Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

It was just as well. Kowalski was a middle-aged bald guy with a triple chin. He was wearing khakis, a blue oxford-cloth skirt, and a tie that was light blue with yellow polka dots that were supposed to be there and a bunch of food stains that weren’t. Kowalski had beady eyes. They lit like Fourth of July fireworks the moment he caught sight of me.

I did my best not to get grossed out, slid into the booth across from where he sat, and ordered coffee. There was a fat cheeseburger and a double order of fries on the plate in front of him. He added a lake of ketchup and looked me over.

Don’t worry, as soon as I heard that “hot chick” comment, I knew what was going to happen, and I had wisely dressed appropriately: black pants, a fitted, long-sleeved blouse buttoned all the way to the top, and sensible shoes. I was so not sending pick-me-up messages.

He was so not getting it.

“Research, huh?” Kowalski grinned the way older guys always do when they’re trying too hard to impress a younger woman. “You sure you weren’t just looking for an excuse to meet me?”

I’d already decided there was only one sure way to a reporter’s heart, and I kept to my plan. I’d stopped at Garden View that morning and made copies of all the newspaper articles in the police file, and I pulled them out of my purse and plunked them on the Formica table. “I’ve been reading your clippings. You must know more than anyone about the Vera Blaine murder.”

He chewed a couple fries and washed them down with a slurp of coffee. “I’ve been thinking about writing a book about it. Hey, if they make it into a movie, you want to star?”

He wasn’t serious. I wasn’t interested. I twinkled. “That would be terrific. Only it might not happen for a while, right? I mean, it takes a long time to get a movie made. By then, I’ll be too old to play Vera.”

He grabbed his burger and took a bite. Ketchup, mustard, and onions oozed out of the bun and slopped onto his plate, splashed his tie, and added a couple new polka dots. “We can make an exception,” he said, with his mouth full. “For you, honey, I’d do anything.”

I added sweetener to my coffee and took a sip. “Let’s start with your articles.” I spread them out. “You wrote a lot of them. You were really well connected to the case.”

“I was a jerk.” He didn’t sound embarrassed, just sorry. “I was fresh out of J school and I took every assignment my editor offered me. I worked my butt off. But then, I was itching to make a name for myself. I thought the Blaine case would do it for me.”

“Did it?”

He set down his burger so he could grab some more fries. “If it did, would I be sitting here right now?”

I thought back to the story in the morning paper, and believe me, I wasn’t trying to score points, just stating the facts when I said, “You’re some kind of god when it comes to investigative reporting. You won-”

“That big award. Yeah, right. Blah, blah, blah.” You’d think a guy who’d been singled out for his excellence would be a little more thrilled. Kowalski waved the whole thing off like it was nothing. “You’re young,” he said. “Someday maybe you’ll understand.” He chuckled, though I didn’t know what was supposed to be so funny. “Or maybe not.”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what we were talking about. My best bet was to keep the conversation on track.

I thumbed through the articles until I found the one I was looking for. “I’m curious,” I told him, “about the desk clerk from the Lake View Motel, this Aaron Burton guy.”

Kowalski darted a look at me that I could read as clearly as I could his lame pick-up line. He was wondering if there was more to me than just a great body and a pretty face.

Was that good or bad?

Rather than worry about it, I stayed focused. I pointed to one of the articles, and because it was upside down to him, I read out loud. “You quoted the desk clerk here… ‘“They was here plenty,” said Aaron Burton, a Lake View employee. “I seen them before, lots of times.” ’ ”

I set down the article, planted my elbows on the table, and gave Kowalski a level look. “Why would a desk clerk at a seedy motel lie about a thing like that?”

Kowalski finished his coffee and waved the waitress over for more. It wasn’t until after she poured and he added three packs of sugar and four of those little creamers that he bothered to answer me. “What makes you think he lied?”

“It’s hard to explain.” True enough, since the only thing I had to go on was the word of a dead guy who swore up and down that his and Vera’s relationship was nothing more than what was appropriate for a boss and his secretary. “I don’t think Lamar and Vera were having an affair.”

Kowalski tipped his chin in the direction of the article I’d just read to him. “That’s not what that guy said, is it? And he was there. You…” He gave me a quick once-over. “At the time, my guess is that you were maybe in kindergarten.”

I smiled because Kowalski’s voice was tight and that beady gaze of his was focused on me in a way that told me he was getting pissed. I didn’t know why, but I knew that if I didn’t keep things on an even keel, he was going to ask me to leave, and I was going to lose out on anything he could tell me. “But here’s the thing… Aaron Burton never testified at Lamar’s trial,” I said, and I knew this because I’d been through the file so many times and double-checked my hunch just in case I’d missed something. “In fact, the cops never even interviewed him after the murder. If his testimony was so crucial to the case-”

“Apparently it wasn’t. They convicted Jefferson Lamar without it.”

“But why? How?” I was amazed that an investigative reporter with Kowalski’s reputation didn’t see what I was seeing. “They couldn’t have used the quotes in your articles to prove anything.”

He had a fry in his hand and he tossed it on his plate, where it landed in a pool of ketchup and added another spot to his tie and one on his shirt. “You think I wasn’t telling the truth?”

“Not at all!” I was losing Kowalski and I was losing him fast. I scrambled to keep my questions coming at the same time I sidestepped around his ego. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not a professional. I mean, not like you. I’m just a cemetery worker looking for a way to look good on a silly TV show.” I leaned forward. “You want to help me, don’t you?”

He sat back. His gaze flickered from my face to the front of my shirt.

I avoided the temptation to get up and leave.

It was a good thing, because the next second, Kowalski gave in.

“Aaron Burton was a druggie,” he told me. “The reason he never testified was that by the time of the trial, nobody could find him.”

“And you think-”

He pushed away his plate. “He didn’t testify because the cops could never find him. The kid probably OD’d or something. Chances are, he was lying dead somewhere and maybe nobody ever found the body.”

“Seems awfully convenient, don’t you think?”

“Not for Burton. Not if he was dead.” Kowalski hauled himself out of the booth and tossed a twenty on the table. “I’ll get your coffee,” he said. “That way I can go back to the office and tell people I bought lunch for a beautiful woman. They won’t believe me, but what the hell.”

And just like that, he walked out.

Ispent a lot of time wondering about my conversation with Mike Kowalski. For one thing, I wondered what I’d gained from our meeting. But mostly, I wondered why Aaron Burton had dropped so conveniently out of sight. If what Jefferson Lamar claimed about his relationship with Vera was true, the desk clerk was lying when he said they’d been to the Lake View together plenty of times. To me, that meant Aaron Burton had been paid to say what he said. Maybe paid so much, he went out and celebrated until he OD’d?