Archer Mayor - Scent of Evil

He hesitated. “Technically, I guess. I forgot.”

“Were you alone tonight?”

“Of course. Look, instead of all this back and forth, why don’t you just let me tell you what happened?”

“Please do.”

But having made the offer, Jackson looked momentarily stuck. “Well, I… I was supposed to meet someone-a private meeting, perfectly legal-but the time and the location made me… nervous, so I took my gun along, for security.”

His voice slowly gained confidence as the tale weaved itself in his mind. “As I entered the building, I heard voices, and since I was only supposed to be meeting one person, that made me very uneasy, so I drew my gun from my pocket. Then, as I turned the corner, there was a man aiming a gun at me. Naturally, I fired in self-defense, after which, seeing several more people in the room, I fled for my life.”

“You didn’t recognize me?” I asked.

“Of course not. All I saw were guns.”

“If your meeting was perfectly legal, Mr. Jackson,” Brandt interjected, “then why won’t you identify the other party?”

Luman looked around at us, the coy smile on his face contrasting with the sweat on his upper lip. “It’s a matter of discretion. A romantic situation. I’m sure you understand.”

“Your date showed up. Didn’t you see Fred McDermott by the front door?” I asked.

Jackson’s face turned livid. “That’s disgusting.”

“You’re denying you were there to meet with McDermott?”

“Of course I am.”

He was full of bluster, but I thought I’d heard a catch in his voice. “Mr. Jackson, at the moment, we’re considering charging you with at least illegal trespass, reckless endangerment with a firearm, and attempted murder. This is not a great time to get cute. It is up to the State’s Attorney here to determine what we do with you tonight. Your cooperation will play a large role in that decision.”

There was a moment’s silence in the room. Jackson finally muttered, “I am cooperating.”

“Then tell us who you were planning to meet.”

I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head, considering the options, weighing the risks. It proved to be more than he could handle on short notice. “I refuse to answer.”

I glanced at Dunn and raised my eyebrows. He nodded slightly. I switched subjects. “In your years as a teacher, did you ever have Charlie Jardine as a student?”

Jackson let out a small laugh of surprise. “Jardine? What the hell?…” He looked around at us quizzically.

“Answer the question, please,” Dunn said quietly.

Jackson shrugged. “Sure, let’s say he attended a few of my classes. Biggest troublemaker I ever had, which is saying a lot, given the competition.”

“Memorable, was he?”

“He was a dopehead and a sex maniac, as far as I cared to determine. Halfway through the year I demanded the principal have him transferred to another class.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It was done.”

“What about John and Rose Woll? Her name was Evans then. Ever have them in class? They would’ve been in the same grade.”

“I remember John Woll; very good student, albeit too quiet for his own good. He won a grant to attend college at the end of the year; very prestigious award. Turned it down, the idiot. I think there’s truth to what they say about education being wasted on the young. They’ve abolished the award since, of course, along with anything else having to do with education.”

Jackson was visibly gaining speed and self-confidence on this new ground, the arrogant swagger returning to his voice. “You’d think that meant he had brains, but he was no different from the others; when the time came to decide on the rest of his life, he let his cock do the thinking.”

I smiled at him, encouraging. “You’re kidding. He dumped the scholarship for a girl?”

Jackson gave me a contemptuous look. “I thought you’d been conducting an investigation on the man. Don’t you know anything about him? I shouldn’t be surprised, of course. I don’t doubt you were bending over backwards to sweep the whole thing under the rug, you and your police fraternity.”

“Who got the scholarship instead?”

“No one did. Woll didn’t back out until it was too late to assign another recipient; selfish as well as stupid.”

“Who was the girl that got him sidetracked?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Gunther, how the hell would I remember that?”

Again, Dunn’s soft voice floated down the table. “Let’s try to stay cooperative, Luman.”

But we’d lost our advantage; no longer unsure of himself, he tilted his head back slightly and stared at us in contempt. “You people don’t know what you’re after, wandering all over the map, asking me about old students. Did you really think you could tie me in with Jardine’s killing? You must be scared to death of me to try something like that.”

Brandt’s voice was tight with anger. “You shot a police officer tonight, Jackson; would’ve killed him if he hadn’t been wearing armor. Shot at Joe, too, for that matter.”

Jackson’s face reddened. “Just a minute; you never identified yourselves as police. I was defending myself, in fear for my life. I could probably sue you for reckless endangerment.”

Dunn rose and looked down at him. “That’s your privilege, certainly.”

“Good. That’s what I’ll do, then. I want to call my lawyer.”

The State’s Attorney smiled thinly. “You can call him on your own time, Luman. Right now, I’m recommending you be formally cited for attempted murder and released pending the appropriate judicial proceedings.”

Jackson looked at us, his nose wrinkled in disgust. “Fuck you, Jimmy boy. You want to get in a pissing match with me? That’s fine, but be prepared to lose a lot more than this bullshit case. And that goes for the rest of you, too.”

Dunn reached over without a word and turned off the tape recorder.

By the time I got downstairs to the tiny interrogation room tucked into a corner of the detective bureau, Fred McDermott had been waiting for over an hour. Despite the coffee that Sammie Martens had supplied him, he looked utterly beat, his face drawn, his eyes at half-mast, and his hair tousled where he’d run his fingers through it countless times.

I paused before actually entering the room and stepped inside the observation cubicle adjoining it. A one-way mirror separated the two. Sammie Martens appeared at my side, sipping from a cup.

“What do you think?” I asked her. “What’s his role in all this?”

She shrugged. “Who’s to know? Normally, you get as much evidence against a guy as we have against Fred, he ends up fitting the part. But Fred hasn’t budged from looking as innocent as the first day we focused on him, which in my book either makes him one hell of an actor, or the victim of one hell of a frame.”

“What is the evidence so far?”

“He was at Horton Place when Milly bought the farm, he was dogging Toby’s last residence just before Toby disappeared, he has no alibi for when the van almost ran you over, the bug was found in his office, he’s got a nice, fat secret savings account, and he showed up tonight at the high school.”

“And on the plus side?”

“His wife supplied him with alibis for the nights Jardine and Woll died, and he looks like my uncle, who’s a priest. Also, he’s got no record and has never displayed any obvious signs of wealth. As far as we can tell, that bank account has only received money; nothing’s ever been taken out.”

I nodded. “The chief’s still upstairs with Dunn doing paperwork. Tell him I’m going to interview Fred in the parking lot, just for safety’s sake.”