Джеффри Дивер - Transgressions

These facts — and thousands of others about the pulse of the county — were readily available to whoever might want them, thanks largely to a slim young man, eyes as dark as his neatly cut and combed hair, who was presently sitting in a small office on the third floor of the Westbrook County Sheriff’s Department, the Detective Division. On his door were two signs. One said, DET. TALBOT SIMMS. The other read, FINANCIAL CRIMES/STATISTICAL SERVICES.

The Detective Division was a large open space, surrounded by a U of offices. Tal and the support services were on one ascending stroke of the letter, dubbed the “Unreal Crimes Department” by everybody on the other arm (yes, the “Real Crimes Department,” though the latter was officially labeled Major Crimes and Tactical Services).

This April morning Tal Simms sat in his immaculate office, studying one of the few items spoiling the smooth landscape of his desktop: a spreadsheet — evidence in a stock scam perpetrated in Manhattan. The Justice Department and the SEC were jointly running the case but there was a small local angle that required Tal’s attention.

Absently adjusting his burgundy-and-black striped tie, Tal jotted some notes in his minuscule, precise handwriting as he observed a few inconsistencies in the numbers on the spreadsheet. Hmm, he was thinking, a .588 that should’ve been a .743. Small but extremely incriminating. He’d have to—

His hand jerked suddenly as a deep voice boomed outside his door, “It was a goddamn suicide. Waste of time.”

Erasing the errant pencil tail from the margins of the spreadsheet, Tal saw the bulky form of the head of Homicide — Detective Greg LaTour — stride through the middle of the pen, past secretaries and communications techs, and push into his own office, directly across from Tal’s. With a loud clunk the detective dropped a backpack on his desk.

“What?” somebody called. “The Bensons?”

“Yeah, that was them,” LaTour called. “On Meadowridge in Greeley.”

“Came in as a homicide.”

“Well, it fucking wasn’t.”

Technically, it was a homicide — all non-accidental deaths were, even suicides, reflected Tal Simms, whose life was devoted to making the finest of distinctions. But to correct the temperamental Greg LaTour you had to either be a good friend or have a good reason and Tal fell into none of these categories.

“Gardener working next door heard a coupla shots, called it in,” LaTour grumbled. “Some blind rookie from Greeley P.D. responded.”

“Blind?”

“Had to be. Looked at the scene and thought they’d been murdered. Why don’t the local boys stick to traffic?”

Like everyone else in the department Tal had been curious about the twin deaths. Greeley was an exclusive enclave in Westbrook and — Tal had looked it up — had never been the scene of a double murder. He wondered if the fact that the incident was a double suicide would bring the event slightly back toward the statistical norm.

Tal straightened the spreadsheet and his notepad, set his pencil in its holder, then walked over to the Real Crimes portion of the room. He stepped through LaTour’s doorway.

“So, suicide?” Tal asked.

The hulking homicide detective, sporting a goatee and weighing nearly twice what Tal did, said, “Yeah. It was so fucking obvious to me... But we got the crime scene boys in to make sure. They found GSR on—”

“Global—?” Tal interrupted.

“GSR. Gunshot residue. On both their hands. Her first, then him.”

“How do you know?”

LaTour looked at Tal with a well, duh blink. “He was lying on top of her.”

“Oh. Sure.”

LaTour continued. “There was a note too. And the gardener said they were acting like teenagers — drunk on their asses, staggering around.”

“Staggering.”

“Old folks. Geezers, he said. Acting like kids.”

Tal nodded. “Say, I was wondering. You happen to do a questionnaire?”

“Questionnaire?” he asked. “Oh, your questionnaire. Right. You know, Tal, it was just a suicide.”

Tal nodded. “Still, I’d like to get that data.”

“Data plural,” LaTour said, pointing a finger at him and flashing a big, phony grin. Tal had once sent around a memo that included the sentence “The data were very helpful.” When another cop corrected him Tal had said, “Oh, data’s plural; datum’s singular.” The ensuing ragging taught him a pointed lesson about correcting fellow cops’ grammar.

“Right,” Tal said wearily. “Plural. It’d—”

LaTour’s phone rang and he grabbed it. “ ‘Lo?... I don’t know, couple days we’ll have the location... Naw, I’ll go in with SWAT. I wanta piece of him personal...”

Tal looked around the office. A Harley poster. Another, of a rearing grizzly — “Bear” was LaTour’s nickname. A couple of flyblown certificates from continuing education courses. No other decorations. The desk, credenza, and chairs were filled with an irritating mass of papers, dirty coffee cups, magazines, boxes of ammunition, bullet-riddled targets, depositions, crime lab reports, a scabby billy club. The big detective continued into the phone, “When?... Yeah, I’ll let you know.” He slammed the phone down and glanced back at Tal. “Anyway. I didn’t think you’d want it, being a suicide. The questionnaire, you know. Not like a murder.”

“Well, it’d still be pretty helpful.”

LaTour was wearing what he usually did, a black leather jacket cut like a sport coat and blue jeans. He patted the many pockets involved in the outfit. “Shit, Tal. Think I lost it. The questionnaire, I mean. Sorry. You have another one?” He grabbed the phone, made another call.

“I’ll get you one,” Tal said. He returned to his office, picked up a questionnaire from a neat pile on his credenza and returned to LaTour. The cop was still on the phone, speaking in muted but gruff tones. He glanced up and nodded at Tal, who set the sheet on his desk.

LaTour mouthed, Thank you.

Tal waited a moment and asked, “Who else was there?”

“What?” LaTour frowned, irritated at being interrupted. He clapped his hand over the mouthpiece.

“Who else was at the scene?”

“Where the Bensons offed themselves? Fuck, I don’t know. Fire and Rescue. That Greeley P.D. kid.” A look of concentration that Tal didn’t believe. “A few other guys. Can’t remember.” The detective returned to his conversation.

Tal walked back to his office, certain that the questionnaire was presently being slam-dunked into LaTour’s wastebasket.

He called the Fire and Rescue Department but couldn’t track down anybody who’d responded to the suicide. He gave up for the time being and continued working on the spreadsheet.

After a half hour he paused and stretched. His eyes slipped from the spreadsheet to the pile of blank questionnaires. A Xeroxed note was stapled neatly to each one, asking the responding or case officer to fill it out in full and explaining how helpful the information would be. He’d agonized over writing that letter (numbers came easy to Talbot Simms, words hard). Still, he knew the officers didn’t take the questionnaire seriously. They joked about it. They joked about him too, calling him “Einstein” or “Mr. Wizard” behind his back.

1. Please state nature of incident:

He found himself agitated, then angry, tapping his mechanical pencil on the spreadsheet like a drumstick. Anything not filled out properly rankled Talbot Simms; that was his nature. But an unanswered questionnaire was particularly irritating. The information the forms harvested was important. The art and science of statistics not only compiles existing information but is used to make vital decisions and predict trends. Maybe a questionnaire in this case would reveal some fact, some datum, that would help the county better understand elderly suicides and save lives.