The Wrong Time For A Killing
Charles F. Moore
Published by Charles F. Moore at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Charles F. Moore
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“Learn to shoot straight, for the space between the mark and the archer is one of the gardens of paradise” quoted in Islam: The Religion and the People by Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill, Pearson Education, Inc., 2009 (p144).
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to events, places, and persons is unintentional. I wish to acknowledge Dianne Hannan, Nina Smelser, Cate Strain, and Bob Kottage for their invaluable encouragement. It almost seems to unnecessary to remind readers that all errors are mine.
I am appreciative of the efforts, so many years ago, of my thesis director, and instructor in Popular Fiction, Dr. Tom Lane, for his patience and guidance.
Chapter One
The night was well into dark when Donahue parked his van on Chalmers Street, where Chalmers met Lincoln. From there he could clearly see the Talmadge residence, off to his left on Lincoln. Donahue was tired. Powers was supposed to take the evening shift but called in sick. Yeah, right, thought Donahue. Chase Powers was new to the detective business, not yet licensed, and at this rate wouldn’t be soon. So, it fell to Donahue to pull the late-nighter. He had to stay only until midnight. No coffee. Coffee would go through him in ten minutes. And Talmadge was home, at least there were two cars in the driveway, and likely as not Ms. Talmadge wasn’t going anywhere this late in the evening. She hadn’t, the other two nights. Donahue squeezed into the back of the van, scooted his lawn chair into the right position, next to the side door, street side, put up his feet on the other lawn chair, and watched.
Donahue’s second-hand van was an all-purpose surveillance machine. He’d removed the back seats, darkened all the windows as much as they should be darkened, stowed aboard a couple of lawn chairs and a cooler. The van made a wide enough platform for a spotting ‘scope or camera tripod.
He slipped his .45 out of its shoulder holster and laid it on top of the cooler. He didn’t give a second thought to why he brought it anyway. Donahue cracked the windows and let in the warm September night and let out the stale coffee and b.o. accumulated from previous days’ stretches in the van.
It was ten o’clock, just. Two hours and then home to bed and still get enough sleep to be awake and alert in the office by early morning.
He hoped whoever was hiring him --hiring Tommy Kyle to hire Franc Donahue and Chase Powers-- to watch the house up on Lincoln, where it ran across the top of Chalmers, was paying well. Donahue needed the money. And surveillance was not cheap. He and Powers both owned two vehicles so they rotated through their rolling stock to avoid suspicious eyes. It didn’t hurt that Kyle had asked permission from the Madison P.D. to pull the surveillance, too. Kept the cops on their side. But, nosy, busy-body ladies could ruin a surveillance as quick as anything and Kyle and Donahue, and the cops, knew it. Crime watch sometimes worked both ways.
The house on Lincoln --Talmadge’s-- sat to the left of a vacant lot where Chalmers tee-ed into Lincoln. For some reason, known only to the city planners and the developer, Chalmers didn’t go through that block but picked up again one more block up. Why the fire department didn’t scream at this idea was beyond Donahue’s knowing and he’d lived in Madison long enough to hear a lot of comments about how the cops and the fire department didn’t like certain development projects. Next to the vacant lot (although well kept and mowed and a scattering of trees was almost like a privately owned park), to the right, from Donahue’s view, the neighborhood started up again with regular houses on regular lots for about two or three blocks until the subdivision ran out. Lincoln was the dividing line between the Masconi subdivision, where Donahue as parked, and the Deland #2 subdivision on the other side of Lincoln. That the city of Madison had all kinds of quirky road layouts was not new. From deer paths to wagon trails to roads was the essence of town building in the east, but where the land occasionally flattened out, you’d thought, Donahue found himself muttering to himself, again, in 1980 when the Deland #2 was put in, code would make streets go through.
Donahue hummed out loud. Played one-handed solitaire. Enjoyed the crickets and night insects courting. Did a few math problems in his head. Twiddled his thumbs. Wrote letters to the editor. Talked to the back of the driver’s seat and solved all the world’s problems. Squirmed in his seat trying to get feeling back into his backside. Wiled away just shy of two hours without going to sleep.
Donahue had a front row seat, for sure. He’d parked as far up Chalmers as he could until there was only one car between him and Lincoln. Looking slightly left he could see the Talmadge residence. Just by looking over to the passenger’s seat he could see the house to the right of the empty lot.
The white van pulled into his view, stopping at that first house to the right of the empty lot. A plain white van with “CHICAGO PIZZARIA” on the side. Pizza at 11:45? The misspelling stopped Donahue for a moment but then he turned his attention back to the Talmadge house. Turned his attention from the van, scanning over the empty lot, and back again to the Talmadge home focusing (for no particular reason) on their front porch: the Talmadge porch light off, the upstairs lights off, and only one downstairs light peeking out of the side of the house. He paid as much attention to the misspelling as he did to the rolling open of the side door of the van. Donahue’s stomach growled. Pizza would taste pretty good, just about now, he thought.
The first thump broke through his near sleepiness instantly. He knew that sound. He recognized it from hearing it many times in his life. First as a boy out hunting or shooting in the barnyard. Then as shore patrol in the service. Then as a cop for the city of Madison police department. It was a shotgun. No doubt in his mind. No hesitation. No indecision.
Donahue swept up the .45 and yanked open his side door in one motion. He hit the ground, quick-timed up the street towards the empty lot, or maybe towards the van, or maybe towards the Talmadge house, up the middle of the street towards the intersection, trying to walk quickly and dial his cell phone. He was almost to the intersection. A face appeared in the passenger’s side window of the pizza van. A plain face. Arrowhead-shaped bald head. Barely lighted by the street light. Outlined by the glare and reflection.
A second thump hit him, hit his ears, his senses. From the house on the right? Just right of the empty lot? But not from the pizza van? He couldn’t tell for sure.
Donahue halted in his tracks. Frozen in his motion. Just past the delivery van, he could see the front porch. The porch light was on, yellowing the corner of the porch. The front door was open. In the time it took for him to realize this, a man rushed out the door. Wearing a windbreaker. With a ball cap down over his eyes. Down the steps, maybe three steps in one leap. He carried the riot gun in his right hand. And his head came up as he saw Donahue standing in the middle of the street. Top lighted by the street light. Donahue with a cell phone in one hand and pistol in the other. Donahue spotted. Caught like a thief. Stopped. Surprised and frozen. Just past the corner of the delivery van. Donahue at his mercy.
The riot gun came as Donahue unfroze long enough to duck to his right putting the van between the riot gun and himself. The blast, no longer a thump muffled by walls of the house, and shot skimmed the corner of the van and then on past Donahue, rattling in the trees and shrubs, off cars and fences and signs and sides of houses behind him.
Donahue stepped out into view again as the shooter was within a step or two of the van, his smoking riot gun pointed downward. Donahue, nearly at point blank range, fired once, hitting the corner of the van, not fifteen feet away. A terrible shot. He had one round in the chamber and now only six in the clip. The brake lights and back up lights went through their lift off sequence and the van began to roll. Donahue took a step back into the middle of the street and shot at the near wheel. He hit the hub instead. Six to go. He took out a back window. Five to go. One more thudded in the back door. Four. He tried a tire again. Hit the bumper, instead, and then the pavement, and then missed everything. Three. Two. One. The shotgun barrel poked out of the broken window. Donahue threw himself to the pavement covering his head with his arms. Shut his eyes. The shot sailed past him again, down the street, bouncing off more cars and concrete. In the prone, he took as careful aim as he could and squeezed off the last shot. The .45 yanked in his hand again, the slide locked back, the bullet shattered the other rear window. The van was gone.
Donahue lay on the pavement for a long moment. Held his breath. Kissed the concrete in great thankfulness. Afraid to move. Glad to be alive. Scared but not yet shaking. His ears rang. But the night was silent. All the night critters had ducked, too. No one came shouting of the their homes. No sirens. Calm. For the moment.
Donahue pushed himself up to his knees and then stood. Slowly. Nervously. His knees were just starting to shake. He got his breath back. His bladder was still on hold. Taking a deep breath, he started up the sidewalk to the house. For no reason he glanced down the street at the Talmadge residence. Nothing was happening over there. He thumbed the slide of the .45 close and holstered it. This had been a murder and he was about to visit the murder scene. Unconsciously, he began re-dialing 911. Gave his name and address without being asked and his location and what he thought had happened.
He mounted the steps to the long porch. A long porch with a rail. Bordered by azalea and boxwood. A rail like the one on his parents’ porch when he was a kid, the kind of rail he would jump over on a dare and sometimes make it and sometimes not. It was a wonder they hadn’t killed themselves as kids. Or ruined the forsythia, which would have been instant death from his mother. He noticed the old-fashioned screen door on this house. The kind that would slap close on those hot summer nights when he and the neighbor kids would run out of the warm house to play in the night air.
The voice on the cell phone kept telling him to not go inside the house. To wait. There was a lone siren some distance out. The voice told him to not go inside. A voice within him said to not go inside. Donahue went inside. Not too many minutes later, he rushed out, through the screen door, to the porch rail, and threw up on the azalea just as the first squad car skidded to a stop at the curbing.
Chapter Two
Donahue sat in the porch swing. He was cold. The dawn was high in the sky. The warmth of the sun wasn’t down to street level. He had his sport coat lapels and collar pulled up. He stared at the porch rail as he slowly rocked in the swing. He was tired. He was hungry. He had to go to the bathroom. He was discouraged. He shivered.
The couple had been slaughtered by the shotgun. Two bodies ripped to shreds. Pulverized. The killer had known how to do it, and did it with cold efficiency. There had been no screaming that he could recall, no long delay between shots. One. Two. Buckle my shoe. In and out. Over and done. He’d seen two bodies in his tour as a cop. Neither nearly as brutal or bloody as these. Gore wasn’t something he saw much of, ever. Maybe he’d been lucky. Maybe his luck had just run out.
The police had surrounded the entire property, and directly across the street, with crime-scene tape. Traffic was detoured around the intersection of Chalmers and Lincoln. His van had been cordoned off. The first two squad cars were stuck in the middle of the crime scene. Half-dozen uniform cops scoured the street and front yard placing little white coffee cups near evidence. They’d relieved him of his .45. Phil Dejardens, a fifteen-year veteran of the Madison P.D., was in charge and Donahue was more than willing to follow directions. Neither of the bodies had been removed. The medical examiner and two assistants and Dejardens and a couple of uniforms were inside. Donahue could hear them talking.
He had heard talk of the city-wide search for the getaway van. They had taken his preliminary statement. He had seen Ms. Talmadge come over to the crime-scene tape, too, in her robe, hand to her mouth, terror on her face. Up and down Lincoln, and Chalmers, too, people were roused and worried by the sirens and squad cars and ambulances and then in the dawn seeing bullet holes (his) and shot scratching (the other guys’) and their own realization of the violence’s literal marking of their lives and properties. Donahue had been in the middle of quite a shoot out and right now it hadn’t dawned on him his insurance had better be as good as advertised.
The screen door slapped. Heavy footsteps closed in on Donahue. Dejardens pried himself onto the porch swing. He had coffee, too. Donahue looked at the coffee then to Dejardens and then back to the coffee again. He guessed suspects didn’t get to have such a luxury.
“Hoss, there’s a snack truck parked back up the next street,” said Dejardens. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” said Donahue.
“I figure you won’t run. Far. I know who you are. We have your weapon and we have your keys to your house, your office, and your van.”
“And my life,” said Donahue.
“That, too,” said Dejardens. He slurped a long slurp of hot coffee. And mewed how good it tasted. “Tell me, again, what you were doing here?”
“How many times do I have to say it?” said Donahue.
“Until I get two consecutive stories that agree,” said Dejardens. “Humor me.”
Donahue wanted to leave and he told Dejardens what Dejardens wanted to hear if it got Donahue off this porch and into his office. Or a bar. Or a bed. His sofa at the office would be good. With a shot of Fireball in him.
“I am on a case. Surveillance. The wife, in the house, over yonder, past the lot. Me and Chase Powers. We’ve been here three days now.”
“No suspicious characters? Besides you guys?”
“Nothing. Your department was notified. We skipped mid-day and after midnights. Powers was supposed to be working tonight. Til midnight and I’d pick it up again about eight in the morning.”
“What about these folks?” said Dejardens.
“Never saw either one.”
“Nothing you want to report, Hoss?”
Donahue shook his head. “Nope,” he said.
“You always carry when you’re on the job?” asked Dejardens.
“No,” said Donahue. “Not usually. This time? I don’t know. Just brought it along.”
“Yeah, well,” said Dejardens, “it’s ours for the moment.”
Donahue nodded.
“Can I get my van back? So I can go home?” asked Donahue.
“Who says you’re going home?” said Dejardens.
“I didn’t do this!”
“Didn’t say you did. Also didn’t say you could go home. Get yourself a cup of coffee and get back here. I’m going next door.”
“Do we even know these people’s names?” Donahue thumbed towards inside the house.
“Thomas and Helene Kilgore. Ring any bells?”
Donahue absently shook his head.
“Tennessee driver’s license and voter registration cards. Registered three years ago. Various credit cards. No photos of kids. Looks like some parents pictures on the mantle. We’ll have a profile soon.”
“Sure,” said Donahue. He could almost hear the gnomes working across the city as information was sought about the deceased family on corner of Lincoln at Chalmers. Power company. Driver’s license bureau. Dentists and doctors. That the couple had some employment was probably already established but Dejardens wasn’t going to tell Donahue any thing specific yet.
“Right now, Hoss, you’re my best witness,” he said. “And suspect.”
Donahue wandered across the back yard into the empty lot, to the concession wagon. Did this guy have a scanner, or what? The man was doing a good business in the cool stillness just before sunrise. Most of the force had been roused out of bed. Double shootings didn’t happen very often in Madison and protocol demanded a lot of help flood the scene. Donahue wondered out loud if somebody bothered to bring a genuinely portable port-a-potty.
The sun was on the roof when he returned to the swing. A dew had settled. Neighbors were out in droves. Several on cell phones standing next to scratched cars. The coffee was good. It was hot. It was normal. The place needed normal.
The crime scene analysts were still taking pictures inside and out. He could see the little cups that marked the ejected shotgun shell near the sidewalk. In the street, a scattering of cones that marked his casings. He tried to count cones to see if all of his shells were accounted for. The thought flashed through his mind whether Madison P.D. had to buy regulation crime scene marker cups. Did they reuse them? Did they hand-me-downs from TBI?
Officers hauled out bags of evidence. The medical examiner’s van was parked down the block. Doors open. It looked dark and utilitarian inside the M.E.’s van. Nothing luxurious about a ride in a body bag. One of the team members sat idly on the tailgate. Smoking.
Inside the house were two dead bodies. Blood on the walls and ceilings. Blood on the throw rugs and television screen and blood seeping into the cracks of the flooring. The smell of death. The screen door kept banging and startling Donahue each time. Sometimes a lone officer would clump across the porch carrying evidence bags. Other times two or three officers would take out evidence. They’d glance at Donahue, not say anything to him, pausing in their own conversation, only to start up again at the bottom of the porch steps.
Dejardens was standing beside the police evidence van. Donahue wondered if Dejardens was going to get some help. He seemed to be giving all the directions. Uniform officers were reassigned temporarily to help with these situations. Other detectives, despite seniority, were pulled from other cases, if possible. Hopefully, other crime in Madison would take a day off. Dejardens walked up the walkway to the house, slowed to answer his phone, ignored Donahue, and went inside.
In a moment, he was back, sliding on to the porch swing.
“Do you know Missus Talmadge?”
“Nope. Never met her. Why?”
“She was trying hard to not act hysterical. Do you know ‘him’?”
“Mr. Talmadge? No. We’re just doing surveillance. I’m not even sure if he was the client.”
“You’re just the hired help. Right?” said Dejardens.
“I reckon,” said Donahue.
“Don’t know anything, huh?” said Dejardens.
“I know, on my shift, I saw her --Missus Talmadge-- once come over about lunch time to visit this house. I know, from talking to Chase Powers, --she seldom left the house--when I was on duty-- and she hardly went anywhere in the last couple of days. We’ve only been working three days now.”
“She acknowledged she knew the vic. We’ll talk to her again, later.”
“Can I go,” asked Donahue.
“Sure. How’s business, by the way?” said Dejardens, handing over a wad of keys.
“Okay, I guess. Payin’ the rent, at least. Not gettin’ fat, though.”
“I hope you got insurance. Somebody’s gonna want to collect on a bunch of shot-up paint jobs.”
Donahue smiled crookedly.
“And Donahue, one last piece of advice?”
“What?”
“Not a word to the press. Same caution about talkin’ to your employer. We might talk to them, too. And stay close. Okay? I don’t want to have to go find you ‘cause if I have to, I’ll put you some place handy where I can find you when I want to. Got that?”
Chapter Three
Donahue shouldered his way through the front door of the Jefferson Building, where he had his office. Jimmy Bogart, who ran the smokes and newspaper stand just inside the front door, was opening for business. They exchanged greetings. Jimmy commented on how Donahue smelled. Always surprised by Bogart’s uncanny sense of smell and hearing, Donahue asked what he noticed.
“Gun smoke mostly. You sound tired. What’d you get into?” said Bogart. He had been born with too many defects which then manifested themselves in his tortured look with a large head and bulging eyes. The limp was real, but not a birth defect. The lagging tongue, the wide ears, looked frightful, but Jimmy Bogart made lots of friends. It kept him alive.
“Shooting. Over on Lincoln. Pretty sad.”
“You involved?”
“Got there just in time for the party.”
“Whoa? You okay?”
“Tired. You doin’ okay today?”
“Hell, I’m fine. Just the usual baker’s dozen birth defects. But other than that, I’m cherry.”
Donahue trudged up the steps to his office in the corner of the second floor. The stairs squeaked and his rubber soles squealed on the wood floor. There was dust in the corners of the hallway. His office was in the corner, street side. The landlord required everyone to have their company names painted on the glass partition of the door in some kind of fancy old-fashioned font. The result was a kind of elegance that was lost on the public but Donahue liked it. His door said, “Donahue & Associates” although there was no associate.
Nor were there any notes taped to the door. No messages on the answering machine. He took off his hat and coat and draped them over one of the chairs reserved for clients. The red chair. And the shoulder holster over the coat. The blue chair had a stack of newspapers on it. He only had the sofa, the two unmatched chairs, filing cabinets, his desk, his computer, and his armchair for his office furniture. Each wall had black and white framed photograph of his. Mountain scenes.
He pulled a quilt and pillow from under the sofa. Kicked off his shoes. Made his bed, so to speak. In the filing cabinets, in the top drawer, marked with a large red cross sign, behind the first aid kit, was a cardboard box. His real first aid kit contained a few pill cups and a half-used fifth of Fireball. One tenth of a gallon? He retrieved himself a shot of courage and put it on the floor next to the sofa. Wiggled his way under the quilt and was out in an instant.
The phone rang until the answering machine kicked in. A semi-conscious Donahue listened until he heard the click of the hang up. And then he drifted back into a short, deep snooze. The phone rang again but this time it was Greg Fowler from DubyaARMS bonding company. Donahue made it to the phone just as Fowler was about to end his message.
The job was easy money. Find Ducky Malone and bring him into Fowler’s office or the jail, which ever was easiest, for passing yet another bad check. This time to Fowler’s company.
Usual percentage?
“Plus a bonus,” Fowler said, in a moment of generosity. And forwarded the last known address for Ducky Malone. But Malone had disappeared and that perturbed the likes of Greg Fowler very much. A perturbed Greg Fowler sometimes meant income to Franc Donahue. But, armed with a bogus last-known address wasn’t a good start.
“You going to call the cops?” said Donahue.
“Not yet. We have our ways, you know,” said Fowler. He hung up. Conversation over.
Donahue poured last night’s (this morning’s?) whiskey back in the bottle and got himself ready, more or less, for the day. The corner suite only had three distinct rooms: foyer (for future expansion maybe), half-bath, and office. At least he could wash his face and brush his teeth. The office was cheap. But with a great view of the small, rebirthing downtown. Muffled street noise. Warm, sweet air in the summer. Donahue’s office wasn’t much but it was his, for a month at a time. The police station, a place he had not appreciated when he was on the police force, was at least paid for and heated and cooled by someone else but sometimes the politics had been enough to make him not want to come to work. Only the politics was the same as in his dad’s generation, working in the mills, also cooled in the winter, also warmed in the summer, also working for the man.
Independent but broke, he thought. Of himself. Here, he made his own coffee.
It was Donahue’s turn to call someone. Tommy Kyle, who had hired him on several occasions to help with an investigation, was a respected attorney specializing in divorce and insurance disputes.
“You’ll hear about a shooting last night up on Lincoln,” said Donahue.
“Our people involved?” said Kyle. On alert.
“I was in the middle. The client was not involved. At least, not from what I got from the cops.”
“If you are at the office you must be alright. What’d you tell the cops?”
“Most of what I knew. Don’t know much anyway. No names. Other than Powers’.”
“I’ll make sure he understands to where client privileges extend.”
There was a silence from Kyle and Donahue was starting to hold his breath.
“Shouldn’t make a difference,” said Kyle.
“Shouldn’t make a bit of difference at all. Gunman showed up at the neighbor’s --waltzed in the front door like he was invited in-- and killed two people. A couple. Shotgun-ed. I got off a few rounds at the getaway car.”
“Jeez,” said Kyle.
“You’re clean although I had to admit to Dejardens I was working for someone. I don’t think he’s terribly interested. Yet. Be thankful Powers wasn’t there. He’d a probably got himself killed.”
Kyle hesitated.
“You still want me to go back this morning?” said Donahue. “I reckon she’ll stay put with all the cops around and Dejardens might have told her to stay home. Just in case. She knew the vics. The wife, at least, I’m bettin’. What ever anyone is thinking is going on, the apple cart got upset.”
“Yeah, take the day off.”
“Thanks, I’ll bill you for the ammunition.”
“Good luck collecting.”
Donahue’s day didn’t begin without coffee. His pot was parked on the top of the filing cabinets, tethered by an extension cord. Few clients seemed to like his coffee. Jimmy Bogart would bum a cup now and then. Jimmy’d make a comment about his coffee but Donahue was never sure he could tell when Jimmy made a face about anything.
It was like the day was beginning all over again.
Donahue looked up Duckworth Allison Malone (aka Ducky Malone aka D.A. Malone. No one called him Duckworth or Allison or D.A. as far as Donahue knew. Except maybe his mother.) in the phone book. It was the same address as the one Fowler had given him. A dead end even before he started looking. Mother Malone had passed away many years ago. He searched online for both Ducky Malone and the Kilgore couple. Like lots of people, they were below the radar. He wasn’t surprised by Ducky Malone being anonymous. Ducky was a two-time loser. He would be a person who didn’t spend his time at the keyboard and, surprisingly, not all that much time at the bar, either. But, that didn’t mean Ducky was a bar-stool innocent, either. Donahue had met Malone once or twice but it’d been a few years ago. Malone was shorter than Donahue but better built. Lithe and quick, Malone looked lightweight but could handle himself, Donahue thought, in a scuffle. He wasn’t the smartest, terribly, which was why he seemed to get into trouble. He had some trade skills and, if Donahue remembered correctly, worked construction and worked it well. So, Malone might not have been the brightest lightbulb but he wasn’t a total wash, either. Ducky wasn’t a woman’s man but he was good looking. Easy smile. Square features. All the right ingredients except a solid income. Ducky may have easily moved in with a woman. He shouldn’t be that hard to find, Donahue thought. Or hoped. There was a brother, Bobby, who had successful auto-repair shop.
No news was probably good news. Donahue went downstairs to Jimmy Bogart and bought a paper. The shooting had missed the deadline for this morning’s paper. He slipped a five dollar bill instead of a one to Bogart for the newspaper. Bogart didn’t say anything if he even noticed. In the beauty salon in the next suite the television was set to a local morning show and Donahue watched long enough to see the shooting had been acknowledged by the police department but had issued the standard “ongoing investigation” statement. The police had wrapped a blanket around the investigation and witnesses and a few neighbors but one or two acknowledged the shooting and an anger at the violence creeping into their neighborhood and the city’s inability to keep people safe. If you only knew, thought Donahue.
The rest of the day was spent checking as many contacts as he could. With no luck. He tried the power company. He left a message for Abby Delong at the police station. Maybe he could get a favor from her. Maybe not, too. She had not quite ever warmed to Donahue. He called a friend at the state employment agency. He called another friend at the court house and one other at the jail. He called both hospitals. Ducky Malone may have either flown the coop or was hiding but he wasn’t in the easy-to-get-to places.
The day dragged on until finally Donahue gave up, finally, and went home.
The house wasn’t a mess. It needed a few chores and the laundry taken out. The evening news was still silent on any further advances. The police acknowledged the shooting and the same neighbors complained about their safety. Almost as if Donahue’s wild gunplay was worse than a double murder. He finished, for now, all his few household duties and fell asleep in front of the television. Slept through the late-night news.
Chapter Four
Donahue’s first of cup of office coffee was cooling on his desk when the phone rang. The morning was bright, pouring in his east window, glaring off the buildings across the street into the north window. Nothing had changed since yesterday afternoon. The few files he was looking through were still in the cabinet. The coffee pot still on the cabinet. The pillow and quilt under the sofa. Not that he expected anything to be gone or disturbed but the office’s sameness sometimes made him want to rearrange the whole place and buy some cheap posters for the wall and a newer, cheap rug and change the drapes. No, he thought, you’re not as stale as this office. Yet.
The phone provided a good break in a dreary contemplation of his office’s drabness. It was Dejardens. With a summons. A trade. Donahue’s .45 for a finished statement. Donahue walked the several blocks to the police station. The morning air felt good. Tasted good. He had the sun on his face. There were people in the streets and cars, and the business of the town was yawning and stretching, having its collective coffee. Madison was an old town. Civil war town. Divided town just like the eastern end of the state. Mountain folks on one side. Community folks, themselves divided, on the other. Two major churches split apart literally located on the north and south ends of the town. And when the two-lane U.S. highway was put in, it came right down the middle of downtown and Madison flourished. Five rail lines through Madison at the height of rail. And then the airport, and then the four-lane, set over a few blocks, and then the downtown, like many, died. Thirty years ago and still re-building.
The police station, included as part of the city’s municipal building, was newish. Built in the last 30 years, too. Blond brick. Not enough parking. Perpetual renovation. The police department had been moved from a lower floor, fronting the street through a wall of glass, to an upstairs block of cubicles with strip windows that Donahue once remarked looked a lot like the windows in the jail. Dejardens had a cubicle in the bullpen much like everyone else’s. Only the chief --Jesse Street-- had a real office, with a window to the bullpen and a door that closed and some privacy.
Donahue had to check in at the front desk and admit his shoulder holster was empty except for the cell phone in the spare clip pocket. Dejardens fetched him. Visitors were not permitted to wonder through the offices on their own.
“We won’t be needing your weapon so I’ll give you a chit to pick it up at the property window on your way out. I’ll need you to give a formal statement and after I see if it coincides with what you told me you can pick up that antique firearm and go home.”
The statement took about an hour and a half. Donahue squirmed towards the end as his cup of coffee worked it’s way through his system. The male stenographer was not amused. He had to sit through it, too.
“Let me show you something,” said Dejardens. “We’re debating releasing some of this to the press but you’re under a gag order.”
“From whom?”
“Me. And the chief,” said Dejardens. “The mayor. All of the judges from here to South Carolina. God.”
They sat at a desk with a television, watched a fairly poor black and white video, shot under a standard parking lot light as the van, as the shooter’s van, pulled to a stop.
“You’d thought they would find a better place,” said Dejardens.
“You’d thought,” said Donahue. Agreeably.
“They had a flat,” said Dejardens.
“I wonder where that came from?” said Donahue.
“Right rear. With a huge dent in the hubcap, too,” said Dejardens. “Your bad shootin’ do that?”
“I wondered how I could’ve missed at such close range.”
“You need to practice.”
“Can’t afford the ammo.”
The van doors opened and out spilled three men. All wore hoodies and ball caps and blue jeans. The driver took off to one direction out of camera range. The other two paired up. One was talking on a cell phone. They walked deliberately but not hurriedly out of camera range the other way.
Dejardens started up another video showing the two men coming from a corner of the parking lot, the van in the background, as they walked, ambled almost, across the frame and out.
“That’s all I got,” said Dejardens.
“Is that time stamp right?” said Donahue. “That’s like two hours later? Where’d they go? What’d they do? Stop and have a beer? That’s a ten minute drive from Chalmers and Lincoln.”
“I know.”
“Where’s the shotgun,” said Donahue.
“Not in the van,” said Dejardens.
At the edge of their corner of the room stood a red-headed woman, a cop, with her note pad in one hand and a cane in the other.
“You know Utah Jones?” said Dejardens. He waved a finger between the red-head and Donahue.
The van was being searched, she reported, patrol was also searching in a two-block radius for more cameras.
“The registration papers are gone but obviously the VIN is still there,” she said. “We’ll know who sold it in an hour.”
“Four shotgun cartridges so far. One in the van. Two in the house. One in the yard,” said Dejardens, “which jives with your story.”
“I’m glad for that,” said Donahue.
Jones limped away. Dejardens pivoted in his chair to confront Donahue. “You can pick up your .45 out front. But despite what gets to the media you be quiet. In your statement you said something about the man in the window. I want you to see the sketch artist.”
It wasn’t a request. But, two hours later there was no useful portrait.
Ducky Malone now had an additional half-day of head start. In the Malone family, the older was Bobby (Not “Robert.”) and the younger was Duckworth. The teasing came easy in the early years but by their freshman year in high school any teasing of Ducky meant a visit during recess from Bobby. Most kids at school knew not to tease Ducky Malone. Mr. and Mrs. Malone were only partly successful as child rearers. Where Bobby was a good student, Ducky was not. Where Bobby excelled, Ducky failed. Ducky had the better looks and physical talent but Bobby applied himself better. Bobby got the family. Ducky picked up women at church. Bobby was a successful business man with a string of four auto-body repair shops. Ducky found easy work and steady money in the trades. Until the recession. Bad luck accumulated and now Franc Donahue was on Ducky’s trail.
“Haven’t seen him,” said Bobby Malone.
“Would you tell me if you had?” said Donahue.
“Probably not. But maybe, I would, if I knew somebody’d treat him right,” said Bobby Malone. They were stuffed in Bobby Malone’s office, along with a few file cabinets, a broken paint sprayer, assorted tools, a desk littered with paper, and an adding machine. In the background, Donahue could hear the whiz of an air gun and the thumping of an air compressor. He could smell lacquer. Out the one window they could see the lobby and secretary’s desk. A man and a woman, not together, waited. He was staring down at the invoice, apparently not the news he expected, waved his hands at the secretary and looked up at the window, trying to catch the eye of Bobby Malone. The woman stood at the door, looking out, as if expecting a ride. Business was going full throat.
“I’d like to think I’d give him an even break,” said Donahue.
“Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t, Donahue,” said Bobby Malone. “Last time we had run-in, you didn’t exactly give me an even break.”
“I gave you the break you deserved, buddy. And you’ll recall I didn’t tell your wife all that went on. It could’ve been worse.”
“You blackmailing me, now?”
“No. Just pointing out a fact,” said Donahue. “I have no beef with you, Bobby. You’re a decent guy and for all I know a devoted husband and father. A little bump in the road was all. But, if I don’t find Ducky, the law will get involved and he just got out of county and he doesn’t need more problems so how about helping your brother out. Again.”
“Look, Donahue. Let me see if I can say this once and for all. I don’t know where Ducky is. I hear he’s got a girlfriend but not the kind you’d take home to mom. I haven’t seen ‘em in a month. Not since they arrested him this last time. I think I’d heard, if he was working. I am usually a reference. If I knew how to get a hold of him, I’d give him what help I could, and I think I can do a lot. He’s my brother. I’d do a lot for him.”
“Anything?”
“Almost.”
“Can I take a look around your shops?”
“No.”
“It’s illegal to harbor a fugitive.”
“If he’s a fugitive you bring the cops and they bring a warrant. Then they can look in every nook and cranny there is. Not that they’re gonna find anything. Anything, I should say, you don’t plant yourself.”
“He’s going to get himself in more trouble and you’re not helping.”
“You’re not either. So kindly get off my property.”
Donahue held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Look, Bobby, all I want to do is help.”
“You can help best by leaving. I won’t ask again. And I don’t need the cops to escort you out the gate.”
Bobby Malone pushed himself up from his chair and stood over Donahue.
“Where is he?” said Donahue.
“Out,” said Malone. Hands on hips.
Donahue rose, too, and flipped his card on the desk.
“You can get into trouble for acting this way,” said Donahue.
“So besides blackmail, now you’re threatenin’ me? Let me call the poll-ease and see who walks out the door and see who stays?” Malone pointed to the phone.
Donahue hesitated. Malone reached for the phone. Donahue sidestepped his way to the door. Maybe Bobby Malone was the better poker player.
“Tell Ducky, that it is in his best interest to contact me. And, thanks, I can find my own way out.”
Ducky Malone was turning out to a bit harder to find than Donahue thought. His one good contact was not likely to help. His few contacts at various places were (so far) blind. Fowler had said the home address given to DubyaARMS was false. Ducky may (or may not) have a girlfriend. What little Donahue knew of Ducky Malone meant Donahue could attend all the 50 or 60 churches in town if he wanted to. That left a half-dozen of less-than-average bars he could scour. Maybe find the girlfriend. Maybe find Ducky.
Ducky Malone drank but seldom got drunk, although Donahue could not recollect why he thought that. There are classes of bars and probably Ducky lacked the money or social skills to go to the better establishments. That Donahue thought Ducky Malone could handle himself in a tense situation seemed, to Donahue, to aim towards the rougher bars in Madison of which there were a few but not, as might be true in larger cities, dozens. Donahue couldn’t decide if Malone would go drinking to get drunk or go drinking to have fun. Malone’s one successful call to Abby Delong showed his record lacked any stops for driving while intoxicated or being belligerent. For some men, a couple of beers replaced a couple of burgers or replaced a non-existent-after-work relationship.
He --Donahue-- had pleaded for more information from Abby Delong, a young woman, he thought, who had become his contact person in the city records department, only got a cursory glimpse at Ducky’s police record and nothing else. When he was given authority to check on such information she was the person he’d gravitated to but once or twice asking about more information or about her life ended abruptly.
Ducky Malone wasn’t a drunk but he did visit the bars which meant he either had time on his hands or money burning in his pocket. Or both. Donahue downed a few beers trying to find Ducky Malone, first at the Ambassador Hotel bar which was, on second thought, a bit too upscale for Ducky Malone and then, working his way down the food chain, at the Idlewild B&G on the other side of downtown. Better hunting grounds. No game.
Donahue’s last chance for the day (three bars later and one more beer or one more scotch would about be the limit) was, where he finally remembered he’d tracked down Ducky one time before, at the Moses Bar over on the east side of the interstate.
The town of Madison wasn’t really divided so much by the tracks as by the interstate somebody had decided to lay down just beyond the middle of the town. The boosters at the time had wanted the city to grow west from the new interstate (towards their newly planted mall) and they successfully purchased their wish. It was the downtown and the east side that suffered. But the Moses flourished there, if bars can really ever flourish.
Why the Moses Bar got its name was before Donahue’s time and maybe so unknown that nobody today had a clue. The Moses was dark, dank, smoky, and dangerous. He’d been called to a few fights at the Moses when he was a patrolman and it was un-nerving to go inside. Through a foyer that had a 90-degree turn to it and he plunged from the glare of the sun into a dark of the bat cave. Met with a wall of smoke and din. It wasn’t until the city temporarily pulled their license that the owner of the place, a guy from neighboring Bristol, Tenn., began to enforce behavior rules and limiting drinks at the risk of losing customers. Which he did lose but stayed in business. That particular (or peculiar) clientele, who wanted to just get drunk and take out their frustrations on somebody like themselves, or on the furniture, went elsewhere. Usually.
A young man tended the bar, which spanned the length of the room. Everything from the back room had to go through those gaps in the bar at end of the bar where the waitress could enter the bar or the keep could exit --for a moment Donahue paused to try to think of the name of that particular piece of architecture-- like when, in the olden days, the keep’d bring his cudgel. The youngster --to an ever aging Donahue-- looked too fresh, too nice, too weak to manage the pretend rowdies who migrated there from the two neighborhood, manufacturing plants. Of those plants one was down to the day shift but the other was going full out with three shifts. Not bad places to work, and not rough places, but decidedly blue collar, as if there was something wrong with that, but people who worked with their hands, on their feet all day, putting things together, one after another after another after another, who wanted a beer or two or three on a Friday, traded one routine with another.
Donahue, in white shirt and slacks, slightly too-large sports jacket to cover up his .45, pulled up a stool at the bar. Ordered a Scotch on the rocks. Took a sip and pushed his hat back on his head, sighed. Took another sip. Good Scotch.
“Nice day today. Pretty sunset,” he said to the barkeeper. The kid nodded his head and smiled in reply. Otherwise, nothing. “I haven’t been in here in a while, place looks better than it did a couple of years ago.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” said the kid. “I’ve worked only since last summer, year ago. I hear it was really getting awful a couple of years ago. Owner fixed it up.”