The Gone Dead Train (20 page)

Dunsford looked surprised, thrown off track. “Go on.”

“You know about his eBay site. The call might have been a client wanting to meet at his apartment. You saw the expensive stuff at his place, the things people collect. The watches alone must have been worth twenty, maybe thirty grand. A collector would know the value of that inventory. It's a reasonable place to start.”

Dunsford flipped through pages for his missing list. “Watches,” he said under his breath. He had a reputation for letting files pile up on his desk. Cases had collapsed beneath his shoddy paperwork.

“You've got the subpoenas in process, right?” Billy prodded. “Phone records? Augie's e-mail server?”

Dunsford sneered to cover his confusion. He picked up Billy's statement and shook it. “We need to discuss what's
not
in this document. Four years ago Augie Poston totaled your truck.”

That caught him off guard. “Everybody on the squad knows that story, including you.”

“I remember you were so mad you drop-kicked the squad's coffeemaker.”

“Yeah. What's the relevance?”

“You've been living in another state, answerable to nobody. You came back in town and beat this guy up. The next morning you're at his place in time to discover the body.”

Dunsford jerked a file from the bottom of his pile and pushed it across the table. “Explain this.”

C
lipped to the top of the file was the black-and-white of Dahlia Poston's torched Pontiac, her burned body wedged behind the steering wheel. Dahlia's back was arched against the seat in her attempt to escape the flames. Her right arm shielded her head, her face peeked out from underneath. The position was eerily similar to that of her son's body on the floor in front of the refrigerator.

How had Dunsford known about the file on Dahlia Poston?

“According to the sign-out sheet, you pulled this file the day before Poston was murdered.” Dunsford settled back in his chair, contemptuous. “You may not see the relevance there either, but I do. It's damned relevant.”

Billy slipped the photo inside the file. This was no flyby statement, this was turning into an interrogation. He'd underestimated Dunsford.

“I ran into Augie at the park my first day back. He talked about his mother's death. He believed she was murdered—”

“By whom?”

“He wasn't sure. He was paying a journalist to look into it. I figured the guy was hustling him, so I decided to take a look at the file myself.”

“So you
did
have business with Poston.”

“A favor for a friend. I take it you've looked through the file?”

“I did. There's no conclusive proof of homicide. It was correctly ruled as accidental.”

“That's what I told Augie.”

“And he believed you?”

“No.”

“What I'm hearing is you looked into Augie's mother's death. He didn't like what you had to say, so he didn't want to pay you for your time. You showed up at his place with cuffs and a gun to get your money.”

This wasn't good. Dunsford was working up a scenario. “I told you the reason I was there. I always carry cuffs, and I'm usually packing.”

“What's this journalist's name?”

“I don't have a name.”

Dunsford raised an eyebrow. “So we've got us a mystery man. Freeman didn't have a name, either.”

Ah. There it was. Freeman must have mentioned Dahlia Poston's death and Augie's interest in the file when he told Dunsford about the manuscript. Dunsford pulled the file and saw Billy's name on the sign-out register.

“Freeman told you about the missing manuscript,” he said. “That's how you made the connection to Dahlia Poston's death.”

Dunsford flushed. “You've seen this manuscript?”

“No. But Augie talked about it.”

“Let me get this straight. A delusional psychotic feeds you and Freeman a story about a phantom journalist and a manuscript. Neither of you knows the journalist's name. Freeman believes there was a manuscript. He's seen a stack of papers, but he didn't actually get a look at it. Now it's gone. How's that not a wild-goose chase?”

Billy was tired of the runaround. He wanted to get down to the case. “Look, Don. The way I see it, you've got two ways to go.”

Dunsford's hand went up. “Stop right there. You've been in town four days. I've seen you at two crime scenes. You're the primary suspect in the murder of a man you beat the hell out of in front of witnesses. For all I know—”

Billy pushed back from the table without a word, stood, and went into the hall, his chest tight and ears ringing.
Primary suspect, my foot
. Dunsford had no evidence against him. He was free to walk any time he wanted. If he did that, he could make the end of the funeral. He went down the hall for a drink of water from the fountain to think about it.

Of course, leaving would be colossally stupid. Middlebrook would review the tapes. So far, they were both coming off like idiots.

He went back to find Dunsford standing beside the table, his cheeks flushed and thinning hair ruffled out of place from running his hands through it. The man had the confused and angry look of a pinned bull.

Billy did a shoulder roll. “I needed to move around. Got a crick in my neck.”

Dunsford spoke quietly. “If you're uncomfortable, we can go to my desk when we're finished, but right now I need you to sit down and look at me while we talk. Understand what I'm saying?” He cocked his head toward the camera.

Billy grabbed the back of the chair, swung it around, and straddled it with enough defiance to satisfy his ego.

“Let's get to it,” he said.

Dunsford sat and pulled up to the table. “You're on the record as having walked home after the fight.”

“That's correct. The next morning I picked up coffee and biscuits at Denny's. The DeVoy's security cameras will verify that I arrived at the building at approximately seven forty-five
A.M.
”

“How did you gain access to the ninth floor?”

“I was at Augie's place last fall. I remembered the code for his floor.”

“Can you verify that?”

A far-off alarm rang in his head, but he recited the code anyway: “44123.”

Dunsford puffed air through his lips as he wrote. He was working up to something. “The DeVoy's security setup is the closest thing you have to an alibi. Is that correct?”

“I'd say it's pretty damned persuasive.”

“Then you have a problem.”

“How so?” Billy asked.

“Cameras cover the lobby and public elevators. The service elevator cameras are shells with blinking LED lights. They're dummies.”

“I didn't know that, but it doesn't matter. You can't get to the service elevators without walking through the lobby.”

“Unless you use the back entrance,” Dunsford said.

“I'm sure the service entrance stays locked twenty-four hours a day.”

“Of course it's locked. But the code you just gave also unlocks the back entrance. The building manager has it, and his assistant. James Freeman has it. Augie Poston had it. No one else in the building has the code. But you have it. You could have gone to the ninth floor undetected on Monday night. There are no working cameras to say otherwise.”

Dunsford put down his pen and fixed his gaze on Billy. His attempt to suppress a grin failed. His enthusiasm could have animated a corpse. He must have been envisioning reading Billy his rights, which would be the high point in his mediocre career.

For Billy, the turn was unexpected. It was bad. He needed to get the hell out. He looked at his watch. “I'm due upstairs for a meeting.”

Dunsford ignored him and continued. “According to James Freeman, Poston claimed that after the fight you said to him, ‘This isn't over.' Want to explain that?”

He'd thought about the phrase, knowing it would come up. Nothing to do but finesse it. “Augie and I were buddies. I wasn't going to let the friendship end because of a stupid fight. That's all I have to say for now.”

Dunsford forced control into his voice. “All right. Go whine to Middlebrook. But remember. Your former position with this squad means squat. I'm the one who'll decide your status in this case.” He spun a yellow pad across the table. “Give me your current address and contact information plus your address in Atlanta and the number for that girlfriend of yours. What's her name?”

“That's none of your business.” He'd made it this far without blowing up, but his control was slipping.

Dunsford's lips thinned with spite. “That's all right. I'll have a conversation with Ms. Snow when the time is right.”

He stood, wanting to put Dunsford on the ground. If he did that, the whole thing would fly in a direction he couldn't control. “We're done,” he said.

Dunsford stood, too. “We're done. But keep in mind . . . the lack of evidence isn't the same thing as evidence. You might want to rethink your statement.”

Billy hit the hallway and almost knocked over the guy pushing the mail cart. He was headed straight for central records. Edgar Kellogg owed him an explanation.

E
dgar must have known he'd be coming, because he had a piece of paper folded and ready to push across the counter when Billy walked in.

The note read:

Billy went to the break room and poured a cup of scorched coffee. He had to calm down so he could get what he needed from Edgar before the clerical staff straggled in with their boxed salads and microwavable meals.

Edgar pushed through the door, palms up and wagging, his tight potbelly poking off his skinny frame like a tumor on a twig. “I never said a word to nobody about that Poston file. But I'll tell you, that limp dick Dunsford will take you down if there's a way he can make it happen.”

Billy wasn't going to explain it was dumb luck that Freeman had mentioned the file to Dunsford. Having Edgar on the defensive was useful. “Let's get past that. What I need now is a shortcut, and you're the man who can help me.”

Edgar glanced at the door. “We only got a couple of minutes. What's up?”

Billy pulled out the stack of photos and pointed at the man wearing the jacket. “Do you recognize this guy?”

Edgar ran his thumb down the edge of the print. “These are from the sixties. That's a long time ago.”

“Don't hedge, Edgar. You knew every blessed cop in the MPD back then.”

The little man pointed at the picture. “This one's FBI.”

“His name?”

“Leland Grant. He worked with the MPD during all that civil rights crap. COINTELPRO was their dirty-tricks program. They used special tactics to foul up radical movements.”

“Can you identify the locations?”

Edgar fanned through the photos. “Mainly Beale Street. And that there is Grant's partner. He must have been standing inside Freeman's Bar to get the angle on that shot. The two of them were in charge of setting up listening posts in the colored neighborhoods. The FBI was keeping track of agitators and Communists coming down from up north—the ones registering the coloreds to vote.”

“Something happened between Grant and Freeman,” he said, hoping Edgar would bite.

Edgar hiked up his pants and rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Boy howdy. Freeman had this bar. It was a perfect setup to be one of Grant's listening posts, but Freeman wouldn't cooperate. The way I heard it, Grant warned Freeman he'd lose his liquor license if he didn't straighten up. Freeman got vocal about it, set a bad example for the other business owners. Grant got the liquor board to pull his license on some bogus charge.”

“What happened to Freeman?”

“Lost the bar. Took it real personal. He hanged himself a year later.”

R
efrigerated air blasted Frankie as she walked into the Rock of Ages Funeral Home. The cold set her teeth on edge despite the last half hour she'd spent in a hot car recording license plate numbers and photographing mourners as they entered the chapel. Two black Escalades, parked in the lot when she'd arrived, had Louisiana tags. She called a friend at the station house and asked to have the plates run.

She had a three-year-old mug shot of Cool Willy, aka William Cooley—six feet five and heavyset, with a shaved head and wearing a mask of sullenness meant to conceal either stupidity or cunning. If she couldn't pick him out during the service, she would go to the parking lot afterward and photograph the drivers as they stepped into their out-of-state cars.

The chapel, despite the fact that it was crowded with people, had walls draped in velvet that gave the room a cloistered atmosphere. Everyone wore shades, even some of the ladies in their church hats and pastel suits. Frankie slipped on hers so she could study the crowd without being too obvious. She was watching for anyone who was uncomfortable or hanging back from the crowd with a suppressed need to see how things played out. She had skipped Brad's funeral, choosing instead to donate money to the fund established for the family. She wondered, had she been there, whether a detective could have picked up on her distress. Even now her guilt festered like a spider bite poisoning her from within.

Did grief and guilt look the same? She scanned the crowd again, analyzing it this time with a different eye.

Among them were several tall, muscular African-American men who were sporting fades rather than hard-line beards. They wore diamond studs in their ears and Hugo Boss suits tailored to fit their vigorous bodies. They looked like athletes—Memphis Grizzlies or New Orleans Saints. Or they could have been connected with the music or film industry. Memphis attracted movie companies for its location shots and musicians who wanted to soak up some authenticity after having lived too long in L.A. If Cool Willy was among that group, he'd lost the baby fat, muscled up, and dropped the street swagger for a classier look.