Richard Stevenson - Strachey's folly

A surgical intern walked into the lounge we were waiting in, and our eyes went immediately to him. But he did not approach Timmy and me. He went instead to the two elderly black women, looked down as they looked up, and shook his head sorrowfully. The women said nothing, just stood quickly and walked with the doctor out into the corridor as he spoke to them in a low voice.

Craig looked up from his notebook and said, "Did Sud-bury have any recent arguments or disputes with any of these people?"

Timmy said, "Not that he mentioned to us."

"That's a no?"

"Yes, that's a no."

"What about you, Starchey?" Craig stared at me and didn't blink.

I said, "I had no argument with Maynard, no. It's Strachey. S-T-R-A-C-H-E-Y."

"You weren't the asshole who shot your buddy Sudbury?"

"No, I wasn't."

"What about you, Callahan?"

His face radiating heat, Timmy said, "Of course not."

Craig's eyes came briefly to life again, and he said, "Did you suck his dick?"

Neither of us answered. Craig's gaze flicked back and forth between us. Finally, I said, "Neither of us has a sexual relationship with Maynard. He's a friend. In New York State, friends don't normally suck each other's dicks. Maybe the customs are different south of the Mason-Dixon line, and that's why you asked the question. If so, I'm happy to be able to clear up any misconception about sexual customs in the North."

Craig's mouth tightened and he stared at me hard. One of his loafers had begun to jiggle at high speed. It was apparent that he was making mental notes, and he was looking at me as if he wanted me to know it. After a moment, Craig lifted his pen again and said, "Sudbury's a travel writer. Where's he been to recently?"

After seeming to consider this carefully, Timmy said, "Maynard has been to Swaziland, Botswana, and Zimbabwe in the past year, I know."

Craig noted this with no apparent interest and said, "Where else?"

"Mexico," I said, "within the last couple of months."

"Mexico?" Craig's nose twitched and a light went on in his eyes and stayed on in a way it had not stayed on before.

I said, "Maynard was in the Yucatan researching a travel piece for the Los Angeles Times. He talked about enjoying the trip and he didn't mention any incident there-or any incident anywhere else-that might have led to his being shot tonight on a Washington street."

"Uh-huh." Craig waited, and when no one spoke, he said, "Did Sudbury go to Mexico frequently?"

"Not frequently, no," Timmy said.

"I think you know," Craig said, "this shooting doesn't look anything like a robbery."

"I know," I said.

"The shooter never stopped. Sudbury's wallet wasn't taken."

"No."

"The perp apparently had no interest in robbery," Craig said. "Somebody drove by, popped Sudbury, and drove away. Drive-by shootings in the District are seldom random. Normally that's something gangs do to members of other gangs. That's drug gangs, to be specific. Do you have any reason to believe that Sudbury is part of a drug operation?"

Timmy flushed. "I think not."

Craig said, "Yeah, I think not, too. Not some street-punk operation anyway. So you don't know who might have wanted to shoot your buddy in the head and in the gut?"

His face purple with anger now, Timmy said, "No. I do not."

"When did you say Sudbury was in Mexico the last time?" Craig asked.

"Two weeks ago."

Now Craig gave me the beady eye. "You said Sudbury was down in Mexico in the last couple of months. Which is it? Two weeks ago or the last couple of months?"

"Two weeks ago is within the last couple of months," I said. "Neither of us is telling you anything that's remotely contradictory to what the other is saying. So, what's the problem, Lieutenant?"

"The problem is that I think you two faggot assholes are telling me lie after lie after lie. The problem is, I think your buddy Maynard T. Sudbury doesn't just write about Mexico when he goes back and forth down there. And the problem is, I think when he goes down there, he may be involved in the type of illegal activities that can get a man shot in the gut on E Street when there's no other reason for that to happen. And the other problem is, I think you two pathetic queers know it."

Timmy shook his head in disgust.

I said, "That's a lot of problems you've got to contend with there, Lieutenant."

"That's what I say."

I said, "The biggest problem of all, as far as I can make out, Lieutenant, is you.

With police work like this, in fact, it's no wonder Washington has one of the highest murder rates in North America. Up in Albany, New York, where we come from, police investigations aren't always handled as skillfully as a lot of us would like. But I've rarely encountered police presumption and speculation as wildly prejudiced and inaccurate and harmful to an investigation as I've witnessed tonight. This city obviously is not only the murder capital of the Eastern seaboard, it's also looking more and more like the capital of police fecklessness. You strike me as a blithering incompetent, Lieutenant, a disgrace to your department and to your profession."

This was not calculated, just sincere. It was reckless, too, although with hospital staff often passing by in the corridor, there seemed little chance an inflamed Craig would pistol-whip us or attempt to arrest us on a trumped-up charge.

Craig did not, in fact, explode. He just colored again, looked at me dully, and said, "The murder rate in D.C. isn't all that high if you don't calculate in the niggers. The niggers distort the stats. It's easy to get a misleading impression.

But Sudbury is no nigger. Even though it sounds to me like he sucks nigger dick."

I gazed at Craig and said nothing. Timmy was looking at his own lap and slowly shaking his head.

"So you two cocksuckers are sure you don't want to tell me about some trouble your buddy Sudbury said he was in? Some trouble down in Mexico?"

Timmy muttered, "There's nothing to tell."

Craig studied us with his dead eyes, then said, "Listen to what I say to you.

Don't leave the District without checking with me. Have you got that straight?"

Neither of us had a copy of the Constitution to wave in Craig's face, but I knew it wouldn't have helped. For Craig stood up without another word, turned, and quickly walked out.

After a moment, Timmy said, "Is he just a rotten human being and one of the worst cops in the United States, or was there a lot more going on just now than was apparent on the surface? Why, for God's sake, did he keep harping on Mexico, for instance, over and over and over again?"

Before I could think about what might have been paranoid imaginings and what was well-founded fear, a doctor in OR gear walked into the lounge and came over to us. He didn't look happy, but he wasn't averting his eyes either.

Maynard's chances of surviving were better than even. The surgeon told us that the head wound was messy but superficial, and the much more serious abdominal injuries had required major replumbing-just short of a colostomy and if Maynard lived through the next twelve hours, full recovery was a good possibility. The surgeon said Maynard's sturdy constitution and overall good health were a big help, but that infection was a danger and Maynard would have to be closely watched over the next day.

Timmy said, "He's already got a stomach infection."

"He does? What's that?" A small, soft-eyed man with a cleft chin, the surgeon looked interested in this.

Timmy explained how Maynard had apparently picked up a parasite that wouldn't let go in Zambia, Burkina Faso, or Kyr-gyzstan. "He's had it for going on a year," Timmy said.

"That'll be the least of Mr. Sudbury's problems," the doctor said. "Infections like that are a month in the country compared to the kinds that urban North American hospitals have to worry about."