FORTY-ONE
After I fainted, the SWAT lieutenant kept saying that I should take a ride to the hospital, but I told him it was nothing, just a lack of sleep catching up with me.
I felt shaky the rest of the day. Theoretically I was lead investigator, but on Chief Diggs's direct instructions they sent over a couple of homicide investigators to actually process the scene. I protested to Chief Diggs's representative at the scene, the beautiful Captain Goodwin, who came over and strutted around the scene making peremptory remarks to the homicide detectives (who seemed to view him with amused condescension), but Captain Pretty-Boy said to me, “This is not a whodunnit, Detective. In terms of the crime scene, this is a clerical matter. These ladies and gentlemen in Homicide know best how to do the paperwork so that nobody gets bitten in the tuchis by any unwarranted-use-of-force issues.”
“Tuchis?” I said.
Captain Goodwin, who evidently was not a humorous brother, explained to me in pedantic detail what tuchis meant in Yiddish. He also, helpfully, explained to me what Yiddish was.
“I earnestly thank you for that excellent lesson, brother,” I said. “You must have gone to a
four-year
college.”
He eyed me coolly. “As long as I'm wearing this, Detective,” he said, fingering the gold braid on his sleeve, “you will refer to me as Captain.”
“Oh, absolutely, yes, sir, Captain, sir.”
He glared at me briefly, then whirled and marched back to his gleaming white Ford, where he spent the rest of the afternoon talking on his cell phone and doing a very good impression of a real policeman.
Â
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At four o'clock on the nose, the public affairs officer stood in front of the podium at the front of the press room at City Hall East. The last time I'd been in here had been somewhat startling. But this was genuinely nuts. The story was going to go national, Chief Diggs had crowed to me before the press conference, and so everybody was there: CNN, the three national networks, CNBC, lots of local stations, local stringers for every major daily paper in the country, even some foreign reporters. The public affairs officer was a statuesque black woman of about forty named Capt. Gwen Byerly-Johnson. She was redbone complected, with a hairdo that would put you in mind of a soft-serve ice cream cone. Like all of Diggs's flunkies, she wore more gold braid than Muammar Khadaffi. She stroked the press people for a while, got them all whipped up about how the chief had a major announcement and so on; then, finally, Chief Diggs stood up.
“Today,” he said, “after an extensive undercover internal examination, the Atlanta Police Department came to a shocking conclusion, one that every police department dreads. We found, in our midst, a criminal. A heinous and terrible criminal: a predator upon children. A murderer. A serial killer. That killer has been identified as Lt. Hank Gooch, formerly of the department's Cold Case Unit. Today, during an attempt by the Atlanta Police Special Weapons and Tactics Unit to serve Mr. Gooch with a warrant of arrest, Mr. Gooch attempted to fire on officers of the Atlanta Police Department. Our officers responded appropriately with deadly force. Mr. Gooch was pronounced dead at the scene.”
There was a clamor of voices as people shouted questions. “Folks, hold on. At this point in time, we have not determined the total number of homicides committed by this man. It approaches as many as five murders, however. At this time investigation into those homicides remains ongoing. Names of victims will be released presently.”
Then he told the media a bunch of baloney about how I was his personal representative on an undercover operation to smoke out Lt. Gooch, how Gooch had been moved to an administrative position so as to keep him away from active cases, how the Cold Case Unit was actually just a front for the department's investigation of Lt. Gooch's case.
Then he talked about me, about my personal courage, my undying devotion to justice and a lot of other crap, then he gave me a medal and a commendation for my work.
After that the press got testy, asking Chief Diggs how a serial killer had managed to remain on the force undetected for all these years, and so on.
The Chief nodded gravely. “These are all very legitimate and serious questions. Every officer in this department is screened for psychological fitness. Every officer in this department receives frequent evaluations. We test and we measure and we observe. But this was a very cunning individual, a highly intelligent and organized predator. At this time I'd like to announce that the department will be assembling a blue-ribbon panel to evaluate and, if necessary, upgrade our human resources policies. More details on that will follow.”
I had been waiting for the Chief to mention Jenny Dial, but he kept not breathing a word about her.
The public affairs shill stood up and said, “Folks, I believe that's about all the Chief has time for.”
After it was over, I followed Chief Diggs and his entourage out into the corridor. They all began walking away from me. “Sir? Sir? Chief?” I called. Diggs turned around, looked at me questioningly. “Why didn't you mention Jenny Dial?”
“Who?”
I stared at him. “What do you mean,
who?
Sir, we both know she's his last snatch.”
He shook his head sadly. “I know how much this case means to you. But let's be adults about this. It's almost certain that poor little Jenny is long since deceased. One day her body will turn up. But right nowâhey, what can we do?”
I stared at him. “Nah, nah, nah, Chief. It's almost certain, based on his MO, that she
is
alive. She's out there somewhere in a goddamn box.”
I got the big smile for that one. “Are you taking a tone with me, young lady?”
“Don't you âyoung lady' me! Jenny Dial is out there in a four-foot-square box. And every minute we sit around out here with our thumbs up our asses is one minute closer to her dying. Somebody out there must know something. We need to have her picture on every TV screen in America. We needâ”
Diggs jabbed me in the sternum with his index finger. “
I
determine what we need. Your job, Detective, is to do what I tell you.”
“Butâ”
“Handle this,” he snapped to Captain Goodwin. Then he turned and started walking away.
I tried to follow him, but Captain Pretty-Boy grabbed me, yanked me off my feet. One of his hands had grabbed me by my left breast. It could have been an accident or not. He whispered softly in my ear, “You think you Little Miss Something. Be careful, you gonna find out you ain't.” His Urbane Brother accent had gone all street on me, and his hand tightened on my breast, squeezing harder and harder till my eyes started to water. “Hm?” he said. “Hm?” After a final hard squeeze, he let go.
I whispered back to him as he released me. “Brother, next time you go grabbing my tit, you best be wearing Kevlar.”
FORTY-TWO
Avoiding the elevatorsâthey were liable to be full of reportersâI took the stairs back down to my office. Sitting in my box was a memo on heavy bond paper with the department seal embossed on the top.
To:
Capt. Gwen Byerly-Johnson, Human Resources Division
Lt. George Gordon, Payroll Deptartment
Willie Treadaway, Physical Plant
From:
Chief Eustace V. Diggs, Jr.
Re:
Effective immediately the Cold Case Unit shall be terminated, deauthorized, and defunded. All Unit personnel are herewith subject to reassignment. In the short run, Unit personnel shall be placed in the Zone Two detective pool, and paid from the Zone Two general payroll budget. No additional expense vouchers, office supplies, or equipment expenditures shall be authorized or funded for the Unit. Det. M. Deakes, commander of the Unit, shall be given two days to attend to administrative details relating to the termination of the Unit. Please give her any assistance she shall require in shutting down the Unit's office.
Â
cc: Det. Mechelle Deakes
Scrawled at the bottom with a fountain pen was this note: “Det. Deakes, you have until Friday to shut down the office and return all files to the appropriate detective bureaus and/ or to the Records Department. Contact Capt. Byerly-Johnson and/or Lt. Gordon regarding details of payroll, etc. Return your keys to Physical Plant. Report to Zone Two for detective duty on Friday. I'll find something better suited to your talents shortly.” It was initialed “EVD” in grandiose swirly letters.
Two days. I had two days free. Two days to find Jenny Dial.
I went outside immediately, got in my car, and drove over to Lt. Gooch's apartment. The TV trucks had all disappeared, but a cordon of uniformed police still stood around the building just inside the yellow crime-scene tape. I parked, walked up to the cordon, and badged the uniformed officer, a short white boy who was struggling to grow himself a mustache.
“Sorry, but I'm not authorized to let you in, ma'am,” he said.
I gave him the high eyebrows. “Excuse me? This is
my
crime scene.” This was stretching itâbut only a little.
One of the homicide detectives, Lt. Garner, was standing at the top of the apartment stairs. He saw me and hustled down the stairs, a funny look on his face.
“What?” I said to him.
He put his hand gently on my arm. “Look, we got it,” he said in a rumbling bass voice. “Everything's cool here.”
“This isn't about the homicide,” I said. “I need to have a look around Gooch's apartment to try and find out where he stashed the girl.”
“I said, we
got
it.” Garner was a big, dark-skinned brother with a shaved head who seemed to have practiced getting the most out of his intimidating stature.
But I wasn't having any of it. “You got a hearing problem, Lieutenant? There's a little girl out there who's going to die. I need to be inside that crime scene.”
Lt. Garner glowered at me for a minute, then scowled and looked away. “I'm sorry,” he said “But I got very, very specific instructions not to let you into this crime scene.”
“From who?”
“I think you know who.”
“The Chief? The Chief said I can't enter my own crime scene?”
Garner sighed loudly, then turned to the uniformed officer. “Hey, son, was you talking about getting some cold drinks a couple minutes ago?”
“Well, uhâ”
“This July heat gets me parched. I'll keep an eye on the perimeter here till you get back.” He took a large, shiny wallet out of the breast pocket of his coat, fished out a twenty, and held it in the white boy's direction. “Get me a Diet Dr. Pepper, how about?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And whatever you want for yourself. Sandwich, co-cola, anything.”
We stood silently until the uniform drove away. “Look, Detective,” Garner said. “I don't like this any more than you do. But I got instructions. I'll give you five minutes to get whatever you need. But when that white boy gets back, you better be gone. He's the Chief's eyeballs at this crime scene.”
“Thanks,” I said, heading for the stairs.
“And don't you dare mess up my crime scene!” Garner called.
I charged into the apartment and headed for the back bedroomânot the room where Gooch had been killed, but the one where he slept, where all his files were kept. I pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, then yanked open the top drawer of his filing cabinet.
What I was looking for was some kind of clue as to where Gooch had kept the children. A rental agreement or a deed for some property out in the country, a mortgage note on a house, a receipt for a U-Store-It warehouse, anything.
I quickly found a drawer devoted exclusively to bills. He had power bills, gas bills, rental payment receipts for his apartment, car notes, and tax filings going back more than ten years. But nothing to indicate that he owned or rented a single square foot of property other than the apartment I was standing in. I looked at my watch. Five minutes had already gone by.
I opened the other filing cabinet drawers. There was a fat file on each of the dead children. I pulled one out at random, Marquavious Roberts, leafed quickly through it. There was a copy of Lt. Bevis's Atlanta PD investigative file, some press clippings, a couple of faded school pictures of the boy. Trophies? Something to read so he could gloat over what he'd done? Or maybe he had tracked the cases in order to do whatever was necessary to cover his own tracks.
Whatever the case, there was nothing especially new or revelatory in the file, nothing I hadn't seen before. I put it back, opened another drawer. More files on the children.
I went to the next drawer. The tab on the first file said
AM
-
MERMAN
. The next file read
BRUNSON
. Most of the files were old and worn. But one of them in the back caught my eye.
MECHELLE DEAKES.
It took me a moment; then I realized what this was. These were files on every law enforcement officer who'd ever investigated any of the cases. He must have been playing some kind of sick cat-and-mouse game with us all this time.
I scanned the files to see if there were any names I didn't recognize. There weren't. He'd sure been thorough, though. Not only was every police officer involved listed, so was every civilian involved. There was a file on Vale Pleassance, files on several of the techs at the GBI crime lab including Mark Terry, a file on the old guy who'd been driving bodies to the morgue for the Department for about a million years. There was even a file on Chief Diggs, though it was labelled
DEPUTY CHIEF
DIGGS
âwhich I guess he had been back when Gooch had started keeping these files.
I shoved the file back in the drawer, looked at my watch. Six minutes.
I opened the last drawer in the cabinet. There were only two files, both of them fairly thick. The label on one folder read
DNA
. The other said
ANALYSIS OF METHOD
.
“Deakes?” It was Garner calling to me. “Yo, Deakes, time's up.”
“Two more minutes,” I called.
“Now.”
I grabbed both files and tried shoving them into the waistband of my skirt, but they were too thick. Which one would be most important? I had no idea, so I randomly chose the one that said
ANALYSIS OF METHOD,
stuffed into my skirt, then put the
DNA
folder back. On a whim, I opened the drawer above, yanked out the much thinner Bevis file, and shoved it into my skirt too.
As I stood, Lt. Garner appeared in the doorway, snapping his fingers. “Let's go, let's go. That white boy's gonna be back any time. Like I say, I know for a fact he's one of the Chief's little spies.”
I nodded. “Okay. I appreciate the help.”
Garner squired me to the door.
“Hey, you know,” he said, “maybe you and me ought to get together for a drink sometime. Talk a little shop.” His voice had a sleepy, Barry White quality to it. I knew shop talk was a long way from his mind.
“And what's this?” I said, grabbing his ring finger. He was wearing a thick gold wedding ring.
“Oh, that old thing?” he said, showing me a row of large white teeth. “Shoot, baby. That ain't nothing.”
“Maybe not to you.”