The Man Who Killed His Brother (7 page)

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Authors: Stephen R. Donaldson

BOOK: The Man Who Killed His Brother
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While we were waiting, we saw the doctor come in. He examined the dude, then went away muttering to himself. A few minutes later, two paramedics arrived with a stretcher
and carted the dude off on it. Teresa watched them go, but the anger in her eyes stayed.
After another half hour or so, a different detective came over and introduced himself as Captain Cason. He was a short, fleshy man with hands like shovels and eyes so flat and pale that from the side they looked like the eyes of a blind man. His voice had a particular rasp with which I was all too familiar—the hoarseness of a man who does a lot of interrogating. He took Teresa across the duty room into his office and shut the door.
They were in there a long time. When they came out, she looked shell-shocked, like she was about to faint away right there on the floor. I had a sick taste in my mouth as I hurried toward her.
Cason tried to stop me. He put himself between us, steered her over to a nearby desk and told the detective there to arrange a ride home for her. Then he took my arm and tugged me in the direction of his office.
I slapped his hand off and stepped around him. For one second Teresa looked straight at me. Her face was as pale as if she were bleeding internally, but there was a hot red spot of color on each cheekbone, and her lips were tight. Her dark intense eyes didn’t flinch. Half her anger was aimed at me.
Cason barked, “Axbrewder!” But I ignored him long enough to tell her in Spanish, “I will put him in prison by myself if you do not speak against him.” Then I turned away. Cason was getting ready to muscle me, and I didn’t want that to happen. I said to him, “Tell your detective I want my jacket back.” Then I strode straight into his office and dropped myself into one of the chairs.
He followed me in, shut the door, and sat down. He put his hands on the desk and kept them there as if they were too heavy to carry around. Or maybe he just didn’t want me to forget how strong they were. With that harsh rasp of his, he demanded, “What did you say to her?”
The bad taste in my mouth was getting worse, but I made an effort to keep my vocabulary polite. “The opposite of what you said.”
“Huh?”
“You told her I wasn’t going to testify for her.” That was what I’d seen in her eyes. I didn’t need her to explain it. “You tried to scare her off by telling her she’d have to carry this alone in court. You must’ve had a fine old time describing how ugly a rape trial can get.”
“Is that so?” Cason growled. For a second there, he didn’t sound quite so sure of himself. Then he rallied. “Well, I’ve got news for you, smartass. You aren’t going to testify.”
“How do you figure that?” I said, hoping there wasn’t something important about all this that he knew and I didn’t.
“You’re a known alcoholic. You were in the part of town where you do your drinking. The arresting officers found you outside a bar. Who’s going to believe a thing you say?”
“That’s cute.” The taste in my mouth made me sound like him. “The only problem is that I’m sober.”
“Is that a fact?” he drawled. “How do you propose to convince a jury?”
I almost laughed at him. “You’re wasting my time. I’ll call you as a character witness. Even you won’t be able to explain why you didn’t give me a blood-alcohol test.” He blinked at that a couple of times, but didn’t say anything. “Come on, Captain,” I went on. “You’re playing games with me. Why don’t you cut out the bullshit and tell me what’s really going on?”
His fingertips began to touch each other lightly. “The man’s name is Charles Saunders, and he’s from Cleveland. We’re trying to get in touch with his wife. The doctor says he may have a ruptured kidney.” Then his hands jumped into fists. “Goddamn it, Axbrewder! Haven’t you ever heard of minimum force?”
“‘Minimum force?’” I countered. “What’s that?”
“He could sue you for every penny you ever had!”
“Is that a fact?” Deliberately I imitated Cason’s tone.
“We can probably get you off the hook if you let this thing drop.”
I felt like it was my turn to get angry, but I held back. “So let him sue me. That’s my problem. I don’t give a shit what he does as long as he does it in jail.”
“Smart-ass!” Cason barked. “I wish you still had a license, so I could get it pulled for this.”
“Yeah, well, I appreciate your consideration. But I’m just a private citizen. I saw a crime being committed, and I intervened. I went in hard because there wasn’t time for anything else. He had a knife. I didn’t have a chance to ask him if he was going to use it.” I tried not to sound too angry, but I couldn’t swallow all of it. “What the hell’s the matter with you, anyway? You like rape? You want clowns like this Saunders running around loose?”
“Shut up, Axbrewder,” he said softly, “or I’ll stuff it down your throat.”
“Just what we need around here,” I shot back. “More police brutality.”
“All right.” He was furious. “That’s enough. You want to be cute? I’ll give it to you straight. This Sanguillán”—he made her name into an insult—“is just another Mex chippy who tried to back out when she didn’t get enough money. It happens all the time. That’s why she was out on the street alone at night. Saunders just got sucked in. He’s a tourist here, and he deserves an even break. A ruptured kidney is a hell of a price to pay for not having enough cash on him. This won’t go any farther. You’re not going to testify.”
“Because he’s Anglo,” I said carefully.
“If that’s the way you want to put it.” His hands were flat on the desk, as if everything was settled.
I got to my feet. “Teresa Sanguillán has a perfectly respectable job as a domestic in the Heights. That’ll be easy to prove. She was on the street at night alone because that’s the only way she can get home. But even if she is ‘just another Mex chippy,’ it doesn’t make any difference. She was being
raped
!
”
I couldn’t stop myself. I hammered my fist onto the top of his desk so hard that a couple of files fell off onto the floor. “If you try to sit on this, I’ll go to the DA.” District Attorney Martínez was notoriously unsympathetic toward racist cops. “He might like to find out how many rape investigations you’ve quashed since you got your promotion.”
Captain Cason was standing behind his desk, and his
hands were twitching, and he was saying, “You sonofabitch, you—!” But I wasn’t listening. I’d had enough of him. I threw open the door and went out into the duty room.
I’d been in there longer than I thought. Teresa was gone, and my jacket waited for me on the corner of a desk. Everybody in the duty room stared at me, but I ignored them. I shoved my arms into my coat, moving fast to hide the way I was shaking. Then I stalked out of the room.
I was in no mood to be interfered with, so when a woman in the corridor behind me called my name, I didn’t pay any attention. No, thanks—not interested. I’ve had enough. But she was determined. “Mr. Axbrewder!” I could hear her hurrying to catch up with me. Oh, hell. I gritted my teeth, shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket so that she wouldn’t see them tremble, and turned to face her.
Policewoman Rand, from Missing Persons.
“Mr. Axbrewder,” she repeated, “Sergeant Encino wants to see you.”
Encino. Just what I needed. Another racist, like Cason only on the opposite side of the fence. I didn’t feel like putting up with him. I had my mouth open to tell Policewoman Rand where Sergeant Encino could stuff it when my right hand found a piece of paper in my jacket pocket. I shut up long enough to take it out and look at it.
It was just a scrap of paper. On one side there was something in Spanish that looked like a grocery list. On the other side, in awkward childlike handwriting, it said, “I am indebted to you. Teresa Mar
a Sanguillán y Garc
a.”
That made a difference, somehow. All of a sudden, Cason didn’t seem to be worth the emotion I was spending on him. I folded the note neatly, put it back in my pocket. Then I asked Policewoman Rand, “Where is he?”
She nodded back down the corridor. “In the office.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go see him.”
She didn’t come with me, but continued on the way I’d been going. Maybe it was time for her coffee break. I went back to Missing Persons alone.
Encino was the only one there. As soon as he saw me come in, he got up from his desk and came to stand at the
counter, facing me. We stared at each over for a moment across the Formica. Then he said, “I hear that you have stopped a rape tonight.”
That took me by surprise. I nodded stupidly.
His sad eyes didn’t waver. “I hear that the woman is Chicano.”
I didn’t say anything to that either. Something was going on here, I couldn’t even guess what it was. As a way of answering him, I took out my scrap of paper and let him see it.
“Ah.” He read it, then looked back up at me. He was too good at hiding his emotions—I couldn’t find anything in his face. After a moment, he said, “So you have spoken with Captain Cason.”
For the sake of not acting like an idiot, I mustered up enough voice to growl, “Yeah.”
Carefully Encino asked, “What have you said to him?”
It was none of his business, but I was glad to tell him anyway. “I told him to blow it out his ass.”
Suddenly Encino’s whole face smiled. He was so happy that even his hair looked like it was grinning. He turned serious again a few seconds later, but by then everything between us was different.
“Señor Axbrewder,” he said formally, “I’ve been unjust. Men such as Cason”—he said the name bitterly—“blind me. Accept my apologies.”
Before I could respond, he went back to his desk, picked up a stack of manila folders, and brought them over to the counter.
“The truth is that you upset me when you said there is a connection between Alathea Axbrewder and Carol Christie. I had not considered that. So I have been reading the files for two years back. I found these.” He tapped the stack of folders. Then he shrugged. “They were investigated. There is no apparent connection.”
He didn’t let me interrupt him. “I can’t permit you to read these. But”—he sighed eloquently—“I must leave the office for a short time. How can I know what happens behind my back? Please use my desk.”
Five seconds later, he was gone, and I was alone with his files.
Now I was more than just surprised. But I didn’t have time for it. I wanted to read those files, and I didn’t know how long the office would be empty. I grabbed up the stack, straightened it in front of me, and got started.
There were seven folders. Carol Christie’s was on the top, and I took it first.
Before I finished it, I felt so weak that I feared I was going to fall down. I couldn’t help myself—I had to go sit in Encino’s chair.
After Carol Christie’s, I read the other six files straight through. Then I went back to the beginning and started over again. This time I took notes. Halfway through, Sergeant Encino came back. But he was alone, and I didn’t stop.
By the time I finished, I was dripping sweat on his blotter. My shirt was soaked and sticking to my back, along with most of my jacket. I didn’t ask Encino’s permission to use his phone—I just grabbed it and dialed as well as I could with my hands shaking like cowards. I held on while Ginny’s answering service tracked her down. When she answered, they patched me through.

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