Dirty Deals, page 16
Existing around Manny was hard. I knew from experience, those who wandered into his orbit were buffeted by the gravity. Most simply couldn’t be themselves. His accent was too much like Antonio Banderas’, his hair too perfect, he smelled too good, his waist too small, his eyes too bright, something. Noelle Beck held up far better than most, but she wanted his approval the same way everyone else did.
The only difference with her was, she had his approval. And he wanted hers in return, which he got, much of the time, but was it enough?
A dance with scruples and professionalism and lust and desire and the first person to cave lost.
Noelle still wore no engagement ring.
She had spoken to me and I missed it, lost in thoughts of mutual love unrequited.
“I said, I’ll keep working on Robin’s phone, but no promises.”
“Thanks, Noelle,” I said.
“This information.” Manny nodded toward my phone. “Robin’s phone call. We don’t tell Lynchburg. Pendejos.”
Noelle closed her laptop. “I’ll leave that decision to you, Manny.”
“I decided,” he said. “Vamanos?”
“When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.” He opened the office door for her and she said goodbye to me and they left as one, moving more closely than Manny and I ever did.
GPA looked at me with concern.
I returned the look.
“I adjure you, Georgina, by the gazelles of the field, do not awaken love until she pleases,” I told her.
What?
“I don’t know,” I said.
The stairs were still creaking with their descent when someone new darkened my door.
I had a visitor. Sally Gardner, Elaine Terry’s matronly receptionist.
I’d been expecting her.
She was staring open-mouthed down the stairwell. The door closed, and Manny and Beck were gone, and Sally came into my office.
“Mr. August,” she said. “Are those friends of yours?”
“Friends and colleagues. Aren’t I lucky.”
“My stars. That may be the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on. And so…” She made a shivering motion and it wasn’t from the air conditioned blast. “And the girl was lovely too, even though she needs to fasten a few buttons on her blouse.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“Do you have a spell to gossip?” said Sally.
“Please come in and have a seat. I haven’t eaten yet and I’ll order us lunch.”
“Oh my stars.” Sally laughed. I was a riot. “Thank you, Mr. August, but no. I’ve packed my lunch for twenty years without missing a day.”
“What’s it like to be salt of the earth, Mrs. Gardner? Is it empowering?”
“I don’t know about that.” She sat in the client chair I offered, and I sat in the other. This was no time to be removed across a desk from her, like we weren’t best of pals. Pals who shared secrets.
“What can I do for you?”
“Your face looks…” She made a polite but pitiful expression. “Well, God bless it.”
“The next day is always bad. But tomorrow, though, it’ll be yellow. Hooray.”
She nodded. Her back was straight and her hands were on her knees. She wore another flowery dress that reached her shoes, flat on the floor, some kind of covered leather sandal. Something loomed in her mind but she needed to work up to it.
“Your office is, um…”
“Masculine?” I said.
“I would say, functional?”
“Spartan?
“What does Spartan mean?” she said.
“Like a Spartan would use it.”
“Oh,” she said, like I wasn’t a riot. “The potpourri is nice.”
“Thank you. Not enough people notice. This blend is called Gun Smoke and Vengeance.”
“Is it really?”
“Depends on if you ask me or the manufacturer.”
“Either way. It suits.”
I smiled winsomely. “How’s Elaine?”
“She’s taking depositions in Richmond, so I took a personal day. My first in three years.”
“I’m honored.”
“After yesterday…” She kinda winced at my face. “After you came in, Mr. August, I spent the evening thinking.”
“I spent the evening groaning.”
“I’m sure you did.” Another wince. “I hate that it happened to you, Mr. August. I hate that it was Lynchburg police. I hate that it was over a case that Ms. Elaine Terry…”
“Not your fault, Sally.”
“No. But… It’s the fault of someone. It’s the fault of a system that I’m… Not complicit, but that I’m a part of, I suppose you could say.” Her hands fussed with the dress around her knees. “That’s the devil of it.”
“Sacrifices must be made. And I’m willing.”
Georgina Princess rolled her eyes.
Sally did too.
“I know what you’re doing, Mr. August,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You want me to feel pity for you.”
“Is it working?” I said.
She looked away, at my desk. “I have worked for Ms. Terry for twelve years. She paid for my licensure as a paralegal. When my papa died, she came to the funeral. And in the family I was raised, loyalty is a highly prized thing.”
“If you help me, you could be fired. But even worse than that…”
She took off her glasses to dab at her eyes with a tissue she snatched from the box on my desk.
I said, “You’d feel like you betrayed someone.”
“She’s a hard woman. She can be cold. But she has been professionally courteous, Mr. August. She’s been loyal. And she’s Lynchburg.” She paused to sniff and pinch at her nose with the tissue. “I worked in that office before she arrived. She inherited me, if that makes sense to you. The man before her… Well. The plainest way to put it, I suppose, is that there are levels to integrity.”
“Who was before her?”
“Man by the name of Tim Beckett. A gentleman. He practiced in that house for twenty-five years, and I never once caught him in a lie or an unwholesome compromise, no sir. He retired and half the town came out. Very unlike… Well. Things change, don’t they.” She smiled, sad and bittersweet in her memories.
“Elaine compromises.”
“Ms. Terry’s father was a police officer in Lynchburg.” Sally nodded to herself. “Like a lot of them, he got testicular cancer from the radar guns, you know. Had to retire early, but he still volunteers as a resource officer at Linkhorne, like a lot of the old guard do, since all the gun violence in the news. Ms. Terry was raised to protect Lynchburg. And sometimes, I hate to say it, that means she doesn’t put her client first.”
“She puts Lynchburg first,” I said.
“The thing I can’t stop thinking about, Mr. August, was that this case was rotten from the beginning. Rotten as a bad apple.”
“I think so too.”
“And this time around, maybe, just maybe, Lynchburg would be better off if it weren’t protected, if you understand me.”
“I do, in fact,” I said.
“If I show you something, Mr. August, you have to give me your word. Promise me that you’ll keep me a secret.”
“You were never here.”
“And we never spoke a word and I never showed you a thing,” said Sally.
“Not a single thing.”
She sniffed again and dabbed at her eyes and put her glasses back on. “As Ms. Terry’s office manager, I have access to her files. And I thought maybe…” A deep shaky breath. “I thought you might benefit from seeing the video taken from the dash camera of Ervin Lane’s police car. I have it here on my phone.”
“Chief Robertson showed me the video, but I’d like to examine it more closely.”
A sad smile from Sally.
“The video I brought, Mr. August, hasn’t been doctored. The video you watched was, I’d bet my life.”
“Jiminy Christmas, Ms. Gardner,” I said.
Her smile grew sadder. “I think I might’ve destroyed my whole career with those words.”
“What words? I heard you say nothing,” I said.
Chief Robertson’s video had been doctored, that old sly dog. And I didn’t catch it.
She removed her phone from a pocket in her dress and held it out to me with a shaking hand.
“It’s ready. Press play,” she said. “And may God forgive me.”
I swiped my thumb across the screen and it unlocked. There was the queued video.
I pressed play.
The same distorted jumpy screen, the same white BMW 3, the same flashing shades of blue.
“Louder, Mr. August,” she said.
I thumbed up the volume.
Ervin was talking at the BMW’s window.
I still couldn’t hear the words but there was ambient sound.
While we watched the silent conversation at the BMW, I asked Sally, “Ervin used to be a detective. Why is he no longer?”
“That was some juicy gossip, I can tell you. Ervin arrived to court drunk. Twice. You never saw Judge Brown so furious. Mr. Robertson had to demote him, or whatever the term is.”
On screen, Kim Harper eased into view. The right side of the phone.
Caleb stood out of the car. Pale and thin, whereas Ervin bulged at his uniform.
I could hear them now, screaming at each other.
So far this looked identical to the video Robertson played.
I didn’t want to watch Kim Harper die again.
The men started wrestling. Shoving, punching. Caleb’s ineffective, Ervin’s thunderous. Caleb slipping free, Ervin grabbing at his shirt.
Caleb screaming, Let go, let go, Ervin, let me goooo.
They moved off screen. Kim Harper was shouting into her shoulder.
—Squad eighteen, driver engaged with Officer Lane! 10-33, I need backup.
—Copy squad eighteen, Officer Lane engaged. All cars, 10-33 on Hollins Mill.
Then she stopped.
There.
Something was different. An indefinable wrong. Not immediately obvious. I didn’t know… I watched her, my pulse in my ears.
What changed?
Kim Harper staring, not talking into her radio.
Kim Harper still staring…
BOOM.
She took a bullet to the throat. She clutched at her collar and fell into the BMW’s glaring headlights.
“Ugh,” I said.
“Isn’t it awful.”
Harper’s face was hidden behind the BMW.
Caleb ran into the screen.
This was new. Robertson had stopped it before I saw this.
Caleb’s screams were picked up by the interior camera. Hey! HEY! Help, oh my God, HELP HELP!
Poor Kim Harper squirming. Caleb’s face was a sheen of pallid sweat, bright in the headlights. He fumbled with her radio, still shouting, but the shoulder receiver was partially pinned under her.
“He doesn’t remember any of this,” I said.
Caleb tore off his shirt. A white business shirt. He pressed the shirt into her neck, and he was crying, and I could hear some of it. I felt like crying too.
Ervin reappeared.
Despite the video quality, something was clearly wrong with Ervin’s left wrist. He kept the arm tight to his body. Using his free hand, Ervin cuffed Caleb in the head, knocking him over. Knocking him away from Kim Harper.
No wonder Robertson didn’t want me to see this. Caleb was trying to save Kim’s life. And Ervin—
Caleb scrambled away, back to Kim, screaming, Stop STOP you fucking IDIOT, back to his shirt, to the officer it was far too late to save.
Ervin grabbed him again. I had to give Ervin a modicum of credit—his hand was dangling useless and he was bleeding out, but still he persisted in his arrest. Ervin pinned Caleb against thin grass, using his remaining good hand to hit Caleb in the back of the head. We could only partially view this, some of it hidden by the BMW.
—Squad nine on site. Looks like officer down.
Two more cops darted into view. Finally. One guy stopped at Kim, one guy ran to help Ervin.
—Officer down on Hollins Mill! Oh God. Officer down, request ambulance! Shit, it’s Kim.
The guy helping Ervin, he took Caleb’s shirt off the ground and did something with it, couldn’t see, maybe making a tourniquet. The officer with Kim Harper, his hands were black and glinting with her blood.
Caleb wasn’t moving. He’d passed out, full of shock and adrenaline and methamphetamines.
The video ended and I had to remember where I was.
Sally held my box of tissues, and I took one.
“Breaks my heart each time, Mr. August.”
I stood and set the phone on my desk. I paced my office twice, getting the icy blast from the vents. Outside a man was playing a banjo on the corner of Jefferson. I’d seen him before, playing with his case open for tips until he was run off by the manager of the American National Bank.
Shake it off, Mackenzie. Earn it.
I paced the office space again, sat, and picked up her phone. Used my finger to skip the video backward and I watched it again.
BMW.
Ervin and his flashlight.
Shouting. Kim on screen.
Caleb stood out. Fighting. Radio.
10-33, I need backup!
Off screen. Kim watching.
BOOM.
Kim falls. Caleb rushing to her.
No, dammit, I’d already missed the discrepancy. What had been altered? I scrubbed the video backward and watched again.
Sally silently let me work. Maybe she knew the answer, maybe she didn’t, but she didn’t talk and I was grateful.
BMW. Ervin. Kim. Caleb. Shouting. BOOM. She fell.
Again.
Ervin. Caleb. Off-screen. BOOM. Kim.
Again.
BOOM. Kim.
Again.
BOOM.
The hazy thing in the back of my mind snapped into focus.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh man.”
Sally nodded.
“Jiminy Christmas.” I set the phone down like it was hot.
That’s what initially bothered me when I viewed the fight in Robertson’s office—Kim Harper showed no reaction to the first gunshot.
Because it was nonexistent.
“You heard the difference, Mr. August?”
“I did,” I said. “There’s only one gunshot. In Robertson’s, there are two gunshots. Kim was struck by the second bullet.” I stood up and walked the office again. “Someone layered in the sound of a second gunshot. That’s why Kim seemed unfazed. Why the hell’d they add a second? They added it…” I closed my eyes to think. “They added a gunshot before the one that hit Kim. When I watched it, Robertson talked about the first gunshot. The nonexistent bullet. He said, ‘There, he shot Ervin’s hand off.’”
“Did he? The devil.”
“But that wasn’t true. Caleb hadn’t fired yet. So why’d Robertson…?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, Mr. August. I don’t know what happened. All I know is that Ms. Elaine Terry is good with altering videos. She has a program on her computer that does it. I forget the name. But Ms. Terry neglected to delete the original version in our shared folder,” said Sally.
Elaine Terry was involved in the cover-up.
A corrupt lawyer. Wonders never cease.
I paced more and I talked out loud.
“Only one gunshot. Means the single bullet passed through Ervin’s hand and hit Kim.” The banjo kept playing as I pictured the action in my mind. I used my hands like I was wrestling with Ervin. Then like I was wrestling with Caleb. “Only one gunshot. Caleb fires at Ervin, hits him below the palm, catches Kim…” I turned, eyes still closed, like I was Caleb, facing Kim, Ervin in my way, and I held the gun. Envisioning the scene like I was there. BMW, flashing blue emergency lights, scrubby grass. “I’ve got the gun and I’m aiming at Ervin… Ervin is between me and Kim… He’s… What is he doing, he’s running at me? Are we still wrestling? Did I get free from him? How’d I get the gun?”
“I wouldn’t know, Mr. August.”
“I’m Caleb, I’m thin, I can’t outwrestle Ervin. I couldn’t fight him for the gun and win. Which means I took it from his holster, before he knew what was happening. Right?”
Sally didn’t speak.
I continued, my eyes closed.
“I grabbed it out of Ervin’s holster. But. No. Ervin wore his duty holster. Designed to prevent unauthorized withdrawals. Facing Ervin, the holster would prevent me from withdrawing it. So… Was I behind him? How’d I withdraw his pistol?” I was standing in the cold blast, though I felt my blood hot. “If we’re wrestling for it, how’d I… He’s too big. We’re separated by a few feet? No, Ervin wouldn’t let go of me. Right? Did I get behind him and pull the pistol? We’re fighting… Kim watching. Kim talking into her radio, then she stops. She’s watching us. She’s watching us fight for the gun. Just watching us? That makes no sense. If I have the gun, and we’re fighting… But what if I don’t have the gun? What if Ervin has the gun? What if Ervin has the gun…” Eyes closed, still kinda wrestling with my hands, I’m there, drunk Ervin breathing on me. Ervin has the gun, not me, maybe I’m trying to get it, maybe he… But if he has the gun… He’s drunk, he’s screaming, red in the face, he has the gun…
BOOM.
One gunshot.
Caleb running into the picture, screaming for help.
Using his shirt.
Running into the picture, not holding a pistol.
Because he never had it.
Only one gunshot.
I walked to my chair and sat down. Lowered my head into my hands and told myself, “Wow.”
“Mr. August?”
“That’s why they added the second gunshot. They wanted it to look like Caleb had the gun and he was shooting at both cops. But he wasn’t.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
I drew in air. Held it. Thought it through again. Pinched my lips, let the air out through my nose. Which hurt.
“Caleb never had the gun. Ervin had it. Ervin drew it and accidentally blew off his own hand and killed Kim Harper,” I said, and Sally made a gasp. “Caleb didn’t shoot either of them. Ervin killed Kim. That’s what they’re covering up. I’m chasing an innocent fugitive.”
