J. Jance - Until Proven Guilty

I feel the same way about the fifth floor of the Seattle Police Department. That’s the homicide squad. I’ve worked homicide for almost fifteen years. I came to the fifth floor with all my illusions intact. I was convinced that murderers were the worst of the bad guys and that capturing killers was the highest calling a police officer could have. It took me a long time to lose that illusion, to figure out that murder isn’t the worst crime one human can inflict on another. Maybe part of my disillusionment was just getting older and wiser. I don’t know when I stopped viewing it as a sacred charge and started seeing it as a job. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it happened about the time Karen left me. Most of my life went sour about then.

But it also had something to do with the ambitious new cops showing up on the squad, the ones who see homicide as a ticket to bigger and better things, who are more concerned with how their exploits will read in the morning paper than they are about doing the job right. They are plugged full of university credits in law enforcement theory taught by professors who have never dirtied their hands with real blood. I don’t like the finished product that shows up on the force or the ones that filter up to the fifth floor, either. I think the feeling is mutual.

All this goes to say that I don’t care for too many of the guys there these days. Ray and I had been a breed apart from the others, and it was only after he left that I looked around the floor and found out what was there. Peters is young, but from my observation, he’s probably the best of the lot. That is not to be taken as high praise, however, and even now we still hadn’t settled into a solid working relationship. Peters arrived a few minutes after I did that morning and dropped a file folder on my desk. It was a preliminary report from the medical examiner’s office.

He said nothing when he tossed it in front of me. He stalked away, hands stuffed in his pockets. I didn’t have to look at the report to know what was coming. I didn’t need a coroner’s textbook terms to tell me that Angel Barstogi’s last few minutes on this earth were brutal testimony to man’s inhumanity to man. If anything, the technical phraseology only made it worse, more dehumanizing.

It said that cause of death was strangulation and that the murder weapon had indeed been the twisted nightgown around her neck. Analysis of stomach contents revealed that she had eaten a hamburger within an hour of time of death. It detailed other injuries — broken bones, bruises, cuts. The medical examiner had removed bits of human tissue and other substances from beneath her fingernails. Surprisingly, she had not been raped. At least she had been spared that indignity. It was a blessing, a very small blessing.

Peters came back and threw a newspaper down in front of me. I don’t take a newspaper. It’s a personal protest against people like Maxwell Cole. Consequently I hadn’t seen the lurid headlines above Angel Barstogi’s baby-toothed smile. One thing about newspapers, they never disappoint me. I always expect the worst. I consistently get it.

The preliminary report was still warm in my hand, yet I could have read the same information on the front page and not bothered to go to the office at all. My phone rang before I could say anything to Peters. It was Arlo Hamilton, the public information officer, wanting to know if I had anything for his nine a.m. press briefing.

“Are you shitting me?” I asked him. “Those assholes know everything we do. Maybe they should be giving us the briefing.”

“Don’t growl at me, Beau. I’m just trying to do my job.”

“Me too,” I responded, and slammed the receiver down in his ear. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said to Peters, grabbing up both the paper and the file. “This case has just become a media event.”

I was pissed off as we headed for the elevator, pissed and looking for somebody to blame. Peters happened to be close at hand.

“What’d you do?” I asked sarcastically. “Pick up the report on the way home and drop it by the newspaper just for fun?”

Peters stopped in midstride and glared at me. “I thought maybe you did. Maxwell Cole isn’t an old fraternity buddy of mine.”

I looked at the paper again. The byline was indeed Maxwell Cole’s. Somehow he had managed to worm his column onto the front page. He’s always there, just when I least need him.

I backed off. “If you didn’t leak it, and I didn’t leak it, then somebody in the medical examiner’s office has a big mouth.”

Peters looked somewhat mollified, but not totally so.

The Public Safety Building has what are reputed to be the slowest elevators in Seattle, possibly in the Western Hemisphere. We were still in the lobby when Sergeant Watkins nailed us. “Where are you two running off to?” he asked.

He was carrying a folded newspaper under his arm. “You’ve already read that?” I asked.

“I’ve read it, Powell’s read it, the chief’s reading it even as we speak. You’d better come back and brief the captain before you take off. The press is going to be all over this place today.”

Captain Powell’s office is as private as a glass fishbowl can be. We gave Sergeant Watkins and Powell a verbal rundown of what we knew, including what Jeremiah had told me about Faith Tabernacle and the good Pastor Michael Brodie. Powell took our copy of the preliminary report and read it through. “What was this Brodie character wearing yesterday when you saw him?” Powell asked.

“Blue suit, white shirt, no tie.”

“Long sleeves?”

I nodded. The captain continued. “According to this, there were fragments of flesh under her fingernails. If he’s our man, there should be scratches showing.” You don’t get to be captain because you’re dumb. Powell rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Then there’s the hamburger, too. Where do you get a hamburger that early in the morning?”

We theorized awhile longer before we finally made our getaway from the fifth floor and picked up a car from the motor pool. The motor pool is run on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. We were a long way from first served. The television shows that have the detectives driving the same high-powered vehicle week after week crack me up. They don’t live in the real world of city budgets. It must be nice. I’ve grown immune to cars. All that’s important to me is whether or not they run and have enough leg room. This one ran all right, but the leg room was sorely lacking. That happens a lot when you’re six-three.

Peters drove, but not far. We stopped for breakfast. I washed down bacon and eggs with coffee while Peters told me about the dangers of cholesterol and the nitrate preservatives in bacon. I enjoyed the food, not the accompanying lecture. I missed Ray. He and I shared much the same vices as far as food was concerned.

Over breakfast we decided to tackle the leak in the medical examiner’s office. A blabbermouth there or in the state crime laboratory could blow up a case before it ever hit prosecution. We drove up to Harborview Hospital on Capitol Hill and parked behind a car with a bumper sticker that said, “Have you hugged your medical examiner today?”

Dr. Ralph Baker is in charge. He is a full-fledged physician and also an elected official. His jurisdiction covers all of King County and includes the city of Seattle. He glanced balefully up from some papers and looked at his watch as we were ushered into his cluttered office. “You’re late,” he growled. “I expected you half an hour ago.”

“We stopped for breakfast.”

He grunted. He reached over and picked up a manila folder. Inside was a folded clipping of the Angel Barstogi article. It had a series of red markings on it. He sighed. “Some of this is almost verbatim,” he said wearily.