the already-pungent smell of decaying human matter.

“Maddy?” Jack said.

Walker nodded, and then said, “Here comes Li'l Casket now.”

Jack turned and saw the diminutive figure of Chief Deputy Coroner Lilly Caskins, dressed in white protective clothing, descending on them with her perpetual scowl firmly fixed.

“Morning, Lilly,” Walker said. Jack nodded at her. She ignored both men and looked at the stains on the side of the tower and the pile of dark matter on the ground near its base.

She looked up at the body, and if she hadn't been told it was probably Maddy Brooks, she would have had a hard time determining even the sex, much less the identity, of the bloody mess that had been roughly tied to the metal struts in an inverted cross.

Lilly stepped back a few paces and examined the ground, making special note of the mass of internal organs splashed over and around the bottom brace of the radio tower.

“I'm assuming she's been gutted?” Lilly asked Walker.

He nodded. “That's my guess. We haven't really started yet,” he said, meaning they had not documented or collected anything yet.

“How the hell did he get her up there?” Lilly said to no one in particular.

“We'll examine the tower when we take her down,” Walker said. “I have a bucket truck coming.”

“When it gets here I'd like a look before anyone touches her,” Lilly said, and the men agreed.

There was nothing else Jack could do here until the body was lowered to the ground. He already knew this was Maddy. Knew that she had been killed by Eddie. Knew that the autopsy would only confirm the level of violence she had been forced to endure before she was killed. And none of that knowledge would help him find Eddie faster.

Jack told Walker to call when he got something and then walked off to find Liddell.

 

Jack was making his way to the area of the ambulance when an older officer named King yelled, “The Cajun's over at the abandoned station, and he told me to bring you.”

They hurried along a path to the abandoned STAR Radio Station building. Jack had heard that Al Leathers had found the door open and thought it was kids that had gotten in. Officer King was saying something about another crime scene now, and Jack cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner.

Liddell was just inside the doorway. “Jack, we found some clothing in here.” He looked pale when he added, “There's not much blood, but it looks like drag marks leading to the door. It's gonna be hard to tell where she was killed. In here, or after she was dragged outside.” Liddell shook his head and added, “We haven't found a definite kill spot out here, either.”

Jack shuddered, thinking about the condition of Maddy's body up in the tower, and the pile of what might be her intestines spread on the ground below her.
Could Eddie have killed her up there?
Jack wondered, imagining what kind of strength it would have taken to carry a person up the outside of that gigantic metal structure, be able to hold on and still tie the body to the struts. He hoped that Maddy was already dead when this happened, but since he was a cop, he always imagined the worst.

“Who's been in here?” Jack asked.

“Already taken care of,” Liddell said. “Officer King came to me after finding the clothes, and I've been standing by until we can lock this place down.”

Jack filled him in on what he'd learned at the tower, and he could see Liddell's features darken.

“Eddie,” Liddell said.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Maddy must have agreed to meet him, and he either brought her here, or she came on her own to meet him here. Has her car been found?”

Just then, Officer King's radio crackled and someone asked for Detective Murphy. Jack took King's radio. “Go ahead for Murphy.”

“Detective Murphy, this is Kooky—I mean Officer Kuhlenschmidt,” the voice on the radio said.

Jack thought again about how not everyone was cut out for police work. Kuhlenschmidt had a rough road ahead of him.

“Officer Kuhlenschmidt, go ahead for Murphy,” Jack said patiently.

 

What Kooky had was Maddy Brooks's car. He had been relieved of duty at the crime scene, and had been put out with the teams scouring the countryside for any further evidence. He had literally stumbled upon the car when he fell into a large drainage ditch.

The area around the old radio station was farming country, and had been spared the normal urban spread. Because of the heavy rains in the Midwest, large drainage ditches were a necessity to keep the crops from washing away.

Kooky was born and raised inside Evansville's city limits, and even though he'd seen the behemoth ditches from the road, he had never been this far out in a farm field. He had just come out of copse of scrub trees that bordered another field when the ground disappeared beneath him. He toppled right over the edge and onto the hood of a small blue Toyota.

Liddell looked at the shiner Kooky was sporting around his right eye. “You really get into your work, don't you son?” he said with a grin.

“Think you can find the car again?” Jack asked, glaring at Liddell.

“Yes, sir,” Kooky said. His right eye was beginning to swell shut, and his uniform was covered in mud from his climb out of the ditch.