Tuesday, March 19, 2013

DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL 7

 
CHAPTER 7.


"Officer Carlan," Brosterhouse's voice boomed across the lobby.  He accented "Officer" as if to emphasize the distinction between a homicide detective and a lowly patrolman.
Obviously, the Portland detective had uncovered the restraining order.
“You left Bend at 6:00 A.M.?”
"Check with my Sergeant.  But, yeah.”
Brosterhouse was carrying a Manila file, and now as they stood in the lobby with everyone looking on, he opened it.  It was filled with copies of the ongoing dispute between him and Jamie.
"Can't we take this somewhere private?" Carlan said, his voice low and even.
Brosterhouse ignored him; he pulled one of the pages out of the file.  "These letters make for interesting reading.  Especially this one -- and I quote:  "If I should be found dead, it will be Richard Carlan who killed me."
"That's bullshit," Carlan said, his face growing red as everyone in the lobby, civilian and cop looked at him.  "We just had a misunderstanding.  We were working it out."
"So she ran to Portland and became a prostitute because you were working it out?"
"She was hysterical.  Crazy.  I was on my way here to pick her up."
Brosterhouse stared at him with an expression Carlan recognized.  It was the hardnosed skepticism that cops automatically turned on anyone they considered guilty.
"If that's true, I could've arrested you.  The restraining order is pretty clear.”
Carlan had always wondered what he would do if he was accused of a crime he didn't commit.  Would he immediately clam up?  Call a lawyer?  The rational and experienced cop inside him knew without a doubt that was the best thing to do.  But he fell back on the same protestations he'd heard a thousand times, from guilty and innocent alike.
"I didn't do it.  She was dead already."
"Your alibi is shaky.  We know you were in Bend the night before, but that gave you plenty of time to drive over.”
"But I loved her!"  God, how pathetic that sounded.  How guilty!  They always said that, murderers who stabbed the 'one they loved' a hundred times, who slashed and slashed until the 'one they loved' was obliterated.
"You are no longer allowed anywhere near this case, Carlan.  Go back to Bend.  We'll contact you."
"But I might be able to help!"  Being shut out of the case was an even bigger fear than being suspected.  He needed completion.  Jamie had died before he could talk some sense into her, before she could remove the restraining order and those damning letters.  He had an image of her, on her knees, while he shoved the letters down her throat.  Damn her.  Why did she have to die and leave him to deal with this shit?
From now on, they would always look at him sideways, even in Bend where they knew him.  He'd pass in the hallway and there would be whispers, and laughter, and shame.  Jamie had done this to him, and now he couldn't change it.  He was angry with her, rightfully so, but even more aggravating was that his anger had no outlet.  Unless he turned it on the murderer, the bastard who had taken her away before he could get to her and change her mind.
Brosterhouse leaned into him.  He was huge, probably twice Carlan's weight, though Carlan was just a little below average in size.  "If you were a Portland cop, I'd have your badge.  We don't look the other way here, like they do in Bend.  That small town bullshit doesn't wash here.  Get out of town before I throw you in jail for even thinking about breaking the restraining order."
Carlan felt a sudden calm.  He was a cop.  He knew the law.  He wouldn't be bullied like the poor saps he arrested everyday who didn't understand their rights.  He stared Brosterhouse in the eye.
"I didn't do it.  Fuck you."
He walked away, feeling like he had regained a little of his pride.  He knew other cops in Portland, cops who would be willing to help.  Brosterhouse was wrong -- the "bullshit" wasn't confined to small towns, it was everywhere, big cities and small, national or international or tiny hamlets.   Bastard wanted to pretend the systems of favors and the protection of your brothers didn't apply to Portland?  Who did he think he was talking to?

Turned out, Brosterhouse was almost right.  Carlan called three of his 'buddies' on the Portland police force and got turned down by all of them.  The first two simply hung up, the third said, "I never much liked you, Carlan."
Time to pack up and go home?  Use his contacts back in Bend?
There was one more guy he could try, but he hesitated.  It was his emergency escape valve, the guy he planned to turn to when all else failed. 
"Hey, Funkadelic!"
"What do you want, Carlan,” John Funk's voice was so cold, Carlan almost backed off.
"I need a favor."
"No."
"I still have it, Funker.  I still have the evidence...statute of limitations on manslaughter is the same as murder.  Hell, they might just charge you with murder.  After all the only witness who could testify it was a crime of passion is me..."  He started singing:  "Who's got the Funk?  Bop. bop. bop.  I got the Funk...Who's go the Funk? Bop, Bop..."
"Shut up," his former partner said.  "I'm thinking about turning myself in.  I never did like the way that went down.  I didn't mean to kill him."
Carlan felt the fish slipping off the hook.  "I know that!  If it ever comes down, I could totally testify to that.  The guy deserved it -- raping a five-year old girl.  Hell, if you hadn't killed him, I probably would have!"
There was a long silence.  A sigh.  "What do you want, Carlan?"
"I need the evidence on a current case.  A girl found dead this morning in a motel room on the east side.  Name of Jamie Lee Howe."
"Who's the lead?"
"Guy named Brosterhouse."
Another long silence.  "Maybe I should just turn myself in now," John Funk said.  "Get it over with."
"No, no.  Don't do anything that will get you in trouble.  Just...you know, help me out."
"All right.  This one time.  But don't ever ask me to help you again, Carlan.  I'll fucking turn myself in."
"I promise," Carlan said.  Well, maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't.  But Carlan certainly intended to test his former partner's resolve if he ever needed him again.  
"Remember, you asshole.  If I go down, you go down for withholding evidence."
"Sure, sure."  Not the way Carlan had it planned but if it made Funk feel secure, than so be it.
"I'll call you back,” Funk said, and hung up.
Carlan stayed in Portland for another day, hanging out near the phone, watching Judge Judy and the other judges all day.  Law and Order marathons.  He had enough time to think, to wonder why he was trying so hard?  Jamie was gone.  Nothing he could do about it.  
Truth was, he wasn't as crushed by it as he thought he would be.  Still...he hated that he hadn't been able to change her mind.  He'd been thinking about her for so long that something else needed to take her place.  Revenge fit quite nicely.
The Portland police weren't moving very fast.  Prostitute killings were notoriously difficult to solve.  Stranger on stranger.  If the killer used a condom and was careful, he could almost always get away with it unless they found him weaving down the road with a body in the back of the car.
It was going to be up to him, and not the self-righteous Brosterhouse, to solve this case.
"What do you care?" Funk asked, that evening.  "From the files, you were on the verge of killing her yourself."
"I loved her."
"You don't love anyone.  I remember how you treated women, Carlan."
"Yeah, but I never killed anyone, Funky.  Remember that."
"Only because you've been lucky."  There was a rustle of papers over the line.  "The DNA tests came back early.  Kind of weird.  They say, not only can't they identify the perpetrator, they're not sure it's even human.  Probably contaminated."
The two puncture wounds in Jamie's neck passed through his mind, but he dismissed the wild speculation instantly.  Humans killed humans.  Always had, always will.
Only one day and the case was already going cold.  Carlan could sense the Portland police were on the verge of giving up, putting it on the back burner.   As a last resort, he asked for traffic citations in the surrounding area on the night of the murder.  Even if it was the way they had caught the Son of Sam, most detectives considered it a Hail Mary pass, too time-consuming with too little reward to pursue in most cases.
Carlan took the time, spending most of the night and early morning going through it, and just as he was about to give up, he came across it.  A "Warning" for parking in a no parking zone on the morning after the murder.   A "well-dressed" man in a late model Cadillac Escalade, sleeping off a binge in the backseat.  He rang up Funk and had him plug the license plate number into the database, and it came back immediately as being registered at a motel on the night after the murder in a motel in Bend.  By the name of Jonathan Evers.
In Bend.  That was too much of a coincidence, Carlan thought.  The Portland cops probably wrote it off, if they even bothered to check.  But as a resident of Bend, Carlan knew how much someone had to go out of his or her way to reach Bend.  It really wasn't on the road to anywhere important.  It was mostly a destination.  
Somehow, the owner of this SUV, this Jonathon Evers, had begun the morning a block from the scene of a murder and ended up the following evening in the hometown of the murder victim.  
Carlan hurriedly packed up to go home.  It was three o’clock in the morning.  He’d have to convince the motel not to charge him for the night, but flashing a badge usually did the trick.
One good thing had come out of the waiting.  He'd been thinking about Jamie and her family.  His mind kept returning to Jamie's younger sister, Sylvie.  When Carlan had first started dating Jamie, the girl was only a teenager -- now she was legal.  Twenty-one or twenty-two years old, something like that.
Sylvie was an even more beautiful woman than Jamie, with the same kind of purity that had drawn Carlan to Jamie.  More purity, actually, since she was that much younger and less experienced.  Jamie had been soiled by the time Carlan got to her -- she'd lied to him, and it was only after slapping her in the face a few times for her lies, that she told him the truth.  She hadn't been a virgin for years.
Carlan had been willing to forgive her, if she hadn't run off.  But inside, he had recoiled. 
The more he thought about Sylvie, the more he was certain he was that Jamie's death had kept him from making a big mistake.  The younger girl was so much more appealing.  
He'd solve this case, and present it to her.  She'd be grateful, he was sure. She wouldn't be like Jamie, who hadn’t known when she had it good.  Sylvie was the right one all along.


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