The Slowest Death Read online

  She added, “I went to a medico-legal death class a few months ago. On my own dime, of course. An average-size person will freeze completely in twelve hours at zero degrees. We need to get him in the freezer at the morgue to stop the freezing process. I’ll get a core temperature there. If you’re through with it, I’ll take the body. I may need one of your guys to help load him and unload him. I don’t have any help right now.”

  Walker said, “I’ll send Officer Morris with you.”

  Morris came back with the gurney. He and Walker and Jack helped get the body bag on it. It was like picking up a block of ice. A heavy block.

  “Call me when the autopsy is set,” Jack said.

  “Where’s Bigfoot?” Little Casket asked. She was probably the only other person who dared call Liddell that.

  “He’s learning how to be sensitive,” Jack said.

  “Thank the gods!” Lilly said, and her mouth turned up a little at the corners.

  “Did you just make a joke, Lilly?”

  She scoffed and said to Officer Morris, “What are you waiting for? I get cold like everyone else.”

  Morris said, “Yes ma’am,” and pushed the gurney out the door.

  Jack followed them outside, got in his car and cranked up the heat. As fast as word was traveling, Captain Franklin would surely have heard the deceased was Sergeant Caparelli. Jack would be remiss in his duty if he didn’t tell him in person, and that thought led to another. The news media would know too.

  Murphy’s Law says: The news media’s idea of what the public needs to know is directly proportional to media ratings. He figured he’d have just enough time to get Liddell out of class and notify Sonny’s next of kin before the murder was on the air.

  He took out his cell phone and called the dispatch supervisor directly.

  “Connie,” she said, coming on the line. Not “Vanderburgh County Central Emergency Dispatch. How may I help you?”

  She had explained to Jack once that by the time she spit out that entire preamble, the caller probably forgot why they were calling, or the problem had resolved itself, or everyone was dead. That’s why Jack loved her. She was a bitch. But she was their bitch.

  “Connie. I need a favor,” he said and heard a laugh, of sorts.

  “What a surprise. Okay. Go ahead.”

  He said, “I need you to find any vehicles belonging to Sergeant Caparelli, and I need—”

  Connie interrupted him. “Already done, Jack. He drives a black 2016 Dodge Ram Laramie dually. I called the sector sergeants by telephone and put out a description and plates. I was just getting ready to call you. Car 13 found it in the Royal Food Market parking lot with the keys left in it and the window down. Car 13 is standing by,” she said.

  “I’m on my way, Connie,” he said.

  She said, “Sonny was one of the good ones, Jack. Who would want to do this to him?”

  Jack didn’t know Sonny very well. He knew Sonny was recruited by EPD and immediately assigned to EPD’s part of the Federal Drug Task Force. The FDTF was made up of Evansville officers, Vanderburgh County deputies, Drug Enforcement Agents, and ATF Agents—Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Jack avoided any involvement with narcotics cases like the plague. Jack’s idea of hell on earth was being assigned to the Narcotics Unit.

  Five Evansville Police officers were assigned to the Task Force, and Sonny was their sergeant. Sergeant Caparelli must have been a good guy, because everyone was saying so. Even Little Casket, and she wouldn’t spit on her own mother if she had one. He shuddered at the thought of Little Casket as a newborn. All pink and wrinkled, already wearing thick-lensed glasses and bitching at the delivery doctor.

  Chapter 6

  Jack drove north on Fulton Avenue from Columbia Street. Royal Food Market was seven or eight blocks away from where the body was found. The keys were left in Sonny’s truck. Maybe Sonny was waiting for someone. They came up. He got out and left the truck running. He was taken from there by force. He wouldn’t wait with his windows down. Not in this kind of weather. Whoever took Sonny must have rolled down the windows and left the keys, hoping the truck would be stolen.

  The killing scene was such a trash pit it would be hard to tell if there was a struggle. Jack’s mind turned to Sonny’s job. Sonny could have gone to the house on a drug deal. The forty thousand might be “buy money.” The killer dumped the truck at Royal Market. It wasn’t far away. But why leave the money behind?

  Jack called Walker. “Did you know Sonny’s truck was found at Royal Foods? I’m headed there now. I’ll let you know if I find anything. Can you see if one of your guys is on their way?”

  “I knew, and someone is already there,” Walker advised.

  Jack saw a white crime-scene SUV parked behind a new Dodge Ram truck in the parking lot of Royal Foods. The truck was facing Fulton Avenue. The driver’s door stood open.

  Jack turned into the parking lot and asked Walker, “Have you found Sonny’s weapon?”

  “Not yet,” Walker said.

  “I’m just pulling up. Thanks.” Jack disconnected and parked behind a relatively new Mercedes SUV with EPD Crime Scene markings. He could see the butt, legs, and feet of someone digging under the driver’s seat of the truck. The back hatch of the Crime Scene SUV was open and no one else in sight. No sign of Car 13.

  “You need some help?” Jack asked.

  “Hi’ya Jack,” Joanie Ryan said, and got to her feet. “I found something.”

  Joanie was one of the first civilian crime scene technicians hired by the city. Using civilians with degrees in forensics was the brainchild of Mayor Thatcher Hensley. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a good idea.

  Hensley peddled his decision to hire civilians as forward thinking and a savings to the city. He said the civilian techs were paid half of what the sworn officers made, and were given fewer benefits because they weren’t full time. Chief of Police Marlin Pope had argued against the change because of the lack of control the department would have over these individuals. Pope predicted there would be a more frequent turnover rate, and you usually get what you pay for. Joanie Ryan seemed to be the exception to the chief’s fears. She did good work. She was thorough and wrote readable reports. She listened instead of arguing.

  “What have you got?”

  “Just a sec, Jack.” She snapped some pictures of the driver’s side floorboard and under the seat. She reached under the seat and pulled out a large manila mailing envelope. “It’s not sealed. Think we should peek inside?”

  “We’d be crazy not to,” Jack said.

  She carefully undid the clasp that held it closed and opened the top. “Holy shit!”

  She held the envelope open for him to see inside.

  “Holy shit!” Jack said.

  * * * *

  Inside the envelope were six bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills held together with mustard-colored wrappers. Each bundle was ten thousand dollars, according to the wrappers.

  “Sixty thousand dollars,” Joanie said, sounding like she didn’t trust her own eyes.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. This made an even one hundred thousand dollars.

  “I’ll take the truck to the secure garage so I can go through it better,” Joanie said. “The money? I’ve never dealt with this much money.”

  Jack scanned the area. He wasn’t going to leave her out here, alone, with sixty thousand dollars cash.

  “Call for a flatbed wrecker,” Jack said. “I’ll stay with you until it arrives and you can follow it to the garage. Bag the money. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t let it out of your sight until you give it to Sergeant Walker.”

  “By the way, I didn’t see anything else in the truck. No gun, phone, notes, letters. Nothing. He kept it spotless.”

  Jack had asked Walker if they had found Sonny’s gun and they hadn’t. Not in the truck either. “None of this goes on the ai
r. Use your cell phone. A flatbed wrecker is on the way. Do your supplemental report but don’t turn it in to records until you run it by Sergeant Walker or myself.”

  “Do you think Sergeant Caparelli…”

  Jack said, “I don’t think anything yet, and neither do you. Oh, and if Deputy Chief Dick asks questions…”

  “Lie to him,” she finished his sentence. “No problem.”

  Jack felt some empathy for her. She was in possession of evidence that might reflect negatively on a fellow officer. Sides would be taken. She could get hurt no matter how it turned out.

  “Good find, by the way,” he said, and she smiled. They chatted some more while they waited for the wrecker. She left following the tow truck and he headed downtown to break his partner out of class. He would try to be sensitive.

  He called Captain Franklin while he thawed out in his car.

  Chapter 7

  Franklin had very few questions, and like a good supervisor got right to the point, saying very wisely, “You’ve got to solve this quick, Jack. Come to my office.”

  Jack did, and was greeted with a grunt by the chief’s secretary, Judy Mangold. “You can go right in. Where’s your partner?”

  “In prison,” Jack said, and she grunted again.

  He entered the captain’s office and was greeted by the chief saying, “Tell me.”

  Jack told Chief Pope what he’d told Captain Franklin concerning the discovery of the identity of the victim, the money found on the kid, the money found in Sonny’s truck, and the absence of a weapon. The chief and captain didn’t ask a lot of questions. They just wanted to know something to tell the Mayor in case of a news-media invasion. Murphy’s Law says: If shit rolls downhill, at the top it must be one huge turd. The Mayor was a well-known turd, and would shit all over the chief if it suited his own interests.

  “Can I borrow Liddell?” Jack asked.

  “Of course. I’ll contact Narcotics and the Task Force. Do you need more detectives?” Captain Franklin asked.

  “If I need detectives, I’d like to pick my own,” Jack said. “I still have to notify Sonny’s next of kin. As far as Narcotics or the Task Force, I won’t be able to get to them immediately.”

  Captain Franklin asked the million-dollar question. “Is there any chance they’ve been compromised?” In other words, could one or all of them be involved in the death or what led up to Sonny’s death?

  “Considering the world they live in, I can’t rule anything out,” Jack answered.

  Chief Pope said, “The cat’s already out of the bag. Claudine Setera from Channel 6 has called, and I’ve agreed to do a news release at nine. She’s asking about thousands of dollars in cash found with the body. I’m only going to confirm it’s Sergeant Caparelli, and that we are investigating a suspicious death.”

  Jack bit back a nasty remark. Channel 6 knew more than he wanted released. He’d hoped to keep knowledge of the money in a very tight circle.

  “They didn’t say anything about the money in the truck?” Jack asked.

  “Not yet,” the chief answered.

  “Captain, when you call the Task Force will you ask them to stay in their office until I get there? Say, in an hour,” Jack said.

  Franklin said, “I’ll round them up. You’d better get going.”

  * * * *

  Jack made a quick stop in the office to get a heavier coat and headed downstairs. The door to the Police Training Room was closed, lights off, a PowerPoint presentation playing on the projection screen. This was supposed to be Sensitivity Training, but the photos the class was seeing were anything but sensitive. The current slide was a split-screen picture of bullet entry and exit wounds, brain matter, tissue disruption and all the trimmings. The next slide showed a circular puncture wound on a baby’s chest. The next showed a two-inch round chunk of meat missing from where the bullet exited the baby’s back.

  The slide changed to a picture of the FBI emblem. The lights came on and Jack recognized the instructor. FBI Special Agent Frank Tunney of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) in Quantico, Virginia. Tunney was a profiler.

  Jack opened the door in time to hear Tunney say, “Remember kiddies, be back in ten minutes or you’ll be marked absent.” There was chuckling and the general chaotic sounds of chairs scraping as the herd of policemen thinned.

  Liddell came from the back corner of the room, yawning. “Did you miss me?” he asked Jack.

  For a large man, he had a soft side. Talking to the juveniles and their parents would require finesse that Jack didn’t have. Notifying Sonny’s family would likewise need a gentle touch, and Jack was better at shooting people than being nice to them.

  “I need you,” Jack said, and immediately regretted his choice of words.

  “I’ve told you before, Detective Murphy, I’m already spoken for. Besides, what would Katie say?” Liddell said, and batted his eyes at Jack.

  “We’ve got a case,” Jack said, not wanting to encourage Liddell or he’d never get him stopped. “I’ve already briefed the captain and chief.”

  “Sonny Caparelli,” Liddell said. “I heard.”

  “Captain Franklin has given permission for you to skip the sensitivity class. I told him if you got any more sensitive you’d cry and wring your hands like an old woman.”

  “Hah,” Liddell said. “They’re only making me take this class because you’re my pod’na.”

  “Speaking of sensitivity, what’s with all the blood-and-guts pictures? And for that matter, why is Tunney here?”

  “Oh. The sensitivity class was cancelled,” Liddell said. “Frank was in town for a meeting or something and offered to do a criminal profiling class. Frank was just explaining the difference between organized and disorganized killers.”

  “There’s no difference, Bigfoot. A killer is a killer. Dead is dead. What’s with the dead-baby pictures?”

  “He was using that to get everyone’s attention. You know how policemen are. You have to piss them off to get them to focus.”

  “Let’s go,” Jack said. He wanted to get things moving. Before long, the Task Force guys would be out beating the bushes for the suspect, and afterwards beating the suspects. He’d seen the aftermath of guys they said had “resisted” arrest. He’d strong-armed suspects before, but he drew the line at old ladies, nuns and children. Sometimes he wondered why the chief didn’t put them on a shorter leash. Or a choke chain. In their defense, he could never do what they do. Dealing with meth-head zombies wasn’t his forte.

  “Hold on, pod’na,” Liddell said. “I have to tell you something. Frank showed us a picture of a guy who was found in the closet with the handle of a Hoover vacuum cleaner shoved up…”

  “Please,” Jack said, and put his hands over his ears. He didn’t even want to think about it. Luckily, he didn’t have to, because FBI Special Agent Frank Tunney approached them and held his hand out to Jack.

  “Good to see you again, Frank,” Jack said, shaking hands. Tunney was tall and lean with an athlete’s aura. His eyes were light gray and he was dressed in the traditional blue suit that was the school uniform for FBI agents. Jack always thought the FBI should wear kilts like their founder J. Edgar Hoover—like ancient Highland warriors.

  “Hello, Jack. Been a while. You never write, you never call…” Tunney said and gripped Jack’s hand in both of his.

  “Oh great,” Liddell said. “An FBI guy with a sense of humor. I certainly don’t need the competition.”

  Jack said, “I haven’t needed your expertise for a while, Frank.”

  Tunney had earned his PhD in Psychology from Harvard at the age of twenty and had spent almost ten years teaching before being recruited into the FBI’s famous behavioral analysis unit. He had assisted in high-profile cases not only in the United States, but had been requested and loaned out to several other countries. For someone
in his forties, he’d had a full life. Tunney had a reputation as the FBI’s Serial Killer Hunter. His job was to detect, track and apprehend serial killers, and he was very good at doing just that. Jack had worked the “Cleaver” case with Tunney a while back, when a serial killer was literally taking his victim’s faces for souvenirs.

  Jack said, “Frank, I’m going to steal the teacher’s pet. I need him to make a death notification.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Tunney said with a boyish grin. “His snoring was the only thing keeping the rest of them awake. If you need some help on the Caparelli case I’ll be in town a few more days.”

  Jack must have looked surprised, because Tunney said, “I heard it through the grapevine.”

  Jack said, “One man’s grapevine is another man’s megaphone. But I appreciate the offer.”

  “Sonny was with Narcotics. Do you think it was a drug deal gone bad?” Tunney asked.

  “To be honest, Frank, I don’t know all that much yet. It has all the earmarks of a revenge killing.”

  “Revenge?” Tunney asked. “Hmm. I might be interested. It’s not a serial killer, but I use this type of murder in my lectures. If you want I can run the manner of death through our database.”

  “Good idea. I’ll have Sergeant Walker send you a copy of his report. We’ve really got to go. Thanks for the offer,” Jack said, and thought he was crazy not to pick Tunney’s brain. If he didn’t get a lead real quick, he’d have to run the murder profile through ViCAP—Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. It was part of Tunney’s unit. It would search for similar methods of killing—signatures—to track and maybe identify the killer.

  “If we catch the bastard, you can put him in your system,” Jack said.

  “You’ll catch him, Jack. I have confidence in you.”

  “I don’t know about that, Frank.”

  Tunney said, “I heard some runaway kids found the body. And I heard you haven’t found the sergeant’s handgun.”

  “Yeah. The kids are upstairs. And speaking of that, we need to get hustling.”