Over Tumbled Graves (19 page)

Since that night, Caroline had stayed awake all night at least once a week. She wouldn’t mind so much, but when she got up the phone was never ringing and her mother was never on the other end. So she paced around or wrote notes to herself or went for walks, until she was raw with fatigue, ready to debate the names of children who would never exist or to plan the Labor Day dinner. Or, she supposed, to mistake a married couple on a balcony for a man molesting a girl.

Caroline had mentioned her insomnia to Dr. Ewing, the police psychologist, who told Caroline it was perfectly normal considering the pressure she’d been under: her mother’s death, her relationship with Joel, the trouble with Lenny Ryan and Thick Jay, her unresolved guilt over shooting the wife beater six years ago, and, of course, this case.

This case. It had its own irrational and manic voices—Dupree, Jacqueline, and now Blanton—which had replaced the voice of her mother’s insomnia. These voices kept Caroline awake tonight, Blanton stressing the elemental importance of the male sexual fantasy, Jacqueline talking about the man who pulled her hair, Dupree’s theory of Lenny Ryan spinning out of control like a top. And other voices, ripples on her subconscious.

Her brother: “I’m not like you, Caroline.” And her father: “You all right, baby?”

She walked until she reached a park bench overlooking the Mississippi. From here, the river didn’t seem so different from the Spokane. All waters are connected, of course. Burn might as well be in this river as in the Spokane, or the Nile or the Indian Ocean for that matter. And her mother too. Eventually, the water rises up and claims us all and we float away. That fact was inescapable in a city like New Orleans, a city built below the sea. In a city like that, you can’t bury people in the ground and so you shove the bodies into family crypts, two-hundred-year-old marble and granite casings that might hold the remains of a hundred people. They just open the crypt, slide the old dust and bones to the back, and put in the next body. The oldest cemetery in New Orleans was called the City of the Dead and from a distance, that’s what a person saw, a skyline of crypts and statuary that became, up close, a rough assemblage of exposed brick and chipped granite. The cemetery had been full for
years and was useful now only as a tourist attraction and a place for muggers to hide in the shadows of the crypts.

Let the criminals have it, Caroline thought. It doesn’t matter. Eventually, the water prevails, even in cities of the dead. Eventually, the water comes for us all, washes over the statues and through the crypts, topples the headstones and tumbles the graves. Caroline sat down on the park bench, too tired to sleep. There was so much to do. She curled her legs up and began rocking, turning her face to the breeze.

Spokane Police Dept.
Office of the Assistant Chief
Meeting Transcript

Date: 6 June, 0800 hours

Case: Serial Murder Task Force

Present at Meeting: Asst. Chief James Tucker, Major Crimes Lt. Charles Branch, Major Crimes Sgt. Alan Dupree

[Begin transmission]

T
UCKER
: Okay. Is this thing on? Okay. For the record, this is Assistant Chief James Tucker and—do you want to—

B
RANCH
: No, why don’t you go ahead.

T
UCKER
: —and from Major Crimes, Lieutenant Branch. We’re waiting for Sergeant Dupree to review his status as lead investigator of the serial killer task force and, specifically, his behavior—

B
RANCH
: Can we say his performance instead?

T
UCKER
: Yeah, that’s better. Yeah. His performance, okay.

B
RANCH
: Because I think this is going to be hard enough without getting into, you know—

T
UCKER
: Personal things. Right. Okay.

B
RANCH
: Because he’s had some personal difficulties lately and I just think—

T
UCKER
: Yeah, I heard. Left his wife, huh?

B
RANCH
: —that the more we stay away from that—

T
UCKER
: I couldn’t agree more.

B
RANCH
: He’s going to have enough trouble taking this—

T
UCKER
: Yeah. I can see that.

B
RANCH
: Okay.

T
UCKER
: And you don’t think Detective Spivey should be present for this?

B
RANCH
: Oh, God no. Not unless you want to clean the blood off your desk.

T
UCKER
: Okay. You want some coffee?

B
RANCH
: No. Thanks.

T
UCKER
: Well, I guess we’ll just wait for Sergeant Dupree.
[End transmission]
[Begin transmission]

D
UPREE
: Hi, honey. I’m home.

T
UCKER
: Please come in, Sergeant.

D
UPREE
: Probably be easier if I stayed out here and you just shot me from your desk there.

B
RANCH
: Hi, Alan.

D
UPREE
: Sit here?

T
UCKER
: That’s fine.

D
UPREE
: Look, I know my report was the wrong place for that joke. I want to apologize and…what’s with the microphone?

T
UCKER
: With your permission, we’d like to tape this meeting because of the nature of the discussion.

D
UPREE
: What nature is that?

T
UCKER
: Well, we try to tape personnel meetings having to do with employment status. As a precaution.

D
UPREE
: What the [expletive deleted] I’m being fired?

B
RANCH
: No one’s firing you, Alan. We’re just trying to get a handle on this investigation. Sit down.

T
UCKER
: At this time, I am providing Sergeant Dupree with—

D
UPREE
: [Unintelligible]

T
UCKER
: —a copy of a memo dated 5 June relating to—

D
UPREE
: Six pages? You have six pages?

B
RANCH
: Alan. Sit down. Let’s just get this finished. Okay?

T
UCKER
: —relating to his performance as lead investigator of the task force investigating a series of recent homicides. As you can see, Sergeant, under the first heading, we have uncooperative and confrontational behavior toward colleagues and investigators from other agencies. Now below that heading are items one through nine detailing Sergeant Dupree’s uneven and occasionally improper conduct in this area. And so on.

D
UPREE
: What’s this one? Confrontational attitude toward other agencies?

T
UCKER
: I don’t think we need to go over each point.

D
UPREE
: Just tell me about this one.

T
UCKER
: I think it’s pretty clear. On 22 May, you sent the FBI a previously discarded lead that Lenny Ryan was seen caddying at a golf course in north Idaho and said that you couldn’t investigate it because to do so would mean crossing state lines.

D
UPREE
: I thought it was funny. I thought the federales would appreciate it. I didn’t think they’d really waste a day looking into it. You’re punishing me for their stupidity?

T
UCKER
: And after that, you ridiculed Agent Jerry Castle for investigating the lead, a lead that you sent to his office.

D
UPREE
: [Unintelligible]

T
UCKER
: At a subsequent task force meeting, you continued mocking Agent Castle by throwing a golf ball at his leg.

D
UPREE
: Actually, I was aiming for Secret Agent Castle’s nuts, but the target was too small.

B
RANCH
: Yeah, that’s a good idea, Alan. Just keep joking your way out of this.

D
UPREE
: Where did this [expletive deleted] come from? What’s this one? Failure to properly record interviews?

T
UCKER
: Our goal is not to go through each of these points, Sergeant Dupree. The entire report will be entered into the record of this meeting. So if we could—

D
UPREE
: What’s this one? Failure to coordinate outside support? This is crazy.

T
UCKER
: Again, our intent is not to go over this entire memorandum in this meeting, Sergeant Dupree.

D
UPREE
: Failure to utilize necessary investigative techniques? What is that about?

B
RANCH
: Damn it, Alan. The fact that you don’t even know what we’re talking about is half the problem. We applied for a ten-thousand-dollar grant for the FBI software that set up a computer database for analyzing and prioritizing evidence and you haven’t used it at all.

D
UPREE
: I got tips coming in that Lenny Ryan left on a spaceship. You want me to put that in the computer so it can tell me that we should be looking for a little green man? Come on, tell me where this is coming from?

T
UCKER
: What about the entomologist?

D
UPREE
: The what?

T
UCKER
: Another detective claims that you ignored his request to bring in an entomologist to analyze the insects and microorganisms on the victims’ bodies to gather a more accurate measure of the decomposition of the bodies.

D
UPREE
: Spivey. That [expletive deleted]. I should’ve known. Spivey didn’t get his bug doctor and so he came running to you. That little puke.

B
RANCH
: This is a different kind of investigation, Alan. We’re not convinced you appreciate the full spectrum of investigative techniques at your disposal and maybe a detective with more recent investigative training—

D
UPREE
: I appreciate how to be a cop! I appreciate when someone’s trying to clean me like a [expletive deleted] fish!

B
RANCH
: Alan, even if these other complaints weren’t true, you have screwed up every chance to bring in a profiler—

D
UPREE
: Bunch of voodoo crap.

B
RANCH
: That’s what I’m talking about. Whatever you think of its effectiveness, this kind of case requires behavioral profiling. And your antagonistic attitude toward Agent McDaniel and Curtis Blanton has kept them from consulting on our case—

D
UPREE
: My antagonistic attitude? Blanton told me to go [expletive deleted] myself until we got to [expletive deleted] double digits! My [expletive deleted] attitude?

T
UCKER
: The purpose of this meeting is not to debate the merits of these points, Sergeant Dupree, nor is it to hear your quite impressive range
of profanities, but to provide you with the rationale used in deciding to replace you as lead investigator.

D
UPREE
: Replace me? So what do I do now?

B
RANCH
: That’s up to you, Alan. If you want to continue as an investigator on the task force, under a probationary period—

D
UPREE
: What about this one? Provided the public with false and misleading information at a crime scene? What’s that?

T
UCKER
: On 28 April, while responding to a homicide at the home of Leonard Ryan’s uncle, you in fact told a television reporter that the victim had been castrated and that his heart had been extracted from his body.

D
UPREE
: [Unintelligible]

T
UCKER
: Sergeant, could you speak into the microphone?

D
UPREE
: I said [expletive deleted] Spivey that little [expletive deleted].

B
RANCH
: Come on, Alan. Sit down.

D
UPREE
: So who’s taking over the task force?

B
RANCH
: Alan, I don’t think—

D
UPREE
: Are you bringing someone in from outside? Or are you going to promote someone? Pollard?

T
UCKER
: We’re promoting Detective Spivey—

D
UPREE
: He’s [unintelligible] ten years old!

B
RANCH
: He’s thirty-one, Alan.

D
UPREE
: He’s an idiot.

B
RANCH
: Spivey didn’t come to us, Alan.

T
UCKER
: We asked him for an assessment of your performance and McDaniel likes him. McDaniel will work with him.

D
UPREE
: I thought I was training him.

B
RANCH
: Frankly, Alan, I had hoped when I paired the two of you that you might benefit as much from his recent training—

D
UPREE
: What?

B
RANCH
: —especially his expertise in the areas of evidence recovery and forensics.

D
UPREE
: I don’t…This is…

T
UCKER
: Sergeant Dupree, the task force’s failure to apprehend Mr. Ryan or, quite frankly, to provide enough evidence to prosecute him if he is arrested would be enough to replace you at this point. Those things coupled with your failure to—

D
UPREE
: You don’t understand. This guy Ryan, he’s like a black hole, like this concentrated darkness, like a top—

T
UCKER
: Time will be provided at the end of this meeting for you to defend your behavior—

B
RANCH
: —performance.

T
UCKER
: Right, your performance.

D
UPREE
: I don’t know what to…I’ve never been fired before.

B
RANCH
: I told you, no one is being fired.

D
UPREE
: You give all you have to a job and you wake up one morning and everything [unintelligible]—

T
UCKER
: Detective Spivey has made it clear you can continue with the task force if you like.

D
UPREE
: This is hilarious.

B
RANCH
: Or you can return to the Major Crimes Unit and your previous assignment.

D
UPREE
: No. No. If you don’t want me on this thing, then put me back in a car.

B
RANCH
: Alan, let’s not make this worse than it is.

D
UPREE
: I’ve apparently made it as bad as it can be. No, you want me off this case, I’ll just ride out the rest of my time on patrol.