The Last Clinic (4 page)

“I’m sure you’d like to have a full debriefing, Detective, but I’m afraid I can only give you about ten minutes,” Tommy said, looking down at his watch. “I’ve got me a personal commitment out in Madison.”

I’ll bet he’s doing his act at lunchtime for one of the nursing homes,
thought Darla.
All those blue haired ladies swooning when he croaks “Love Me Tender.”
She could see him wiping his face with a handkerchief and tossing it to one of the old gals.

“Wouldn’t want to keep your public waiting,” she said.

His lip twitched, quivering the Elvis way.

She wondered if it was intentional, the Elvis snarl. Did Tommy even know when he was doing it?      

“Happened over here,” he said, pointing at the cross, still propped up against the entrance gate where the victim had left it. There were police chalk marks around it, making the outline appear like the ghost of Jesus. The kind of photo you might see hanging in an art gallery, poignant and ambiguous.

“The jogger found the body leaned up against the cross, Reverend Jimmy’s arms splayed out over the cross-piece, his chest blown open. One shooter. Three shots. A 12-gauge. Impossible to trace. Double ought buck shot. No shell casings. The first shot stopped him. Second shot—the kill shot—knocked him back into the cross. The third shot, I’m guessing that one was for just for meanness. Probably came from a passing vehicle that had pulled over. I’m thinking it was a pickup or an SUV. The forensics and blood splatter team said from the angle of the entry the barrel was pointing down at Reverend Jimmy. They thought he might have been walking towards the vehicle. I’m thinking it was still dark, and Reverend Jimmy didn’t even see the shotgun until it was too late.”

He looked up at the clinic entrance and stared. An SUV—a black Infinity—was parked in the driveway. “Like I said, somebody in an SUV, most likely.”

Darla didn’t like that Tommy had let them move the body before she’d had a chance to see it. She guessed he might have even ordered it moved. Probably he was trying to speed things along so he could be on time for his singing gig. She let it go. The forensic report would tell her most of what she needed to know, as long as they had decent pictures.

“Did you get thorough photo documentation of the body before it was moved?”

He held up a digital camera and pointed to the picture, a shot of Reverend Aldridge stretched across the cross.

“This is what happens when a man of God tries to keep innocent children from being murdered in the womb,” he said.

A photo flashed across her brain, the photo of Hugh in the car, the photo she’d made Shelby show her. All those images she’d been trying to forget.

“You have others?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo. We got three, maybe four dozen. The whole crime scene.”

“Any non-police take this kind of a picture?”

“Only Josh Klein and WJAK crew. I let them shoot some stuff.”

In exchange for some airtime, probably. She raised an eyebrow and started to speak. He cut her off, shaking his head as if she was about to overreact.

“Hey now Detective, nothing to worry about. Josh promised it was just documentation. They ain’t going to put a shot like that on TV. Maybe up in Philadelphia but not in Jackson.”

“They may not put it on TV but it will be all over the internet by this afternoon. ‘Abortionist Kills Protester.’ This kind of thing could go viral. We could have a serious security situation at the clinic.”

“Guess I must have forgot about that angle,” he admitted with a cat-and-mouse grin.

Darla got the message. He intended to stir things up. He was more than just a cop on this case. He was one of Reverend Aldridge’s faithful, a soldier in Aldridge’s religious war. God against the baby killers. So maybe he didn’t mind if the photo turned up on the internet. Didn’t mind if it ignited the political situation and pumped up political passions. Not if it served a higher purpose, forcing the clinic to close down for a few days and helping to push through House Bill 674.

No, we won’t be buying dinettes together
, thought Darla.

They walked to the ambulance. The body was next to it on a gurney, covered. Tommy reached over and pulled back the sheet. Careful, reverential almost, in the way he did it.

“My brother George, we lost him to leukemia a couple of years back. Reverend Jimmy was with him till the end.”

“I should have said it earlier, Tommy. Shelby told me Reverend Aldridge was your pastor. I’m sorry for your loss.”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he continued to stare at the body before finally covering it.

“I couldn’t let them put him in a body bag. Just couldn’t.”

They put my husband in one
, she thought,
after he bled to death in his car in a ditch by the highway. He died alone while I was home sleeping
.

“What kind of personal property did Reverend Aldridge have on him when you found him?”

Tommy gave her the envelope—the CSI kit—zipped. “The usual. Wallet, with thirty-two bucks cash, credit cards, dry cleaning receipt, picture of his wife and daughter, and a BlackBerry.”

She looked at the kit without opening it. Decided she’d check it out of the evidence room later and go over everything alone, then order a forensic study on the BlackBerry from the new guy out at FUSION—the kid with the funny name.

“What did you find in his vehicle?”

Tommy paused for a second as if he was looking for a way not to answer the question. “Registration, insurance cards, some music.” Then he added with a country boy grin, “He had a couple of my CDs in the glove compartment.”

“Anything else?”

“Hum?” he said, as if his mind was somewhere else and he hadn’t heard her.

He does a shit job of hiding his hand
, she thought.
He’d do worse at the poker table than Hugh, who looked like he was having sex every time he got a decent hand
.

“Anything unusual, is what I’m asking.”

“Well, okay, sure.” Shuffle, shuffle. “The CSI guy found a plain white envelope marked Deposit in the glove compartment with three grand in it.”

He held up a plastic bag containing the envelope so she could see the stack of bills, a good-sized wad.

“Three grand?” she said, putting on a set of plastic gloves. This she wanted a look at right now.

“Yeah. A donation from a church member is how we see it,” Tommy said offhand, as though the matter was settled.

“I guess that’s one possibility.” She held her hands out. “Do you mind?”

They were a couple of feet apart. He held the plastic bag a second longer than he should have, messing with her like a little kid. Maybe he was hoping she’d grab for it, but she didn’t. When she wouldn’t play along, he tossed it more or less in her direction, but a little to the right side, like he hoped she’d fumble around trying to catch it and look silly doing a guy thing.

She snatched it in midair and smiled a little, not to make fun of Tommy, but thinking how Hugh would have applauded if he’d seen her make the catch.

She opened the plastic, removed the envelope, and thumbed though the bills, not counting, but stopping briefly at various places, where something caught her attention.

Tommy stood by looking uncomfortable, then glanced down at the sidewalk, saw a patch of weed breaking through a crack, and stubbed at it with his foot.

“Three grand on the nose,” she said.

“Two of us counted it. Just to be sure.”

“A lot of little bills—fives, tens, twenties. No singles. Nothing larger than a twenty.”

Tommy shrugged. “True,” he said, meaning so what.

“Help me out here, Tommy. Wouldn’t you expect a contribution that large to be in the form of a check? For tax purposes?”

Tommy hefted his pants over his belt line, the way a guy with a big gut will do when he’s trying to improve his appearance.

“Could be from the collection plate. We have a large congregation. Peopled loved to hear Jimmy preach.”

“That should be easy enough to check out.”

Tommy came back quickly. “Maybe it’s private funds. It’s possible. Maybe he saved it and was going to buy something for the family. Anniversary. Graduation. Wife’s birthday. It could be lots of different things.”

“It’s Monday morning. The envelope says ‘Deposit’. We can assume that’s what Reverend Aldridge had in mind. But there’s no deposit slip. Just a big chunk of dough.”

“He might have forgot the deposit slip. All the stuff he had on his mind. That’s happened to me. Maybe he uses a slip at the bank. Maybe he was planning on opening an account later today.” Tommy’s voice was getting an edge.

Darla considered the situation. Tommy was either a moron, he was purposely ignoring an important piece of evidence, or he was lying.

“I guess you’re going to look into this?” said, knowing that he wasn’t. 

“Down the road a piece I will. Right now, I got me uniformed officers knocking on doors. Finding out if anybody saw or heard anything.”

Darla thumbed through the wad of bills again and again, stopping at various points and looking puzzled.

“I’m going to work this now, while everything is fresh. All right?” She was not really asking, but trying to play nice, with Tommy being the mayor’s nephew and all.

“You don’t think I know? Rule number one: Follow the money. That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it? Follow the money. Like that reporter, what was his name, Bob Bernstein? From that movie,
All the President’s Horses
?”

“It was two guys, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in
All the President’s Men
. It was a book first.”

“Only that don’t really apply to this situation, because this here clearly ain’t about the money.”

“I think it’s way too early to be drawing that kind of a conclusion. Three grand is three grand. One of us is going to have to account for it to Shelby.” You idiot, she wanted to add but didn’t. Instead, she glared down at him, now very aware of their height difference, about four inches.

He folded his arms across his chest and seemed to stand a little taller. “The SUV was a block away. There was no sign of entry. Plus, Reverend Jimmy had pocket money on him. It wasn’t some crackhead looking for a fix that shot him. Reverend Jimmy wasn’t killed for the three grand.”

“We don’t really know why he was killed.”

“Maybe you don’t. But there ain’t a lot of doubt in my mind or the mayor’s, for that matter.”

She’d wondered how long it was going to take before he brought his uncle into it.

“The mayor is working the case now too?”

“I report back to him, yes, Ma’am. That’s how he wants it.” He wiped his mouth and looked away. “What I mean is after I talk to Shelby. An FYI kind of thing is all.”

“Fine. You work your side of the block, and I’ll work mine,” she said.

“I can’t tell you what to do. But you need to know I already got me a suspect.”

He pointed with his nose toward the clinic. “Stephen Nicoletti. Doctor Death up there. The one that treats all the whores in the state. Reverend Jimmy was putting him out of business. Every heard of House Bill 674? Let me tell you what happened before you showed up. Old Dago Steve drives up here, big as you can please, in his SUV, but not until an hour after the body was found. One of our officers tried calling him at home, half an hour earlier. Guess what? He wasn’t there. So I go straight up to his office to question him. And what do you know? He can’t account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Six a.m. in the morning. I’m not making this up. His actual words were ‘I’m sorry. I can’t disclose my whereabouts,’ like he could care less what I thought, the damned wop. Just daring me to arrest his sorry ass. Tell you what. We get us an eyewitness that can put that vehicle anywhere near here at the time of the shooting, Shelby and the DA and I will be going to the grand jury. Of course, you can come along if you like. I know how things work in the department. In the meantime, you want to follow the money trail, that would be your business.”

“Thanks,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

They’d come to the fuck-you moment awfully fast, but this was it.

He looked at her as if she’d just walked away from him on the dance floor in the middle of a slow one.

“So, what’s next then? Are you going to take my word for things or maybe you want to talk to the baby killer up on the hill yourself,” he said.

The way you’re handling things
, she thought,
I’m going to have to follow up on everything you do
.

“We can read each other’s reports,” she said. “That’s probably the best way to proceed from here.”

He adjusted his string tie, pulled it up and down a little, and acted as though he was going to say something, but didn’t.

“I assume the envelope’s been dusted for prints?” she said.

“Of course. What do you think I am, some kind of damn rookie?” He gave her another one of his Elvis snarls.

He must practice the snarl, she concluded. He probably stands in front of the mirror for hours until he gets it down just right.

“Good luck on your, whatever it is you’re doing over in Madison,” she said as he was walking away from her.

He turned and walked back towards her, on the verge of invading her space, making Darla hold out a palm to stop him.

“I’m sure I know how you feel about women’s rights, but…”

“Tommy, with respect, you don’t know how I feel about women’s rights or anything else.”

“My point is, that man up there, he ain’t just your run-of-the-mill Yankee baby killer.”

“I thought Dr. Nicoletti was from Italy?”

“My gut says he’s Reverend Jimmy’s murderer. It’s my job to see that he pays for what he did.”

She put the envelope back in the evidence kit, zipped the kit, and pitched it to him. He fumbled it once or twice before securing it.

“I’ll pick this up from the evidence room later.”

On her way to the car, she called down to the station and asked to talk to Sheriff Shelby Mitchell.

He didn’t keep her waiting.

“I’d like a uniformed officer posted around the clock in front of the Jackson Women’s Health Clinic and at night in front of Dr. Nicoletti’s house. Also, we found some money, three grand, in an envelope in his vehicle. Fives, tens, twenties. I’m going to check with the church to see if it was from collection money. I’d be surprised if it was. In the meantime, I’d like to get a court order to take a look at all of Reverend Aldridge’s bank accounts, and a search warrant for his office at the church and his home office. I need to know where the money came from and where it was going, so I’m going to follow the ash trail.”