“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Susan Salter. I’m Dr. Elliott’s medical technologist.”
The cop turns to me. “You’re Dr. Elliott’s lawyer?”
“Yes, I am, Officer. Penn Cage. As you saw, my client was clearly defending himself. But as serious as this looks, it’s still misdemeanor assault, and I very much doubt that my client will press charges. He knows these boys, and I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding. Isn’t that right, Drew?”
Drew looks in my direction with tears streaming down his face. “Uh…that’s right, Officer. We were just horsing around, and it got out of hand.”
“Bullshit!” yells one of the boys on the ground. “That bastard tried to kill us! He broke my fucking nose!”
The cop points at Steve Sayers. “In that kid’s hands, a baseball bat is a deadly weapon. It looked like aggravated assault to me.”
The cop is right. Steve Sayers is at least six-foot-one, and he has the hyperinflated musculature I associate with the use of anabolic steroids. All three boys do, come to think of it, which makes me think of Marko Bakic and his little drug business at St. Stephen’s.
“Aggravated assault is a felony, Officer,” I say evenly. “Steve’s a good kid. There’s no reason to put a felony arrest on his record.”
“Everybody wait right here,” says the cop, who looks young enough to be a rookie. He’s not going to make decisions involving prominent citizens without some advice from a superior. As he goes back to his squad car to use the radio, I turn to one of the seniors on the ground. “What the hell were you guys doing?”
“Kiss my ass!” he barks. “That bastard needs his ass kicked. Fucking cradle-robber. Pervert.”
Then it hits me:
They know about Drew and Kate.
I’d like to question Drew, but the second cop is standing too close to him. I try to catch Drew’s eye, but the pepper spray has rendered those organs useless for the time being.
When the young cop returns from his car, he walks right past me, informs Drew that he’s under arrest for aggravated assault, then begins reading him his Miranda rights. The other cop takes his cue and does the same to Steve Sayers.
“What are you guys doing?” I ask in the calmest voice I can muster. “Dr. Elliott was clearly defending himself. You heard what he said during the fight.”
“Judge’ll decide that,” says the young cop. “Step back, sir.”
“The most you can arrest him for is simple assault.”
“I’m just doing what the chief told me to do.”
“The chief of police told you to do this?”
“That’s right. You got a problem, take it up with him.”
“I’ll do that,” I reply, but what I’m thinking is,
Son of a bitch! This situation is becoming more political by the minute.
The police chief should have ordered the patrolman to let Drew go, or at most to arrest him for simple assault, then release him on a recognizance bond. An arrest for aggravated assault can only mean one thing: the chief wants Drew and Steve in his custody. And the only reason I can see for that is the long-running turf war between the police department and the sheriff’s office. In the arena of that conflict, the police chief has been handed a gift from the gods. He can now hold Sheriff Byrd’s two main murder suspects in his jail for at least one night.
The boys cuss and spit at Drew as the cops haul them to their feet. One’s face is a mass of blood below the nose; the other’s left eye is already swelling shut. For a man defending himself against three assailants, Drew did a lot of damage.
A second squad car pulls into the lot. As the police herd their charges into the cars, I promise Drew I’ll meet him at the station. Then I pull Susan Salter into the courtyard of Drew’s office building. She’s hyperventilating now, and her tears are flowing nonstop.
“I don’t understand!” she says in a stunned voice. “This morning everything was fine, and now…everything’s upside down! It doesn’t make any sense. How could they think Dr. Elliott could do anything against the law?”
Is she talking about the fight?
I wonder.
Or about Kate’s murder?
I take hold of Susan’s thin wrists and speak in a reassuring voice. “Listen to me, Susan. I don’t know how much Drew told you about his situation, but I do know this: he trusted you with his life. He told me you’d worked for him nine years, and that he had absolute confidence in you. What you just saw will be the talk of the town by tonight. If you add to that talk, it can only hurt Drew. Do you understand?”
She sucks her upper lip into her mouth as though thinking hard, then nods and wipes her nose. “Don’t worry about me saying anything. I hate gossip. That’s why I quit the hospital. All they do over there is cheat on their spouses and gossip about it afterward. I think they like the talking better than the cheating.”
“Will you tell me what you saw in the parking lot?”
She nods helpfully. “It happened just like I said. We were standing there talking about recombinant DNA, and this big pickup truck screeched to a stop beside us.” She points at a jacked-up orange pickup parked thirty yards away. “There were three guys inside. They looked like high school kids, but big, you know? I think Dr. Elliott knew them, because he waved and spoke to the driver. But then a guy jumped out of the backseat and started screaming at Dr. Elliott.”
“What did he scream?”
“Curse words, mostly.”
“Try to remember exactly.”
Susan has a primitive Baptist’s reluctance to utter profanity. “ ’You motherfucker,‘ I think he said first. ’You sick motherfucker. It was you. It was you all along.‘ ”
Oh wow.
This is only a preview of the community reaction to Drew’s secret private life. “Did Drew say anything back?”
“No. He looked too shocked to speak.”
“Go on.”
“ ’You need your ass kicked,‘ I think the boy said next, and then he jumped at Dr. Elliott like he was going to hit him. Dr. Elliott called him by name then. He told Steve to calm down and get back in the truck. But the kid just threw up his fists and kept jumping forward like he was going to hit Dr. Elliott. I was kind of freaked out, but not really scared at that point. It was so
weird.
But then the other two guys jumped out of the truck.”
“Is that when the bat came into it?”
“No. That only happened after Drew knocked the other two guys down.”
“Who threw the first punch?”
“The first kid. Steve.”
“Did Drew fight back?”
“Not at first. He kept trying to calm Steve down. But after Steve hit him five or six times, Dr. Elliott shoved him backward. Steve fell down, and I think that really embarrassed him. He screamed for the other guys to help, and at that point the other two guys jumped Dr. Elliott.”
“What happened then?”
Susan shakes her head as though in wonder. “I’m not really sure. I mean, it happened so fast. It was like Dr. Elliott knew how to fight and they didn’t. They were really mad, and they were screaming and throwing punches everywhere, but it looked sort of like my husband wrestling with my ten-year-old son. The second it got serious, it was like,
over.
”
“How did the baseball bat come into it?”
“Steve went down first, but while Dr. Elliott was handling the other two, Steve grabbed the bat from the truck.” Susan shakes her head as if reliving the fight. “It was
scary.
I’ve never seen Dr. Elliott like that. I saw him once at the hospital picnic. He played softball with his shirt off, and he was like,
ripped,
you know?”
“I know. I grew up with him.”
“But he wasn’t that competitive, not like the other guys. He was just out there for fun. But today…Dr. Elliott did everything he could to stop that fight, but once he knew it was going to happen, he just
switched on.
I’ve never seen anything like that.”
I can understand Susan’s awe. Steve Sayers and his buddies have been pumping iron seriously for two or three years. But their steroid-plumped muscles are no match for the speed and strength that genetics bestowed upon Drew Elliott at birth. And their teenage anger couldn’t begin to compare with the deadly resolve of a man who sensed he was fighting for his life.
“But in your mind, it was the other guys’ fault?” I ask.
“Oh, totally. Absolutely. They wanted a piece of Dr. Elliott, and they pushed him until they got it. Dear Lord.”
“All right, Susan. Will you be okay if I go on to the station now?”
She nods uncertainly. “I think so. Thanks for staying with me.”
“Glad to do it. And you’re not going to talk to anybody about this? Other than the police?”
“No, I understand.” She looks suddenly upset again. “Mr. Cage, is Drew going to be all right?”
The look in Susan Salter’s eyes tells me she’s more than half in love with her boss, but I don’t even want to go there. I nod at her as though any other outcome would be impossible. “You take care, okay?”
“I will.”
As I hurry back to my Saab, one thought fills my head:
How did Steve Sayers find out that Drew was involved with Kate?
But once in the car, another, more frightening thought takes its place:
Who else knows about it?
Chapter
9
Natchez police headquarters is a one-story building sandwiched between a Pizza Hut and an abandoned strip mall on the north side of town. The PD used to be downtown, but that more stately building was razed to make room for a modern juvenile justice center. By the time I arrive at the station, both Drew and Steve Sayers have been processed and taken to detention cells in the rear of the building. The other two high school boys were booked on simple assault and now await their parents in holding cells; a six-hundred-dollar bond will free them.
I demand a meeting with the chief of police, and almost immediately I’m escorted to his office. Chief Don Logan sits waiting for me behind his desk. He’s a thin man in his forties who looks more like an engineer than a policeman. His spartan office reflects his reputation as a managerial type. Chief Logan has family photos on his desk, and more computer manuals than law enforcement texts on his bookshelves. He’s known for being careful about procedure, so it’s all the more surprising that he’s made the political move of arresting Drew.
“Hello, Chief Logan,” I say equably.
He regards me coolly over a steaming cup of coffee. “In my seven years as chief,” he says, “I’ve never seen anything like the furor over this situation. I understand the emotional side, of course. A pretty young girl, so much potential. A prominent physician suddenly associated with her murder. But people are losing their perspective over this thing. There’s a mob mentality developing out there. Nobody seems to want to let matters take their normal course. To let the system work.”
“Including the district attorney?” I prompt.
Chief Logan raises one eyebrow, but he doesn’t take the bait. “I’m sure you’re wondering why we’ve charged your client with aggravated assault.”
“You read my mind, Chief.”
“I’m going to lay my cards on the table, Penn. We have a troubled history with the sheriff’s department. You know all about it, I’m sure. The city of Natchez is under the jurisdiction of the police department, but technically, the sheriff has jurisdiction over the entire county, which includes the city. In general, we have a working agreement whereby we work crimes inside the city limits and the sheriff takes the county.”
“But?”
Logan takes a sip of coffee. “But Billy Byrd is a political animal. And when a high-profile case comes along, the sheriff believes it’s his God-given right to storm in and take over the investigation. Billy ran roughshod over the last police chief, and he’s tried to do the same to me on occasion. He’s actually had his deputies try to arrest one of my officers at a couple of crime scenes. They almost came to blows. I’ve requested several legal opinions from the attorney general’s office in Jackson, but nothing they send us is ever definitive enough.”
“I understand your problem. I dealt with some of the same issues in Houston.”
Chief Logan nods as though encouraged. “I’m glad you do. Because today I’m drawing the line. Kate Townsend’s body was discovered just within the boundary of the city, which alone makes it our case. But she almost certainly died farther upstream in that creek, which removes any doubt whatever about jurisdiction.”
Sheriff Byrd won’t see it that way.
“You’re preaching to the choir, Chief. Tell me about the assault charge.”
“Since that’s a felony charge, Dr. Elliott and the Sayers boy will have to spend the night in this building. I’ll have a chance to talk to them without any interference from Sheriff Byrd. Now, as Dr. Elliott’s lawyer, you can stop me if you want to. But know this: my sole interest is in solving Kate Townsend’s murder. I’m not railroading anybody to judgment in order to grab some headlines, here or anywhere else.”
This is good news indeed.
“If Dr. Elliott’s guilty,” Logan goes on, “then he should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But if he’s not, the man deserves some protection.” The chief shakes his head. “Drew’s reputation will be blown to hell by suppertime tonight, and as far as I can tell, there’s nothing against him but some anonymous phone calls and a fistfight.”
“Which he didn’t start,” I point out.
The chief waves his hand as though shooing away a fly. “The judge will throw out the assault charge tomorrow morning. The bottom line is, I think Dr. Elliot’s safer in my jail than anywhere else in this town tonight.”
I sit back in my chair and study the chief. He’s the first rational man I’ve spoken to in some time. “I hear you loud and clear.”
“I don’t have isolation cells here,” he says, “but I do have some eight-man units that are empty. I’ve put Drew in one and the Sayers boy in the other. They’ll be safe and relatively comfortable until tomorrow.”
I try to suppress a smile at the thought of Shad Johnson learning about this development. “Have you spoken to the D.A. about this assault arrest?”
Chief Logan looks out his solitary window and gives a long-suffering sigh. “I try very hard to get along with the district attorney. But I have a feeling Mr. Johnson isn’t going to like this one bit.” He looks back at me, his dark eyes hard with conviction. “You know what? Tough titty. This ain’t right, and I ain’t going along with it. There’s not a damn thing Mr. Johnson can do about this arrest before tomorrow, unless he wants to call a judge and have Dr. Elliott released on the strength of the D.A.’s word. And given Mr. Johnson’s main political support base, I don’t think he’ll want to do that.”