Dave Zeltserman - Bad Karma

Shannon tried the front door, found no one home, then went back to his car to camp out. At a quarter past eleven it was hotter than it had been in Boulder all summer. He had parked in the shade and had the driver and passenger windows rolled down, but even so felt like he was baking in an oven. He was trying to get comfortable in his seat when a police cruiser pulled up behind him.

The cop took his time making his way from his cruiser to Shannon’s door. When he got there, he leaned into the open window and asked if Shannon wouldn’t mind telling him what he was doing there.

“I checked in with the desk sergeant at your North Main Street station when I arrived in Wichita,” Shannon said. “I told him my reason for coming here.”

“Sir, would you mind telling me.”

“Not at all. My name’s Bill Shannon. I’m a private investigator from Boulder, Colorado. I’m looking into Linda Gibson’s murder and am hoping to be able to talk to her parents. If you’d like I could show you my PI license.”

“Yes sir, I think that would be a fine idea.”

Shannon handed him his license. The cop couldn’t have been much older than his early twenties. Medium build with a military-style buzz cut and mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes. He took his time studying the license before handing it back to Shannon.

“Sir, I’d like to ask you how you got those cuts and bruises on your face.”

As polite a manner in which his questions were asked, the cop’s hand still moved an inch or so towards the butt end of his nightstick. “A couple of Russian mobsters tried to persuade me to drop another investigation I’m working on,” Shannon said.

The cop stood motionless for a minute as he leaned into the open window, all the while smiling pleasantly. Then he told Shannon to stay where he was while he checked his story. Taking his time, he sauntered back to his cruiser and spent a while on his radio before coming back to Shannon’s car.

“Sir, you did report in at the North Main Street station as you said,” he told Shannon. “I’d like to ask whether Mr. or Mrs. Gibson expect you here.”

“They’d have no reason to.”

“Wouldn’t it have been common courtesy?”

“I thought it would be better this way.”

The cop kept smiling his pleasant smile. “Now why would that be?”

Completely straight-faced, Shannon looked into the cop’s mirrored glasses and told him that he didn’t call ahead of time so the Gibsons wouldn’t worry unnecessarily. “I don’t think it would be much fun to have to wait several days to be asked questions about your daughter who’s been murdered,” he added.

“Now, that’s good you’re keeping their welfare in mind,” the cop said drily. “And you’re right, they don’t need people coming around here bothering them. I’ll hang around and make sure when the Gibsons do arrive that they’d like to speak with you.”

“I’m impressed,” Shannon said. “Residents here seem to be getting top notch service from their police force.”

The cop ignored him and started towards his cruiser. When Shannon invited him to wait in his car instead, the cop smiled over his shoulder and told him he’d rather not.

“I’ll burn some gas and put the AC on,” Shannon offered. “You can wait in comfort and maybe fill me in a little on this family. And you’ll be helping out a former brother in blue. I was on the force ten years in Massachusetts.”

That slowed him down. Still smiling his pleasant smile he walked back to Shannon’s car.

“You’re not lying now about being a former police officer?”

“What do you think?”

He gave Shannon a hard look, then strolled to the other side and got into the passenger seat. “You said something about turning on the AC,” he said.

Shannon started the ignition, closed both windows and turned the AC on full.

“Again, Bill Shannon,” Shannon said as he offered his damaged hand.

“Eric Wilson,” the cop said as he shook hands. He nodded towards Shannon’s missing fingers, asked if that was why he’d left the force. Shannon told him it was.

“Happen in the line of duty?”

“Yeah, it did.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Wilson said with the utmost sincerity. “Always sorry to hear of an officer going down. Now, what you told me before about Russian mobsters, you were feeding me a line, weren’t you?”

“I wish I were. How about my turn to ask a question?”

“I have a few more if you don’t mind. Who hired you?”

“An interested third party.”

“And who would that be?”

Shannon sighed. “It doesn’t matter. They have a legitimate reason for being interested, and the only thing I was hired to do was find the person or persons who murdered Linda Gibson and Taylor Carver. That’s all I’m doing.”

“This interested third party isn’t a book publisher or movie producer? Or one of the tabloids?”

“Nope. There’s no chance I’d take a case like that.” Shannon showed his damaged hand. “I could get as many book and movie deals as I want from my own story. Ever hear of Charlie Winters?” He waited until Wilson nodded slowly, then went on. “My guess was that you had since Wichita was one of his killing grounds. If I remember right, he and his cousin butchered six people here close to thirty years ago. Charlie Winters is how I lost those fingers. I’m also the guy who killed him. And his cousin, Herbert, twenty years before that.”

Wilson’s smile faded. “Wow.” He took his sunglasses off, stared at Shannon with wide blue eyes. “I knew your name sounded familiar. And I do know about the Winters cousins. Everything that’s been written about them, actually, including all the FBI and police reports I could get my hands on.” Lowering his voice, he added, “One of the people they killed was my aunt.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t born yet when it happened. I never got a chance to know her.”

“I’m still sorry.”

He nodded solemnly. “If you don’t mind my asking, how old were you when you killed Herbert Winters?”

“Thirteen,” Shannon said, his voice sounding tight, unnatural. He cleared his throat and repeated himself.

Wilson rubbed his jaw. “The police report I read kept your name out, probably due to you being a minor at the time. But this explains why the other cousin, Charlie, went after you later.” Thin lines showed on his forehead as he tried to recall more of that report. “The two of them murdered your mother,” he said softly, more as a statement than a question. Shannon didn’t bother answering him.

“Oh my Jesus,” he muttered to himself. Then to Shannon, “Sir, I don’t know what to say about all this except that I’d truly like to apologize for giving you the hard cop routine earlier. I only wanted to make sure you didn’t come here to dig up dirt on Linda. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“There’s no need to apologize, and no need for sirs, either. It’s Bill, okay? And about your concern-that’s not going to happen. Not even a chance of it. You knew her pretty well?”

“Must be obvious from the way I’m acting.”

“That and it wasn’t an accident you showing up here ten minutes after I did. Someone at your station house filled you in about me.”

Wilson broke into a more genuine smile than the artificial pleasant one he had worn earlier. “Don’t be so sure. You’re right, of course, but I could’ve come just as easily as a result of a call from a concerned neighbor. At least if Sergeant Jameson weren’t screening them. A Dodge Neon sticks out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood, and people do pay attention here. More than likely, there’ve been a number of calls already made to the station about you.”

“I’ll remember next time to rent a Mercedes. Why don’t you tell me about Linda.”