The Dead Detective (17 page)

Harry sat up straight in his chair. “You never told me that she wrote to you too.”

“I know. Maria and I talked about it, and we decided the letters you got from her were enough, more than enough. We saw what they did to you and we didn’t want to add to it.” He raised a hand and let it fall back to the table. “The letters she sent to us, well, they were crazy letters, Harry, and over the years they never got any better. I don’t see how anybody can say that woman is ready to be out on the streets again. If you want, Maria and I will appeal to the parole board too. We can add our letters to the ones you have.”

Harry stared at him. “What did her letters say?”

“Mostly, that we’d have to pay someday for what we did.”

“And what was that?”

Jocko stared at the tabletop and then raised his eyes back to Harry’s. “That we kept you from Jesus.”

Harry leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “You think the parole board will listen to any of us?”

“They’ll listen. I’ll make sure of it. Whether they hear us or not … well, that’s another matter.”

Harry nodded and took a moment to think about it. “I appreciate the offer. I’ll let you know what I decide to do.”

Jocko stood, walked to Harry’s side of the table, cupped his head with one hand, and pulled him against his chest. “I gotta go,” he said. “Maria will be waiting for a full report on how you look, how you feel, whether you are wearing nice clothes, whether there’s any sign of a woman at your house, and how much of her food you ate.”

Harry laughed. “Make sure you tell her my socks were clean.”

“I will.” Jocko paused. “Are they?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“Good. I hate to lie to her. Whenever I try, she knows.”

“Yeah, I remember. Sometimes it was spooky how she always seemed to know when I wasn’t telling her the complete truth.”

“It’s not just Maria. It’s a woman thing,” Jocko said. “They’re wonderful, but they’re also scary as hell.”

Jocko stepped out the front door and headed toward the sidewalk. The air was thick with tropical warmth, cut by a light but steady wind coming in off the gulf. Above, the sky was already dotted with stars and a crescent moon hung over the water in the shape of a cat’s smile. As he reached the sidewalk, Jocko sensed movement on the other side of the street, and when he looked he saw a head and shoulders slip down in the driver’s seat of a parked car.

He stopped and stared at the car, and as he did it lurched forward, cut into a sharp U-turn, and drove away. Fifty yards down the street it turned right on Mandalay Avenue and he could hear the engine rev as it sped away.

He turned back to Harry, who was standing in the doorway. “Was that car here when you got home?” he asked.

Harry shook his head. “No one was parked on that side of the street.”

“I think whoever it was may have been watching your house. It was a Chevy Malibu, blue or black, the same car your department uses for unmarked units.”

“I noticed.”

Jocko offered a small shrug. “It could be Internal Affairs. Once they open an investigation on someone in a unit, they like to look at everyone in the unit. But you better check out Benevuto too; see if he kept his car, even though he’s on desk duty. Who knows, I could be wrong about him. I was wrong once before.” He paused, his face cracking into a slow, easy smile. “I can’t remember when it was, but I’m sure it happened. It probably had something to do with you.” He grinned momentarily at Harry; then the grin faded and his eyes hardened. “And from now on, make sure you watch for a tail.”

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

B
obby Joe Waldo looked one shade paler than death
as he entered his father’s office and took a seat next to Harry Doyle. It was ten o’clock on a clear, balmy Florida morning; the only storm clouds those that had gathered in the eyes of the Reverend John Waldo. The stout, unsmiling minister now turned those eyes on his son.

“Detective Doyle tells me that one of our cars was involved in an accident a couple of weeks back, and that it took place in the parking lot of some strip club in Tampa. You know anything about that Bobby Joe?”

Harry would have bet against the probability, but Bobby Joe’s complexion became even paler.

“I do,” Bobby Joe said in a soft, raspy voice, each word a separate croak.

“I think you better tell us about it.”

Bobby Joe nodded. “I guess I should of tol’ you before.”

“Yes, you should have. So let’s make up for it now.” His father’s eyes were still hard on him.

“I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but it wasn’t all that long ago,” Bobby Joe began. “The church got a phone call that one of our cars had been in an accident and the receptionist who took it passed it in to me.” There was a film of sweat forming on Bobby Joe’s upper lip despite the air-conditioning in his father’s office.

“When I took the call I realized that the woman was an exotic dancer, and that the place she claimed the accident happened was the parking lot of a strip club.” He gave his father a small, weak shrug. “Well, I decided the best thing for the church was to just pay this woman off.” He glanced first at Harry, then back at his father. “I mean there was no way to know who had taken the car, and if they had taken it to where she said the accident happened.”

Harry leaned forward in his chair. “Was the car damaged? Your car, I mean?”

“There was a scratch on the right front fender. It’s still there. It was so small I haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed.” Bobby Joe used his thumb and index finger to wipe the sweat from his upper lip.

“What about the dancer’s car?” The question came from Reverend Waldo this time.

“She said there was a scratch on the driver’s door of her car. From what she told me the paint left on her car matched the color of paint on ours. She told me she always wrote down the license plate numbers of cars parked next to hers because the club has so many customers who leave drunk. Everything she said seemed legitimate, so I just told her to get an estimate. She called back when she got it and I took money from the automobile maintenance account and paid her.” He looked anxiously at his father for some sign of approval. “Daddy, I just thought it best that we get rid of this as fast as possible. There was no way of knowing who took the car.” He turned to Harry. “The keys to all our cars are kept on a peg in the outer office.”

“The two ladies who work out there didn’t remember who took that particular car?” Harry asked.

Bobby Joe twisted in his chair. The tells were falling off him like raindrops. “People come in for cars all the time,” he said. “There’s really no way of them knowing who takes what car. They just kinda make sure anybody taking keys is authorized to take a car. And that would be any of the associate ministers, both lay and ordained.”

“What about assistant ministers and teachers in the school?” Harry asked.

Bobby Joe shook his head. “They’re not supposed to take cars out. They’re not covered on our insurance policies, and Daddy’s secretary and the receptionist watch it pretty close.”

“Is the office locked after normal business hours?”

“Yes.”

Harry got up from his chair, went to the door, and opened it. He studied the lock and looked across the outer office at the door leading out on to the covered walkway. “It looks like you have the same type of locks on both doors,” he said.

“We have the same locks on all the doors in all our buildings,” Reverend Waldo said.

Harry nodded and returned to his chair. “You might want to consider dead bolt locks for your doors. Especially in areas you want to keep secure. The ones you have now can be slipped. What I mean is they can be opened with a flexible piece of plastic, even a credit card, by slipping it into the door frame and manipulating the lock.”

“So anybody who knew how to do that could’ve got to the keys,” Bobby Joe said, jumping at Harry’s statement as if it were a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.

Harry turned to Bobby Joe, preparing to push him back out into deeper water. “We’re concerned about one of your cars visiting the strip club because Darlene Beckett was known to visit the place on a fairly regular basis.”

Bobby Joe glanced back and forth between Harry and his father. “I don’t think I understand,” he said, although the look in his eyes told Harry he understood completely.

Reverend Waldo leaned back in his executive chair. “I think what Detective Doyle has done is he’s added two and two—our car and that club—and he’s come up with five, all because that woman went there too.” He turned his still unhappy eyes on Harry. “I’m sure that when this car business is all sorted out we’ll find that one of our parishioners called to complain that her husband was visiting this club, and one of our people went there to tell him to get himself home.”

Harry gave the minister a long, blank look. Then he smiled. “You think it’s possible that one of your assistants took your admonition against Ms. Beckett to heart and started following her around to see what he could dig up on her?”

Reverend Waldo returned Harry’s smile, his distinctly patronizing. “We don’t have any detectives in our ministry. I don’t think any of our people would know where to begin if it came to following somebody around.”

Harry momentarily studied his shoes, thinking of the person who followed him home the previous night. When he looked up his smile was back. “I’m sure you’re probably right, Reverend Waldo.” He paused. “But just in case you’re not, I’d like a list of all the people authorized to take cars so I can speak to them.”

The minister’s eyes hardened again. He looked sharply at his son. “Bobby Joe can get that together for you. I think you’ll find everybody you need to talk to is here this morning. And when you’re finished with the detective, Bobby Joe, please come back. There are some other things we have to go over.” When the minister turned back to Harry, his smile had returned. “I hope we were of help,” he said, his tone clearly a dismissal.

Harry got little more than blank stares when he asked members of the church’s staff if they had driven a church vehicle to the Peek-a-Boo Lounge during the past month. He hadn’t expected an admission. He was simply looking for clues, but in each instance he came up empty. Yet when he asked their opinions about Darlene Beckett, the church staff proved far more forthcoming. Words like
sinful
and
child molester
,
harlot
, and
wickedness
dropped from their lips almost as though they were programmed responses. There was a genuine anger about Darlene, a remorseless anger that did not vary from one person to another, and it led Harry to conclude that the Reverend John Waldo had a staff of true believers unlike any he had ever encountered.

The last person Harry interviewed was Justin Clearby, the church’s first assistant minister. Clearby surprised Harry both in his physical appearance and his demeanor. He was a tall, solidly built man somewhere in his mid-fifties who carried around the well-battered face of an aging prizefighter. There was also a sense of rigidness about the man, accented by sandy brown hair cut in a military buzz and pale blue eyes that could only be described as very hard, very cold, and very angry. Clearby also had huge, powerful hands and when Harry shook one he felt as though his own had been swallowed. There was no question in Harry’s mind that Clearby would have the ability to wield a knife with enormous force. Harry also noted that just standing near him seemed to put Bobby Joe Waldo on edge.

“I know the area you’re talking about,” Clearby said, when asked about Nebraska Avenue. “Before being saved I had a thirty-year career in the Marine Corp, most of it spent as a seagoing Marine.” His back seemed to stiffen with pride as he spoke. “Back then Tampa was a popular liberty port largely because of that area. So I know it.” He paused to offer up a cold smile, then added: “Although I haven’t been there in many years.”

“How did you feel about Darlene Beckett?” Harry asked.

Clearby paused a long time before answering. When he did his eyes seemed to give off a steady chill, and as he leaned in to bring himself closer to Harry, his voice became little more than a gravelly whisper. “I wish I had been in heaven the day she died, so I could have borne witness to Jesus Christ casting her into hell,” he said.

Bobby Joe watched Harry’s car leave the church parking lot and head east on Keystone Road toward the Brooker Creek Preserve. The asshole had gotten nothing from all his questions. Everybody he had asked about the Peek-a-Boo had just looked at him like he was out of his mind. Even Clearby shut him down cold. And the big detective, he just stared back at them all the while they talked like he was gonna get something out of the tone of their voices, or the way they stood, or how they made eye contact. He was just like every cop he had ever met, thinking he was gonna be able to divine something, just like he was talking to one of those Greek oracles he had read about in school.

Now he had to go back to his father and listen to his shit for however long it took to smooth his feathers. But he better do it, and he better do a good job of it, or he was gonna lose this piece-of-cake job and find himself out looking for something in the real world, the very thing Daddy always threatened to make him do. Yeah, fat chance. Not with his record. Somebody got a look at that, they’d say so-long, goodbye, have a nice life, kid.

When Bobby Joe entered the office his father was seated behind his desk stone-faced. His tone matched his look, dark and simmering with anger.

“What happened with the detective?”

“Nothin’ happened, Daddy. He talked to everybody and nobody knew nothin’ about that accident.”

Reverend Waldo leaned back in his chair, his large belly rising up above the desktop like some sea creature coming up for a gasp of air. His eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at his son. “Nobody said nothin’ because the person who was driving that car was standing right next to that detective. Isn’t that so, Bobby Joe?”

Bobby Joe shuffled his feet. He knew it was useless to lie to the old man. He wouldn’t believe anything he said no matter how good the story was. And he didn’t have a decent story anyway.

“I was just following her, trying to get somethin’ on her. Something we could use to see that she finally went to jail,” he said.

His father remained silent, the only sign he had even heard him an increased narrowing of his eyes.

“I didn’t even know I had scratched that woman’s car. But I knew I couldn’t risk having anything that would show a church car was ever there. That’s why I paid that woman off so quick.”

“You were sleeping with that filthy harlot, weren’t you?”

Bobby Joe began to rapidly shake his head as though it might drive the accusation away. “No, Daddy. No, no, no.”

“Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare.”

The old man’s voice thundered throughout the room and Bobby Joe could swear it made the photographs on the wall shake. His hands began to tremble. “Daddy … Daddy, I tried hard to resist her.”

The older minister leaned forward, elbows on the desktop, hands pressed together in front of his face as if he were preparing to pray. His voice was little more than a whisper now.

“You tell me how you sinned with her. You confess it to me, boy. You tell me all of it. Every … last … detail. Then you tell me if anybody else knows about it, or even suspects it happened. And you hear this, boy: I don’t want you to leave anything out. And when you tell me all that, then
I’ll
tell
you
what you’re gonna do next to make sure this here church doesn’t pay a price for your sin.”

It was two o’clock when Harry returned to the squad room. Since he arrived at the church that morning he had run into one stone wall after another and he was not in a good mood. The fact that he was followed home the previous night and hadn’t even spotted his tail had dropped his mood another notch.

He slid into his chair at the conference room table and opened his notebook to review his interviews at the church. They hadn’t proved useless, but they were running a close second. Every question he had asked had been answered, but the information given had been minimal or nonexistent. Justin Clearby had been the only plus, and that had been purely a gut feeling. But when he had run a criminal record check on him, he had drawn a blank there as well. All of it left Bobby Joe Waldo as his only suspect.

As he considered his next move someone slid into the chair opposite him. When he looked up he found Vicky looking at him intently. Jim Morgan stood in the doorway behind her. Harry acknowledged him with a nod and Morgan raised one finger to his forehead in a salute.

“How are things going with the church?” Vicky asked.