CHAPTER 10

THE COP WHO ANSWERED Grady’s call was another new one with a name like Smithers or something. Christ! Three years out to pasture and they’d replaced the whole damned department! Every time he ran into somebody or called down there he was talking to people he’d never heard of. Grady couldn’t remember any mass retirement exodus three years ago, but there sure as shit seemed to be a whole new bunch there now and they all seemed to have button-down names. Where the hell were all the micks and eyetalians? What kind of police department was it becoming what with all these kids’ names, like Ivy League MBAs?

Come to think of it, he didn’t recall seeing any of the “noses,” that day at Jack’s. That’s what they called the Macedonians he’d served with. Dayton’s Macedonian population was substantial. He’d gone through the academy with a Macedonian who was a cousin of Dayton’s most famous native son, Jamie Farr, the guy who dressed in drag on M*A*S*H*. He’d met Mr. Farr at a smoker one time. Nice guy, although his cousin said Farr always claimed to be Lebanese because nobody knew where Macedonia was. Grady got the idea this pissed off his cousin, one of the countless Bojrabs in the Dayton phone book.

“Lemme speak to Detective Sprague,” he said.

“...see if he’s available, said the voice on the other end, softly, the speaker sounding like he was all of thirteen years old and taking a call for his dad, the insurance big shot. “Sir.”

“He’s available, hotshot. Tell him it’s Fogarty.”

Marty must have been standing a foot away, his raspy voice on the phone in less than two seconds.

“Fogarty! How goes it ol’ bud!”

“You tell me, Marty. They get the inventory done?”

“Yeah. Last night.”

“I thought you were gonna call me.”

“I was getting ready to. It was late when they finished. I got in about two minutes ago. Look, I got a note on my calendar to give you a holler.”

Grady waited. He lighted a Marlboro medium and stared at his shoes. He told himself to remember to pick up a can of shine.

“Hey, it turns out your brother keeps good records. I think we got a pretty accurate list of what he sold last week after his inventory. They woulda got it done sooner ‘cept they had to put all the shit back on the shelves and count it. You wouldn’t believe all the little knickknacks there were!”

Yes, I would, Grady thought. I helped him do that inventory last week.

“All I need is what’s missing,” Grady said. “Don’t worry about what he sold. I don’t think whoever hit him bought anything.”

“Well, ol’ bud, I think you may be partly wrong there. We found something.”

“What?”

“We got a pretty sharp gal who did the inventory. Remember Ida? She spotted something.”

“I remember Ida. She’s a good cop.”

Grady took a long drag off his cigarette and felt his lungs ache. He ought to quit smoking. His lungs probably looked like a couple of black walnuts.

He remembered Ida all right. He remembered a night on a stakeout in a van whose lettering said Smitty’s Heating and Air Conditioning on the outside, and he remembered especially a pair of long, long legs. He remembered a couple of other nights as well, then it wore itself out. Only they remained friends, not enemies as is the usual case. The way it happened, Ida gave out signals that she wanted to move past a casual affair and as soon as he saw that, the relationship changed. Cops shouldn’t get involved, he’d told her when he saw things were heating up. Especially with other cops. She must have agreed with his logic, as her affection for him soon cooled and a week later she was dating somebody else. A straight guy, somebody who sold insurance. Smart move, Ida, he remembered thinking at the time, but every once in a while he wondered what would have happened if they had gone on seeing each other. It’s all so much ancient history, he thought, and switched focus back to the present.

“What’d Ida find?”

“Well, you’re wrong about the perp not buying anything, looks like...but we’re right, this wasn’t a B&E. In fact, I’d say you were right on the money. This looks more like armed robbery.”

“How so?”

“You know your brother pretty well so I guess you know he kept ace records. Turns out he kept a receipt for every single thing he ever sold. Bullshit cost less than a buck, he has a friggin’ receipt for it.”

“Yeah, Jack’s a righteous sort. Likes to be straight on his taxes. Good citizen.” Good man, too. Whoever did this was going to pay. He’d nail him if it took him the rest of his life.

“Ida figured that out pretty quick with all the records we founde noticed something missing. A receipt. All his receipts were in perfect order, even the ones he messed up. He’d write a void on them. Well, listen to this...she couldn’t find the last one he wrote. She knew it was missing ‘cause his sales book was right there on the floor where it’d been knocked off. According to the numbers there was only one not accounted for. The last one used. And she found all the rest. Every single one of them.”

“So that one’s gone. We don’t know what was on it. The inventory’d show what was missing. That’s what would be on that receipt, I’ll bet. Read me the list of what’s missing.”

“Don’t have to. I told you Ida’s a sharp cookie. She took the receipt book to the lab and they got the whole thing. Your brother had written it without taking it out of the book. Came through on the next receipt and the lab boys said it was the easiest thing they did all week. I got it right here. You know I’m not supposed to do this, give you this, but what the hell. I don’t think it’s gonna help much though. Looks like pretty normal stuff you’d buy in a store like that. One big item. A remote control transmitter. Futaba. You heard of those? Expensive. My guess is that’s what the perp killed him for. Cost three grand, but there’s something I don’t understand. Two hundred of this is for something your brother wrote down as a ‘Service Charge,’ only it doesn’t say what the service was. Doesn’t look like any big-time deal to me. Probably a punk like we figured. Want me to fax it to you?”

Grady said, “You think I got a fax machine in my shoe, Marty?”

They both laughed.

“Tell you what. If it’s not a long list, read it off. Hold on a minute--let me grab a pencil. Marty?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ask yourself what punk spends three grand on electronic stuff? Doesn’t sound like a punk or a kid to me.”

“You’re right, Grady. I think I got my partner convinced it wasn’t, either.” The detective read off the items and rang off.

Grady stood for a minute with the receiver in his hand, then he shrugged and put it back on the hook.

The phone rang. It was Marty again.

“Hold on to your hat, partner. We got a break, maybe. Something just came in.”

“What?” Grady felt the skin prickle on the back of his neck.

“I told you we circulated a flyer with the description that waitress gave us?”

“Yeah. Cheryl.”

“Yeah, the one at that grill. Well, we got a call from a guy that owns the Clark station on White Avenue. You know, a couple of blocks from Jack’s?”

“I know the station. Go on.”

“Well, this guy took care of a customer that night that matched the description we sent out. This guy was driving a blue or a black Chevy, he thought. That’s not the really good news, though.”

“What’s the good news?” Grady tried not to be impatient.

“The good news is the guy paid for his gas with a hundred dollar bill. The better news is the station guy still had it. And we got prints.”

“You got prints!” This time, Grady couldn’t contain himself. “Well, fuck it, man. Who the prints belong to? Quit fucking with me and tell me what you’ve got!”

“Sorry. We may have something and we may not. Anyway, what the lab boys found was two sets of prints, one which was the station owner’s, guy by the name of Binford... and this other set. This other set is real interesting. Belongs to a guy by the name of Chales Kincaid. This Mr. Kincaid is from New Orleans, his last address according to the NCIC, and...listen to this, Grady...Kincaid has quite the little record. Nasty cocksucker. Looks like he killed his own father, for starters.”

“Only two sets of prints? On a hundred-dollar bill? Doesn’t that strike you as odd, Marty?”

“My thoughts,” he said. “What’s your theory?”

“That’s a no-brainer. He wiped down the bill before he spent it. Didn’t want any prints on it besides his own.”

“I’m with you. That’s what I figured, too.”

“You know what else?”

“What?”

“Jack always kept a C-note in the drawer. For emergencies. You didn’t find one in the register, did you?”

“No. We sure didn’t. Buncha change on the floor was all.”

“I’m on my way down.” Before Marty could reply, Grady slammed the phone down and was out of his house sprinting for his car.

***

“Marty!”

“Hey, Grady. Man! You must have flown to get here this quick! I can’t fix any tickets you got, you know,” he said, chuckling.

“Never mind the jokes. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“Cool down. Come in here.”

Marty motioned for him to follow him into a conference room. “Tactical Room” it said in big letters over the door. It was a room Grady was familiar with. Detective Sprague rummaged through some papers on the desk, extracted one from a pile and handed it to Grady. It was a rap sheet on one Charles Kincaid. No middle name. Under “Aliases” he only saw one: Reader.

“Interesting nom de plume. You got any art?”

“Yeah.” Sprague picked up a 5” by 7” black and white photo and pushed it across the desk to him. Grady studied the features. Black hair--guess Cheryl was right--husky build, as she’d said, but what struck him the most was the guy’s eyes. There was no expression in them. As if the guy was there, but he wasn’t. Kincaid was a double for the actor Charles Bronson, but Grady had seen movies in which Bronson smiled. Grady couldn’t imagine a smile on this creep. He took one more look at the photo and placed it in his jacket pocket. Marty started to say something and changed his mind, waving his hand as if to say go ahead and keep it.

“We got something else. A dead hooker. We think he did her too. She was found stabbed. Don’t know if it was the same guy or her pimp or what, but she was done the same way as Jack. That’s what makes us think the same guy did both victims. Whoever did it twisted the knife in like he was drilling for oil. Like he was having fun and couldn’t bear to take the knife out. Got her in the stomach. I’m having the coroner compare the entry wounds from the hooker and from Jack’s wounds and see if it’s the same knife. I’m betting it is. If it is, I’ll let you know. Listen, I want this scumbag about as bad as you do. Nobody comes in my house and does this shit. I want this asshole.”

He went on, after a slight hesitation. “Yeah, it looks like maybe this is our guy. We got a problem, though.”

“What problem?” Grady’s brow knitted and his eyes narrowed.

Marty sighed. “Even if this is the perp, we can’t do much. There’s not enough evidence to convict. We’ve notified the New Orleans P.D. and gave them what we had and they laughed at us.”

“What!” The word exploded out of Grady’s mouth.

“Calm down. They’right. All we’ve got is a set of partials that might be this guy’s. The prints weren’t that clear. They’re good enough we’re pretty sure this is the guy--at least we know he was in Dayton--but there’s not enough points to make it positive far as a court’s concerned. All we got is enough to make him a suspect. No court in the world is going to convict a perp on the little we have. The captain talked to the prosecutor. Jerome laughed him out of his office. Said to come back when they could give him something he could use. When we told him we figured Kincaid was gone, probably back to New Orleans, he laughed harder. Said there was no way they could get an extradition order with what little there was. Said to quit wasting his time.”

Grady sat down heavily in the chair in front of Marty’s desk. He knew Marty was right. He’d dealt with Jerome Higgins, the prosecutor, before. The guy was the supreme conservative. Wouldn’t take on a case unless it was airtight. And of course, this wasn’t. Yet.

“You got an address on this creep?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. Probably not any good. Some apartment in a town called Algiers. I gather it’s across the river from New Orleans. It’s two years old though. Here.” He wrote on a piece of paper and gave it to Grady who looked at it for a second and stuck it in his coat pocket with the photo. “What you got in mind?”

“I’m going to get him.”

Grady stood and folded Charles Kincaid’s rap sheet into four squares and put it in his pocket with the other papers. “I’ll get all the proof you need.”

“Wait.” Marty caught him halfway out the door, grabbing him by the shoulder. “You’re not on the force anymore. You can’t go off like some damned vigilante after this guy.”

Grady turned, reached up and removed Marty’s hand from where it was gripping his shoulder. “Yes, I can, Marty. And I am. I’d appreciate your help, but without it I’m still going after this guy.”

“Grady...” Marty started to say something and scratched the top of his scalp instead. “Hell, Grady. I’d do the same if I was you. Be careful, man. Tell you what--I’ve put in a request with the Feds for NCIC info in case they got anything else. I’ll see what the FCC and ATF might have too. Be cool, man. You don’t want to be the one ends up in jail.”

“I won’t,” he said. “I’ll let you know where I’m at. You get anything more, you call me right away.”

“New Orleans? That where you’re going?”

“I’m halfway there,” Grady said, moving through the doorway.

“Flying?”

Grady turned around and saw Sprague shaking with silent laughter.

“Fuck you, Sprague,” he said.

***

The sun was creeping to the edge of the horizon when Grady threw the last pair of socks in his suitcase and closed it.

He thought about Sprague’s earlier crack. Fly! Yeah, maybe he’d get the seat next to John Madden. They could white-knuckle it together. He wondered idly if the sports announcer’s phobia had the same roots as his own. If he’d been in a small plane crash when he was a kid. A crash in which his uncle had just taken off and suddenly the engine stalled and he set it down at the end of the runway. Even though no one had been hurt it was the last time he had been in a plane. It wasn’t even really a crash, strictly speaking. Just one of those semi-minor quirky close calls. He wondered if an experience like that had been behind Madden’s own well-known phobia? Naw, he decided. Madden was just naturally smart about things like that!

He phoned Marty while he was on the road to give him the name of the Day’s Inn he’d be staying at in New Orleans. He called from a pay phone outside a Popeye’s Fried Chicken in Mississippi where a thermometer on the outside of the building read 97⁰. Marty had some more information. He read him a list of names he’d gotten from NCIC, folks that might be interested in electronic gear, but it didn’t look as though it would be much help. The list consisted mostly of individuals belonging to political fringe groups and terrorist groups. Sounded pretty much like the same list of names he used to go over, back when he was on the bomb squad. Christ! Weren’t any of these crackpots caught and put away yet? No lone wolf bandits, except some safecrackers, but for some reason Grady couldn’t explain, he didn’t think this was a yegg. Grady asked him to fax the sheet to the Day’s Inn anyway and any other info he could get from the other agencies, though both men were sure Kincaid was the right guy. He didn’t want to eliminate any possibilities. He went into Popeye’s and picked up some red beans and rice before he got back in the car.

He drove nonstop the rest of the way to New Orleans, going across the Pontchartrain Causeway in the middle of the night. After he checked in and showered, he walked over to the front desk and asked for messages. There was one fax from Marty. The knife used on the hooker was also the one used on Jack was all it said, not much else--good luck in catching this creep. They were looking up in Dayton in all the usual places, but Marty figured the same way Grady did. Kincaid was back in New Orleans.

The car rental place he’d passed on the way into town proved very accommodating. They had not only rented him a car, but let him park his own on their back lot. For a small fee. At first, they tried to talk him into taking one of the flashy T-birds out front, but he held out for the gray Dodge Dart four-door he’d spotted. It was a twin for his own. No sense in driving all over town in a car with Ohio plates. Who knows when or if he might run into Kincaid and if the guy was this smart, he’d tumble to him in a minute if he spotted plates from the state in which he’d just committed a crime.

The motel clerk gave him directions on how to get to Algiers. At the Vallette Street address he’d gotten from Marty, he didn’t get much of anything useful. All he found was a retired black woman living there. No, she never heard of a Charles Kincaid, and no, she’d never seen the person in the photo Grady showed her. The person who lived there before her was a young black man who sold insurance. Before that, she didn’t know. Folks didn’t stay in these apartments long. She was moving out herself soon.

Grady got in the car, drove to New Orleans and headed out to Kenner. He found Veterans Highway and looked for a gas station where he could buy a city map. Driving along Veterans, he had several near misses in traffic when cars pulled out without warning and crossed lanes inches in front of him. A traffic cop could have a field day, he thought. Half the drivers on the road appeared to be drinking something and he bet it wasn’t coffee. He wondered what the DUI stats looked like in this town.

There were two guys working at the station, a teenager and an older guy. He waited until the older one walked out to the bays and went out to him and asked, “Where’s the best place in town to get a girl?”

Grady wasn’t feeling horny; he figured if Kincaid liked hookers, this might be the best way to find him.

“Hell, y’ain’t gotta go clear inta town,” the guy said, grinning. “Do what the preachers do--pick any joint on Airline Highway. They partial to tourists on Airline. Dontcha watch the news? Say, y’ain’t a preacher, are ya? I bet y’all got a TV show and everything, aintcha? They gonna love ya over t’Airline! Say, what channel are y’all on?” He guffawed and slapped his knee.

“You might want to try and control yourself, Clyde,” Grady said to the man as he opened his car door. “You don’t want to end up with a heart attack while you’re having so much fun.”

Grady made a point not to go back to that station.